HOUSTON - (Feb. 25, 2021) - COVID-19 can be diagnosed in 55 minutes or less with the help of programmed magnetic nanobeads and a diagnostic tool that plugs into an off-the-shelf cell phone, according to Rice University engineers. The Rice lab of mechanical engineer Peter Lillehoj has developed a stamp-sized microfluidic chip that measures the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein in blood serum from a standard finger prick. The nanobeads bind to SARS-CoV-2 N protein, a biomarker for COVID-19, in the chip and transport it to an electrochemical sensor that detects minute amounts of the biomarker. The ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., February 24, 2021--The Beaufort Sea, the Arctic Ocean's largest freshwater reservoir, has increased its freshwater content by 40 percent over the last two decades, putting global climate patterns at risk. A rapid release of this freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean could wreak havoc on the delicate climate balance that dictates global climate. "A freshwater release of this size into the subpolar North Atlantic could impact a critical circulation pattern, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which has a significant influence on northern-hemisphere climate," ...

After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population. The unexpected visitor belongs to a class of icy bodies found in space between Jupiter and Neptune. Called "Centaurs," they become active for the first time when heated as they approach the Sun, and dynamically transition into becoming more comet-like. Visible-light snapshots by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveal that the vagabond object shows signs of comet activity, such as a tail, ...

Researchers have discovered that there may be a new pathway in the brain that provides pain relief and reduces cravings for opioids. Over a third of the U.S. population suffers from chronic pain, with little to no reported relief from medication. Transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive form of brain stimulation that may offer a new treatment option for these underserved members of our community. In a recent paper in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina evaluated two different strategies for relieving pain with TMS: applying TMS to the motor cortex and the ...

When birds see a predator in their midst, one defensive strategy is to call out loudly, attracting other birds of the same or different species to do the same. Sometimes individuals within this "mobbing flock" will fly over or at the predator or attack it directly. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on February 25 have found that male superb lyrebirds do something rather unexpected: they imitate a mobbing flock in courtship and even in the act of mating with a female. "Our paper shows that male superb lyrebirds regularly create a remarkable acoustic illusion of a flock of mobbing birds ...

Researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have discovered a new type of bone cell that may reveal new therapeutic approaches for osteoporosis and other skeletal diseases. The new cells, which the researchers term 'osteomorphs', are found in the blood and bone marrow, and fuse together to form osteoclasts, specialised cells that break down bone tissue. They have a unique genomic profile that reveals promising and as yet unexplored targets for therapy. "This discovery is a game-changer, which not only helps us understand bone biology but presents significant new in-roads for osteoporosis therapy," says co-senior ...

A 20% shift in beverage sales from small to medium-sized plastic bottles could reduce the production of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste in the USA by over 9,000 tonnes annually, a study in Scientific Reports suggests. PET is the dominant material used in plastic bottles containing non-alcoholic beverages. Rafael Becerril-Arreola and Randolph Bucklin weighed 187 differently sized PET bottles sold by the best-selling beverage brands in Minnesota, USA, to identify which bottles sizes were the most efficient at delivering the highest volume of beverage for the lowest packaging weight. To validate their findings, the researchers combined data on sales of different sized PET bottles ...

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a new way to harness properties of light waves that can radically increase the amount of data they carry. They demonstrated the emission of discrete twisting laser beams from antennas made up of concentric rings roughly equal to the diameter of a human hair, small enough to be placed on computer chips. The new work, reported in a paper published Thursday, Feb. 25, in the journal Nature Physics, throws wide open the amount of information that can be multiplexed, or simultaneously transmitted, by a coherent light source. A common example of multiplexing is the transmission of multiple telephone calls ...

Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany. The researchers compiled so-called proxy data, taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments or ice cores, reaching back many hundreds of years to reconstruct the flow history of the AMOC. They found consistent evidence that its slowdown in the 20th century is unprecedented in the past millennium; it is likely linked to human-caused climate change. The giant ocean circulation is relevant for weather patterns ...

More intense and frequent fires are reducing the size of tree communities in many regions of the world. Slower-growing tree species are better at surviving fires, but these may capture less atmospheric carbon and reduce nutrient availability in the soil. Not all regions are suitable for planting trees to tackle climate change; schemes must consider local wildfire frequency, vegetation cover and climate, and how these might change over time. Researchers have analysed decades' worth of data on the impact of repeated fires on ecosystems across the world. Their results, published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, show that repeated fires are driving long-term changes to tree communities and reducing their population ...

Until recently, scientists believed that the primary cilium - an antenna-like structure found on the surface of most human cells - was largely vestigial and had little bearing on the day-to-day lives of human beings. But more recently, a relatively small number of people have been found to have rare genetic disorders affecting the cilium, characterized by a number of health problems, including common conditions like diabetes, kidney failure, and liver fibrosis. Now, an analysis of genes involved in the function of the cilium found that the same genes causing its rare diseases might ...

What The Study Did: Researchers in this observational study of more than 10,000 U.S. Air Force basic trainees examined whether symptoms and laboratory results on the first day of COVID-19 diagnosis are associated with development of a case cluster in a congregate setting. Authors: Joseph E. Marcus, M.D., of the Brooke Army Medical Center at Joint Base San Antonio Fort Sam Houston, Texas, 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.2021.0202) 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 ...

What The Study Did: This research letter describes the various otolaryngologic manifestations in patients 18 years or younger with pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2. Authors: Ryan C. T. Cheong, B.Sc.(Hons), M.B.B.S., of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust in London, United Kingdom, 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/jamaoto.2020.5698) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest ...

What The Study Did: Data from five studies were pooled to investigate whether cognitive decline among older U.S. adults varied by sex. Authors: Deborah A. Levine, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, 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.2021.0169) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial ...

What The Study Did: Researchers looked at whether state legalization of recreational cannabis was associated with changes in use by women before, during and after pregnancy. Authors: Kara R. Skelton, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, 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.2021.0138) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, ...

Antarctica's northern George VI Ice Shelf experienced record melting during the 2019-2020 summer season compared to 31 previous summers of dramatically lower melt, a University of Colorado Boulder-led study found. The extreme melt coincided with record-setting stretches when local surface air temperatures were at or above the freezing point. "During the 2019-2020 austral summer, we observed the most widespread melt and greatest total number of melt days of any season for the northern George VI Ice Shelf," said CIRES Research Scientist Alison Banwell, lead author of the study published in The Cryosphere. Banwell and her co-authors--scientists at ...

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have discovered new fundamental insights for developing lithium metal batteries that perform well at ultra-low temperatures; mainly, that the weaker the electrolyte holds on to lithium ions, the better. By using such a weakly binding electrolyte, the researchers developed a lithium metal battery that can be repeatedly recharged at temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius--a first in the field. Researchers report their work in a paper published Feb. 25 in Nature Energy. In tests, the proof-of-concept battery retained 84% and 76% of its capacity over 50 cycles at -40 and -60 degrees Celsius, respectively. Such performance is unprecedented, researchers ...

The exfoliation of graphite into graphene layers inspired the investigation of thousands of layered materials: amongst them transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). These semiconductors can be used to make conductive inks to manufacture printed electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, defects in their structure may hinder their performance. Now, Graphene Flagship researchers have overcome these hurdles by introducing 'molecular bridges'- small molecules that interconnect the TMD flakes, thereby boosting the conductivity and overall performance. The results, published in Nature Nanotechnology, come from a multidisciplinary collaboration between Graphene Flagship partners the University of Strasbourg and CNRS, France, AMBER and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, ...

Human rights law can provide a transparent and fair framework for vaccine allocations, researchers suggest. - All countries face the ethical challenge of how to allocate limited supplies of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines - Researchers say that governments should look to human rights principles and commitments to help them decide who should get priority for the first available doses of COVID-19 vaccine. - A human rights approach would include social vulnerability alongside medical vulnerability in decision-making because health is affected by social factors. - National vaccine roll-outs should take account of these overlapping vulnerabilities As Governments around the world wrestle with the question of designing ...

Future fully autonomous vehicles will rely on sensors to operate, one type of these sensors is LiDAR LiDAR sensor's effectiveness in detecting objects at a distance in heavy rain decreases, researchers from WMG, University of Warwick have found Researchers used the WMG 3xD simulator to test the sensor detection of objects in rain, simulating real world roads and weather High level autonomous vehicles (AVs) are promised by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and technology companies to improve road safety as well as bringing economical and societal benefits to us all. All high-level AVs rely heavily on sensors, and in the paper, 'Realistic LiDAR with Noise Model for Real-Tim Testing of Automated Vehicles in ...

PITTSBURGH--Babies whose births were depicted in Bollywood films from the 1950s and 60s were more often than not boys; in today's films, boy and girl newborns are about evenly split. In the 50s and 60s, dowries were socially acceptable; today, not so much. And Bollywood's conception of beauty has remained consistent through the years: beautiful women have fair skin. Fans and critics of Bollywood -- the popular name for a $2.1 billion film industry centered in Mumbai, India -- might have some inkling of all this, particularly as movies often reflect changes in the culture. But these insights came via an automated computer analysis designed by Carnegie Mellon University computer ...

Sea turtles are witnesses and victims of the high level of plastic pollution of the Adriatic Sea. A group of researchers at the University of Bologna analysed 45 turtles hospitalised at Fondazione Cetacea in Riccione and found plastic debris in their faeces. Besides confirming the role of turtles as ideal sentinels to monitor plastic pollution in the sea, the results of their analysis - published in the journal Frontiers of Marine Medicine - crucially show how the plastic debris in their intestines can dangerously alter their microbiota, eventually compromising their health. "The results ...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- Research shows that Soldiers exposed to shockwaves from military explosives are at a higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease -- even those that don't have traumatic brain injuries from those blasts. A new Army-funded study identifies how those blasts affect the brain. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in collaboration with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, now known as DEVCOM, the Army Research Laboratory, and the National Institutes of Health found that the mystery behind blast-induced neurological ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The optimal timeframe for donating convalescent plasma for use in COVID-19 immunotherapy, which was given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in August 2020, is within 60 days of the onset of symptoms, according to a new Penn State-led study. The research also reveals that the ideal convalescent plasma donor is a recovered COVID-19 patient who is older than 30 and whose illness had been severe. "Millions of individuals worldwide have recovered from COVID-19 and may be eligible for participation in convalescent plasma donor programs," said Vivek Kapur, professor of microbiology and infectious diseases, Penn State. "Our findings enable identification ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. --Many climate models focus on scenarios decades into the future, making their outcomes seem unreliable and problematic for decision-making in the immediate future. In a proactive move, researchers are using short-term forecasts to stress the urgency of drought risk in the United States and inform policymakers' actions now. A new study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Ximing Cai examines how drought propagates through climate, hydrological, ecological and social systems throughout different U.S. regions. The results are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The same amount of precipitation, or the lack of thereof, in one region could have very different impacts on the hydrologic ...