Boulder, Colo., USA: For most of Earth's history, life was limited to the microscopic realm, with bacteria occupying nearly every possible niche. Life is generally thought to have evolved in some of the most extreme environments, like hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean or hot springs that still simmer in Yellowstone. Much of what we know about the evolution of life comes from the rock record, which preserves rare fossils of bacteria from billions of years ago. But that record is steeped in controversy, with each new discovery (rightfully) critiqued, questioned, and analyzed from every angle. Even then, uncertainty ...

Scientists are opening new windows into understanding more about the constantly shifting evolutionary arms race between viruses and the hosts they seek to infect. Host organisms and pathogens are in a perennial chess match to exploit each other's weaknesses. Such research holds tantalizing clues for human health since the immune system is on constant alert to deploy counter measures against new viral attacks. But unleashing too much of a defensive response can lead to self-inflicted tissue damage and disease. A new study published in the journal eLife by biologists at the University ...

Scientists have created a new way to detect the proteins that make up the pandemic coronavirus, as well as antibodies against it. They designed protein-based biosensors that glow when mixed with components of the virus or specific COVID-19 antibodies. This breakthrough could enable faster and more widespread testing in the near future. The research appears in Nature. To diagnose coronavirus infection today, most medical laboratories rely on a technique called RT-PCR, which amplifies genetic material from the virus so that it can be seen. This technique requires specialized staff and equipment. It also consumes lab supplies ...

Housing instability and homelessness are widely understood to have an impact on health, and certain housing problems have been linked to specific childhood health conditions, such as mold with asthma. But it has not been clear how overall housing quality may affect children--especially those who are at risk from other social determinants of health such as food insecurity or poverty. A new nationally representative study in the Journal of Child Health Care, led by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital, has found poor-quality housing is independently associated with poorer pediatric health, ...

As states and municipalities begin to roll out mass vaccination campaigns, some people have dared to ask: When will it be safe to resume "normal" activities again? For those in most parts of the United States, the risk of COVID-19 infection remains extremely high. People now have access to better real-time information about infection rates and transmission at the county or city level, but they still need a framework to help them decide what is safe to do. Social distancing and shutting businesses have reduced the number of cases, but there is mounting pressure to reopen businesses and classrooms. Life is likely to continue in this limbo for some time. A new model co-authored by ...

A University of Otago study explored factors which influence Americans' levels of concern over climate change, providing discussion on how those factors could impact mitigation efforts. A key thread of the research examined the ability of people to visualize the future. Results showed that while 74 per cent of respondents were concerned about climate change, only 29 per cent discussed lower carbon options when asked to describe travel in the year 2050. "This suggests actively envisioning a sustainable future was less prevalent than climate change concern. So while the majority were concerned, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- People who do not accept inequality are more likely to negatively evaluate companies that have committed wrongdoings than people who do accept inequality, and this response varies by culture, according to researchers at Penn State. The team also found that companies can improve their standing with consumers when they offer sincere apologies and remedies for the harm they caused to victims. "Some prominent examples of company moral transgressions include Nike's and Apple's questionable labor practices in developing countries, BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and Volkswagen's emissions scandal," said Felix Xu, graduate student in marketing at Penn State. In their paper, which published on Jan. 22 in the Journal of Consumer Research, the team ...

Thermoelectric materials, which can generate an electric voltage in the presence of a temperature difference, are currently an area of intense research; thermoelectric energy harvesting technology is among our best shots at greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels and helping prevent a worldwide energy crisis. However, there are various types of thermoelectric mechanisms, some of which are less understood despite recent efforts. A recent study from scientists in Korea aims to fill one such gap in knowledge. Read on to understand how! One of these mechanisms mentioned earlier is the spin Seebeck effect (SSE), which was discovered in 2008 by a research team led by Professor Eiji Saitoh from Tokyo University, Japan. The SSE is a phenomenon in which ...

DALLAS - Jan. 28, 2021 - Simulation can be a viable way to quickly evaluate and refine new medical guidelines and educate hospital staff in new procedures, a recent study from UT Southwestern's Department of Pediatrics shows. The findings, published recently in the journal Pediatric Quality and Safety and originally shaped around new COVID-19-related pediatric resuscitation procedures at UTSW and Children's Health, could eventually be used to help implement other types of guidelines at medical centers nationwide. For decades, U.S. hospitals have used the same standard procedures ...

"King Solomon made for himself the carriage; he made it of wood from Lebanon. Its posts he made of silver, its base of gold. Its seat was upholstered with purple, its interior inlaid with love." (Song of Songs 3:9-10) For the first time, rare evidence has been found of fabric dyed with royal purple dating from the time of King David and King Solomon. While examining the colored textiles from Timna Valley - an ancient copper production district in southern Israel - in a study that has lasted several years, the researchers were surprised to find remnants of woven fabric, a tassel and fibers of wool dyed with royal purple. Direct radiocarbon ...

(For Immediate Release--Singapore--January 28, 2021)-- In the phase II CodeBreak 100 trial, sotorasib provided durable clinical benefit with a favorable safety profile in patients with pretreated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and who harbor KRAS p.G12C mutations, validating CodeBreak 100's phase I results, according to research presented today at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer World Conference on Lung Cancer. Outcome in patients with advanced NSCLC on second- or third-line therapies is poor, with a response rate of less than 20% and median progression-free survival of fewer than four months. Approximately 13% of patients with lung adenocarcinomas harbor KRAS p.G12C mutations. Sotorasib is a first-in-class small molecule that specifically ...

An international joint research team from the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with Zhejiang University and the Technical University of Denmark, reported an in-situ strategy to manipulate interfacial structure with atomic precision during catalytic reactions. Results were published in the latest issue of Science. The interface between nanoparticles and substrates plays a critical role in heterogeneous catalysis because most active sites are located at the perimeter of the interface. It is generally believed that this interface is immobile and unchangeable, thus can hardly be adjusted in reactive environments. As a result, it has been challenging to promote catalytic activity through precise control of the interfacial ...

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants that are adding twists in the battle against COVID-19 highlight the need for better genomic monitoring of the virus, says Katia Koelle, associate professor of biology at Emory University. "Improved genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 across states would really help us to better understand how the virus causing the pandemic is evolving and spreading in the United States," Koelle says. "More federal funding is needed, along with centralized standards for sample collection and genetic sequencing. Researchers need access to such metadata to better track how the virus is spreading geographically, and to identify any new variants ...

BOSTON -- Routine screening of asymptomatic health care personnel (HCP) in the absence of confirmed exposures to COVID-19 is not a recommended strategy for preventing transmission of the coronavirus causing the current global pandemic, according to a new review co-authored by an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The review, published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, found that such testing is unlikely to affect the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in health care settings and could even have unintended negative consequences. Many universities, sports leagues and other institutions require individuals in their organization to undergo routine testing for COVID-19, whether or not they are experiencing symptoms. Current public ...

When thick, the surface layer of the ocean acts as a buffer to extreme marine heating--but a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder shows this "mixed layer" is becoming shallower each year. The thinner it becomes, the easier it is to warm. The new work could explain recent extreme marine heatwaves, and point at a future of more frequent and destructive ocean warming events as global temperatures continue to climb. "Marine heatwaves will be more intense and happen more often in the future," said Dillon Amaya, a CIRES Visiting Fellow and lead author on the study out ...

Counties with a greater number of cannabis dispensary storefronts experience reduced numbers of opioid-related deaths relative to other locales, a recent University of California, Davis, study has found. This is the first study to examine the association between active cannabis dispensary operations -- both medical and recreational -- and opioid-related mortality rates at the county level, suggesting that providing alternative pain management could improve public health outcomes, researchers said. "While the associations documented cannot be assumed to be causal, they suggest a potential relationship between increased prevalence of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries and reduced opioid-related ...

WASHINGTON --- Pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal of all cancers, is capable of evading attacks by immune cells by changing its microenvironment so that the immune cells suppress, rather than support, an attack on the tumor. The scientists also found that that some of the mediators of this suppressive response, including a protein called STAT1, represent potential therapeutic targets that could be used to reverse this evasion and point to possible treatment opportunities. The finding appears January 28, 2021, in Cancer Immunology Research. "This ...

The origin of flowering plants famously puzzled Charles Darwin, who described their sudden appearance in the fossil record from relatively recent geological times as an "abominable mystery". This mystery has further deepened with an inexplicable discrepancy between the relatively recent fossil record and a much older time of origin of flowering plants estimated using genome data. Now a team of scientists from Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, and China may have solved the puzzle. Their results show flowering plants indeed originated in the Jurassic or earlier, that is millions of years earlier than their oldest undisputed fossil evidence, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. The lack of older ...

Although loggerhead sea turtles return to the same beach where they hatched to lay their eggs, a new study by a USF professor finds individual females lay numerous clutches of eggs in locations miles apart from each other to increase the chance that some of their offspring will survive. A study published in the journal "Scientific Reports" found that some females lay as many as six clutches as far as six miles apart during the same breeding season. "Nesting females don't lay all their eggs in one basket. Their reproductive strategy is like investing in a mutual fund. Females divide their resources among many stocks rather than investing everything in a single stock," said Deby Cassill, biology professor ...

Researchers with the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center and North Dakota State University have designed a new way to deliver pancreatic cancer drugs that could make fighting the disease much easier. Encapsulating cancer drugs in nanoparticles shows potential to target tumors more effectively and avoid danger to other parts of the body. The study results appeared in the Jan. 4, 2021, issue of the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics. Study author Dr. Sushanta Banerjee, a researcher with the Kansas City VA and University of Kansas medical centers, explains that this technology has the potential to drastically improve Veterans' cancer care. "Veteran health care will benefit immensely from such therapeutic models, as they are ...

UPTON, NY--A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has identified new details of the reaction mechanism that takes place in batteries with lithium metal anodes. The findings, published today in Nature Nanotechnology, are a major step towards developing smaller, lighter, and less expensive batteries for electric vehicles. Recreating lithium metal anodes Conventional lithium-ion batteries can be found in a variety of electronics, from smartphones to electric vehicles. While lithium-ion batteries have enabled the widespread use of many technologies, they still face challenges in powering electric vehicles over ...

URBANA, Ill. - Getting nutrition right during a dairy cow's dry period can make a big difference to her health and the health of her calf. But it's also a key contributor to her milk yield after calving. New research from the University of Illinois shows diets containing consistent energy levels and the rumen-boosting supplement monensin may be ideal during the dry period. "Many producers use a 'steam up' approach where you gradually increase the energy intake during the dry period to help adjust the rumen and adapt the cow to greater feed intakes after calving. Our work has shown that's really of questionable benefit for many farms, and it may be safer to just ...

Global circulating winds can carry bacteria, fungal spores, viruses and pollen over long distances and across national borders, but the United States is ill-prepared to confront future disease outbreaks or food-supply threats caused by airborne organisms, says a new paper published in the Ecological Society of America's journal Ecological Applications. Claire Williams, the paper's primary author and a research professor at American University, has spent decades studying long-range transport of tree pollen. Her early findings led to collaborations with German and Russian scientists who conducted a wide range of research - on forest genetics, atmospheric chemistry and ...

Maybe space is tight in your home and you share a remote office with your spouse. Or your partner asks you to step away from work to watch the children because they have an important call to jump on. Then you may wonder, 'Well, what makes his/her job more important than mine!' There have been no shortage of conflicts arising from the era of COVID-19, and that includes the challenges at home between married couples. In fact, the more a person felt that their spouse disrupted their daily routine, the more they viewed their relationship as turbulent, according to West Virginia University research. Kevin Knoster, a third-year ...

Washington and Chicago, January 28, 2021--The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Spencer Foundation have released a report, Voices from the Field: The Impact of COVID-19 on Early Career Scholars and Doctoral Students, that shares findings from focus groups conducted in spring 2020. The report, available on the AERA and Spencer websites, is part of an ongoing initiative by the two organizations to assess the pressing needs facing scholars and doctoral students during the pandemic and ways to address these needs. "The realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing impact on social institutions like school, work, and the family have created challenging ...