Using laws governing human rights may be the best way of harnessing international legislation and tribunals to protect the Amazon, a new study shows. Safeguarding the rainforest is a critical priority because of the ecosystem's planetary importance. Recent increases in deforestation and fires in the region have made this even more urgent. The new research, published in the Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (RECIEL), says using human rights law to protect the Amazon is more likely to have stronger prospects, as campaigners wouldn't need to submit information about more than one nation for it to be upheld. Courts would only need to judge that environmental damage violated the rights of either certain individuals or tribal and indigenous peoples. The ...

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has led an international team which has developed an algorithm called COSMIC BIRTH to analyse large scale cosmic structures. This new computation method will permit the analysis of the evolution of the structure of dark matter from the early universe until the formation of present day galaxies. This work was recently published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). The IAC researcher, a co-author of the article and leader of the group of Cosmology and Large Scale Structure (LSS) Francisco-Shu Kitaura explains that one of the key aspects of this algorithm "consists in expressing the observations as if they had been detected in the early universe, which ...

Moralities of Intelligent Machines is a project that investigates people's attitudes towards moral choices made by artificial intelligence. In the latest study completed under the project, study participants read short narratives where either a robot, a somewhat humanoid robot known as iRobot, a robot with a strong humanoid appearance called iClooney or a human being encounters a moral problem along the lines of the trolley dilemma, making a specific decision. The participants were also shown images of these agents, after which they assessed the morality of their decisions. The study was funded by the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation and the Academy of Finland. The trolley dilemma is a problem ...

Electric current is deflected by a magnetic field - in conducting materials this leads to the so-called Hall effect. This effect is often used to measure magnetic fields. A surprising discovery has now been made at TU Wien, in collaboration with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), McMater University (Canada), and Rice University (USA): an exotic metal made of cerium, bismuth and palladium was examined and a giant Hall effect was found to be produced by the material, in the total absence of any magnetic field. The reason for this unexpected result lies in the unusual properties of the electrons: They behave as if magnetic ...

The pituitary gland is a pea-sized endocrine gland composed of two structurally and functionally separate parts known as anterior and posterior lobes. The pituitary gland's anterior lobe secretes six hormones essential to growth, reproduction, and other basic physiological functions. Abnormal development of the pituitary gland, or hypopituitarism, can cause mild or complete deficiency of one or more pituitary hormones, which manifests as highly varying symptoms. Tumours mainly cause hypopituitarism in humans, but a congenital factor can also be associated with the disorder. The POU1F1 gene regulates the development of the ...

In Sweden, approximately one in five adults suffers from dental anxiety or phobia. The number has decreased over time, but still an important part of the population have major problems, according to a recent doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg. The thesis includes a nationwide interview study involving 3,500 adult individuals, randomly selected from the general population of Sweden. Nineteen percent of the participants reported some degree of dental anxiety, fear or phobia. The results showed that 4.7% of the respondents described their dental anxiety as severe, 4.5% as moderate and 9.8% as low. The remaining 80.9% reported no dental anxiety. The proportion with no dental ...

Scientists of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI RAS), the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the Institute for Nuclear Research of RAS (INR RAS) studied the arrival directions of astrophysical neutrinos with energies more than a trillion electronvolts (TeV) and came to an unexpected conclusion: all of them are born near black holes in the centers of distant active galaxies powerful radio sources. Previously, only neutrinos with the highest energies were assumed to be obtained in sources of this class. It is believed that there are massive black holes in the centers ...

Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is a type of breast cancer that begins in the milk-producing glands (lobules) of the breast. It covers 10-15% of all breast cancer cases, has a high risk of late recurrence, unique metastatic sites, high sensitivity to hormones, unpredictable responses to therapies, unique histopathology, distinctive biology, and resists chemotherapy. More than 90% of ILC tumors also contain estrogen receptors, meaning that they can receive hormone signals from the body e.g. estradiol, that can spur their growth and metastasis. Despite all this, ILC is relatively understudied compared to other breast cancers, and as a result, there have been very few models developed to study it. The reason is ...

Water is an essential element for all living things. Understanding the dynamics of water in trees is crucial for understanding the consequences of climate change and altered water availability for forest ecosystems. This study, which is a product of a joint research project with Samuli Junttila PhD, and Professor Masato Katoh of Shinshu University's Institute for Mountain Science and others demonstrates a new laser scanning based method that can be used to monitor changes in leaf water content of tree communities. Lasers can be used to measure and monitor the leaf water content of trees and plants, because the reflection of laser light at the shortwave infrared region is changed due to varying leaf water ...

Two in five of the world's plant species are at risk of extinction. In the face of climate change, understanding why certain plant species are vulnerable to extinction while others prevail is more urgent than ever before. Previous studies linking climate and plant vital rates have found relatively modest effects, sometimes leading to the conclusion that other threats, such as land use change, may still be more important than climate drivers. However, these conclusions could result from wrong assumptions about which times of the year (which "time window") climate ...

- A silicone membrane for wearable devices is more comfortable and breathable thanks to better-sized pores made with the help of citric acid crystals. - A new preparation technique fabricates thin, silicone-based patches that rapidly wick water away from the skin. The technique could reduce the redness and itching caused by wearable biosensors that trap sweat beneath them. The technique was developed by bioengineer and professor Young-Ho Cho and his colleagues at KAIST and reported in the journal Scientific Reports last month. "Wearable bioelectronics are becoming more attractive for the day-to-day monitoring of biological compounds ...

"The lengthy groundwork is finally complete," says Jouko Rikkinen, Professor of Botany at the University of Helsinki, Finland, giving a sigh of relief. The research article just published focuses on species diversity in the genus Leptogium, a group of jelly lichens that are common in the mountain forests of East Africa. Thousands of lichen specimens were collected from Kenya and Tanzania in 2009-2017, including nearly 600 Leptogium specimens. DNA analyses revealed that the dataset on Leptogium included more than 70 different species, of which no more than a dozen or so are previously known. DNA analyses were necessary, as ...

The course and severity of COVID-19 in individual patients is largely influenced by the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and the human immune system. Normally, the antiviral immune response of natural killer cells (NK cells) is an important step in combating viral replication in the early phase of the infection. On their surface, these killer cells have special, activating receptors, including the NKG2C receptor, which communicates with an infected cell via one of its specialised surface structures, HLA-E. This interaction results in the destruction of virus-infected cells. However, due to a genetic ...

Professor Jeremy Michalek and his Ph.D student Matthew Bruchon have published a study investigating what vehicle electrification would look like in a world where ridesourcing companies like Uber and Lyft were held responsible for the air pollution and carbon emissions created by their business. Ridesourcing has changed the way people travel, affecting air emissions in the process. Researchers like those at the Center for Air, Climate and Energy Solutions (CACES) have quantified the negative health effects of airborne particulates created by cars in rates of cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and they're also the largest source of greenhouse gasses in the US. With public sector fleets such as the US Postal Service ...

Mount Sinai researchers have identified a neural pathway through which the brain detects errors and guides subsequent behavioral improvement. This process, called cognitive control, is frequently dysregulated in a wide range of psychiatric disorders. The team's research, published February 19 in Neuron, also suggests that neurostimulation of this brain pathway could provide an important mechanism for attention adjustments following behavioral errors. When errors are committed, such as missing a stop sign or running a red light while driving, it's important for our survival to immediately adapt behavior by paying more attention to prevent further errors. This ability to adapt behavior after erroneous actions is one of the key components of human cognitive control. "Deficits ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Converting the ground under electrical transmission towers into spaces for wildlife can enable fragmented populations to connect with one another, increasing local biodiversity and providing animals around the globe an important tool for adapting to climate change, a new study found. "The most common way species respond to climate change is to try to shift their range - i.e., go live somewhere else," Oregon State University scientist Virginia Morandini said. "When landscapes become fragmented, usually because of human activity, it greatly hinders animals' ability to move their range. That's why it's so important for biodiversity conservation to try to get their environments connected." For this study, Morandini ...

The latest star data from the Gaia space observatory has for the first time allowed astronomers to generate a massive 3D atlas of widely separated binary stars within about 3,000 light years of Earth -- 1.3 million of them. The one-of-a-kind atlas, created by Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysics Ph.D. student from the University of California, Berkeley, should be a boon for those who study binary stars -- which make up at least half of all sunlike stars -- and white dwarfs, exoplanets and stellar evolution, in general. Before Gaia, the last compilation of nearby binary stars, assembled using data from the now-defunct Hipparcos satellite, included about 200 ...

BOSTON - Chronic inflammation drives the development of various cancers, including those of the skin, colon and pancreas. Investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who previously demonstrated high expression levels of an immune molecule called interleukin-33 (IL-33) during cancer-promoting inflammation have now uncovered the details behind the molecule's effects. The research, which is published in The EMBO Journal, could lead to new strategies to prevent certain cancers. When epithelial cells that line the surfaces of the body are stressed or injured, they release IL-33 to alarm the immune system, leading to a robust inflammatory response. In addition to being secreted from cells, IL-33 also acts within a cell's nucleus, where ...

DALLAS, Feb. 22, 2021 -- Exposure to what is considered low levels of air pollution over a long period of time can increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, atrial fibrillation and pneumonia among people ages 65 and older, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation. Air pollution can cause harm to the cardiovascular and respiratory systems due to its effect on inflammation in the heart and throughout the body. Newer studies on the impact of air pollution on health are focused on ...

DALLAS, Feb. 22, 2021 -- Twelve weeks of exercise training improved artery health and function in middle-aged and older men (ages 50-70 years) with low-to-normal testosterone levels, while testosterone therapy provided no benefits to the arteries, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. The natural aging process for men includes decreased testosterone and physical activity levels decline with age, leading to declines in artery health and function. Testosterone replacement therapy is often used to combat the symptoms of decreasing testosterone levels, including low energy, reduced muscle mass and reduced ...

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most energetic naturally occurring year-to-year variation of ocean temperature and rainfall on our planet. The irregular swings between warm and wet "El Niño" conditions in the equatorial Pacific and the cold and dry "La Niña" state influence weather conditions worldwide, with impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and economies. Climate models predict that the difference between El Niño- and La Niña-related tropical rainfall will increase over the next 80 years, even though the temperature difference between El Niño and La Niña may change only very little in ...

England's salt reduction programme will have led to nearly 200,000 fewer adults developing heart disease and £1.64 billion of healthcare cost savings by 2050, according to research by Queen Mary University of London. However, the researchers warn that the recent stalling of salt reduction programmes is endangering the potential health gains, as salt intake remains significantly higher than recommended levels. Excess salt intake is strongly linked with raised blood pressure and increased risks of cardiovascular disease, as well as kidney disease, gastric cancer and osteoporosis. Raised blood pressure is responsible for half of the burden of ischemic heart disease and more ...

Unravelling the unique characteristics of cancer cells and finding less-harmful ways to stop their growth have long been a focus for cancer researchers worldwide. New findings, reported in Nature Communications, describe the discovery of a unique dependence of cancer cells on a particular protein, which could lead to desperately needed treatment for hard-to-treat cancers. The publication caps off a series of groundbreaking studies appearing in Nature journals over the last month by members of a powerful international research collaboration. Lead author and University of Vermont (UVM) Cancer Center researcher Jason Stumpff, Ph.D., has spent ...

Some microbes on Earth could temporarily survive on the surface of Mars, finds a new study by NASA and German Aerospace Center scientists. The researchers tested the endurance of microorganisms to Martian conditions by launching them into the Earth's stratosphere, as it closely represents key conditions on the Red Planet. Published in END ...

Results from a large prospective study indicate that gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which also causes heartburn symptoms, is linked with higher risks of various cancers of the larynx (or voice box) and esophagus. The study is published early online in END ...