Ingo Burgert and his team at Empa and ETH Zurich has proven it time and again: Wood is so much more than "just" a building material. Their research aims at extending the existing characteristics of wood in such a way that it is suitable for completely new ranges of application. For instance, they have already developed high-strength, water-repellent and magnetizable wood. Now, together with the Empa research group of Francis Schwarze and Javier Ribera, the team has developed a simple, environmentally friendly process for generating electricity from a type of wood sponge, as they reported last week in the journal Science Advances. Voltage through deformation If you want to generate electricity ...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Using NASA satellite images and machine learning, researchers with The University of Texas at Austin have mapped changes in the landscape of northwestern Belize over a span of four decades, finding significant losses of forest and wetlands, but also successful regrowth of forest in established conservation zones that protect surviving structures of the ancient Maya. The research serves as a case study for other rapidly developing and tropical regions of the globe, especially in places struggling to balance forest and wetland conservation with agricultural needs and food security. "Broad-scale global studies show that tropical deforestation and wetland destruction is occurring ...

Modeling - Urban climate impacts Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have identified a statistical relationship between the growth of cities and the spread of paved surfaces like roads and sidewalks. These impervious surfaces impede the flow of water into the ground, affecting the water cycle and, by extension, the climate. "We've shown that there is a specific mathematical shape to the relationship between a city's population and the total paved area," ORNL's Christa Brelsford said. "Using that, we examined climate model predictions and determined they correctly represent some important attributes ...

In order to withstand the rigors of space on deep-space missions, food grown outside of Earth needs a little extra help from bacteria. Now, a recent discovery aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has researchers may help create the 'fuel' to help plants withstand such stressful situations. Publishing their findings to END ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Women veterinarians make less than their male counterparts, new research from Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine has found ¬- with an annual difference of around $100,000 among the top quarter of earners. The disparity predominantly affects recent graduates and the top half of earners, according to the research, the first overarching study of the wage gap in the veterinary industry. "Veterinarians can take many paths in their careers, all of which affect earning potential," said the paper's senior author, Dr. Clinton Neill, assistant professor in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences. "Similar to what's been found in the human medicine world, we found the wage gap was more prominent ...

Do children learning French as a second language see benefits from reading bilingual French-English children's books? A study recently published in the journal Language and Literacy found that bilingual books, which are not often used in French immersion classrooms, are seen by students as an effective tool for second language learning. To find out more on this topic, we spoke with the co-author of the paper, Joël Thibeault, Assistant Professor of French education at uOttawa's Faculty of Education. What is the topic of your research? "My research focuses on the educational value of bilingual children's books in the teaching of French as a second language. To highlight this value, I zeroed in on elementary students in French immersion ...

Drugs can only work if they stick to their target proteins in the body. Assessing that stickiness is a key hurdle in the drug discovery and screening process. New research combining chemistry and machine learning could lower that hurdle. The new technique, dubbed DeepBAR, quickly calculates the binding affinities between drug candidates and their targets. The approach yields precise calculations in a fraction of the time compared to previous state-of-the-art methods. The researchers say DeepBAR could one day quicken the pace of drug discovery and protein engineering. "Our method is orders of magnitude faster than before, meaning we can have drug discovery that is both efficient and reliable," ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - If you count yourself among those who lose themselves in the lives of fictional characters, scientists now have a better idea of how that happens. Researchers found that the more immersed people tend to get into "becoming" a fictional character, the more they use the same part of the brain to think about the character as they do to think about themselves. "When they think about a favorite fictional character, it appears similar in one part of the brain as when they are thinking about themselves," said Timothy Broom, lead author of the study and doctoral student in psychology at The Ohio State University. The study was published ...

Statewide stay-at-home orders put in place as Tennessee fought to control the spread of coronavirus last March were associated with a 14% lower rate of preterm birth, according to a research letter published today in JAMA Pediatrics. Preterm infants have higher morbidity and mortality risks than babies born at term. Senior author Stephen Patrick, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy and a neonatologist at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt and his colleagues had observed in March that there appeared to be fewer infants than usual in the NICU at ...

A home-based parenting programme to prevent childhood behaviour problems, which very unusually focuses on children when they are still toddlers and, in some cases, just 12 months old, has proven highly successful during its first public health trial. The six-session programme involves providing carefully-prepared feedback to parents about how they can build on positive moments when playing and engaging with their child using video clips of everyday interactions, which are filmed by a health professional while visiting their home. It was trialled with 300 families of children who had shown early signs of behaviour problems. Half of the families received the programme alongside routine ...

What The Study Did: Researchers analyzed neurologic manifestations, biological and electroencephalography (EEG, which records the brain's electrical activity) findings plus brain MRI images in a study of 78 adult patients with COVID-19 in France. Authors: Virginie Lambrecq, M.D., Ph.D., of the Sorbonne Université in Paris, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.1489) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest ...

What The Study Did: This population-based study of all nursing home residents in Ontario, Canada, found increased prescribing of psychotropic drugs at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that persisted through September 2020. Although absolute increases in prescribing were small, they were disproportionate to expected secular prescribing trends from April 2018 to February 2020, and they were distinct from observed prescribing changes for other drugs during the pandemic. Authors: Nathan M. Stall, M.D., of Sinai Health and the University Health Network in Toronto, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study:  Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2021.0224) Editor's ...

What The Study Did: Researchers used Tennessee birth records from 2015 to 2020 to examine the odds of preterm birth in the state during the 2020 COVID-19 stay-at-home order compared with the same periods in 2015 to 2019. Authors: Elizabeth M. Harvey, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Tennessee Department of Health in Nashville, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.6512) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

What The Study Did: Researchers examined the screening mammography recommendations regarding starting age and interval for nearly 500 breast cancer centers in the United States. Authors: Jennifer L. Marti, M.D., of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2021.0157) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The full study and editorial are linked to this news release. Embed this link to provide your readers free access ...

When SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infects a human cell, it quickly begins to replicate by seizing the cell's existing metabolic machinery. The infected cells churn out thousands of viral genomes and proteins while halting the production of their own resources. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Broad Institute, studying cultured cells shortly after infecting them with the virus, now have more insight into the metabolic pathways co-opted by the virus. The findings, published in Nature Communications, highlight ...

DURHAM, N.C. - For decades, psychologists' study of emotional health and well-being has involved contrived laboratory experiments and self-report questionnaires to understand the emotional experiences and strategies study participants use to manage stress. But those hundreds of studies may have taken for granted a pretty big complicating factor, argues a new study from Duke University and Dartmouth College. The study, which appears March 12 in PLOS One, says the background level of anxiety a person normally experiences may interfere with how they behave in the lab setting. "The paper is not saying all of this work is wrong," emphasized first author Daisy Burr, a graduate ...

Previous studies conducted in hospitals reported that COVID-19 patients presented with unusual skin rashes. This study, which is published in the British Journal of Dermatology, analyzed information provided by 336,847 individuals in the community who used the COVID Symptom Study app. Skin rashes were more common in adults with a positive COVID-19 test result than in those who tested negative. Strikingly, among respondents of an online survey, 17% of SARS-CoV-2-positive cases reported skin rashes as the first presentation, and 21% as the only COVID-19 clinical sign. Together with the British Association of Dermatologists, the study's investigators compiled a catalogue of images of the most common skin ...

An atmosphere is what makes life on Earth's surface possible, regulating our climate and sheltering us from damaging cosmic rays. But although telescopes have counted a growing number of rocky planets, scientists had thought most of their atmospheres long lost. However, a new study by University of Chicago and Stanford University researchers suggests a mechanism whereby these planets could not only develop atmospheres full of water vapor, but keep them for long stretches. Published March 15 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the research expands our picture of planetary formation and could help direct the search for habitable worlds in other star systems. "Our model is saying that these ...

CABI has led the first study to explore the income and food security effects of the fall armyworm invasion on a country - revealing that in Zimbabwe smallholder maize-growing households blighted by the pest are 12% more likely to experience hunger. Dr Justice Tambo, lead researcher of the study published in Food and Energy Security, sought to investigate the impact of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) on household income and food security as well as the extent to which a control strategy can help mitigate the negative impacts of the pest. He, along with CABI colleagues from its centres in Kenya and Zambia as well as in collaboration with Zimbabwe's Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Settlement, also found ...

More often than ever before, water available in rivers is at the mercy of climate change, international researchers collaborating on a worldwide study with Michigan State University have revealed. The finding could profoundly affect future water and food security around the world. Yadu Pokhrel, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the MSU College of Engineering and a co-author of the study, said climate is the key driver in the current changes to global river flow. "It's a noteworthy finding because as climate change impacts extreme flows, it could be worsening flooding or increasing water scarcity during dry seasons," Pokhrel explained. Details of the new ...

The NANOGrav Collaboration recently captured the first signs of very low-frequency gravitational waves. Prof. Pedro Schwaller and Wolfram Ratzinger analyzed the data and, in particular, considered the possibility of whether this may point towards new physics beyond the Standard Model. In an article published in the journal SciPost Physics, they report that the signal is consistent with both a phase transition in the early universe and the presence of a field of extremely light axion-like particles (ALPs). The latter are considered as promising candidates for dark matter. Gravitational waves open a window into ...

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now presented results that may change our basic view of how type 2 diabetes occurs. Their study indicates that free fatty acids (FFAs) in the blood trigger insulin release even at a normal blood-sugar level, without an overt uncompensated insulin resistance in fat cells. What is more, the researchers demonstrate the connection with obesity: the amount of FFAs largely depends on how many extra kilos of adipose tissue a person carries, but also on how the body adapt to the increased adiposity. Worldwide, extensive research is underway to clarify exactly what happens in the body as type 2 diabetes progresses, and why obesity is such a huge risk factor for the disease. For almost 50 years, ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered that heparanase, HPSE, a poorly understood protein, is a key regulator of cells' innate defense mechanisms. Innate defense responses are programmed cellular mechanisms that are triggered by various danger signals, which have been conserved in many species throughout evolution. These systems can be set into action by pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria and parasites, as well as by environmental toxins and dysfunctional cells that can accumulate in the body over time. A more thorough understanding ...

The U.S. criminal legal system has expanded at a rapid pace, even as crime rates have declined since the 1990s. As a result, individuals' interactions with and surveillance by law enforcement are now commonplace. But citizens experience different interactions, with people of color who live in impoverished urban communities having the most frequent encounters. A new study interviewed young Philadelphia men to determine their perceptions of and reactions to this phenomenon. Nearly all of the men of color said they stayed at home and avoided public spaces out of concern over the potential interactions with others that might draw police ...

UTICA, NY -- Brown fat, also known as brown adipose tissue (BAT), is a special type of fat that helps maintain body temperature. Importantly, brown fat is a biological fuel linked to metabolic rate and fat storage. In a recent publication, Dr. Zhiqiang Lin, Assistant Professor at the Masonic Medical Research Institute (MMRI) and senior author of the manuscript, successfully developed a new way to enrich isolation of brown fat cells for use in his biochemistry studies. "When faced with a scientific setback, we simply start tackling potential hurdles," said Dr. Lin. One of these was having a need to develop a better way to isolate these fat cells. BAT is comprised of multiple cell types, which makes it difficult to ...