Soil temperature has a significant impact on land-atmosphere interaction within the Earth system, affecting surrounding ecology, agriculture, and much more. This influence is a primary component of what is called a "thermal regime" of land, or a regular pattern of temperature change within the soil. Climatologists are intrigued by fluctuating soil temperatures, especially during the first decade of the 21st century where global surface warming has slowed down. The thermal regime, according to scientists, is greatly influential on climate, particularly seasonal climate prediction. Now, ...

Humoral and cellular adaptive immunity are two immune mechanisms that act against pathogens. Humoral immunity is mediated by antibodies, while cellular immunity does not involve antibodies and is, instead, facilitated by T cells. Studying how these immune mechanisms mediate SARS-CoV-2 infections could be beneficial in controlling the progression of the disease. However, their roles in viral control or disease pathogenesis is not fully understood and only a few studies have thoroughly monitored COVID-19 patients longitudinally, especially during the acute phase of infection. To fill this knowledge gap, the team of ...

Correct, or native, protein folding is essential for correct protein function. Protein misfolding can lead to the formation of amyloid fibrils, and amyloidosis, which is implicated in various human neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases. In this study Yuji Goto and colleagues describe, for the first time, a dynamic link between protein folding and misfolding, and the threshold that must be overcome for the formation of amyloid fibrils. Technological advances are at the forefront of many scientific discoveries. The atomic structures of some amyloid fibrils were recently revealed as a result of advances in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance and cryogenic electron microscopy. While an important step forward for the ...

The honor of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to those who developed lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. These batteries have become an essential energy source for electronic devices ranging from small IT devices to electric vehicles. Tesla, a leading U.S. automaker, recently emphasized the need to establish an innovative production system and reduce battery cost. The price of batteries accounts for a large portion of electric vehicles and cost reduction is vital to popularizing them. A joint research team, led by Professor Soojin Park and Ph.D. candidate Hye Bin Son ...

HOUSTON - (Feb. 1, 2021) - Rice University engineers have discovered technology that could slash the cost of semiconductor electron sources, key components in devices ranging from night-vision goggles and low-light cameras to electron microscopes and particle accelerators. In an open-access Nature Communications paper, Rice researchers and collaborators at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) describe the first process for making electron sources from halide perovskite thin films that efficiently convert light into free electrons. Manufacturers spend billions of dollars each year on photocathode electron sources ...

Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer death in Singapore and the world. The World Conference on Lung Cancer, the largest international gathering of clinicians, researchers and scientists in the field of lung cancer - with more than 6,000 participants - was held from 28 January to 31 January 2021 as a worldwide virtual event hosted by Singapore. A group of Singapore clinicians and scientists presented new data to enhance understanding and treatment of lung cancer in the Asian population at the conference. SINGAPORE, 1 FEBRUARY 2021 - Clinicians and scientists from Singapore shared exciting new data on lung cancer treatment in the Asian ...

Current advice from the America Dental Association tells you that if your gums bleed, make sure you are brushing and flossing twice a day because it could be a sign of gingivitis, an early stage of periodontal disease. And that might be true. So if you are concerned, see your dentist. However, a new University of Washington study suggests you should also check your intake of vitamin C. "When you see your gums bleed, the first thing you should think about is not, I should brush more. You should try to figure out why your gums are bleeding. And vitamin C deficiency is one possible reason," said the study's lead author Philippe Hujoel, a practicing dentist and professor of oral health sciences in the UW School of Dentistry. Hujoel's study, published Feb. 1 in Nutrition ...

The development of pharmaceutical treatments is difficult -- clinicians and researchers know a certain drug can regulate particular functions, but they might not know how it actually works. Researchers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) have developed a new, streamlined method to better understand the molecular mechanisms underpinning these interactions. They published their approach on Dec. 17, 2020 in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, a journal of the U.K. Royal Society of Chemistry. "We set out to develop a new gold nanoparticle-based method for target identification of bioactive small molecules that streamlines the current laborious steps so that we can rapidly find out how these molecules ...

In a review of national firearm data spanning more than 20 years, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have identified alarming trends regarding increasing rates of firearm-related deaths among some of America's youngest residents. According to lead researcher Archie Bleyer, M.D., the rate of unintentional firearm deaths in children ages 1 - 4 increased exponentially at an average annual percent of 4.9 between 1999 and 2018, with the greatest impact among non-Hispanic Black and White children. This rate is more than eight times higher than any other highly developed country ...

You can't have your cake and eat it too, as the saying goes. But what if you could save your slice while enjoying the benefits at the same time? New research suggests this is possible when it comes to marine reserves. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are among the best conservation tools at our disposal today. However, by their very nature, these reserves take away fishing grounds, which can make them unattractive to commercial fishermen. Scientists and resource managers often promote MPAs as beneficial for the fishery. In theory, they provide a refuge for stocks to rebuild and spill over into nearby waters, leading ...

More fully appreciating family and engaging in more conflict are among the heightened experiences during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new UC Riverside study. The study from David Funder's psychology lab looked at how people experience everyday life and its situations and how those experiences change because of an extraordinary event - the global pandemic. Undergraduate students took part in the study, which first collected responses from 544 of them in 2017, and then from 123 students during the pandemic in spring 2020, when most of the participants were sheltering at home. The before-and-during comparison isn't all roses for pandemic living. Some everyday experiences suffer, such as conversation, finding ...

The American College of Cardiology's Cardiovascular Summit will feature several poster presentations on care delivery, cost reduction and quality improvement that offer innovative concepts to combat access to care, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and as the broader health care system works to improve health equity. Research examines the rapid adoption of virtual outpatient care, enabling rural primary care teams to improve cardiovascular health and optimizing emergency room use after clinic hours. Summaries of embargoed abstracts are below. For access to the full abstracts ...

When it comes to developing drugs for mental illnesses, three confounding challenges exist: Men and women experience them differently, with things like depression and anxiety far more common in females. A drug that works for one person may not work for another, and side effects abound. New CU Boulder research, published in the journal eLIfe, sheds light on one reason those individual differences may exist. Turns out a key protein in the brain called AKT may function differently in males than females. The study also offers a closer look at where, precisely, in the brain things may go ...

Every late winter and early spring, huge dust storms swirled across the bare and frozen landscapes of Europe during the coldest periods of the latest ice age. These paleo-tempests, which are seldom matched in our modern climate frequently covered Western Europe in some of the thickest layers of ice-age dust found anywhere previously on Earth. This is demonstrated by a series of new estimates of the sedimentation and accumulation rates of European loess layers obtained by Senior Research Scientist Denis-Didier Rousseau from Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, and colleagues. The work, which is published in Quaternary Science Reviews is part of the TiPES project on tipping points in the Earth system, coordinated by The University ...

LA JOLLA--(February 1, 2021) Wolffia, also known as duckweed, is the fastest-growing plant known, but the genetics underlying this strange little plant's success have long been a mystery to scientists. Now, thanks to advances in genome sequencing, researchers are learning what makes this plant unique--and, in the process, discovering some fundamental principles of plant biology and growth. A multi-investigator effort led by scientists from the Salk Institute is reporting new findings about the plant's genome that explain how it's able to grow so fast. The research, published in the February 2021 issue of Genome Research, will help scientists to understand how plants make trade-offs between ...

DALLAS, Feb. 1, 2021 -- Women with a history of diabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes) are twice as likely by mid-life to develop calcium in heart arteries - a strong predictor of heart disease - even if healthy blood sugar levels were attained many years after pregnancy, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation. Gestational diabetes, which is high blood sugar levels (glucose intolerance) first recognized during pregnancy, affects approximately 9% of U.S. pregnancies and up to 20% worldwide. After pregnancy, women who had gestational diabetes are at higher risk of developing prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes, conditions that are risk factors ...

Irvine, Calif. -- Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the University of Minnesota have found that an enriched diet and companionship can reduce pain in mice with sickle cell disease by increasing serotonin. They also discovered that duloxetine, an antidepressant that boosts serotonin levels, could be an alternative to opioids in treating chronic pain. "Finding safe and effective alternatives to opioids is a research priority, especially for patients with sickle cell disease," said Dr. Keith Hoots, director of the Division of Blood Diseases and Resources at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "It's encouraging to see a dose-response relationship to nutrients and companions in mice, ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers from Mayo Clinic and AliveCor Inc. have been using artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a mobile device that can identify certain patients at risk of sudden cardiac death. This research has yielded a breakthrough in determining the health of the electrical recharging system in a patient's heart. The researchers determined that a smartphone-enabled mobile EKG device can rapidly and accurately determine a patient's QTc, thereby identifying patients at risk of sudden cardiac death from congenital long QT syndrome (LQTS) or drug-induced QT prolongation. The heart beats by a complex system of electrical signals triggering regular and necessary contractions. Clinicians evaluate the heart's rate-corrected QT interval, or QTc, as a vital ...

An underused type of knee surgery in younger patients, called high tibial osteotomy, shows considerable success in reducing the need for total knee replacement, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "High tibial osteotomy is a knee surgery aimed at younger patients in the earlier stages of knee osteoarthritis. One of its goals is to prevent or delay the need for knee replacement," says coauthor Dr. Trevor Birmingham, Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Bone and Joint Institute at Western University, London, Ontario. "In some ways, it's like performing ...

A calculation so complex that it takes twenty years to complete on a powerful desktop computer can now be done in one hour on a regular laptop. Physicist Andreas Ekström at Chalmers University of Technology, together with international research colleagues, has designed a new method to calculate the properties of atomic nuclei incredibly quickly. The new approach is based on a concept called emulation, where an approximate calculation replaces a complete and more complex calculation. Although the researchers are taking a shortcut, the solution ends up almost exactly the same. It is reminiscent of algorithms ...

February 1, 2021 - Researchers have identified another good reason to eat more mushrooms. New research , published in Food Science & Nutrition (January 2021) found that adding a mushroom serving to the diet increased the intake of several micronutrients, including shortfall nutrients such as vitamin D, without any increase in calories, sodium or fat. Dr. Victor L. Fulgoni III and Dr. Sanjiv Agarwal modeled the addition of mushrooms to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2016 dietary data looking at a composite of white, crimini and portabella mushrooms at a 1:1:1 ratio; one scenario including UV-light exposed mushrooms; and one scenario including oyster mushrooms ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. (Feb. 1, 2020) - A gene panel that looks for about 10 times the number of cancer-causing genes as panels currently used to diagnose and fine tune treatment for a variety of cancers is effective at identifying problematic genes in the most common leukemia, investigators report. The 523-gene panel, developed by San Diego-based biotech company Illumina, which includes all genes known to potentially cause cancer, can be readily adopted for use in clinical laboratories to diagnose acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, the investigators report in the journal PLOS ONE. Identifying ...

(Singapore--January 31, 2021 2:40 p.m. SPT 1:40 a.m. EST)--Patient-reported outcomes from the phase III CROWN study showed that time to treatment deterioration (TTD) in pain in chest, dyspnea, and cough was comparable between those who received lorlatinib and patients who took crizotinib. The research was presented today at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer Singapore. Lorlatinib, a third-generation ALK inhibitor, significantly improved progression-free survival compared to crizotinib in ...

COVID-19 mortality racial disparities in the U.S. are associated with social factors like income, education and internet access, according to a Rutgers study. The study, published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, highlights the need for public health policies that address structural racism. The researchers investigated the association between COVID-19 cases and deaths in 2,026 U.S. counties from January to October 2020 and social determinants of health, which can raise the risk for infection and death. They also looked at factors known or thought to impact COVID-19 outcomes, including the counties' population density, days since the first COVID-19 death and percent of residents who are over age 65, are smokers or who have chronic diseases such as obesity, ...

CHICAGO (January 30, 2021) -- Select patients born with heart defects and who undergo congenital heart surgery recover with few complications and reduced opioid use when a comprehensive, evidence-based enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) program is used, according to research presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. "We have embarked on a new paradigm for patient care with the goal of improving recovery, patient experience, and the value of care that we provide," said Nathalie Roy, MD, from Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts. ...