In the year since the coronavirus pandemic upended how just about every person on the planet interacts with one another, video conferencing has become the de facto tool for group collaboration within many organizations. The prevalent assumption is that technology that helps to mimic face-to-face interactions via a video camera will be most effective in achieving the same results, yet there's little data to actually back up this presumption. Now, a new study challenges this assumption and suggests that non-visual communication methods that better synchronize and boost audio cues are in fact more effective. Synchrony Promotes Collective Intelligence Researchers from Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business and the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa ...

Despite having remarkable utility in treating movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has confounded researchers, with a general lack of understanding of why it works at some frequencies and does not at others. Now a University of Houston biomedical engineer is presenting evidence in Nature Communications Biology that electrical stimulation of the brain at higher frequencies (>100Hz) induces resonating waveforms which can successfully recalibrate dysfunctional circuits causing movement symptoms. "We investigated the modulations in local ?eld potentials induced by electrical stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) at therapeutic and non-therapeutic frequencies in Parkinson's disease patients ...

LA JOLLA--The glow of a panther's eyes in the darkness. The zig-zagging of a shark's dorsal fin above the water. Humans are always scanning the world for threats. We want the chance to react, to move, to call for help, before danger strikes. Our cells do the same thing. The innate immune system is the body's early alert system. It scans cells constantly for signs that a pathogen or dangerous mutation could cause disease. And what does it like to look for? Misplaced genetic material. The building blocks of DNA, called nucleic acids, are supposed to be hidden away in the cell nucleus. Diseases can change that. Viruses churn out genetic material in parts of the cell where it's not supposed to be. Cancer cells do too. "Cancer cells harbor damaged DNA," says ...

New clues to a long-pursued drug target in cancer may reside within immune cells, researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center have discovered. The findings, which appear in Nature Immunology, not only shed new light on cancer immunology, they also suggest clinical trials related to this key target -- an interaction that destabilizes the important p53 tumor suppressor protein -- may unnecessarily be excluding a large number of patients. The researchers are optimistic that the findings could help make immunotherapy treatment more effective against ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Warm river habitats appear to play a larger than expected role supporting the survival of cold-water fish, such as salmon and trout, a new Oregon State University-led study published today found. The research has important implications for fish conservation strategies. A common goal among scientists and policymakers is to identify and prioritize habitat for cold-water fish that remains suitably cool during the summer, especially as the climate warms. This implicitly devalues areas that are seasonally warm, even if they are suitable for fish most of the year, said Jonny Armstrong, lead author of the paper and an ecologist at Oregon State. He called this a "potentially severe blind spot for climate change adaptation." "Coldwater ...

Lithium-ion batteries have made possible the lightweight electronic devices whose portability we now take for granted, as well as the rapid expansion of electric vehicle production. But researchers around the world are continuing to push limits to achieve ever-greater energy densities -- the amount of energy that can be stored in a given mass of material -- in order to improve the performance of existing devices and potentially enable new applications such as long-range drones and robots. One promising approach is the use of metal electrodes in place of the conventional graphite, with a higher charging ...

Many psychiatric disorders have genetic causes, but the exact mechanism of how genes influence higher brain function remains a mystery. A new study provides a map linking the genetic signature of functions across the human brain, a tool that may provide new targets for future treatments. Led by Bratislav Misic, a researcher at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill University, a group of scientists performed machine learning analysis of two Open Science datasets: the gene expression atlas from the Allen Human Brain Atlas and the functional ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Engineers at Duke University have developed an electronics-free, entirely soft robot shaped like a dragonfly that can skim across water and react to environmental conditions such as pH, temperature or the presence of oil. The proof-of-principle demonstration could be the precursor to more advanced, autonomous, long-range environmental sentinels for monitoring a wide range of potential telltale signs of problems. The soft robot is described online March 25 in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems. Soft robots are a growing trend in the industry due to their versatility. Soft parts can handle delicate objects such as biological tissues that metal or ceramic components would damage. Soft bodies can help robots float or squeeze into tight spaces where rigid ...

Lincoln, Neb., March 25, 2021 -- Palm oil, the most important source of vegetable oil in the world, is derived from the fruit of perennial palm trees, which are farmed year-round in mostly tropical areas. The palm fruit is harvested manually every 10 days to two weeks, then transported to a mill for processing, and ultimately exported and made into a dizzying array of products from food to toiletries to biodiesel. "You probably ate palm oil for breakfast," said Patricio Grassini, an associate professor of agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "There is probably palm oil in your ...

Precision genome editing enables the precise modification of DNA in living cells, thus enabling a breadth of opportunities for plant breeding. Prime editors, developed by Prof. David R. Liu and his colleagues, permit the installation of desired edits in a programmable target site. They are comprised of an engineered Cas9 nickase (H840A)-reverse transcriptase (RT) fusion protein and a prime editing guide RNA (pegRNA). Prime editors were previously developed and optimized as an extremely versatile editing strategy for generating programmable point mutations, insertions and deletions in rice and wheat by Prof. GAO Caixia of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have discovered specific regions within the DNA of neurons that accumulate a certain type of damage (called single-strand breaks or SSBs). This accumulation of SSBs appears to be unique to neurons, and it challenges what is generally understood about the cause of DNA damage and its potential implications in neurodegenerative diseases. Because neurons require considerable amounts of oxygen to function properly, they are exposed to high levels of free radicals--toxic compounds that can damage DNA within cells. ...

Fossil remains of the human pelvis are rare because the pelvic bones do not preserve very well. Therefore, it has remained unclear when human sex differences in the pelvis evolved: jointly with upright walking, or later, together with the large human brains. "We have discovered that the pattern of sex differences in the human pelvis is probably much older than previously thought", says evolutionary biologist Barbara Fischer. A team of biologists from the University of Vienna, the KLI for Evolution and Cognition Research, and the University of Calgary compared pelvic sex differences in humans with those in chimpanzees, the most closely-related living species to modern ...

Power converters are the little-known systems that make electricity so magical. They are what allow us to plug in our computers, lamps and televisions and turn them on in a snap. Converters transform the alternating current (AC) that comes out of wall sockets into the exact level of direct current (DC) that our electronics need. But they also tend to lose, in average, up to 20% of their energy in the process. Power converters work by using power transistors - tiny semiconductor components designed to switch on and off and withstand high voltages. Designing novel power transistors to improve the converters' efficiency is the aim of the team of EPFL engineers. With their entirely new transistor design, based on the counterintuitive application ...

University of Texas at Dallas researchers have discovered that a novel surface they developed to harvest water from the air encourages tiny water droplets to move spontaneously into larger droplets. When researchers placed microdroplets of water on their liquid-lubricant surface, the microdroplets propelled themselves to climb, without external force, into larger droplets along an oily, ramp-shaped meniscus that forms from the lubricant around the larger droplets. The "coarsening droplet phenomenon" formed droplets large enough for harvesting. "This meniscus-mediated climbing effect enabled rapid coalescence on hydrophilic ...

The evolving science of wisdom rests on the idea that wisdom's defined traits correspond to distinct regions of the brain, and that greater wisdom translates into greater happiness and life satisfaction while being less wise results in opposite, negative consequences. Scientists have found in multiple studies that persons deemed to be wiser are less prone to feel lonely while those who are lonelier also tend to be less wise. In a new study, published in the March 25, 2021 issue of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine take the connection between wisdom, loneliness ...

An analysis of adult human brain tissue reveals over 900 proteins tied to epilepsy. The brain disorder, estimated to afflict more than 3 million Americans, is mostly known for symptoms of hallucinations, dreamlike states, and uncontrolled, often disabling bodily seizures. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study examined molecular differences among the brains of 14 epilepsy patients and another group of 14 adults of similar age and gender who did not have the disease. Study results showed that altered levels of brain proteins predominated in the hippocampus, a structure located deep inside ...

Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Francis Crick Institute have developed a mass spectrometry-based technique capable of measuring samples containing thousands of proteins within just a few minutes. It is faster and cheaper than a conventional blood count. To demonstrate the technique's potential, the researchers used blood plasma collected from COVID-19 patients. Using the new technology, they identified eleven previously unknown proteins which are markers of disease severity. The work has been published in Nature Biotechnology*. Thousands of proteins are active inside the human body at any given time, providing its structure and enabling reactions which are essential to life. The body raises and lowers the activity ...

Expectant women are more likely to give birth early if they have high blood levels of a chemical used in flame retardants compared with those who have limited exposure, a new study finds. These polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are used in the manufacture of furniture, carpeting, and other products to reduce flammability. Previous studies have found that the substances can leach into household dust and build up in the body where they may interfere with the thyroid, an organ that secretes brain-developing hormones. Childhood exposure to PBDEs has been linked to learning disabilities, autistic ...

Millions of years ago, aphid-like insects called whiteflies incorporated a portion of DNA from plants into their genome. A Chinese research team, publishing March 25th in the journal Cell, reveals that whiteflies use this stolen gene to degrade common toxins plants use to defend themselves against insects, allowing the whitefly to feed on the plants safely. "This seems to be the first recorded example of the horizontal gene transfer of a functional gene from a plant into an insect," says co-author Ted Turlings (@FARCE_lab), a chemical ecologist and entomologist ...

Octopuses are known to sleep and to change color while they do it. Now, a study publishing March 25 in the journal iScience finds that these color changes are characteristic of two major alternating sleep states: an "active sleep" stage and a "quiet sleep" stage. The researchers say that the findings have implications for the evolution of sleep and might indicate that it's possible for octopuses to experience something akin to dreams. Scientists used to think that only mammals and birds had two sleep states. More recently, it was shown that some reptiles also show non-REM and REM sleep. A REM-like sleep state was reported ...

More than half of the opioid tablets prescribed for patients who underwent orthopaedic or urologic procedures went unused in a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Using an automated text messaging system that regularly checked in with patients on their pain and opioid use, the study also showed that most opioids are taken within the first few days following a procedure and may not be necessary to manage pain even just a week following a procedure. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open. "Through simple text messaging we highlight a method which gives clinicians the information they need to reduce prescribing and manage ...

BOSTON - In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have found the new mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to be highly effective in producing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in pregnant and lactating women. They also demonstrated the vaccines confer protective immunity to newborns through breastmilk and the placenta. The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG), looked at 131 women of reproductive age (84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant), ...

Chronic side effects among melanoma survivors after treatment with anti-PD-1 immunotherapies are more common than previously recognized, according to a study published March 25 in JAMA Oncology. The chronic complications, which occurred in 43% of patients, affected the joints and endocrine system most commonly, and less often involved salivary glands, eyes, peripheral nerves and other organs. These complications may be long lasting, with only 14% of cases having been resolved at last follow-up. This finding contrasted with previously reported immunotherapy-related acute complications that affected visceral organs -- including the liver, colon, lungs and kidneys -- which were effectively treated with steroids. However, the vast ...

Pregnant women who consumed the caffeine equivalent of as little as half a cup of coffee a day on average had slightly smaller babies than pregnant women who did not consume caffeinated beverages, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The researchers found corresponding reductions in size and lean body mass for infants whose mothers consumed below the 200 milligrams of caffeine per day--about two cups of coffee--believed to increase risks to the fetus. Smaller birth size can place infants at higher risk of obesity, heart ...

Scientists at the Proteomics Core Unit of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), headed by Javier Muñoz, have described the mechanisms, unknown to date, involved in maintaining embryonic stem cells in the best possible state for their use in regenerative medicine. Their results, published in Nature Communications, will help to find novel stem-cell therapies for brain stroke, heart disease or neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. Naïve pluripotent stem cells, ideal for doing research Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent cells that can grow ...