ITHACA, N.Y. - If you want to build a fully functional nanosized robot, you need to incorporate a host of capabilities, from complicated electronic circuits and photovoltaics to sensors and antennas. But just as importantly, if you want your robot to move, you need it to be able to bend. Cornell researchers have created micron-sized shape memory actuators that enable atomically thin two-dimensional materials to fold themselves into 3D configurations. All they require is a quick jolt of voltage. And once the material is bent, it holds its shape - even after the voltage is removed. As a demonstration, the team created what ...

The coronavirus' structure is an all-too-familiar image, with its densely packed surface receptors resembling a thorny crown. These spike-like proteins latch onto healthy cells and trigger the invasion of viral RNA. While the virus' geometry and infection strategy is generally understood, little is known about its physical integrity. A new study by researchers in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering suggests that coronaviruses may be vulnerable to ultrasound vibrations, within the frequencies used in medical diagnostic imaging. Through computer simulations, the team has modeled the virus' mechanical response to vibrations across a range of ultrasound ...

A new study has found that about 35% of Americans with a cancer history had an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease in the next decade, compared with about 23% of those who didn't have cancer. Based on a risk calculator that estimates a person's 10-year chances of developing heart disease or stroke, researchers from The Ohio State University found that the average estimated 10-year risk for a cancer survivor was about 8%, compared to 5% for those who didn't have a history of cancer. The new study appears in the journal PLOS ONE. "We know that obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease share some common risk factors, and in addition to those shared risk factors, cancer patients also receive treatments including radiation and chemotherapy that can affect their cardiovascular ...

Many people have never heard of Brucellosis, but farmers and ranchers in the United States forced to cull animals that test positive for the disease and people infected by the animal-transmitted Brucella abortus (B. abortus) pathogen that suffer chronic, Malaria-type symptoms, certainly have. Brucellosis is an agricultural and human health concern on a global scale. It was introduced over 100 years ago to Bison and elk in Yellowstone National Park by cattle and has been circulating among the wild herds ever since, leading to periodic outbreaks and reinfection. There is no vaccine for humans, and experimental studies ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (March 16, 2021) -- Older age at the time of conception and alcohol consumption during pregnancy have long been known to impact fetal development. Now, a new report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests older age and alcohol consumption in the year leading up to conception also may have an impact by epigenetically altering a specific gene during development of human eggs, or oocytes. Although the study did not determine the ultimate physical effects of this change, it provides important insights into the intricate relationship between environmental exposures, genetic regulation and human development. "While the outcome of the change isn't clear, our findings give us a valuable look into ...

BOSTON - March 16, 2021 - The fast-spreading UK, South Africa, and Brazil coronavirus variants are raising both concerns and questions about whether COVID-19 vaccines will protect against them. New work led by Bing Chen, PhD, at Boston Children's Hospital analyzed how the structure of the coronavirus spike proteins changes with the D614G mutation -- carried by all three variants -- and showed why these variants are able to spread more quickly. The team reports its findings in Science (March 16, 2020). Chen's team imaged the spikes with cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and their partners from Clemson University have discovered a green, low-energy process to break down polystyrene, a type of plastic that is widely used in foam packaging materials, disposable food containers, cutlery, and many other applications. Polystyrene is part of a much larger global plastic waste problem. Hundreds of millions metric tons of polymers are produced each year, a large majority of which is discarded after use. Due to the chemical stability and durability of industrial polymers, plastic waste does not easily degrade in landfills and is often burned, which produces carbon dioxide and other hazardous gases. ...

Combining tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, scientists have fabricated a series of heart valve replacements with the ability to incorporate host cells, enabling them to regenerate and grow over time. The valves expanded and maintained their function for a year when implanted into growing lambs, suggesting they could address the dire need for a long-term valve replacement for children with congenital heart disorders. These pediatric patients depend on mechanical or prosthetic heart valves for survival, but current devices often calcify over time and cannot grow alongside the ...

WASHINGTON-- The stormy, centuries-old maelstrom of Jupiter's Great Red Spot was shaken but not destroyed by a series of anticyclones that crashed into it over the past few years. The smaller storms cause chunks of red clouds to flake off, shrinking the larger storm in the process. But the new study found that these disruptions are "superficial." They are visible to us, but they are only skin deep on the Red Spot, not affecting its full depth. The new study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, AGU's journal for research on the formation and evolution of the planets, moons and objects of our solar system and beyond. "The intense vorticity of the [Great Red Spot], together with its larger size and depth compared to the interacting vortices, ...

Toronto, ON -A new study published in the journal Substance Use and Misuse has found that adverse childhood experiences, such as physical and sexual abuse and neglect, predict greater performance-enhancing substance use in young adults. Analyzing a sample of over 14,000 U.S. young adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, researchers found that adverse childhood experiences are strongly associated with both legal (e.g., creatine monohydrate) and illegal (e.g., anabolic-androgenic steroids) performance-enhancing substance use. This relationship was especially strong among individuals who experienced ...

(March 17, 2021) -- Eric Shattuck, assistant professor of research in the UTSA Institute for Health Disparities Research (IHDR) at The University of Texas at San Antonio, is studying the phenomenon of social distancing in response to infectious disease and its effects on pathogen transmission and the health of individuals and communities. Many animals, including humans, exhibit behavioral changes during the early stages of an infection, including reduced social contacts, called sickness behavior. His findings suggest innate social distancing might help prevent the infection ...

Gun violence in popular prime-time broadcast television dramas has increased steadily over almost two decades, a trend that parallels the rise in U.S. homicide deaths attributable to firearms, according to research by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. Overall gun violence on popular prime-time dramas doubled from 2000 through 2018, according to the study, which was published in PLOS ONE. More important, gun violence as a proportion of the violence depicted in the shows rose significantly as well. "Our research found that gun use substantially increased from 2000 to 2018 on prime-time ...

A study led by researchers at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering provides new insights for developing therapies for muscle disease, injury and atrophy. By studying how different pluripotent stem cell lines build muscle, researchers have for the first time discovered how epigenetic mechanisms can be triggered to accelerate muscle cell growth at different stages of stem cell differentiation. The findings were published Mar. 17 in Science Advances. "Stem cell-based approaches that have the potential to aid muscle regeneration and growth would improve the quality of life for many people, from children ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Pharmacogenomics is a valuable tool for health care providers to help prescribe the right drug for the right patient to enhance efficacy and avoid side effects. A new research paper funded in part by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) shows a clear advantage of genetic testing in helping health care providers choose the appropriate anti-platelet drug. Testing helps determine if a patient carries genetic variants in CYP2C19 that cause loss of its function. These variants interfere with the body's ability to metabolize and activate clopidogrel, an anti-platelet medication. Anti-platelet drugs are given to prevent complications from blood clotting after a procedure to open clogged arteries. These patients can use one of ...

While scientists have known that creatures may adjust the timing of their daily routines based on starvation and predation, these shifts have only previously been measured based on data from a population at a single point in time. Now, using data collected as 71 elephant seals undertook their foraging migrations across the North Pacific Ocean, researchers report a view of how these animals divide their time between light and darkness to optimize tradeoffs between risks and rewards based on 7 months of data per seal, collected between 2004 and 2012. Their findings refute a hypothesis about how seals prioritize feeding. To better understand how seals divide their time between light ...

The giraffe is a truly puzzling animal. With its exceptional anatomy and suite of evolutionary adaptations, the giraffe is an outstanding case of animal evolution and physiology. Now, an international team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Northwestern Polytechnical University in China have produced a high-quality genome from the giraffe and investigated which genes are likely to be responsible for its unique biological features. The extraordinary stature of the giraffe has led to a long list of physiological co-adaptations. The blood pressure of the giraffe, for instance, is twice as high as in humans and ...

Washington, DC-- Algae colonizing dead coral are upending scientists' ability to accurately assess the health of a coral reef community, according to new work from a team of marine science experts led by Carnegie's Manoela Romanó de Orte and Ken Caldeira. Their findings are published in Limnology and Oceanography. Corals are marine invertebrates that build tiny exoskeletons, which accumulate to form giant coral reefs. Widely appreciated for their beauty, these reefs are havens for biodiversity and crucial for the economies of many coastal communities. But they are endangered by ocean warming, seawater ...

Information on individuals' mobility--where they go as measured by their smartphones--has been used widely in devising and evaluating ways to respond to COVID-19, including how to target public health resources. Yet little attention has been paid to how reliable these data are and what sorts of demographic bias they possess. A new study tested the reliability and bias of widely used mobility data, finding that older and non-White voters are less likely to be captured by these data. Allocating public health resources based on such information could cause disproportionate harms to high-risk elderly and minority groups. The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Stanford University, appears in the Proceedings of the ...

Oncotarget published "Genomic and neoantigen evolution from primary tumor to first metastases in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma" which reported that prior work has characterized changes in the mutation burden between primary and recurrent tumors; however, little work has characterized the changes in neoantigen evolution. These authors characterized genomic and neoantigen changes between 23 paired primary and recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) tumors. Within these tumors, they identified 6 genes which have predicted neoantigens in 4 or more patients. Within HNSCC tumors examined in this Oncotarget ...

A sustainable, powerful micro-supercapacitor may be on the horizon, thanks to an international collaboration of researchers from Penn State and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. Until now, the high-capacity, fast-charging energy storage devices have been limited by the composition of their electrodes -- the connections responsible for managing the flow of electrons during charging and dispensing energy. Now, researchers have developed a better material to improve connectivity while maintaining recyclability and low cost. ...

(BOSTON) ¬-- Human cells typically transcribe half of their roughly 20,000 genes into RNA molecules at any given time. Just like with proteins, the function of those RNA species not only relies on their abundance but also their precise localization within the 3D space of each cell. Many RNA molecules convey gene information from the cell's nucleus to the protein-synthesizing machinery distributed throughout the cytoplasm (messenger RNAs or mRNAs), others are components of that machinery itself, while still different ones regulate genes and their expression, or have functions that remain to be discovered. Importantly, many diseases including cancer and neurological diseases have signatures that appear as changes in the abundance and distribution of RNAs. To enable the analysis ...

DALLAS - March 17, 2021 - UT Southwestern researchers have identified the structure of a key member of a family of proteins called nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in three different shapes. The work, published online today in Cell, could eventually lead to new pharmaceutical treatments for a large range of diseases or infections including schizophrenia, lung cancer, and even COVID-19. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are members of a broader super-family of proteins called Cys-loop receptors that function as ion channels on cell surfaces and are found in the membranes of many cell types. When the right molecule settles ...

From climate change and carbon emissions to biodiversity and global hunger, humanity faces so many challenges that tackling them quickly is a daunting task. One solution that potentially addresses multiple issues could provide the impetus society needs to make significant progress. An international team of 26 authors, including six at UC Santa Barbara, has just published a study in the prestigious journal Nature offering a combined solution to several of humanity's most pressing challenges. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date of where strict ocean protection can contribute ...

BOSTON - There are several effective interventions to reduce the risk of suicide, the tenth-leading cause of death in the United States, but difficulties in identifying people at risk for suicide and concerns about the potentially high costs of suicide-prevention strategies have hampered their wider use. But as researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) demonstrate, statistical suicide risk prevention models could be implemented cost-effectively in U.S. health care systems and might help save many lives each year. By evaluating data on the incidence of suicide and suicide attempts, the costs to society and the health care system of suicide, and the cost and effectiveness of suicide risk-reduction interventions, Eric ...

Increased global temperatures help invasive species establish themselves in ecosystems, new research led by a Swansea University bioscientist has shown. The study, published by the Royal Society, gives an insight into the probable combined effects of species invasions, which are becoming more common, and global warming. Climate warming and biological invasions result in the loss of species. They also alter the structure of ecosystems and the ways in which species interact. While there is already extensive research on how climate change and invasions affect ...