The dynamics of the neural activity of a mouse brain behave in a peculiar, unexpected way that can be theoretically modeled without any fine tuning, suggests a new paper by physicists at Emory University. Physical Review Letters published the research, which adds to the evidence that theoretical physics frameworks may aid in the understanding of large-scale brain activity. "Our theoretical model agrees with previous experimental work on the brains of mice to a few percent accuracy -- a degree which is highly unusual for living systems," says Ilya Nemenman, Emory professor of physics and biology and senior author of the paper. The ...

Scientists at the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP), an Energy Frontier Research Center led by Ames Laboratory, have discovered a chemical process that provides biodegradable, valuable chemicals, which are used as surfactants and detergents in a range of applications, from discarded plastics. The process has the potential to create more sustainable and economically favorable lifecycles for plastics. The researchers targeted their work on the deconstruction of polyolefins, which represents more than half of all discarded plastics, and includes nearly every kind of product imaginable-- toys, food packaging, pipe systems, water ...

A new review published in EPJ H by Clara Matteuzzi, Research Director at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and former tenured professor at the University of Milan, and her colleagues, examines almost three decades of the LHCb experiment - from its conception to operation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - documenting its achievements and future potential. The LCHb experiment was originally conceived to understand the symmetry between matter and antimatter and where this symmetry is broken - known as charge conjugation parity (CP) violation. Whilst this may seem like quite an obscure area of study, it addresses one of the Universe's most fundamental questions: how it came to be dominated ...

As the world's energy demands grow, so too does growing concern over the environmental impact of power production. The need for a safe, clean, and reliable energy source has never been clearer. Fusion power could fulfil such a need. A review paper published in EPJ H examines the 6-decade history of neutral particle analysis (NPA), developed in Ioffe Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia, a vital diagnostic tool used in magnetic plasma confinement devices such as tokamaks that will house the nuclear fusion process and generate the clean energy of the future. As ...

Investigators in China and the United States have injected human stem cells into primate embryos and were able to grow chimeric embryos for a significant period of time--up to 20 days. The research, despite its ethical concerns, has the potential to provide new insights into developmental biology and evolution. It also has implications for developing new models of human biology and disease. The work appears April 15 in the journal Cell. "As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease," says senior author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression ...

LA JOLLA--(April 15, 2021) The ability to grow the cells of one species within an organism of a different species offers scientists a powerful tool for research and medicine. It's an approach that could advance our understanding of early human development, disease onset and progression and aging; provide innovative platforms for drug evaluation; and address the critical need for transplantable organs. Yet developing such capabilities has been a formidable challenge. Researchers led by Salk Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte have now come one step closer toward this goal by demonstrating a new integration of human cells into animal tissue. Published in the journal Cell on April 15, 2021, the new study builds upon previous work by the Izpisua Belmonte lab to take the next step in chimeric ...

Illustration A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to the carbon footprint of the foods we eat, with much of the focus on the outsize contribution of meat production and especially beef. But much less is known about the implications of individual U.S. dietary choices on other environmental concerns, such as water scarcity. In a study scheduled for online publication April 15 in the journal Nature Food, researchers from the University of Michigan and Tulane University present a water scarcity footprint that measures the water-use impacts of U.S. diets, taking into ...

Coral reefs provide many services to coastal communities, including critical protection from flood damage. A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the U.S. Geological Survey reveals how valuable coral reefs are in protecting people, structures, and economic activity in the United States from coastal flooding during storms. Published April 15 in Nature Sustainability, the study found that coral reefs offer more than $1.8 billion in annual flood protection to coastal communities. Losing 1 meter of reef height would cause 100-year flooding zones to increase by 23%, impacting 53,800 more people (a 62% increase) and 90% more property and increasing damages by $5.3 billion. The study also found that the United States has ...

In a novel laboratory investigation of the initial atmospheres of Earth-like rocky planets, researchers at UC Santa Cruz heated pristine meteorite samples in a high-temperature furnace and analyzed the gases released. Their results, published April 15 in Nature Astronomy, suggest that the initial atmospheres of terrestrial planets may differ significantly from many of the common assumptions used in theoretical models of planetary atmospheres. "This information will be important when we start being able to observe exoplanet atmospheres with new telescopes and advanced instrumentation," said first author Maggie Thompson, a graduate student in astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. The early atmospheres of rocky planets are ...

It has long been known that obesity is an inflammatory disease, i.e. a chronic defensive reaction of the body to stress caused by excess nutrients. Based on this knowledge, a group of researchers led by Nabil Djouder, head of the Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), decided to try to fight obesity by preventing inflammation - and they succeeded. Their paper, published this week in Nature Metabolism, shows that digoxin, a drug already in use against heart diseases, reduces inflammation and leads to a 40% weight loss in obese mice, without any side effects. Digoxin reverses obesity completely: treated mice attain the same weight as healthy, non-obese animals. The ...

LA JOLLA--(April 15, 2021) One of the characteristic hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the buildup of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain. Most therapies designed to treat AD target these plaques, but they've largely failed in clinical trials. New research by Salk scientists upends conventional views of the origin of one prevalent type of plaque, indicating a reason why treatments have been unsuccessful. The traditional view holds that the brain's trash-clearing immune cells, called microglia, inhibit the growth of plaques by "eating" them. The Salk scientists show instead that microglia promote the formation of dense-core plaques, and that this action sweeps wispy plaque ...

What The Study Did: How prescribing of opioid analgesics and buprenorphine for opioid use disorder changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was examined in this study. Authors: Janet M. Currie, Ph.D., of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, 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.2021.6147) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author ...

BOSTON - Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have used a couples-based framework to describe the experiences of individuals diagnosed with young-onset dementia (YOD) and their partners. In a study published in JAMA Network Open, the team conducted in-depth interviews to understand how couples navigate challenges related to YOD. This framework has been used to successfully develop patient-caregiver treatments for other severe medical conditions, including stroke, breast cancer and neurological injury. Using this approach to understand couples' coping patterns within YOD can help increase much-needed resources for affected couples. Young-onset dementias ...

PHILADELPHIA-- A new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found significant disparities in the use of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, a class of drugs proven to treat type 2 diabetes, with usage remaining low with Black, Asian, and lower-income groups despite an increase in overall usage for patients with type 2 diabetes. The END ...

Technology and commercial advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the world's foremost wind power experts. Experts anticipate cost reductions of 17%-35% by 2035 and 37%-49% by 2050, driven by bigger and more efficient turbines, lower capital and operating costs, and other advancements. The findings are described in an article in the journal Nature Energy. The study summarizes a global survey of 140 wind experts on three wind applications - onshore (land-based) wind, fixed-bottom offshore wind, and ...

The causes of the serious muscle disease ALS still remain unknown. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, among others, have examined a type of cell in the brain blood vessels that could explain the unpredictable disease origins and dynamics. The results indicate a hitherto unknown connection between the nervous and vascular systems. The study, which is published in Nature Medicine, has potential implications for earlier diagnoses and future treatments. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a neurodegenerative disease of the motor neurons that eventually ...

PHILADELPHIA--Real-word evidence is suggesting, for the first time, the most beneficial treatment courses that could help extend the lives of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, according to research from the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. In a new study published online today in JAMA Oncology, researchers show that patients harboring a KRAS gene mutation with high levels of PDL-1 lived longer when treated with immunotherapy alone, compared to patients without this mutation. This survival difference by KRAS status was not seen, however, in patients treated with both chemotherapy and immunotherapy, suggesting combination therapy for patients without the mutation may be preferred. The new findings, based off an analysis of the Flatiron ...

Inspired by the workings of a bat's ear, Rolf Mueller, a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, has created bio-inspired technology that determines the location of a sound's origin. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buFM5KkAnEo Mueller's development works from a simpler and more accurate model of sound location than previous approaches, which have traditionally been modeled after the human ear. His work marks the first new insight for determining sound location in 50 years. The findings were published in Nature Machine Intelligence ...

There is no cheaper way to generate electricity today than with the sun. Power plants are currently being built in sunny locations that will supply solar electricity for less than two cents per kilowatt hour. Solar cells available on the market based on crystalline silicon make this possible with efficiencies of up to 23 percent. Therefore they hold a global market share of around 95 percent. With even higher efficiencies of more than 26 percent, costs could fall further. An international working group led by photovoltaics researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich ...

More than 20 years after the launch of a landmark clinical trial, follow-up examinations and analyses found that not all patients with elevated eye pressure need pressure-lowering treatment to prevent vision loss from glaucoma. When the study was launched, it was universally accepted that all patients with elevated eye pressure should be given medication to lower that pressure. The Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study -- funded by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine ...

Prime editing (PE), a "search-and-replace" CRISPR-based genome editing technique, has great potential for gene therapy and agriculture. It can introduce desired base conversions, deletions, insertions, and combination edits into target genomic sites. Prime editors have been successfully applied in animals and plants, but their off-target effects, which can be a major hindrance to real-life application, have not been thoroughly evaluated until now. Prof. GAO Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and her research team recently performed a comprehensive and genome-wide analysis of the off-target effects of PEs in rice plants. Off-target ...

It is an old-standing theory in evolutionary ecology: animal species on islands have the tendency to become either giants or dwarfs in comparison to mainland relatives. Since its formulation in the 1960s, however, the 'island rule' has been severely debated by scientists. In a new publication in Nature Ecology and Evolution on April 15, researchers solved this debate by analysing thousands of vertebrate species. They show that the island rule effects are widespread in mammals, birds and reptiles, but less evident in amphibians. Dwarf hippos and elephants in the Mediterranean islands are examples of large ...

Using a new single-cell technique, WEHI researchers have uncovered a way to understand the programming behind how stem cells make particular cell types. The research uncovered 30 new genes that program stem cells to make the dendritic cells that kick-start the immune response. By uncovering this process, the researchers hope they will be able to find new immunotherapy treatments for cancer, and plan to expand this technique in other areas such as discovering new drug targets in tumour initiation. At a glance WEHI researchers have developed a new single cell method to understand the programming behind what causes stem cells to make ...

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. It may lead to extreme weather events across the globe due to its ability to change global atmospheric circulation. Thus, determining how ENSO responds to greenhouse warming is crucial in climate science. However, quantifying and understanding ENSO-related changes in a warmer climate remains challenging due to the complexity of air-sea feedbacks in the tropical Pacific Ocean and to model bias. An international team of scientists ...

Antibodies are not only produced by our immune cells to fight viruses and other pathogens in the body. For a few decades now, medicine has also been using antibodies produced by biotechnology as drugs. This is because antibodies are extremely good at binding specifically to molecular structures according to the lock-and-key principle. Their use ranges from oncology to the treatment of autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative conditions. However, developing such antibody drugs is anything but simple. The basic requirement is for an antibody to bind to its target molecule in an optimal way. At the same time, an antibody drug must fulfil a host of additional criteria. For example, it should not trigger ...