Computer scientists at the University of Surrey have created a ground-breaking model that could improve our understanding of developmental disorders such as autism. Scientists have long tried to better understand how the cerebral cortex and its layers develop, with pathologies such as autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy linked to this process. In a paper published by the journal Cerebral Cortex, scientists from Surrey, Newcastle University, and Nottingham University detail how they developed and used a computational model to simulate cell division, cell migration and apoptosis (cell death) in the hope of understanding how these processes affect the development of the brain. With the help of their computer model, the ...

A study examining bean productivity among smallholder farmers in Tanzania, has found that on average, yields are 6% lower among female than male farmers. Women are often 'invisible' in agriculture, researchers say, due to social structural barriers and national agricultural policies, which do not address discriminatory land rights; education and agricultural information and decision making, which must be tackled to reverse this trend. The paper 'What Does Gender Yield Gap Tell Us about Smallholder Farming in Developing Countries?' published in the open access scientific journal Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing (MDPI), analyzed data from southern region in Tanzania since 2016 and also drew on research ...

'A transmissible cancer was first discovered in dogs in the middle of the 19th century. It is transmitted sexually from a sick dog to a healthy one, the cancer cells themselves being the infective agent. In the 1990s, a contagious cancer was discovered in the Tasmanian devil. Since the cancer was found in only two species of mammals, scientists used to think that it is quite rare in the nature. However, time has come to reconsider this view. A transmissible cancer appears to be fairly widespread among bivalve molluscs,' says Maria Skazina, a research associate at the ...

DALLAS - March 30, 2021 - UT Southwestern researchers have identified factors that put patients with childhood-onset lupus at elevated risk for poor outcomes, such as end-stage renal disease or death, as they transition from pediatric to adult health care. The findings, published online in Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, emphasize the precarious nature of this period and shine a spotlight on areas prime for intervention to help protect these vulnerable patients. Patients with chronic diseases that used to be fatal early in life now often survive to live long lives. However, says study senior author END ...

Babies can recognise combinations of words even before they have uttered their first word, a study suggests, challenging ideas of how children learn language. Assessments in 11-12 month-olds show that infants at the cusp of talking are already processing multiword phrases such as 'clap your hands'. Researchers say the study is the first to provide evidence that young children can pick up and understand multiword sequences before they can talk or begin producing such combinations themselves. The findings suggest that babies learn individual words and more complex phrases at the same time, which challenges the perspective that they progress from single words to phrases and sentences, experts say. It may also explain why adults who learn a new language in later life ...

The first online advertisement was a banner for AT&T that appeared on the HotWired.com website in 1994, when there were just 30 million internet users worldwide. Today, 57% of the world's population has access to the internet and advertising technology has advanced to the point that by 2018 the digital advertising market in Europe alone was worth 55 billion euros. Of this amount, 16.8 billion euros is accounted for by programmatic advertising, which uses artificial intelligence to automate much of the buying and selling of internet advertising. A new report, published by Open Evidence, a ...

Water quality management in the ocean often targets visible pollution sources such as sewage, rivers or ships. A new global study, led by researchers at the University of Gothenburg, reveals that invisible groundwater discharges may be just as important driving nitrogen into coastal waters. As we enter the United Nations' Decade of the Oceans, a new research study shed light on an often overlooked source of impact on the coastal ecosystems. The study, which examined groundwater discharges at more than 200 locations worldwide, showed that groundwater is the major source of nitrogen and phosphorus to the ocean at many locations, including some areas in the Baltic Sea. "Groundwater is essentially invisible and difficult to investigate. That ...

In order to enable large-scale hydrogen production using solar energy, particulate photocatalysts are being researched as a simple and cost-effective solution to splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is necessary to develop a photocatalyst that can efficiently use visible light, which accounts for a large part of solar energy, in the water decomposition reaction. Barium tantalum oxynitride (BaTaO2N) is an oxynitride semiconductor material that absorbs visible light up to 650 nm and has a band structure capable of decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen. Until very recently, it had not been possible to load BaTaO2N granules with co-catalyst fine particles, which are reaction ...

Female doctors who suffer domestic abuse can feel unable to get help due to perceptions that it "should not happen to a doctor" and a judgemental culture in medical settings, a new study suggests. Victim-survivors who work as doctors often do not feel able to talk about abuse confidentially and fear the consequences of reporting it. Researchers from the University of Southampton interviewed twenty-one female doctors who had previously left an abusive relationship about their experience of domestic abuse, barriers they faced when seeking help, and the impact on their work. The findings have been published in the British Journal of General Practice. Dr Emily Donovan, who led the study from the University of Southampton's Primary Care Research Centre said: "Domestic ...

Education is considered one of the most critical personal capital investments. But formal educational attainment doesn't necessarily pay off in job satisfaction, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame. In fact, there is almost no relationship between the two, according to "Does Educational Attainment Promote Job Satisfaction? The Bittersweet Trade-offs Between Job Resources, Demands and Stress," forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology from Brittany Solomon (Hall), assistant professor of management, and Dean Shepherd, the Ray and Milann Siegfried ...

Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have developed a new framework for different factors influencing how a child's brain is "wired" to learn to read before kindergarten. This may help pediatric providers identify risks when the brain is most responsive to experiences and interventions. This "eco-bio-developmental" model of emergent literacy, described in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, reinforces the potential of early screening, prevention, and intervention during pediatric clinic visits in early childhood. This kind of model is advocated by the American Academy ...

Remote monitoring using airborne devices such as drones or satellites could revolutionise the effectiveness of nature-based solutions (NBS) that protect communities from devastating natural hazards such as floods, storms and landslides, say climate change experts from the University of Surrey. Grey structural measures (a collective term for engineering projects that use concrete and steel) like floodgates, dams, dikes and sea walls are still the most common methods to guard against natural hazards. However, these 'grey measures' are expensive and lack the long-term flexibility and sustainability needed to help communities manage their growing population and address the planet's ongoing struggle against urbanisation ...

Scientists have discovered that tracking malaria as it develops in humans is a powerful way to detect how the malaria parasite causes a range of infection outcomes in its host. The study, found some remarkable differences in the way individuals respond to malaria and raises fresh questions in the quest to understand and defeat the deadly disease. Malaria, caused by the parasite - Plasmodium falciparum - is a huge threat to adults and children in the developing world. Each year, around half a million people die from the disease and another 250 million are infected. Malaria parasites are spread to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes. The outcomes that follow a malaria infection can vary from no symptoms to life-threatening ...

A team of scientists has been using DESY's X-ray source PETRA III to analyse the structural changes that take place in an egg when you cook it. The work reveals how the proteins in the white of a chicken egg unfold and cross-link with each other to form a solid structure when heated. Their innovative method can be of interest to the food industry as well as to the broad field of research surrounding protein analysis. The cooperation of two groups, headed by Frank Schreiber from the University of Tübingen and Christian Gutt from the University of Siegen, with scientists at DESY and European XFEL reports the research in two articles in the journal Physical Review Letters. Eggs are among the most versatile food ingredients. They can take the form of a gel or ...

Adding the nutrient selenium to diets protects against obesity and provides metabolic benefits to mice, according to a study published today in eLife. The results could lead to interventions that reproduce many of the anti-aging effects associated with dietary restriction while also allowing people to eat as normal. Several types of diet have been shown to increase healthspan - that is, the period of healthy lifespan. One of the proven methods of increasing healthspan in many organisms, including non-human mammals, is to restrict dietary intake of an amino acid ...

Humans are creating or exacerbating the environmental conditions that could lead to further pandemics, new University of Sydney research finds. Modelling from the Sydney School of Veterinary Science suggests pressure on ecosystems, climate change and economic development are key factors associated with the diversification of pathogens (disease-causing agents, like viruses and bacteria). This has potential to lead to disease outbreaks. The research, by Dr Balbir B Singh, Professor Michael Ward, and Associate Professor Navneet Dhand, is published in the international journal, Transboundary and Emerging Diseases. They found a greater diversity ...

Superconductivity is known to be easily destroyed by strong magnetic fields. NIMS, Osaka University and Hokkaido University have jointly discovered that a superconductor with atomic-scale thickness can retain its superconductivity even when a strong magnetic field is applied to it. The team has also identified a new mechanism behind this phenomenon. These results may facilitate the development of superconducting materials resistant to magnetic fields and topological superconductors composed of superconducting and magnetic materials. Superconductivity has been used in various technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ...

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd (SRI) and Tohoku University teamed up to increase the speed of 4-Dimensional Computed Tomography (4D-CT) a thousand-fold, making it possible to observe rubber failure in tires in real-time. This breakthrough will accelerate the development of new tire materials to provide super wear resistance, greater environmental friendliness, and longer service life. It will also aid significantly in the advancement of smart tires. SRI initially developed 4D-CT as part of the ADVANCED 4D NANO DESIGN, a new materials development technology unveiled in 2015 that enables highly accurate analysis and simulation of the rubber's internal structure from the micro to nanoscale. This analysis ultimately ...

An evolutionary mystery that had eluded molecular biologists for decades may never have been solved if it weren't for the COVID-19 pandemic. "Being stuck at home was a blessing in disguise, as there were no experiments that could be done. We just had our computers and lots of time," says Professor Paul Curmi, a structural biologist and molecular biophysicist with UNSW Sydney. Prof. Curmi is referring to research published this month in Nature Communications that details the painstaking unravelling and reconstruction of a key protein in a single-celled, photosynthetic organism called a cryptophyte, a type of algae that evolved over a billion years ago. Up until now, how cryptophytes acquired the proteins ...

About 61% of Americans have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), experts' formal term for a traumatic childhood event. ACEs--which may include abuse, neglect and severe household dysfunction--often lead to psychological and social struggles that reach into adulthood, making ACEs a major public health challenge. But the long-term consequences of ACEs are just beginning to be understood in detail. To fill in the picture, two recent BYU studies analyzed how ACEs shape adolescents' delinquent behaviors as well as fathers' parenting approaches. ACEs ...

An international survey that included 600 smokers in the UK has found that cessation messaging focused on easing the burden on our health system is most effective in encouraging people to quit. The research, which was conducted in April-May 2020, randomly assigned participants to view one of four quit smoking messages, two of which explicitly referenced health implications and COVID-19, one referred more vaguely to risk of chest infection, and one highlighted financial motivations for quitting. "We wanted to explore the effectiveness of smoking cessation messaging at a time when health systems the world over are beleaguered, and all our ...

Replacing regular common salt consumed by hypertensive patients in rural areas with a salt substitute can have a significant impact in terms of lowering their blood pressure, a new study by The George Institute for Global Health has revealed. Researchers found that substituting a small part of the sodium in salt with potassium without altering the taste led to a substantial reduction in systolic blood pressure in these patients, supporting salt substitution as an effective, low-cost intervention for lowering blood pressure in rural India. The study entitled "Effects of reduced-sodium added-potassium salt substitute on blood pressure in rural Indian hypertensive patients: a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial" provides the first-of-its-kind evidence from ...

In a new study published in the Cell Research, Chen-Yu Zhang's group at Nanjing University reports "In vivo self-assembled small RNA is the new generation of RNAi therapeutics". The development of RNAi therapy has undergone two major stages, direct injection of synthetic siRNAs and delivery with artificial vehicles; both have not realized the full therapeutic potential of RNAi in clinic. In this study, Chen-Yu Zhang's group reprogram host liver with genetic circuits to direct the synthesis and self-assembly of siRNAs into secretory exosomes. In vivo assembled siRNAs are systematically distributed to multiple tissues or targeted to specific tissues (e.g., brain), inducing potent target gene silencing in these tissues. The therapeutic value of this strategy is demonstrated ...

A team of researchers from Graz University of Technology, Know-Center GmbH, Johannes Kepler University Linz, University of Innsbruck, Austria and University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, compared how accurate algorithm-generated music recommendations were for mainstream and non-mainstream music listeners. They used a dataset containing the listening histories of 4,148 users of the music streaming platform Last.fm who either listened to mostly non-mainstream music or mostly mainstream music (2,074 users in each group). Based on the artists music users' listened to most frequently, the authors used a computational model to predict how likely music users were to like the music recommended ...

Failure to comply with international exposure recommendations for air pollution, noise, heat and access to green space is associated with more than 1,000 deaths per year in Barcelona and more than 900 in Madrid, accounting for 7% and 3% of overall premature mortality, respectively. This is the conclusion of a new study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation. This study is the first to estimate premature mortality impacts and the distribution by socioeconomic status of multiple environmental exposures related to urban planning and transport in the two cities. Today, more than half of the ...