CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new artificial intelligence tool can predict the functions of enzymes based on their amino acid sequences, even when the enzymes are unstudied or poorly understood. The researchers said the AI tool, dubbed CLEAN, outperforms the leading state-of-the-art tools in accuracy, reliability and sensitivity. Better understanding of enzymes and their functions would be a boon for research in genomics, chemistry, industrial materials, medicine, pharmaceuticals and more. “Just like ChatGPT uses data from written language to create predictive text, we are leveraging ...

A new study suggests that predatory dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, did not have permanently exposed teeth as depicted in films such as Jurassic Park, but instead had scaly, lizard-like lips covering and sealing their mouths. Researchers and artists have debated whether theropod dinosaurs, the group of two-legged dinosaurs that includes carnivores and top predators like T. rex and Velociraptor, as well as birds, had lipless mouths where perpetually visible upper teeth hung over their lower jaws, similar to the mouth of a crocodile. However, an international team of researchers challenge some of the best-known depictions, and say these dinosaurs had lips similar to those ...

Researchers from the Institute of Physics (IOP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, collaborating with international colleagues, have presented an overview of recent progress in emerging moiré photonics and optoelectronics. The review was published in Science on March 30. Moiré superlattices are artificial quantum materials formed by vertically stacking two or more two-dimensional (2D) layered materials with a slight lattice mismatch and/or a small rotational twist. They introduce a potential landscape of much larger length scale than the crystal periodicity ...

Increasing the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks on sale in online supermarkets could reduce the amount of alcohol people purchase, suggests a study published today led by researchers at the University of Cambridge. The team used a simulated supermarket that presented shoppers with varying proportions of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and asked them to select drinks to purchase for their next online shop. They found that shoppers who were exposed to more non-alcoholic drinks selected and purchased fewer units of alcohol. The findings are published in PLOS Medicine. Excessive ...

“Horses have been part of us since long before other cultures came to our lands, and we are a part of them,” states Chief Joe American Horse, a leader of the Oglala Lakota Oyate, traditional knowledge keeper, and co-author of the study. In 2018, at the instruction of her elder knowledge keepers and traditional leaders, Dr. Yvette Running Horse Collin contacted Prof Ludovic Orlando, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) scientist. She had completed her PhD, which focused on deconstructing the history of horses in the Americas. Up until that point, the field had been dominated by western academics, and Indigenous voices had been largely dismissed. She sought ...

Acetylcholine regulates blood flow, but the source of blood acetylcholine has been unclear. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that certain T cells in human blood can produce acetylcholine, which may help regulate blood pressure and inflammation. The study, which is published in PNAS, also demonstrates a possible association between these immune cells in seriously ill patients and the risk of death. Blood flow regulation by acetylcholine is long established and highlighted by the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Yet the sources of acetylcholine ...

The Wonder Years can be great, sure: first loves, long summers, panoramic dreams exclusive to those with a lifetime of runway. The Working Years, too: established identity, new family and old friends, freedom to pursue personal goals and professional satisfaction. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Ken Kiewra just doesn’t want you to forget about the Wisdom Years. They got the name from famed psychologist Erik Erikson, who roughly defined them as starting at age 65, often considered a mile-marker of retirement in the United States. But whereas Erikson saw the Wisdom Years as ...

(San Mateo, CA, USA, March 30, 2023) — Leading nonprofit science publisher Annual Reviews has successfully converted the first fifteen journal volumes of the year to open access (OA) resulting in substantial increases in downloads of articles in the first month. Through the innovative OA model called Subscribe to Open (S2O), developed by Annual Reviews, existing institutional customers continue to subscribe to the journals. With sufficient support, every new volume is immediately converted to OA under a Creative Commons license and is available for everyone to read and re-use. In addition, all articles from the previous nine volumes are also ...

The sounds emitted by plants are ultrasonic, beyond the hearing range of the human ear. Plant sounds are informative: mostly emitted when the plant is under stress, they contain information about its condition. The researchers mainly recorded tomato and tobacco plants; wheat, corn, cactus, and henbit were also recorded. The researchers: "Apparently, an idyllic field of flowers can be a rather noisy place. It's just that we can't hear the sounds!"   Global breakthrough: for the first time in the world, researchers at Tel Aviv University recorded and analyzed sounds ...

March 30, 2023 – The American Thoracic Society has issued an official statement for clinicians that explains why race and ethnicity should no longer be considered factors in interpreting the results of spirometry, the most commonly used type of pulmonary function test (PFT). The statement was endorsed by the European Respiratory Society. The full statement is available online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Spirometry is a breathing test that measures how much air is going into an individual’s lungs, and how rapidly air is inhaled and exhaled.  ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — For the first time, researchers have observed the process of nanoparticles self-assembling and crystalizing into solid materials. In new videos produced by the team, particles can be seen raining down, tumbling along stairsteps and sliding around before finally snapping into place to form a crystal’s signature stacked layers. Led by Qian Chen at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Erik Lutijen at Northwestern University, the study used liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy and computational modeling to gain an unprecedented view of the self-assembly ...

On bright chilly mornings you can either snuggle down under the duvet or leap up and seize the day.   However, for photosynthesising plants, this kind of dawn spells danger, so they have evolved their own way of making cold mornings tolerable.   Research led by the John Innes Centre has discovered a cold “coping” mechanism that is under the control of the plant biological clock and could offer solutions to breeding more resilience into crops less suited to cold climates.  “We’ve identified a new process that helps plants ...

Worcester, Mass. – March 30, 2023 – A new study led by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) brings into sharper focus the structural details of the COVID-19 virus, revealing an elliptical shape that “breathes,” or changes shape, as it moves in the body. The discovery, which could lead to new antiviral therapies for the disease and quicker development of vaccines, is featured in the April edition of the peer-reviewed Cell Press structural biology journal Structure. “This is critical knowledge we need to fight future pandemics,” said Dmitry Korkin, Harold L. Jurist ’61 and Heather E. Jurist Dean’s ...

CLEVELAND – A study published in the March 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that there may finally be an alternative to amputation for patients suffering from chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI), the most severe form of peripheral artery disease. This study, co-led by University Hospitals (UH) Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, could lead to the first FDA approval of a therapy giving thousands of patients hope for an alternative to limb loss. THERAPY SAVES MOST PATIENTS FROM AMPUTATION The PROMISE II U.S. pivotal clinical trial found that minimally ...

NEW YORK, NY (March 30, 2023)--With a transformational gift from the Bezos Family Foundation, Columbia will launch the Center for the Transition to Parenthood (TtP) in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ob/Gyn). Supported by the most advanced scientific knowledge in the field, the TtP Center seeks to reinvent prenatal care, address the mental health of parents, improve the overall health of their infants, and promote family well-being. The Center, established with a gift of $21 million from the Bezos Family Foundation, will develop, test, and put into practice a range ...

Shigella bacteria can infect humans but not mice. In the March 29 issue of Nature, a team from UConn Health explains why. Their findings may explain the multifariousness of a key weapon of our immune system. Shigella infections cause fever, stomach pain, and prolonged, sometimes bloody diarrhea for as long as a week. The bacteria sicken 450,000 people each year in the US alone. Although most people recover on their own, children and those with weakened immune systems are at risk of Shigella ...

An international team of researchers, led by Drexel University, has found that a thin coating of MXene — a type of two-dimensional nanomaterial discovered and studied at Drexel for more than a decade — could enhance a material’s ability to trap or shed heat. The discovery, which is tied to MXene’s ability to regulate the passage of ambient infrared radiation, could lead to advances in thermal clothing, heating elements and new materials for radiative heating and cooling. The group, including materials science ...

Photocatalysis is the use of light to accelerate the rate of a reaction in the presence of a photocatalyst. The catalyst plays a crucial role in this process—it absorbs the light being shined onto it and makes it available in way that can help accelerate the chemical reaction and also enhance it. These catalysts are used for a variety of light-dependent reactions ranging from the production of paper to the conversion of carbon dioxide to fuel. Given these applications, the development of ideal photocatalysts is important. An ideal ...

UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have produced the first atomic-level structure of an enzyme that selectively cuts carbon-hydrogen bonds—the first and most challenging step in turning simple hydrocarbons into more useful chemicals. As described in a paper just published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the detailed atomic level “blueprint” suggests ways to engineer the enzyme to produce desired products. “We want to create a ...

Why do cancer immunotherapies work so extraordinarily well in a minority of patients, but fail in so many others? By analysing the role of neutrophils, immune cells whose presence usually signals treatment failure, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), from Harvard Medical School, and from Ludwig Cancer Center have discovered that there is not just one type of neutrophils, but several. Depending on certain markers on their surface, these cells can either promote the growth of tumours, or fight them and ensure the success of a treatment. By boosting the appropriate factors, neutrophils could become great agents of anti-tumour ...

Summary Scientists have come up with a new method to study the mechanical properties of developing embryos with unprecedented speed The new method – line-scanning Brillouin microscopy (LSBM) – relies on a microscopy technique based on Brillouin scattering – a phenomenon where light interacts with naturally occurring thermal vibrations within materials. The method, which can be used to non-invasively study developing embryos in three dimensions and across time, was selected as one of The Guardian's ...

                   Buprenorphine initiation in the ER found safe and effective for individuals with opioid use disorder who use fentanyl With historically high overdose death rates in U.S., multi-site NIH study reinforces importance of continued, uninterrupted access to addiction medication   Results from a multi-site clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health showed that less than 1% of people with opioid use disorder whose drug use includes fentanyl experienced withdrawal when starting buprenorphine in the ...

A new UC San Francisco-led study brings scientists closer to understanding the causes of a mysterious rash of cases of acute severe hepatitis that began appearing in otherwise healthy children after COVID-19 lockdowns eased in the United States and 34 other countries in the spring of 2022. Pediatric hepatitis is rare, and doctors were alarmed when they started seeing outbreaks of severe unexplained hepatitis. There have been about 1,000 cases to date; 50 of these children needed liver transplants and at least 22 have died. In the study, publishing on March 30 in Nature, researchers linked the disease to co-infections from multiple common viruses, in particular a strain of ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have designed a new type of nanoparticle that can be administered to the lungs, where it can deliver messenger RNA encoding useful proteins. With further development, these particles could offer an inhalable treatment for cystic fibrosis and other diseases of the lung, the researchers say. “This is the first demonstration of highly efficient delivery of RNA to the lungs in mice. We are hopeful that it can be used to treat or repair ...

About The Study: In this study of 690 patients with early-stage breast cancer, racial disparities in response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy were associated with disparities in survival and varied across different breast cancer subtypes. This study highlights the potential benefits of better understanding the biology of primary and residual tumors.  Authors: Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, M.B.B.S., and Dezheng Huo, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Chicago, are the corresponding authors.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.3329) Editor’s ...