WASHINGTON, June 22, 2020 -- Most models explaining how viruses are transmitted focus on viral particles escaping one person to infect a nearby person. A study on the role of microscopic particles in how viruses are transmitted suggests pollen is nothing to sneeze at. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, Talib Dbouk and Dimitris Drikakis investigate how pollen facilitates the spread of an RNA virus like the COVID-19 virus. The study draws on cutting-edge computational approaches for analyzing fluid dynamics to mimic the pollen movement from a willow ...

Genetic mosaic individuals, which contain cells of different genotypes, arise naturally in multicellular organisms. In humans, the development of cancer - where one cell acquires a mutation that allows it to proliferate, while other cells don't - is a prime example of genetic mosaicism. But inversely, genetic mosaicism can be used to study and understand the development of disease. A common quirk of nature used to understand genes One experimental genetic mosaic approach is called Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers (MADM), in which genes are mutated in individual cells while, at the same time, the mutated cells are labelled in fluorescent colors. ...

Scientists at Nagoya University, with colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan, have uncovered a mechanism that allows a protein complex to bind to DNA without impeding some of the important processes of cell division. Their findings, published in the journal Cell Reports, could further understandings of developmental disorders arising from mutations in the gene that codes for the complex. DNA condenses during cell division to form structures called chromosomes that are formed of two identical copies, called sister chromatids. These sister chromatids are bound together by proteins called cohesins, until it is time for them to be pulled apart and directed into the newly formed cells. Scientists know quite a bit about the ...

The venom of a caterpillar, native to South East Queensland, shows promise for use in medicines and pest control, Institute for Molecular Bioscience researchers say. The Doratifera vulnerans is common to large parts of Queensland's south-east and is routinely found in Toohey Forest Park on Brisbane's southside. Dr Andrew Walker has been researching the striking looking caterpillar since 2017. "We found one while collecting assassin bugs near Toowoomba and its strange biology and pain-causing venom fascinated me," Dr Walker said. Unlike The Very Hungry Caterpillar that charmed generations of children around ...

"Detecting primordial black holes opens up new perspectives to understand the origin of the Universe, because these still hypothetical black holes are supposed to have formed just a few tiny fractions of a second after the Big Bang. Their study is of great interest for research in theoretical physics and cosmology, because they could notably explain the origin of dark matter in the Universe". You can see stars in the eyes of the members of the team led by Professor Fuzfa, astrophysicist at UNamur, when talking about the perspectives of their research. This project is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between the UNamur ...

Researchers from the Turku PET Centre and Technical University of Munich have discovered a new mechanism controlling satiation. According to the recently published study, the hormone secretin induces satiation by activating brown adipose tissue. Brown adipose tissue is known for its ability to generate heat in response to cold exposure. Its activity has been proven to be connected to normal weight and glucose metabolism as well as lesser risks of cardiovascular diseases. Meals have also been shown to increase the thermogenesis in brown fat, but the significance of this phenomenon has been unclear. ...

Teacher training students who practised teaching virtual pupils developed greater confidence in their teaching ability, according to a study from Linköping University. In the long term, simulation can make the students better prepared for their workforce debut. Teacher training programmes often have difficulty offering their students sufficient teaching practice for their future profession. Many teaching graduates feel unprepared when they start working, and some decide to change career path, despite good employment prospects caused by a teacher shortage. A group of researchers at Linköping University investigated whether teaching virtual pupils could make teacher training students better prepared for teaching in a real classroom. "By ...

Wouldn't it be amazing if printed images can look three-dimensional (3D)? Unfortunately, conventional prints like photographs display two-dimensional (2D) images with a fixed appearance as they contain only intensity and colour information. These prints are unable to display a 3D image because they lack directional control of light rays, hence resulting in the loss of depth information. To address this problem, a team of researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) used a nanoscale 3D printing technique to create high-resolution light field prints ...

A research team led by Professor Jang-Sik Lee of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has successfully developed the halide perovskite-based memory with ultra-fast switching speed. The findings from this study were published in Nature Communications on June 10, 2021. Resistive switching memory is a promising contender for next-generation memory device due to its advantages of simple structure and low power consumption. Various materials have been previously studied for resistive switching memory. Among them, halide perovskites are receiving much attention for use in the memory because of low operation voltage and high on/off ratio. However, halide perovskite-based ...

People who have contact with other social groups are more likely to be committed to social justice. However, an international study led by the University of Zurich has shown that for this to be the case, power relations and discrimination must be actively addressed and group-specific needs must be met. It is important that disadvantaged group members, such as racial minorities and LGBTIQ+ individuals, are given a voice, and that those who belong to advantaged groups do not feel labeled as biased. People who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against because they belong to a particular group often join forces with other disadvantaged people to fight together for better rights. Prominent examples of such political engagement are the women's rights movement, Black Lives ...

Rather than levelling inequality, as the Great Depression did, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities around the world allowing some wealthy investors to benefit from the crisis and make a fortune on the misfortune of others. During March to December last year, U.S. billionaires increased their wealth by over one-third, to one trillion dollars, while millions of Americans faced deep financial hardship. New research from Copenhagen Business School has examined how American "shadow banks"- which are less regulated and include private credit intermediaries such as private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund firms - have invested in ways that extract profit from the misfortunes of frontline workers, struggling companies, ...

People who have experienced childhood trauma get a more pleasurable "high" from morphine, new research suggests. University of Exeter scientists compared the effects of morphine on 52 healthy people - 27 with a history of childhood abuse and neglect, and 25 who reported no such experiences in childhood. Those with childhood trauma liked morphine (an opioid drug) more, felt more euphoric and had a stronger desire for another dose. Those with no childhood trauma were more likely to dislike the effects and feel dizzy or nauseous. "There are high rates of childhood trauma in people with addictions. Our findings ...

Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is gaining attention in the asphalt industry as an eco-friendly and sustainable technology. WMA reduces energy consumption while simultaneously minimizing vapors and greenhouse gas emissions during the production of asphalt mixtures in comparison to conventional asphalt. However, high moisture susceptibility and ageing of asphalt make WMA less durable on the roads. To address both issues in WMA technology, a team from the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University and Braunschweig Pavement Engineering Centre (ISBS) at the Technical University of Braunschweig have discovered ...

Listening to music while running might be the key to improving people's performance when they feel mentally fatigued a study suggests. The performance of runners who listened to a self-selected playlist after completing a demanding thinking task was at the same level as when they were not mentally fatigued, the research found. The study is the first to investigate the effect of listening to music playlists on endurance running capacity and performance when mentally fatigued. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh used two tests to study how listening to music affected the running performance of ...

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Russia and Serbia have reviewed almost a thousand patents held by some two hundred organizations involved in the New Space economy. The analysis helped draw a comprehensive picture of technology trends in the field. The paper was published in the journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences. "New Space" is a loosely defined term that encompasses the recent flurry of space-related activities coming from smaller actors rather than a handful of space-faring nations. Put somewhat simply, while the Apollo missions were more traditional, SpaceX, Rocket Lab (launching small satellites from New Zealand) or LeoLabs (a space junk tracking company) are undeniably parts of a new and different ...

In 2020, as many states of emergency were declared around the world during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as there were in the entire previous decade. The influence of neighbouring countries on each other, weak democracies and poor pandemic preparedness are some of the explanations, according to research from the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm University. A state of emergency is a situation in which a country's ordinary laws and rights are suspended and authorities are given increased powers. A state of emergency is declared by the government of a country, often as a result of war, civil unrest or natural disasters. The introduction of a curfew is ...

Protected Satellite Communications (SatComs) exhibit specific characteristics such as security, intelligence, anti-jamming, and nuclear disaster survivability. They constitute one of the key research topics in modern communications. Currently, the United States is using the latest Advanced Extremely High-Frequency (AEHF) system to provide protected communications. Other countries are also employing their own protected SatCom systems to meet future operational requirements. Furthermore, in the modern intelligent age, many intelligent-related technologies are introduced into the protected SatCom ...

New York, NY (June 22, 2021) - A new class of drugs that inhibits a "master switch" involved in the vast majority of cases of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), a fatal subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, has been discovered by researchers at Mount Sinai. In a study in Clinical Cancer Research published in June, the team reported that the drugs, known as small-molecule inhibitors of the SOX 11 oncogene, are toxic to MCL tumor development in human cells studied outside the body. If the effect is replicated in living patients, the discovery could lead to new therapies for a disease that is highly resistant to existing treatments. "The SOX 11 protein, which is expressed in up to 90 percent of mantle cell lymphoma patients, is an attractive target for therapy," said senior author Samir Parekh, MD, ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Scientists at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health have developed a universal vaccine that protected mice not just against COVID-19 but also other coronaviruses and triggered the immune system to fight off a dangerous variant. While no one knows which virus may cause the next outbreak, coronaviruses remain a threat after causing the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the global COVID-19 pandemic. To prevent a future coronavirus pandemic, UNC-Chapel Hill researchers designed the vaccine to provide protection from the current SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and a group of coronaviruses known to make the jump from animals to humans. The findings were published ...

As many as 16.8 million Americans had undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections - 5 times the rate of diagnosed infections - by the end of July of 2020, according to an analysis of antibodies from more than 8,000 previously undiagnosed adults collected during the pandemic's first wave. The authors calculated that almost 5% of the undiagnosed U.S. population harbored SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, with the highest positivity rates among African Americans, those under the age of 45, urban dwellers, and women. The results suggest a larger spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. than originally suspected in previous reports. SARS-CoV-2 can stealthily cause asymptomatic ...

The rapid development of safe and efficacious vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 has offered hope that the global COVID-19 pandemic may soon be under control. However, vaccinations remain incomplete in many developed nations, and lag further still in the developing world. In a new Focus, Jonathan Sprent and Cecile King posit that vaccine hesitancy, motivated in part by fear of side effects documented in scientific journals and the popular media, could hold back the global population from reaching herd immunity. Seeking to reassure those with reservations, Sprent and King suggest that "it is highly likely ...

Osaka, Japan - As far back as 1959, brewers at Guinness developed a system that fundamentally altered the texture of their draught beer. Now, researchers from Japan have solved the physics of Guinness' cascading flow, which will have widespread applications to technology in life and environmental sciences. In a study recently published in Physical Review E, researchers from Osaka University have revealed why the nitrogen bubbles of Guinness draught beer flow similarly to a fluid. The bubbles of many just-opened carbonated beverages simply move upwards, following Archimedes' principle. Much of the appeal of the draught from Guinness beer is that the bubbles sink and flow collectively, known as "bubble cascade." ...

In Finland, every fifth mother was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in 2019. The condition increases the mother's risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future. However, the most significant consequence of gestational diabetes is fetal macrosomia, or excessive growth of the fetus. Macrosomia increases birth injuries for both the child and the mother, causes fetal hypoxia, that is, a lack of oxygen in the fetus, and increases labour-related complications for the newborn. A research group active at the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital demonstrated that the mother's gestational diabetes ...

In a world-first, a Kobe University research group led by Associate Professor FUKAYAMA Hiroshi of the Graduate School of Agricultural Science has used rice to successfully illuminate the mechanism by which plants regulate the amount of starch produced via photosynthesis. This knowledge could contribute towards improving the quality and yield of agricultural crops. These research results were published in the international scientific journal Plant, Cell & Environment on May 14, 2021. Main Points Plants convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into organic substances ...

Without an audience, men run slower and women faster: The lack of spectators during the coronavirus pandemic appears to have had a noticeable effect on the performance of athletes at the 2020 Biathlon World Cup, a new study by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Psychology of Sport and Exercise shows. According to the new analysis, women also performed better in complex tasks, such as shooting, when an audience was present while men did not. Social facilitation theory states that a person's performance is impacted if other people watch them. The mere presence of an audience improves the performance of simple tasks, especially those that require stamina. "The studies have been relatively clear so far, but the results are more heterogeneous when it comes to more complex ...