In the search for life on other planets, the presence of oxygen in a planet's atmosphere is one potential sign of biological activity that might be detected by future telescopes. A new study, however, describes several scenarios in which a lifeless rocky planet around a sun-like star could evolve to have oxygen in its atmosphere. The new findings, published April 13 in AGU Advances, highlight the need for next-generation telescopes that are capable of characterizing planetary environments and searching for multiple lines of evidence for life in addition to detecting oxygen. "This ...

After interviewing various stakeholders from public and private healthcare systems (in Lithuania and the US), researchers Dr Agne Gadeikiene, Prof Asta Pundziene, Dr Aiste Dovaliene from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania designed a detailed structure revealing added value of remote healthcare services, i.e. telehealth. Adopting the concept of value co-creation common in business research to healthcare, the scientists claim that this is the first comprehensive analysis of this kind in the healthcare field involving two different healthcare systems. According to the researchers, although in the US the consultations via phone with physician have been available for more than fifty ...

A gene therapy protects eye cells in mice with a rare disorder that causes vision loss, especially when used in combination with other gene therapies, shows a study published today in eLife. The findings suggest that this therapy, whether used alone or in combination with other gene therapies that boost eye health, may offer a new approach to preserving vision in people with retinitis pigmentosa or other conditions that cause vision loss. Retinitis pigmentosa is a slowly progressive disease, which begins with the loss of night vision due to ...

Violent blows or jolts to the head can cause traumatic brain injury (TBI), and there are currently about five million people in the U.S. living with some form of chronic impairment after suffering a TBI. Even in a mild form, TBI can lead to lifelong nerve cell deterioration associated with a wide array of neuropsychiatric conditions. Tragically, there are no medicines to protect nerve cells after injury. Behind aging and genetics, TBI is the third leading cause of Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet the link between these two conditions is not understood. In a new study, published online today in Cell, researchers have discovered a new way to prevent brain nerve cells from deteriorating after injury, which also revealed a potential mechanistic ...

AMES, Iowa - Narratives are a powerful tool that can help explain complex issues, but they can also serve as sources of misinformation, which presents a challenge as public health agencies work to educate people about COVID-19 vaccine. In a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, author Michael Dahlstrom, a professor and director of Iowa State University's Greenlee School of Journalism and Mass Communication, examined how narratives or storytelling can help counter misinformation and provide a connection between science and the human experience. Dahlstrom says simply presenting the facts, without some connection, may not help people make ...

Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to make a recommendation about screening for vitamin D deficiency in asymptomatic adults. Vitamin D performs an important role in bone metabolism. Requirements may vary by individual and no one blood vitamin D level defines deficiency. The USPSTF routinely makes recommendations about the effectiveness of preventive care services and this recommendation updates and is consistent with its 2014 statement. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2021.3069) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional ...

New research led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research has revealed how breast cancer cells that develop during or after pregnancy change their environment to form more aggressive tumours. In experimental models of pregnancy-associated breast cancer, researchers found that cancer cells send signals to the connective tissue around them to trigger uncontrolled inflammation and remodel the tissue, which in turn helps the cancer to spread. "Breast cancers that arise during or shortly after pregnancy are highly aggressive as they often become resistant to standard therapies. With 50% of cases ...

Huntington's disease is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutations in the protein huntingtin and characterized by involuntary dance-like movements, severe behavioural changes and cognitive impairment. That neuronal traffic is impaired in this disease has been very well known for several years. But that this deranged trafficking could be ameliorated by increasing huntingtin methylation was not yet known. The findings emerged from an international research work coordinated by the University of Trento and published in Cell Reports. The research teams identified the fundamental role of the protein arginine methyltransferase PRMT6 in ensuring transport along axons, the routes that connect nerve cells to each other, and hence the health of neurons. ...

Researchers from the group of Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute) developed the first patient-derived organoid model for cervical cancer. They also modelled the healthy human cervix using organoids. In close collaboration with the UMC Utrecht, Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology and the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the researchers used the organoid-based platform to study sexually transmitted infections for a herpes virus. The model can potentially also be used to study the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is one of the main causes of cervical cancer. The results were published in Cell Stem Cell on the 13th of April. Cervical cancer is a common gynecological malignancy, often caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). However, good models to study human ...

(Boston)--How could studying gastrointestinal cells help the fight against COVD-19, which is a respiratory disease? According to a team led by Gustavo Mostoslavsky, MD, PhD, at the BU/BMC Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) and Elke Mühlberger, PhD, from the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) at Boston University, testing how SARS-CoV-2 affects the gut can potentially serve to test novel therapeutics for COVID-19. In order to study SARS-CoV-2, models are needed that can duplicate disease development in humans, identify potential targets and enable drug testing. BU researchers have created human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)-derived intestinal organoids or 3-D models that can be infected and replicated ...

The (when stretched) two-metre-long DNA molecule in each human cell is continuously being unpacked and packed again to enable the expression of genetic information. When genes must be accessed for transcription, the DNA double helix unwinds and the strands separate from each other so that all the elements needed for gene expression can access the relevant DNA region. This process results in the accumulation of DNA supercoiling that needs to be resolved. A study recently published by Felipe Cortés, Head of the Topology and DNA Breaks Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and the members of his team, in cooperation with Silvia Jimeno González, Professor ...

Understanding the effects of specific mutations in gene regulatory regions - the sections of DNA and RNA that turn genes on and off - is important to unraveling how the genome works, as well as normal development and disease. But studying a large variety of mutations in these regulatory regions in a systematic way is a monumental task. While progress has been made in cell lines and yeast, few studies in live animals have been done, especially in large populations. Experimental and computational biologists at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) have teamed up to establish an approach to induce thousands of different mutations in up to 1 million ...

Electrochemical processes could be used to convert CO2 into useful starting materials for industry. To optimise the processes, chemists are attempting to calculate in detail the energy costs caused by the various reaction partners and steps. Researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and Sorbonne Université in Paris have discovered how small hydrophobic molecules, such as CO2, contribute to the energy costs of such reactions by analysing how the molecules interact in water at the interface. The team describes the results in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS for short, published online on 13 April 2021. To conduct the ...

The time children and adolescents spend on screen time entertainment -computers, mobile phones, television and video games- adversely affects their eating habits. This is the main conclusion drawn from a research carried out by EpiPHAAN (Epidemiology, Physical Activity, Accelerometry and Nutrition) research group of the University of Malaga, which further establishes that parents' education level is also associated with the adherence to the Mediterranean diet. This research was conducted within the PASOS Study -Physical Activity, Sedentarism, lifestyles and Obesity in Spanish youth- of Gasol Foundation, which analyzed more than ...

Cancer patients from the UK were 1.5 times more likely to die following a diagnosis with COVID-19 than cancer patients from European countries. This is the finding of a study of over 1000 patients - 924 from European countries and 468 from the UK - during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team, led by Imperial College London, say the study highlights the need for UK cancer patients to be prioritised for vaccination. The study tracked data between 27 February to 10 September 2020, across 27 centres in six countries: Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany and the UK. The results, published in the European Journal of Cancer, showed that 30 days after a COVID-19 diagnosis, 40.38 per cent of UK cancer patients had died, versus 26.5 per cent of ...

Artificial intelligence could be one of the keys for limiting the spread of infection in future pandemics. In a new study, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have investigated how machine learning can be used to find effective testing methods during epidemic outbreaks, thereby helping to better control the outbreaks. In the study, the researchers developed a method to improve testing strategies during epidemic outbreaks and with relatively limited information be able to predict which individuals offer the best potential for testing. "This can be a first step towards society ...

Diapause is a phenomenon in which animals and insects foresee changes in the environment and actively reduce metabolism, or halt regular differentiation and development. It is an adaptation strategy for adverse environments such as surviving winters, but also to encourage uniform growth of the generational group. By knocking out genes that allow the silkworm to detect temperature, researchers at Shinshu University et al. found that the silk moth diapause changes from temperature to photoperiod, or day length. This is not only valuable as an elucidation of the molecular mechanism in the environmental response mechanism of organisms such as insects, but also a very important finding in exploring the process of domestication of silk ...

Scientists from the Skoltech Space Center (SSC) have developed nanosatellite interaction algorithms for scientific measurements using a tetrahedral orbital formation of CubeSats that exchange data and apply interpolation algorithms to create local maps of physical measurements in real time. The study presents an example of geomagnetic field measurement, which shows that these data can be used by other satellites for attitude control and, therefore, provided on a data-as-a-service basis. The research was published in the journal Advances in Space Research. SSC is the research ...

Despite increasing concern over the intrusion of algorithms in daily life, people may be more willing to trust a computer program than their fellow humans, especially if a task becomes too challenging, according to new research from data scientists at the University of Georgia. From choosing the next song on your playlist to choosing the right size pants, people are relying more on the advice of algorithms to help make everyday decisions and streamline their lives. "Algorithms are able to do a huge number of tasks, and the number of tasks that they are able to do is expanding practically every day," said Eric Bogert, a Ph.D. student in the Terry College of ...

A recent case study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill demonstrates that, with training, neural control of a powered prosthetic ankle can restore a wide range of abilities, including standing on very challenging surfaces and squatting. The researchers are currently working with a larger group of study participants to see how broadly applicable the findings may be. "This case study shows that it is possible to use these neural control technologies, in which devices respond to electrical signals from a patient's muscles, to help patients using robotic prosthetic ankles move more naturally and intuitively," says Helen Huang, corresponding author of the study. Huang ...

The immune response to tuberculosis (TB) differs in adults and newborn babies due to the way immune cells use energy to kick into gear in a bid to kill the bacteria. This fresh discovery - just published in leading journal, Frontiers in Immunology - offers hope for improving treatments for what remains a deadly disease. TB is still one of the biggest infectious killers in the world and babies are more likely than adults to get this infection and for it to spread outside of the lungs. Thanks to the work of scientists in Professor Joseph Keane's TB Immunology lab, based ...

An observational study of patients in London hospitals suggests that the B.1.1.7. variant is not associated with more severe illness and death, but appears to lead to higher viral load, consistent with emerging evidence that this lineage is more transmissible than the original COVID-19 strain. A separate observational study using data logged by 37,000 UK users of a self-reporting COVID-19 symptom app found no evidence that B.1.1.7. altered symptoms or likelihood of experiencing long COVID. Authors of both studies acknowledge that these findings ...

It has been long been known that cannabis users develop psychosis more often than non-users, but what is still not fully clear is whether cannabis actually causes psychosis and, if so, who is most at risk. A new study published in Translational Psychiatry by researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and King's College London helps shed light on both questions. The research shows that while cannabis users had higher rates of psychotic experiences than non-users across the board, the difference was especially pronounced among those with high genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. "These results are significant because ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio ¬- New data published by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James) suggests that an oral drug currently used in the clinical setting to treat neuromuscular diseases could also help prevent a common form of skin cancer caused by damage from ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation from the sun. While this data was gathered from preclinical studies, senior author Sujit Basu, MD, PhD, says preliminary results in animal models are very promising and worthy of immediate further investigation through phase I human studies. ...

Studies show wearing masks and social distancing can contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but their combined effectiveness is not precisely known. In Chaos, by AIP Publishing, researchers at New York University Tandon School of Engineering and Politecnico di Torino in Italy developed a network model to study the effects of these two measures on the spread of airborne diseases like COVID-19. The model shows viral outbreaks can be prevented if at least 60% of a population complies with both measures. "Neither social distancing nor mask wearing alone are likely sufficient to halt the spread of COVID-19, unless almost the entire population adheres to the single measure," author Maurizio Porfiri said. "But if a significant fraction of the ...