Recently published in PeerJ Life and Environment, researchers successfully use aircraft surveys with novel instrumentation to capture airborne nucleic acids and probe biodiversity in the atmosphere, uncovering surprising findings. [Clemson, May 2023] - A groundbreaking research article titled "Aircraft Surveys for Air eDNA: Probing Biodiversity in the Sky" unveils a revolutionary approach to studying genetic material in the atmosphere. Scientists have developed a durable and sterilizable probe and supporting system to capture air environmental nucleic acids (eDNA) with full-flow filtration and a high-integrity chamber. Using this innovative probe, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – A Cornell University-led experiment in which two people play a modified version of Tetris revealed that players who get fewer turns perceived the other player as less likable, regardless of whether a person or an algorithm allocated the turns. Most studies on algorithmic fairness focus on the algorithm or the decision itself, but researchers sought to explore the relationships among the people affected by the decisions. “We are starting to see a lot of situations in which AI makes decisions on how resources should be distributed among people,” ...

The cerebellum, a major part of the hindbrain in all vertebrates, is important for motor coordination, language acquisition, and regulating social and emotional behaviors. A study led by Dr. Roy Sillitoe, professor of Pathology and Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital, shows two distinct types of cerebellar neurons differentially regulate motor and non-motor behaviors during development and in adulthood. The study, published in Nature Communications, provides the first in ...

No one will ever be able to see a purely mathematical construct such as a perfect sphere. But now, scientists using supercomputer simulations and atomic resolution microscopes have imaged the signatures of electron orbitals, which are defined by mathematical equations of quantum mechanics and predict where an atom’s electron is most likely to be.  Scientists at UT Austin, Princeton University, and ExxonMobil have directly observed the signatures of electron orbitals in two different transition-metal atoms, iron (Fe) and cobalt ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Investors in commercial real estate are rethinking the values of coastal properties exposed to flood risk — even in northern U.S. locales that haven’t suffered flood damage, according to researchers. This shift in perspective has implications for investors and developers alike as they determine the value of coastal properties amid a changing climate.   Eva Steiner, associate professor of real estate and King Family Early Career Professor in Real Estate in the Penn State Smeal College of Business, and her co-authors published these findings recently in Real Estate Economics.  Steiner and ...

Chao Luo, Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, is set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "Collaborative Research: Catholyte Molecular Design For Non-Aqueous Mg-Organic Hybrid Redox Flow Batteries." Luo is proposing a new organic molecule structure design concept for redox flow batteries, which are promising for grid-scale energy storage. The research outcomes will afford low-cost, abundant, sustainable, and high-performance organic catholyte materials for non-aqueous Mg-organic hybrid redox flow batteries.   His goal is to design, synthesize, and characterize core-shell ...

Samuel Clowes Huneke, Assistant Professor, History and Art History, has been awarded a Sharon Abramson Research Grant from the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University. The award will enable him to complete research for his forthcoming book on lesbians in Nazi Germany.  For many decades after the end of World War II, the fates of queer women were ignored. Because female homosexuality had not been criminalized explicitly, historians long argued that lesbians were not persecuted by the Nazi regime.   In contrast, Huneke’s book, which is under advanced contract with Aevo-University of Toronto Press, argues that queer women under Nazism faced ...

Researchers from Stockholm University have developed porous crystals made from pomegranate extract to capture and degrade pharmaceutical molecules found in local municipal wastewater. The research is published in the scientific journal Nature Water. Pharmaceutical compounds affect the human body to improve our health, but they can also have unintentional adverse effects for the wellbeing of wildlife. Hence wastewater treatment plants are facing the challenge of removing emerging organic contaminants (EOCs) such as active pharmaceutical ingredients, and therefore ...

About 100 million years ago, a group of trendsetting moths started flying during the day rather than at night, taking advantage of nectar-rich flowers that had co-evolved with bees. This single event led to the evolution of all butterflies. Scientists have known the precise timing of this event since 2019, when a large-scale analysis of DNA discounted an earlier hypothesis that pressure from bats prompted the evolution of butterflies after the extinction of dinosaurs. Now, scientists have discovered where the first butterflies originated ...

Because serotonin is one of the primary chemicals the brain uses to influence mood and behavior, it is also the most common target of psychiatric drugs. To improve those drugs and to invent better ones, scientists need to know much more about how the molecule affects brain cells and circuits both in health and amid disease. In a new study, researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT working in a simple animal model present a comprehensive accounting of how serotonin affects behavior from the scale of individual molecules all the way to the animal’s whole brain. “There have been major challenges ...

About The Study: This analysis of U.S. Census Bureau survey data found that rising inflation has become a significant source of stress, especially among women and those who were socioeconomically more vulnerable.  Authors: Cary Wu, Ph.D., of York University in Toronto, 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.2023.13431) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, ...

About The Study: In this national population-based cohort study of multiple sclerosis (MS) prevalence, researchers found that the distribution of MS in the United States has become more racially and ethnically diverse. White individuals continued to have the highest prevalence of MS followed by Black individuals, individuals from other races, and Hispanic individuals. Authors: Mitchell T. Wallin, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., 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/jamaneurol.2023.1135) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This study of 340,000 service members found that the risk of Parkinson disease was 70% higher in veterans who were stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during 1975-1985 when the water supply was contaminated with the solvent trichloroethylene and other volatile organic compounds. The findings suggest that exposure to trichloroethylene in water may increase the risk of Parkinson disease; millions worldwide have been and continue to be exposed to this ubiquitous environmental contaminant. Authors: Samuel M. Goldman, ...

TORONTO - A new international study published in Nature Medicine and presented as a late-breaking abstract at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) annual conference, shows great promise for patients with glioblastoma. Drs. Farshad Nassiri and Gelareh Zadeh, neurosurgeons at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, published the results of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial investigating the safety and effectiveness of a novel therapy which combines the injection of an oncolytic virus – a virus that targets and kills ...

Our body functioning is delicately balanced between the synthesis and breakdown of various cellular components. When these cellular components grow old or get damaged, they are digested by a process called “autophagy”—literally, “self-eating.” This process not only helps in the elimination of toxic wastes, but also helps to deliver building blocks for the synthesis of new cellular macromolecules. Thus, autophagy serves as the body's cellular cleaning and recycling system.   Researchers have long been studying the ...

Plants are impressive in their diversity, but especially in the variety of metabolites they produce. Many plant natural products are highly complex molecules, such as the alkaloids vincristine and vinblastine, which are produced by the Madagascar periwinkle Catharanthus roseus. These two substances are already indispensable in cancer therapy. Researchers are very interested in finding out which individual biosynthetic steps are required to form the complex molecules. "Currently, these compounds are still obtained in very small quantities from the plant's leaf extract. We can learn from the plant how this compound is produced and use this knowledge ...

Fresh insights into the spread of damaging proteins that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease could hold the key to stopping the condition progressing, a study says. Researchers have discovered that synapses, which send essential signals through the brain, are also transporting toxic proteins known as tau around the brain. Large clumps of the protein tau – called tangles – form in brain cells and are one of the defining features of Alzheimer’s disease. As these tangles spread through the brain during the disease there is a decline in ...

HOUSTON ― Intratumoral delivery of an engineered oncolytic virus (DNX-2401) targeting glioblastoma (GBM) cells combined with subsequent immunotherapy was safe and improved survival outcomes in a subset of patients with recurrent GBM, according to results from a multi-institutional Phase I/II clinical trial co-led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Toronto. The study, published today in Nature Medicine, met its primary safety endpoint and demonstrated the combination was well tolerated overall with no dose-limiting toxicities. The study did not meet its primary efficacy endpoint of objective response rate, but ...

A single patient can spark new research questions and provide answers about a disease. And when a new case is identified, investigators can make connections between them that can lead to even more powerful and persuasive ideas about cause and treatment. In a publication today in Nature Medicine, an international team led by investigators from two Mass General Brigham hospitals — Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Mass Eye and Ear — reports on a new case of a patient with a genetic predisposition for developing early-onset Alzheimer’s disease who remained cognitively intact until his late 60s. Through clinical assessments ...

A research team, composed of climatologists and an astronomer, have used an improved computer model to reproduce the cycle of ice ages (glacial periods) 1.6 to 1.2 million years ago. The results show that the glacial cycle was driven primarily by astronomical forces in quite a different way than it works in the modern age. These results will help us to better understand the past, present, and future of ice sheets and the Earth’s climate.   Earth’s orbit around the Sun and its spin axis orientation change slowly over time, due to the pull of gravity from the Sun, the Moon, and other planets. These astronomical forces affect the environment on Earth due to changes in ...

In the medicine market, most newly introduced drugs and drug candidates show poor water solubility, which prevents their absorption in the body. This, in turn, limits their therapeutic efficiency. Solubilizing agents such as cyclodextrins (CDs) are commonly employed to enhance their solubility. CDs have a cyclic structure featuring a hydrophilic exterior and a hydrophobic cavity inside that can enclose drug molecules to form inclusion complexes. However, solubilization does not necessarily enhance drug adsorption in the body, since the solubilized drugs cannot ...

Ithaca, NY (May 15, 2023) - Today, the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) is taking a significant step forward in its mission to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and real-world application. Thanks to a generous $1M gift from the Cane-Bridge Foundation, BTI has launched an innovative translational program called "Project Vault!" to propel plant science discoveries into applications that tackle global life science challenges.  "The Cane-Bridge Foundation's support is vital to accelerate ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 15, 2023 —Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists observed the first close-ups of a source of energetic particles expelled from the Sun, viewing them from just half an astronomical unit (AU), or about 46.5 million miles. The high-resolution images of the solar event were provided by ESA’s Solar Orbiter, a Sun-observing satellite launched in 2020. “In 2022, the Solar Orbiter detected six recurrent energetic ion injections. Particles emanated along the jets, a signature of magnetic reconnection involving ...

Older buildings tend to leak heat through their walls, requiring much more energy to maintain a comfortable temperature in summer or winter. Those constructed prior to the late 1970s rarely meet today’s more rigorous energy standards. And yet they account for large proportion of the buildings standing today.  In the US, about 44% of the residential building stock was built before 1970  and about half of the commercial buildings that exist today were built before the 1980s, which creates a significant need for energy retrofitting to reduce environmental impact. A new industry-academic collaboration between Jefferson and Lightweight ...

Asbestos materials were once widely used in homes, buildings, automobile brakes and many other built materials due to their strength and resistance to heat and fire, as well as to their low electrical conductivity. Unfortunately, asbestos exposure through inhalation of small fiber particles has been shown to be highly carcinogenic.  Now, for the first time, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have shown that extremophilic bacteria from high temperature marine environments can be used to reduce asbestos’ toxicity. The research is published in ...