A new perspective published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology uncovers a previously unknown biochemical recycling process in animals. The authors review a flurry of recent papers demonstrating that animals extensively recycle biochemical waste to produce novel chemicals that play key roles in biology, from regulating behavior to development and aging. These studies show that the genes previously thought to code for carboxylesterases, enzymes that hydrolyze esters, actually play a pivotal role in assembling a wide range of new metabolites from building blocks generally considered “cellular waste.” Surprisingly, the so-called carboxylesterases were found to contribute ...

Global supply chains are immense feats of technological and organizational sophistication. They are also, as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic showed, vulnerable to unexpected developments. Will that change as artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of supply chains? And what will happen to workers in the process?  MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi explores these topics in a new book, “The Magic Conveyor Belt: AI, Supply Chains, and the Future of Work,” published by MIT’s CTL Media. Sheffi, the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering ...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed an online resource to help consumers understand the electric vehicle tax credits available through the Inflation Reduction Act. Located on the Department of Energy’s fueleconomy.gov website, the tool shows eligible vehicle models along with the corresponding federal tax credit. The new clean vehicle tax credit is for purchases of all-electric, plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell electric vehicles in 2023 and beyond. A separate credit is available for eligible used vehicles purchased in 2023 or after. Information on credits for vehicles purchased before ...

“To our knowledge, this is the first functional study of POLDIP2 in retinal cells to understand its potential role in AMD.” BUFFALO, NY- April 11, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 6, entitled, “Knockout of AMD-associated gene POLDIP2 reduces mitochondrial superoxide in human retinal pigment epithelial cells.” Genetic and epidemiologic studies have significantly advanced our ...

Every year, norovirus causes hundreds of millions of cases of food poisoning — and the deaths of at least 50,000 children — yet there exists no real way to control it. The virus has proven exceptionally difficult to study in the lab, and scientists have struggled to develop effective vaccines and drugs. A new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis describes a creative way to make a vaccine against norovirus by piggybacking on the highly effective vaccines for rotavirus, an unrelated virus that also causes diarrhea. The ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – The demand for battery-grade lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and platinum will climb steeply as vehicle electrification speeds up and nations work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through mid-century. This surge in demand will also create a variety of economic and supply-chain problems, according to new Cornell University research published in Nature Communications. In the new paper, senior author Fengqi You, professor in energy systems engineering, and his colleagues examined 48 countries that are committed to playing a strong role in electrifying transportation, including the U.S., China and India. Under ...

As announced today in a press release by biotechnology company Treventis, global pharmaceutical company Takeda has agreed to exclusively license a group of small molecules that target tau – a protein in which misfolding and aggregation are believed to be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease. The molecules were developed by the team at Treventis, building upon the Alzheimer’s & neurodegenerative research expertise of Dr. Donald Weaver’s lab at UHN.  “There are currently no effective drugs out there that target tau in the brain,” says Dr. Donald Weaver, Senior ...

New York, NY (April 11, 2023) – A study led by Mount Sinai researchers Dr. Bin Zhang, the Willard T.C. Johnson Research Professor of Neurogenetics, and Dr. Christian Forst, an Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, have identified potential novel receptors for SARS-CoV-2 and unveiled their tissue-specific and age-dependent expression. The findings were published on March 23 in the Federation of European Biochemical Societies Letters. The study's multiscale network analysis suggests that SARS-CoV-2 utilizes multiple novel receptors, such as the TYOBP receptor CD300e, to facilitate ...

North Carolina State University researchers have shown that adding a small amount of a chemical used in perfumes – nonanal – to a two-chemical combination of other sex pheromones helped increase the cocktail’s effectiveness in mimicking female fall armyworm “come hither” calls to males.  The findings could eventually help farmers better detect, monitor and control fall armyworm populations, which negatively affect some 350 plant species – including crops like corn and cotton as well as turfgrass and other cultivated grasses.  “Nonanal is emitted ...

Pests and diseases may reduce global wheat yields by over 20%. A study published April 11th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Sergio Latorre at University College London, UK and colleagues suggest that genomic surveillance may be an effective disease management tool with the ability to trace lineages of emerging crop diseases, and to identify genetic traits for breeding disease-resistant lines. Wheat crops across the globe are threatened by wheat blast, an emerging fungal disease. However, disease-management strategies have been unsuccessful. In order to better understand ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- A Cornell multidisciplinary research center that studies chronic fatigue syndrome has received a five-year, $9.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease – funding that will enable experts from disparate fields to work together on the mysterious and debilitating condition. The Cornell Center for Enervating Neuroimmune Disease, established in 2017, ultimately seeks to understand the biological ...

New Haven, Conn. — Omicron subvariants of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus behind COVID-19 — have shown an uncanny knack for evading antibodies produced either by vaccines or exposure to earlier versions of the virus, leading to many breakthrough infections. However, in order to sicken people, these viral variants must also avoid “killer” T cells, immune cells that are unleashed when the immune system detects foreign pathogens. A new Yale study published April 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals new insights into how these Omicron variants are able to avoid destruction by these T cells. For the study, ...

At a glance Dragana Rogulja is using fruit flies and mice to explore tantalizing questions about sleep. Her research delves into why sleep is necessary for survival, and how the sleeping brain disconnects from the world. Rogulja’s research has identified a critical connection between the brain and the gut. If translated into humans, the results of her work could lead to new ways for improving sleep and reducing damage from sleep deprivation. Sleep is one of the most essential human activities — so essential, in fact, that if we don’t get enough sleep for even one ...

Reston, VA—A new nuclear medicine therapy can cure human non-Hodgkin lymphoma in an animal model, according to research published in the April issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. A single dose of the radioimmunotherapy, [177Lu]Lu-ofatumumab, was found to quickly eliminate tumor cells and extend the life of mice injected with cancerous cells for more than 221 days (the trial endpoint), compared to fewer than 60 days for other treatments and just 19 days in untreated control mice. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a common blood malignancy. The ...

Preprints allow for free and rapid dissemination of publicly funded research results, and federal agencies should include them in their public access policies as they look to meet the requirements of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy “Nelson Memorandum.” arXiv–the e-print repository for physics, math, computer science and other disciplines–and bioRxiv and medRxiv–preprint servers for biology and the health sciences–address the unique role of preprints and the value they bring as they release their responses to the Nelson Memo. “US ...

A University of Texas at Arlington researcher is working to create a process that uses seawater to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Erika La Plante, assistant professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department, received a $125,000 subgrant from the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) as part of a larger Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy grant for the work. The UCLA team developed a continuous electrolytic pH pump that uses high-alkalinity seawater with high concentrations of carbon dioxide and cations ...

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinical trial was stopped early because a daily statin medication was found to reduce the increased risk of cardiovascular disease among people living with HIV in the first large-scale clinical study to test a primary cardiovascular prevention strategy in this population. A planned interim analysis of data from the Randomized Trial to Prevent Vascular Events in HIV (REPRIEVE) study found that participants who took pitavastatin calcium, a daily statin, lowered their risk of major adverse cardiovascular ...

TAMPA, Fla. (April 11, 2023) – After lightning struck a tree in a New Port Richey neighborhood, a University of South Florida professor discovered the strike led to the formation of a new phosphorus material. It was found in a rock – the first time in solid form on Earth – and could represent a member of a new mineral group. “We have never seen this material occur naturally on Earth – minerals similar to it can be found in meteorites and space, but we've never seen this exact material anywhere,” said geoscientist Matthew Pasek. In a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment, Pasek examines ...

Natural gas supplies 32% of all primary energy in the United States, its share of electricity generation having nearly doubled from 2008 to 2021. The cross-country natural gas pipeline system used to be powered mainly by natural gas, but recently has switched in places to electric power. The natural gas pipeline system has generally been much more reliable than the electric power system. The new dependence on electricity has created a vulnerability during hurricanes and other events that can take out electric power, since lack of natural gas may in turn cause gas-powered electric ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions report in the journal Nature Communications how a mutation in the enzyme SKD3 can cause a form of a genetic disease known as 3-methylglutaconic aciduria (MGCA7). MGCA7 is an inborn error of metabolism associated with variable neurologic deficits and an abnormally low number of immune cells called neutrophils in the blood. The latter condition, known as neutropenia, can lead to increased susceptibility to infection and can also develop into leukemia, as well as early death in infants. “SKD3 is essential to protein quality control in animal cells. It removes damaged proteins in structures or organelles ...

Key Takeaways: Consumers differ in the way that they shop: some “showroom” by figuring out what they want at one kind of retail outlet and buying elsewhere; others conduct deep research and buy where they first find what they like; and other kinds of consumers are less particular and conduct only fairly limited research. Consumers who are less choosy may shop at stores that have fewer selections, as long as they can pay a lower price for what they buy. This is the one group of consumers most likely to influence price.   BALTIMORE, MD, April 11, 2023 – It’s ...

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new chip-sized microwave photonic filter to separate communication signals from noise and suppress unwanted interference across the full radio frequency spectrum. The device is expected to help next-generation wireless communication technologies efficiently convey data in an environment that is becoming crowded with signals from devices such as cell phones, self-driving vehicles, internet-connected appliances and smart city infrastructure. “This new microwave filter chip has the potential to improve wireless communication, such as 6G, leading to faster internet connections, better overall communication ...

In Switzerland, one in three employees suffers from workplace stress. Those affected often don’t realise that their physical and mental resources are dwindling until it’s too late. This makes it all the more important to identify work-​related stress as early as possible where it arises: in the workplace. Researchers at ETH Zurich are now taking a crucial step in this direction. Using new data and machine learning, they have developed a model that can tell how stressed we are just from the way we type and use our mouse. And there’s more: “How we type on our keyboard and move our mouse seems to be a better predictor of how stressed ...

Among Indigenous, rural non-industrial populations inhabiting the tropical forests of lowland Bolivia, researchers report, there appears to be an optimal balance between levels of food consumption and exercise that maximizes healthy brain aging and reduces the risk of disease. “We hypothesize that energy gain from food intake was positively associated with late life brain health in the physically active, food-limited world of our ancestors, but that obesity and other manifestations of a Western lifestyle ...

Despite the success of vaccines for preventing COVID-19, and of drugs for treating the disease, outcomes for severely ill patients admitted to the hospital remains poor. Identifying new therapies for severe COVID-19 remains a high priority and one in which Vanderbilt University Medical Center is taking a leading role.   A study published April 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) evaluated two drugs that act on the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) as potential treatments for severe COVID-19. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, enters ...