Our immune system is very successful when it comes to warding off viruses and bacteria. It also recognizes cancer cells as potential enemies and fights them. However, cancer cells have developed strategies to evade surveillance by the immune system and to prevent immune response. In recent years, fighting cancer with the help of the immune system has entered into clinical practice and gained increasing importance as a therapeutical approach. Current therapies apply so-called immune checkpoint inhibitors. Immune checkpoints are located on the surface ...

A single-celled alga undergoes genome surgery to remove non-essential parts. This can lead to a most efficient cellular factory for producing sustainable biofuels from sunlight and carbon dioxide. Researchers from the Qingdao Institute of BioEnergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have stripped hundred-kilobase genome from a type of oil-producing microalgae, knocking out genes non-essential for it to function. By doing so, they have created a "genome scalpel" that can trim microalgal genomes rapidly and creatively. The 'minimal genome' microalgae produced is potentially useful as a model organism for further study of the molecular and biological function of every gene, or as a 'chassis' strain for synthetic biologists to augment for customized ...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Methane hydrate, an ice-like material made of compressed natural gas, burns when lit and can be found in some regions of the seafloor and in Arctic permafrost. Thought to be the world's largest source of natural gas, methane hydrate is a potential fuel source, and if it "melts" and methane gas is released into the atmosphere, it is a potent greenhouse gas. For these reasons, knowing where methane hydrate might be located, and how much is likely there, is important. A team of researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have developed a new system to model the likelihood of finding methane ...

Cutting-edge 3D scanners have been put to the test by researchers from the University of Southampton and partners Exceed Worldwide to help increase the quality and quantity of prosthetics services around the world. The study, carried out within the END ...

A team of scientists led by Dietmar Krautwurst from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now identified address codes in odorant receptor proteins for the first time. Similar to zip codes, the codes ensure that the sensor proteins are targeted from inside the cell to the cell surface, where they begin their work as odorant detectors. The new findings could contribute to the development of novel test systems with which the odorant profiles of foods can be analyzed in a high-throughput process and thus could be better controlled. The ...

Alchemy, which attempted to turn cheap metals such as lead and copper into gold, has not yet succeeded. However, with the development of alloys in which two or three auxiliary elements are mixed with the best elements of the times, modern alchemy can produce high-tech metal materials with high strength, such as high entropy alloys. Now, together with artificial intelligence, the era of predicting the crystal structure of high-tech materials has arrived without requiring repetitive experiments. A joint research team of Professor Ji Hoon Shim and Dr. Taewon Jin (first author, currently at KAIST) of POSTECH's Department of Chemistry, and Professor Jaesik Park of POSTECH Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence have together developed a system that predicts ...

TROY, N.Y. -- Numeric anchoring is a long-established technique of marketing communication. Once a price is mentioned, that number serves as the basis for -- or "anchors" -- all future discussions and decisions. But new research shows that this phenomenon is not limited to decisions that involve numbers, the use and understanding of which require high-level cognitive thinking. Anchoring also biases judgments at relatively low levels of cognition when no numbers are involved. In research recently published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Gaurav Jain, an assistant professor in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, demonstrated that anchoring even occurs in perceptual domains, ...

Chemists all over the world are constantly searching for simple ways to make elemental nitrogen or N2 in the air available for chemical reactions. This is no easy task, as nitrogen is a particularly non-reactive gas with a triple bond, which is one of the strongest known chemical bonds. A research team at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has now demonstrated that calcium, a metal commonly found in nature, is able to break the highly-stable nitrogen bond and can do so at minus 60°C. This is significant for two reasons. On the one hand, the researchers at FAU have made a new discovery in terms of the bond-breaking capabilities of calcium, which had been largely disregarded in the past. On ...

The snow may be melting, but it is leaving pollution behind in the form of micro- and nano-plastics according to a McGill study that was recently published in Environmental Pollution. The pollution is largely due to the relatively soluble plastics found in antifreeze products (polyethylene glycols) that can become airborne and picked up by the snow. The researchers used a new technique that they have developed to analyze snow samples collected in April 2019 in Montreal for both micro- and nano-sized particles of various plastics. The McGill technique is orders of magnitude more sensitive than any of the other current methods used for tracing plastic in the environment. It ...

Researchers at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine have found evidence that two types of mouthwash disrupt the COVID-19 virus under laboratory conditions, preventing it from replicating in a human cell. The study, published in the journal Pathogens, found that Listerine and the prescription mouthwash Chlorhexidine disrupted the virus within seconds after being diluted to concentrations that would mimic actual use. Further studies are needed to test real-life efficacy in humans. The study was conducted in a lab using concentrations of the mouthwash ...

A study published March 16 in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) confirms that neither vitamin D nor the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil prevent the development of atrial fibrillation (AF), a potentially serious heart rhythm disturbance. The newly published research follows a presentation made by Christine Albert, MD, MPH, at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions last year. In their JAMA analysis, Albert and her research team also examined whether vitamin D or omega-3 fatty acids might have an impact on paroxysmal versus persistent atrial ...

Millimetre and terahertz wave detectors have a wide range of applications in areas such as communications, security, biological diagnosis, spectroscopy, and remote sensing. They are the components that can transform light information loaded by long-wavelength millimetre and terahertz waves into electrical signals. High-performance room-temperature detectors with high sensitivity, fast response, broad spectral bandwidth, and possibility to be extended to large format arrays are always pursued. They are the building blocks for a wide range of millimetre ...

Singapore, 17 March 2021 - Healthy and cancer cells can look similar under a microscope. One way of differentiating them is by examining the level of acidity, or pH level, inside the cells. Tapping on this distinguishing characteristic, a research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a technique that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine whether a single cell is healthy or cancerous by analysing its pH. Each cancer test can be completed in under 35 minutes, and single cells can be classified with an accuracy rate of more than 95 per cent. The research, led by Professor Lim Chwee Teck, Director of the Institute for Health Innovation ...

A 2020 explosion in Lebanon's port city of Beirut led to a southward-bound, high-velocity atmospheric wave that rivaled ones generated by volcanic eruptions. Just after 6 p.m. local time (15.00 UTC) on August 4, 2020, more than 2,750 tons worth of unsafely stored ammonium nitrate exploded in Lebanon's port city of Beirut, killing around 200 people, making more than 300,000 temporarily homeless, and leaving a 140-metre-diameter crater in its wake. The blast is considered one of the most powerful non-nuclear, man-made explosions in human history. Now, calculations by Hokkaido University scientists in Japan have found that the atmospheric ...

PHILADEPHIA - Since the 1990s the rate of spinal fusion to treat lower back pain has been on the rise. A new prospective clinical study published in the journal Neurosurgery, the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, found that lumbar fusions were three times more likely to be effective and obtain better patient outcomes, when guidelines for fusion were followed. The results suggest that when surgeons operate outside of what the evidence based literature suggests, patients may not have significant improvements in their quality of life and could have increased pain or other limitations. "Unfortunately, we don't know how many lumbar fusion surgeries are ...

Philadelphia, March 17, 2021 - Researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) affiliated with the CHOP Epilepsy Neurogenetics Initiative (ENGIN) have compiled a complete genetic and clinical analysis of more than 400 individuals with SCN2A-related disorder, which has been linked to a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders, including epilepsy and autism. By linking clinical features to genetic abnormalities in a standardized format, the researchers hope their findings lead to improved identification and clinical intervention. The study was published ...

A groundbreaking study has given new insights into how copper deposit-forming fluids are transported naturally from their source deep underground towards the Earth's surface. A team of geologists, led by Lawrence Carter from the University of Exeter's Camborne School of Mines, has published a new theory for how porphyry copper deposits form. Porphyry deposits provide around 75 per cent of the world's copper which is in increasing demand for electric vehicles, power infrastructure and green technologies such as wind turbines. They originally develop several kilometres below the Earth's surface above large magma chambers. Not only are porphyry deposits rare but most large near-surface examples have already been ...

A world-first 'flow model' devised by Australian researchers could drastically slash public transport commuter times during peak periods on some of the busiest roads in major cities, new research shows. When this flow model was implemented to improve the worst traffic bottlenecks across Melbourne, commuters saved close to 2000 hours of travel time during a single morning peak period (7am-9am) and approximately 11,000 hours of passenger travel time during a normal weekday. Ameliorating major traffic bottlenecks also contributed to a more than 23 per cent improvement in reliability of Melbourne's public transport network, ...

OSAKA, Japan. Quantum computers have seen a lot attention recently as they are expected to solve certain problems that are outside the capabilities of normal computers. Primary to these problems is determining the electronic states of atoms and molecules so they can be used more effectively in a variety of industries - from lithium-ion battery designs to in silico technologies in drug development. A common way scientists have approached this problem is by calculating the total energies of the individual states of a molecule or atom and then determine the difference in energy between these states. In nature, many molecules grow in size and complexity, and the cost to calculate this constant flux is beyond the capability of any traditional ...

High-power laser diode (LD) driven solid-state lighting can generate super-high luminance far exceeding the state-of-art light-emitting diodes (LEDs) source by factors of 2-10, enabling it particularly attractive for automotive headlamp, outdoor lighting, multimedia projectors, laser TVs and so on. Whereas, the thermal shock of laser is extreme, and under intense laser excitation, traditional LEDs phosphor would suffer from luminescence degradation or even failure due to the luminescence saturation. Aiming to overcome this deficiency, highly efficient and stable luminescence bulk phosphors including single crystal, polycrystalline ceramic phosphor and glass ceramic composite phosphor ...

Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) is emitted during plant photosynthesis. SIF results from vegetation chlorophyll giving off red and infrared light wavelengths when excited by solar radiation. Measuring SIF is important because it is closely related to the terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP), which calculates the total amount of carbon dioxide fixed through photosynthesis in a given area. According to many laboratory and field experiments, studies show that SIF can effectively improve estimations of GPP, which is necessary for global carbon sink research and carbon mitigation strategies. China has committed to carbon neutrality by 2060. Technological upgrades and energy structure adjustments through the next four decades will be vital to reducing carbon ...

This is a landmark study in so far as being the first to raise the alarm that, despite early successes with Covid-19 vaccines, further research is warranted on a next generation of Covid-19 vaccines. The results from this study, however, only indicate that the AstraZeneca vaccine does not have at least 60% efficacy against mild-moderate Covid-19 due to the B.1.351 (N501Y.V2) variant. Based on a broader body of evidence, the World Health Organization recommends that this vaccine still be deployed in countries where the B.1.351 variant circulates, as it likely still protects against severe ...

Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues from Hadassah Medical Center have developed hybrid nanostructured particles that can be magnetically guided to the tumor, tracked by their fluorescence and pushed to release the drug on demand by ultrasound. This technology can help make cancer chemotherapy more targeted. The paper was published in the journal Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces.Current treatments for cancer include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation, and surgery, but these are often not selective enough to target just the tumor ...

The diesel engine is the backbone of transportation due to its irreplaceability as the primary power source for the freight, navigation and marine engine industries and non-road engineering machinery for the foreseeable future. However, the control of contaminants from fuel combustion has become an urgent global concern. Nitrogen oxides are the primary pollutants from transportation and can contribute to the formation of haze, photochemical smog and acid rain. Selective catalytic reduction of NOx with ammonia (NH3-SCR) technology has been successfully and commercially applied for controlling pollution from diesel vehicle exhaust. The development of ...

Electronic organic materials offer promise to support alternative and green energy sources to meet escalating global energy demands and strict environmental regulations. A KAUST-led team has now developed electron-transporting, so-called n-type, organic semiconductors that could help generate electricity from waste heat released by industrial processes and homes. Thermoelectric generators that can convert temperature changes or gradients into electricity are highly suited for harnessing waste heat. These readily scalable devices are environmentally friendly and do not have any moving parts, which makes them ...