Some regions of the human genome where the DNA can fold into unusual three-dimensional structures called G-quadruplexes (G4s) show signs that they are preserved by natural selection. When G4s are located in the regulatory sequences that control how genes are expressed or in other functional, but non-protein coding, regions of the genome, they are maintained by selection, are more common, and their unusual structures are more stable, according to a new study. Conversely, the structures are less common, less stable, and evolve neutrally outside of these regions, including within the protein-coding regions of genes themselves. Together, these ...

A two-dimensional alloy material -- made from five metals as opposed to the traditional two -- has been developed by a collaboration between researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and researchers at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And, in a first for such a material, it has been shown to act as an excellent catalyst for reducing CO2, into CO, with potential applications in environmental remediation. The research, from the lab of Rohan Mishra, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at ...

A team of neuroscientists at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology led by Baher Ibrahim and Dr. Daniel Llano published a study in eLife that furthers our understanding of how the brain perceives everyday sensory inputs. "There is a traditional idea that the way that we experience the world is sort of like a movie being played on a projector. All the sensory information that is coming in is being played on our cerebral cortex and that's how we see things and hear things," said Llano, a Beckman researcher and associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois ...

Many drivers use tollways to get from point A to point B because they are a faster and more convenient option. The fees associated with these roadways are higher during peak traffic hours of the day, such as during the commute to and from work. With this structure, drivers who are not adding to the heavy flow of traffic do not have to pay higher toll prices. However, those who utilize the toll road during more congested hours pay a premium to use the faster, more convenient highways. Similarly, not everyone uses the same amount of electricity throughout the day. There are peak load hours that put more strain on the grid, and there are users within those times who use more electricity ...

HOUSTON - (June 29, 2021) - The story of halichondrin B, an inspirational molecule obtained from a marine creature, goes back to the molecule's discovery in an ocean sponge in 1986. Though it has been replicated in the laboratory several times before, new work by Rice University chemists could make halichondrin B and its naturally occurring or designed variations easier to synthesize. Synthetic chemist K.C. Nicolaou and his lab reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society their success in simplifying several processes used to make halichondrin B and its variations. Halichondrin's molecular structure and potent antitumor ...

Dark Energy is widely believed to be the driving force behind the universe's accelerating expansion, and several theories have now been proposed to explain its elusive nature. However, these theories predict that its influence on quantum scales must be vanishingly small, and experiments so far have not been accurate enough to either verify or discredit them. In new research published in EPJ ST, a team led by Hartmut Abele at TU Wien in Austria demonstrate a robust experimental technique for studying one such theory, using ultra-cold neutrons. Named 'Gravity Resonance Spectroscopy' (GRS), their approach could bring researchers ...

Scientists have discovered how plants manage to live alongside each other in places that are dark and shady. Moderate shade or even the threat of shade - detected by phytochrome photoreceptors - causes plants to elongate to try to outgrow the competition. But in the deep gloom of a dense forest or a cramped crop canopy where resources and photosynthesis are limited, this strategy doesn't work. In these conditions it would be a waste of energy and detrimental to survival to elongate stems because seedlings would never be able to over-grow larger neighbours. So how do plants prevent elongated growth under deep shade conditions? The secret lies in their internal clocks, says the research collaboration from the John Innes Centre ...

NEW YORK (June 29, 2021)--In a new paper published in the journal Vaccine: X, public health experts from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the University of Oslo, and Spark Street Advisors highlight actions to accelerate access to vaccines globally. The paper reviews the vaccine research and development process and proposes areas where reforms could increase access, speed time to market and decrease costs--from R&D to manufacturing and regulation to the management of incentives like patents and public funding. The COVID-19 ...

A process that uses heat to change the arrangement of molecular rings on a chemical chain creates 3D-printable gels with a variety of functional properties, according to a Dartmouth study. The researchers describe the new process as "kinetic trapping." Molecular stoppers--or speed bumps--regulate the number of rings going onto a polymer chain and also control ring distributions. When the rings are bunched up, they store kinetic energy that can be released, much like when a compressed spring is released. Researchers in the Ke Functional Materials Group use heat to change the distribution of rings and then use moisture ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Combining structural biology and computation, a Duke-led team of researchers has identified how multiple mutations on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein independently create variants that are more transmissible and potentially resistant to antibodies. By acquiring mutations on the spike protein, one such variant gained the ability to leap from humans to minks and back to humans. Other variants -- including Alpha, which first appeared in the United Kingdom, Beta, which appeared in South Africa, and Gamma, first identified in Brazil - independently developed spike mutations that enhanced their ability to spread rapidly in human ...

Aerospace engineering faculty member Melkior Ornik is also a mathematician, a history buff, and a strong believer in integrity when it comes to using hard science in public discussions. So, when a story popped up in his news feed about a pair of researchers who developed a statistical method to analyze datasets and used it to purportedly refute the number of Holocaust victims from a concentration camp in Croatia, it naturally caught his attention. Ornik is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He proceeded to study the research in depth and used the method to re-analyze the same data from the United ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers are taking a close look at rare cases of inflammation of the heart muscle, or myocarditis, in young men who developed symptoms shortly after receiving the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines. Several recent studies suggest that health care professionals should watch for hypersensitivity myocarditis as a rare adverse reaction to being vaccinated for COVID-19. However, researchers stress that this awareness should not diminish overall confidence in vaccination during the current pandemic. While reports of post-vaccine myocarditis ...

Using real-time deformability cytometry, researchers at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin in Erlangen were able to show for the first time: Covid-19 significantly changes the size and stiffness of red and white blood cells - sometimes over months. These results may help to explain why some affected people continue to complain of symptoms long after an infection (long Covid). Shortness of breath, fatigue and headaches: some patients still struggle with the long-term effects of a severe infection by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus after six months or more. This post Covid-19 syndrome, also called long covid, is still not properly understood. What is clear is that -- during the ...

In two journal articles, a University of Houston biomedical researcher reports a step forward in diagnosing intestinal diseases, including colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease using stool proteins. The current gold standard for colon cancer testing measures blood (hemoglobin) present in stool, and tests for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) measure levels of calprotectin, a protein that detects inflammation in the intestines. "The unique aspect of both research reports is that we are looking at stool samples comprehensively, ...

INDIANAPOLIS - Ten IU School of Medicine researchers out of a team of 11 scientists, are responsible for the findings of a new study they conducted to investigate alternative ways to treat kidney infections. Their work, which is published in the high-quality research journal Nature Communications, examined how to utilize the kidneys' own internal infection fighting capabilities to treat and even prevent kidney infections, with the knowledge that eventually antibiotics won't work. According to statistics, urinary tract infections or UTIs are one of the most frequent bacteria-causing ...

A new class of illusion, developed by a visual artist and a psychology researcher, underscores the highly constructive nature of visual perception. The illusion, which the creators label "Scintillating Starburst," evokes illusory rays that seem to shimmer or scintillate--like a starburst. Composed of several concentric star polygons, the images prompt viewers to see bright fleeting rays emanating from the center that are not actually there. "The research illustrates how the brain 'connects the dots' to create a subjective reality in what we see, highlighting the constructive nature of perception," explains Pascal Wallisch, a clinical associate professor in New York University's Department ...

Six antibody characteristics could help scientists identify which pregnant women are at risk of placental malaria infections, finds a study published today in eLife. Malaria infections can be devastating for pregnant mothers, particularly during their first pregnancies. If malaria parasites invade the placenta, they can starve babies of nutrition, potentially causing low birth weight, preterm deliveries, stillbirths, and pregnancy loss. But not all women are susceptible to placental malaria infections, and the new study may help clinicians to identify those at risk and researchers to develop new therapies to protect pregnant women from malaria and related complications. A protein made by malaria parasites called VAR2CSA allows them to attach ...

New insight on how our experiences during a task or interaction shape our current mood has been published today in the open-access eLife journal. The study suggests that early experiences may have a larger effect on our mood than more recent events. These findings hold implications for the timing of events in experimental or clinical settings, and suggest new directions for mood interventions tailored to individual patients. People routinely report on their moods during everyday activities and when they interact with clinicians providing mental health care. It is commonly believed ...

Rising nighttime temperatures are curbing crop yields for rice, and new research moves us closer to understanding why. The study found that warmer nights alter the rice plant's biological schedule, with hundreds of genes being expressed earlier than usual, while hundreds of other genes are being expressed later than usual. "Essentially, we found that warmer nights throw the rice plant's internal clock out of whack," says Colleen Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper on the work. "Most people think plants aren't dynamic, but they are. Plants are constantly regulating ...

A recent proof-of-concept study finds that a low-cost training program can reduce hazardous driving in older adults. Researchers hope the finding will lead to the training becoming more widely available. "On-road training and simulator training programs have been successful at reducing car accidents involving older drivers - with benefits lasting for years after the training," says Jing Yuan, first author of the study and a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. "However, many older adults are unlikely to have access to these training programs or technologies." "We developed a training program, ...

Populations of Drosophila suzukii fruit flies - so-called "spotted-wing Drosophila" that devastate soft-skinned fruit in North America, Europe and parts of South America - could be greatly suppressed with the introduction of genetically modified D. suzukii flies that produce only males after mating, according to new research from North Carolina State University. D. suzukii are modified with a female-lethal gene that uses a common antibiotic as an off switch. Withholding the antibiotic tetracycline in the diet of larvae essentially eliminates birth of female D. suzukii flies as the modified male flies successfully mate with females, says Max Scott, an NC State entomologist who is the corresponding author of a paper describing the research. "We use a genetic female-lethal system - a ...

Researchers from the Laboratory of Oncolytic-Virus-Immuno-Therapeutics (LOVIT) at the LIH Department of Oncology (DONC) are working on the development of novel anticancer strategies based on oncolytic viruses, "good" viruses that can specifically infect, replicate in and kill cancer cells. In particular, the LOVIT team elucidated the mechanism through which the H-1PV cancer-destroying virus can attach to and enter cancer cells, thereby causing their lysis and death. At the heart of this process lie laminins, and specifically laminin γ1, a family of proteins on the surface of a cancer cell to which this virus binds, and which therefore act as the 'door' through which the virus enters the cells. The findings, which were published in the prestigious ...

Beetles are creatures with built-in body armor. They are tiny tanks covered with hard shells, also known as exoskeletons, protecting their soft, skeleton-less bodies inside. In addition to providing armored protection, the beetle's exoskeleton offers functions like sensory feedback and hydration control. Notably, the exoskeletons of many beetles are also brilliantly colored and patterned, which enhances visual communication with other beetles and organisms. Ling Li, lead investigator and assistant professor in mechanical engineering, has joined colleagues from six other universities to investigate the interplay between mechanical and optical performance ...

Globally, more than 400 million people have diabetes, most of them suffering from type 2 diabetes. Before the onset of actual type 2 diabetes, people are often diagnosed with abnormalities in glucose metabolism that are milder than those associated with diabetes. The term used to indicate such cases is prediabetes. Roughly 5-10% of people with prediabetes develop type 2 diabetes within a year-long follow-up. Insulin resistance in muscle tissue is one of the earliest metabolic abnormalities detected in individuals who are developing type 2 diabetes, and the phenomenon is already seen in prediabetes. In a collaborative study, researchers from the University of Helsinki, the ...

URBANA, Ill. - Despite soybean's high protein and oil content and its potential to boost food security on the continent, Africa produces less than 1% of the world's soybean crop. Production lags, in part, because most soybean cultivars are bred for North and South American conditions that don't match African environments. Researchers from the Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL), a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project led by the University of Illinois, are working to change that. In a new study, published in Agronomy, they have developed methods to help breeders improve soybean cultivars specifically for African environments, with the intention of creating fast-maturing ...