Enzymes are the molecule factories in biological cells. However, which basic molecular building blocks they use to assemble target molecules is often unknown and difficult to measure. An international team including bioinformaticians from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has now taken an important step forward in this regard: Their AI method predicts with a high degree of accuracy whether an enzyme can work with a specific substrate. They now present their results in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Enzymes are important biocatalysts in all living cells: They facilitate chemical reactions, through which all molecules ...

Minecraft is officially the most played video game in history. Despite been 12 years old, the public does not seem to have lost interest: over 175 million people play Minecraft at least once a month. The number of players of this open-world or sandbox building game, which provides virtually unlimited possibilities for creation, keeps growing, and this is to a great extent thanks to its educational potential. According to Microsoft data, Minecraft Education Edition has over 35 million game licences. And this is just one of the many ways in which it can be ...

The Clinical Hospital of Emergency Services, a municipal hospital serving the community of Dnipro, in Ukraine, is the first in the country to take part in the American College of Cardiology’s Global Quality Solutions program. The hospital joins the program in an effort to improve heart attack care by reducing heart attack related deaths and saving lives in their community. “When the war started, myself and others on my team decided to stay at work to do our best to help our people, soldiers, neighbors and relatives to survive. But we decided it was not enough to only maintain, but that ...

They published their work in Energy Material Advances. "The investigation of MXene/MOF hybrid materials with high electrochemical performance is important," said paper author Huan Pang, professor with the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University. "Currently, MXene/MOF hybrid materials have received increasing attention in energy-related fields." Pang explained the motivations for designing MXene/MOF hybrid materials. Firstly, MXenes with numerous negatively charged surface groups can be employed as a valid substrate to support the growth of MOFs, thus not ...

Plants show enormous variety in traits relevant to breeding, such as plant height, yield and resistance to pests. One of the greatest challenges in modern plant research is to identify the differences in genetic information that are responsible for this variation. A research team led by the "Crop Yield" working group at the Institute for Molecular Physiology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the Carnegie Institution of Science at Stanford has now developed a method to identify precisely these special differences in genetic information. Using the example of maize, they demonstrate the great potential of their method in the journal Genome Biology and present ...

Along with sugar reallocation, a basic molecular mechanism within plants controls the formation of new lateral roots. An international team of plant biologists has demonstrated that it is based on the activity of a certain factor, the target of rapamycin (TOR) protein. A better understanding of the processes that regulate root branching at the molecular level could contribute to improving plant growth and therefore crop yields, according to research team leader Prof. Dr Alexis Maizel of the Centre for Organismal Studies at Heidelberg University. Good root growth ensures that plants can absorb sufficient ...

Prague, Czechia – 22 May 2023:  Heart failure patients are at increased risk of dying from their condition on polluted days and up to two days afterwards, according to research presented today at Heart Failure 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 “The findings indicate that reducing air pollution has the potential to prevent worsening heart failure,” said study author Dr. Lukasz Kuzma of the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland. “Protecting ...

They published their work on May. 15 in Energy Material Advances.   "With lead-halide perovskites reaching a mature research stage approaching product marketing, concerns remain about the materials' stability and the toxicity of lead-based salts." said paper author Hongwei Song, professor at College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University. Double perovskites with Cs2AgInCl6 composition, often doped with various elements, have been in the spotlight owing to their intriguing optical properties, namely, ...

San Antonio, Texas – May 22 ,2023 – The ROS-Industrial Americas Consortium, a project dedicated to advancing open-source robotics for manufacturing and industry, will celebrate its 10th anniversary on May 25 at its annual meeting in Detroit. The event will correspond with the Automate 2023 show, the largest automation showcase in North America, creating an exciting atmosphere for ROS-Industrial members to reflect on the organization’s history while also setting the stage for innovation in the years to come. The ROS-Industrial open-source project began as a collaboration among Yaskawa Motoman Robotics, Southwest Research Institute ...

The lack of a single communication standard among drone makers has made it difficult for information to be shared between drones, but a Korean research team has found a solution. The Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced that four contributions related to the ‘Unmanned Aircraft Area Network’ were established as international standards at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO*) meeting in Vienna, Austria. * ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6(communication and information exchange between systems) The technology ...

Prague, Czechia – 22 May 2023:  The diagnosis of  heart failure is usually missed, denying patients treatments that could improve wellbeing and reduce mortality. That’s the finding from a late breaking science presentation today at Heart Failure 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 “For patients with heart failure, lifestyle advice, medicines and devices can improve symptoms, reduce morbidity and prolong life but this requires someone ...

Bribery is among the most recognizable forms of corruption, and new research is shedding light on personality traits that could deter this behavior. Guilt-prone people are less likely to accept bribes, particularly when the act would cause obvious harm to other people. The research, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, contributes to a growing body of literature on individual differences in corrupt behaviors. “Our results have important implications for current world events, particularly in the realm of politics and governance where corruption and bribery are major concerns,” says author Prof. Xiaolin Zhou, of East China Normal University. “More ...

Washington, DC – A compound called honokiol, which is found in the bark of multiple species of magnolia tree, inhibits replication of SARS-CoV-2 virus in several types of cells, according to a team of researchers in the Netherlands. The research is published in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.  The researchers found that Honokiol inhibits replication of SARS-CoV-2 in several cell types, causing production of infectious SARS-CoV-2 particles in treated cells to fall to around 1,000th of the previous level.  The compound also inhibited replication of other highly pathogenic human coronaviruses, including MERS- ...

Every year more than one million people receive a pacemaker. Until now, leadless versions were only available for 20% of these patients. However, thanks to an international consortium led by Amsterdam UMC, an improved version will soon be available for all patients. The results of this clinical trial are, today, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Research from Amsterdam UMC has succeeded in further revolutionising the wireless pacemaker. The improved version can now be placed in both the atrium and the ventricle of ...

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) researchers have flipped the script on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) genetics. Scientists long thought that siblings born with ASD share more of their mother’s genome than their father’s. But CSHL Associate Professor Ivan Iossifov and Professor Michael Wigler have now shown that, in many cases, it’s dad who might be playing a bigger genetic role. Autism spectrum disorders cover a range of neurological and developmental conditions. They can affect how a person communicates, socializes, learns, and behaves. ASD may also manifest as repetitive behaviors ...

Prague, Czechia – 22 May 2023:  Women are more than twice as likely to die after a heart attack than men, according to research presented today at Heart Failure 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 “Women of all ages who experience a myocardial infarction are at particularly high risk of a poor prognosis,” said study author Dr. Mariana Martinho of Hospital Garcia de Orta, Almada, Portugal. “These women need regular monitoring after their heart event, with strict control of blood pressure, ...

Physicians and scientists from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center will discuss the latest research and clinical trial results on combination therapies for breast cancer, a potential new treatment for patients with recurrent glioma, and advances in PSMA PET guided radiotherapy for patients with prostate cancer, among other topics, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting. At this year’s scientific forum, Dr. Dennis Slamon, chair of hematology-oncology and director of clinical ...

Virginia Tech researchers with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have joined a Children’s National Hospital effort to treat deadly brain tumors with ultrahigh frequency sound waves. The scientists are studying how to use an emerging technology called focused ultrasound to fight diffuse midline glioma (DMG), one of the most lethal childhood brain cancers with a nearly 100 percent rate of mortality within five years of diagnosis. A multi-institutional team led by Javad Nazarian, a principal investigator with Children’s National Hospital, will study how to use focused ultrasound to create ...

An international team has used satellite- and ground-based ionospheric observations to demonstrate that an air pressure wave triggered by volcanic eruptions could produce an equatorial plasma bubble (EPB) in the ionosphere, severely disrupting satellite-based communications. Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.  The ionosphere is the region of the Earth's upper atmosphere where molecules and atoms are ionized by solar radiation, creating positively charged ions. The area with the highest concentration of ionized particles is called the F-region, an area 150 to 800 km above the Earth's surface. The F-region plays ...

Investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai found that women who experience an adverse pregnancy outcome—such as gestational hypertension, preeclampsia or preterm birth—have a higher risk of developing stroke in their lifetime, and at a younger age. The findings, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Stroke, also found that compared to women with one uncomplicated pregnancy, a woman who had two or more pregnancies impacted by an adverse pregnancy outcome had a twofold higher increase of stroke. “We understand from past studies in the U.S. that women have a greater risk of experiencing a stroke and a disproportionate ...

Snow is melting earlier, and more rain is falling instead of snow in the mountain ranges of the Western U.S. and Canada, leading to a leaner snowpack that could impact agriculture, wildfire risk and municipal water supplies come summer, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder. Published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, the study documents more than 60 years of change in snowpack water storage across Western North America. It found that from 1950 to 2013, snowpack water storage ...

Study’s findings may help inform tobacco cessation support efforts. In a recent study, current smoking and vaping were associated with a higher burden of symptoms among adult cancer survivors, but these symptoms were not related to survivors’ desire to quit smoking. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Continued smoking after a cancer diagnosis lowers survival rates, increases the likelihood of additional cancers, and decreases the effectiveness ...

Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Tohoku University, Fujitsu Limited, and RIKEN today announced that they will embark on the research and development of a distributed training of Large Language Models (LLM) [1]on supercomputer Fugaku in May 2023, within the scope of the initiatives for use of Fugaku defined by Japanese policy. LLMs are AI models for deep learning that serve as the core of generative AI including ChatGPT[2]. The four organizations aim to improve the environment for creating LLMs that can be widely used by academia and companies, contribute to improving the research capabilities of AI in Japan, and increase the value of utilizing Fugaku in both ...

Despite our understanding of nutrition expanding remarkably in recent times, few aspects of our diet continue to confuse and divide the experts like nitrate.   For a long time nitrate has been viewed warily, with previous research showing it could potentially be linked to causing cancer.   However, subsequent research has revealed dietary nitrate also has various cardiovascular health benefits, which could help reduce the risk of related conditions such as heart disease, dementia and diabetes.   So, how can one dietary compound have such contrasting potential risks and benefits?   Edith Cowan University’s (ECU) Nutrition and Health ...

Increasingly, social robots are being used for support in educational contexts. But does the sound of a social robot affect how well they perform, especially when dealing with teams of humans? Teamwork is a key factor in human creativity, boosting collaboration and new ideas. Danish scientists set out to understand whether robots using a voice designed to sound charismatic would be more successful as team creativity facilitators. “We had a robot instruct teams of students in a creativity task. The robot ...