HOUSTON – (June 1, 2023) – An international team of marine biologists has discovered the remnants of ancient RNA viruses embedded in the DNA of symbiotic organisms living inside reef-building corals. The RNA fragments are from viruses that infected the symbionts as long ago as 160 million years. The discovery is described in an open-access study published this week in the Nature journal Communications Biology, and it could help scientists understand how corals and their partners fight off viral infections today. But it was a surprising find because most RNA viruses are not known ...

Davis, CA - The Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) Society is thrilled to release the Neonatal Probiotics Toolkit. The Toolkit provides structure to clinicians in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) as they consider the complex process and decision of whether to implement probiotics to help prevent NEC. The Toolkit is not a recommendation for or against the routine use of probiotics in the NICU, nor for or against the use of any product or preparation method.  NICUs and clinicians are encouraged to use the Toolkit to foster thoughtful, intentional dialogue and inclusive conversations amongst key stakeholders in the NICU, including the need for patient-families to understand ...

Tumors are composed of rapidly multiplying cancer cells. Understanding which biochemical processes fuel their relentless growth can provide hints at therapeutic targets. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have developed a technology to study tumor growth in another dimension — literally. The scientists established a new method to watch what nutrients are used at which rates spatially throughout a tissue. By using this multidimensional imaging approach, they identified pathways whose activities are uniquely elevated in brain cancer, offering clues for potential treatment strategies. The study was published May 19 in Nature Communications. “We ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The results of a new clinical trial suggest that the first drug therapy to slow the progression of nearsightedness in kids could be on the horizon. The three-year study found that a daily drop in each eye of a low dose of atropine, a drug used to dilate pupils, was better than a placebo at limiting eyeglass prescription changes and inhibiting elongation of the eye in nearsighted children aged 6 to 10. That elongation leads to myopia, or nearsightedness, which starts in young kids and ...

New Haven, Conn. — Yale University’s museums, libraries, and archives contain vast troves of cultural and scientific heritage that fire curiosity and fuel research worldwide. Now there’s a simple new way to make astonishing connections among millions of objects. Starting today, anyone can explore the university’s unparalleled holdings online through LUX: Yale Collections Discovery — a groundbreaking discovery and research platform that provides single-point access to more than 17 million items, including defining specimens ...

Microbial communities are especially active near hydrothermal seeps like those in the Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California. The team of researchers has been working on understanding these communities for many years. Organic material deposited in the Guaymas Basin is cooked by heat sources from within the Earth, which breaks it down into crude oil and natural gas. Their components provide the primary source of energy for microorganisms in an otherwise hostile environment. In their latest study, the researchers have demonstrated that archaea use a previously unknown mechanism to degrade liquid petroleum ...

– Cutting-edge spatial omics technologies to map cancer cells and their immune environment in high resolution, allowing AI to unlock potential for new breakthrough treatments – – Landmark research project is 100x larger than existing efforts –  – Data will be generated from thousands of patients across multiple cancers – – University of Pittsburgh, Gustave Roussy, Lausanne University Hospital, Uniklinikum Erlangen/Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg , Charité ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – On July 1, North Carolina’s new abortion limits go into effect. As restrictions on abortions are being tightened across the United States, adolescents may encounter mounting obstacles that could prevent them from accessing abortion care. Bianca A. Allison, MD MPH, an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, sought to examine the awareness and knowledge that adolescents have about the legal landscape of abortion and how these changes might affect them and their communities. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that many adolescents – across a diversity of ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) are investigating how the immune system's T cells react to a wide variety of coronaviruses, ranging from SARS to common cold coronaviruses. Their goal is to guide the development of vaccines that could halt future pandemic by combatting many types of coronaviruses at once.   "While it was recognized that coronaviruses were potentially dangerous viruses, because of SARSCoV and MERS viruses causing very severe disease in humans, nobody knew that the next pandemic was going to be caused by SARS-CoV-2," says LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr.Biol.Sci. ...

Traffic-related air pollution is a pervasive problem across the United States. Vehicle emissions are highest near major roadways with around 19% of the U.S. population living in the vicinity of a major roadway. In more densely populated states, like California, up to 40% live near a major roadway. Exposure to these pollutants, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5 ) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a byproduct of burning fossil fuel, can lead to a host of health effects including premature death. Minority communities often live along these corridors and experience disproportionate exposures. A ...

The endangered Antillean manatee faces a growing threat from boat strikes in Belize, according to a new study that raises concerns about the survival of what had been considered a relatively healthy population. Belize hosts a population of around 1,000 manatees. With the growth of tourism in recent decades, however, Belize has seen a substantial increase in boat traffic, making boat strikes an increasingly important cause of manatee deaths and injuries. The new study, published June 1 in Endangered Species Research, used 25 years of data on manatee strandings (dead or injured ...

Driven by a lifelong curiosity about the natural world and the diversity of life, Elizabeth King, associate professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri, found inspiration to spend her formative years studying science — and along the way she discovered her passion for biology. That foundation has led her to pursue an ongoing career working to develop a better understanding of genetic traits from a biological perspective. Recently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded King a five-year, $1.9 million grant to expand her lab’s research ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- In the United States, low-income immigrant and minority children often live in environments that have highly polluted air. A study led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, demonstrates this among the Latinx and Purépecha immigrant children and caregivers living along Inland Southern California’s Salton Sea, a highly saline drying lakebed surrounded by agricultural fields. The Purépecha community is an Indigenous group from the Mexican state of Michoacán. “Children of Latinx ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) has received renewed grant support to welcome a new class of reporters for the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program. The 2023 funders to date include Silver Century Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation, Archstone Foundation, and NIHCM Foundation. Since its founding in 2010, this program has been responsible for more than 800 news stories produced by 217 alumni. It has two goals: to educate journalists about issues in aging, better allowing them to spread a new awareness to general-audience, ethnic, and other minority populations; ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – The U.S. Department of Energy has given the greenlight for the MOLLER experiment to begin procurement of key components with its granting of Critical Decision-3A (CD-3A): Approve Long Lead Procurements. The determination allows the MOLLER project at DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility to begin spending $9.14 million for long-lead procurements of critical items for which designs are complete. After imagining what it would look like for 17 years, Krishna Kumar felt chills the first time he saw fully engineered drawings of the MOLLER experiment.  “Seeing the designs on paper gave me pins and needles,” said Kumar, professor of ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team at Sandia National Laboratories is developing materials to tackle what has become one of the biggest problems in the world: human exposure to a group of chemicals known as PFAS through contaminated water and other products. Sandia is now investing more money to take their research to the next level. “It’s in the news constantly. It seems every day we hear of another product that is contaminated. We saw sparkling water with PFAS, toilet paper with PFAS, so it’s ...

So far, it has not been possible to explain the causes of around half of all rare hereditary diseases. A Munich research team has developed an algorithm that predicts the effects of genetic mutations on RNA formation six times more precisely than previous models. As a result, the genetic causes of rare hereditary diseases and cancer can be identified more precisely. Variations of genetic sequence occur relatively frequently – on average, one in a thousand nucleotide of a person’s genome is affected. In rare cases, these changes can lead to defective RNAs and hence non-functional proteins. This can lead to dysfunction in individual organs. If a rare disease is suspected, computer-assisted ...

Body-based units of measure have cognitive and behavioral advantages over standardized measurement systems, according to a new cross-cultural analysis of the use of body-based measurement in more than 180 cultures worldwide, particularly in the design of ergonomic technologies. The findings reveal new insights into body-based measurement as a cultural phenomenon and may help explain the long-term persistence of their use for centuries after the emergence of standardized measurement systems were invented. The ability to measure things plays a central role in how humans understand and interact with the surrounding world and are important drivers in cultural complexity ...

By combining two dynamic polymers, researchers present a new method for achieving autonomous realignment and self-healing in multilayered soft electronic devices and robots, according to a new study. Like human skin, self-healing polymers allow soft electronic and robotic devices to recover autonomously from various forms of damage. Such devices are often multilayered and embedded with conductive or dielectric materials to achieve functional properties while also maintaining the soft mechanical properties of the self-healing ...

A hybrid organic-inorganic polymer resin enables the three-dimensional (3D) printing of nanoscale optical-grade glass at temperatures roughly half of what other approaches require, researchers report. According to the authors, the approach may help redefine the paradigm for the free-form manufacturing of silica glass and enable its use across a wide variety of new technological applications. Silica glasses possess a unique combination of properties, making them one of the most important materials for ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Asian colobines, also known as leaf-eating monkeys, have been on the planet for about 10 million years. Their ancestors crossed land bridges, dispersed across continents, survived the expansion and contraction of ice sheets and learned to live in tropical, temperate and colder climes. A new study reported in the journal Science finds parallels between Asian colobines’ social, environmental and genetic evolution, revealing for the first time that colobines living in colder regions experienced genetic changes and alterations to their ancient social structure that likely enhanced their ability ...

Embargoed until 1-Jun-2023 14:00 ET (1-Jun-2023 18:00 GMT/UTC) The use of short flashes of X-ray light brings scientists one big step closer toward developing better catalysts to transform the greenhouse gas methane into a less harmful chemical. The result, published in the journal Science, reveals for the first time how carbon-hydrogen bonds of alkanes break and how the catalyst works in this reaction. Methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, is being released into the atmosphere at an increasing rate by livestock farming as well as the continuing unfreezing of permafrost. Transforming methane and longer-chain alkanes into less harmful and in fact useful chemicals ...

For the first time ever, scientists have uncovered evidence that a species’ long-term adaptation to living in an extremely cold climate has led to the evolution of social behaviours including extended care by mothers, increased infant survival and the ability to live in large complex multilevel societies. The new study, published today in the journal Science, was led by researchers from Northwest University in China and a team including the University of Bristol (UK) and the University of Western Australia, ...

Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011087 Article Title: Humans decompose tasks by trading off utility and computational cost Author Countries: USA Funding: This research was supported by John Templeton Foundation grant 61454 awarded to TLG and NDD (https://www.templeton.org/), U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research grant FA 9550-18-1-0077 awarded to TLG (https://www.afrl.af.mil/AFOSR/), and U.S. Army Research Office grant ARO W911NF-16-1-0474 awarded to NDD (https://www.arl.army.mil/who-we-are/directorates/aro/). ...

Baboons (Papio) are found across the continent of Africa, from the west to the east and all the way south. They have doglike noses, impressive teeth and thick fur that ranges widely in color between the six species, which are olive, yellow, chacma, Kinda, Guinea and hamadryas. Their habitats vary from savannas and bushlands to tropical forests and mountains. Chacma baboons, the largest at up to 100 pounds, are even found in the Kalahari Desert, while the neighboring Kinda baboons, the smallest at around 30 pounds, stay near water. Most live in large troops with dozens or hundreds of members. While most baboons ...