KANSAS CITY, MO--Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, in collaboration with colleagues at Stanford University and Technical University of Munich have developed advanced explainable artificial intelligence (AI) in a technical tour de force to decipher regulatory instructions encoded in DNA. In a report published online February 18, 2021, in Nature Genetics, the team found that a neural network trained on high-resolution maps of protein-DNA interactions can uncover subtle DNA sequence patterns throughout the genome and provide a deeper understanding of how these sequences are organized to regulate genes. Neural networks are powerful AI models that can learn complex patterns from diverse types of data such ...

The media has been rife with stories about democracy in decline: the recent coup in Myanmar, the ascent of strongman Narendra Modi in India, and of course ex-President Trump's attempts to overturn the U.S. presidential election--all of which raise alarms about the current status of democracies worldwide. Such threats to the voices of the people are often attributed to the excesses of individual leaders. But while leadership is certainly important, over the past decade, as established democracies like Venezuela and Turkey fell and others slid toward greater authoritarianism, political scientists and pundits have largely overlooked a key factor: ...

When falling in love, humans often pay attention to looks. Many non-human animals also choose a sexual partner based on appearance. Male birds may sport flashy feathers to attract females, lionesses prefer lions with thicker manes and colorful male guppies with large spots attract the most females. But bats are active in the dark. How do they attract mates? Mariana Muñoz-Romo, a senior Latin American postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and National Geographic explorer, pioneers research to understand the role of odors in bat mating behavior. "Aside from their genitalia, most male and female bat species look identical at first glance. However, a detailed examination during mating season reveals odor-producing glands or structures that are only present ...

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are a subytpe of cancers known as sarcomas. GIST is the most common type of sarcoma with approximately 5,000 to 6,000 new patient cases annually in the United States. GIST cannot be cured by drugs alone, and targeted therapies are only modestly effective, with a high rate of drug resistance. In a recent study, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine identified new therapeutic targets that could lead to new treatment options for patients. The study, published in the February 18, 2021 online edition of Oncogene, found that specific cell-to-cell communication influences GIST biology and is strongly associated with cancer ...

A recent study by University of Alberta cardiologists at the Canadian VIGOUR Centre shows that a particular group of patients with stable ischemic heart disease have better outcomes with percutaneous coronary intervention (also called angioplasty with stent) or coronary artery bypass surgery and medication, versus conservative management with medication alone. In a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, associate professor of medicine and academic interventional cardiologist Kevin Bainey and his team reviewed the patient information of more than 9,000 Albertans with stable ischemic heart disease. While able to function as outpatients, ...

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -Variation in a specific gene could be related to traits that are beneficial to bonding and relationship satisfaction in the first years of a marriage, according to a new study by a University of Arkansas psychologist. Recent research indicates that a variation called "CC" in the gene CD38 is associated with increased levels of gratitude. Extending that line of work, U of A psychologist Anastasia Makhanova and her colleagues used data from a study of genotyped newlyweds to explore whether a correlation existed between the CD38 CC variation and levels of trust, forgiveness and marriage satisfaction. They found that individuals with the CC variation did report higher levels of perceptions considered beneficial to successful relationships, particularly trust. Marriage ...

Some songbirds are not dissuaded by constant, loud noise emitted by natural gas pipeline compressors and will establish nests nearby. The number of eggs they lay is unaffected by the din, but their reproductive success ultimately is diminished. That's the conclusion of a team of Penn State researchers who conducted an innovative, elaborate study that included unceasing playback of recorded compressor noise, 80 new, never-before-used nest boxes occupied by Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows, and behavioral observations with video cameras placed within boxes. Importantly, the birds did not preferentially select quiet boxes over noisy boxes, suggesting they do not recognize the reduction ...

Irvine, Calif. -- An interdisciplinary team of biologists and mathematicians at the University of California, Irvine has developed a new tool to help decipher the language cells use to communicate with one another. In a paper published today in Nature Communications, the researchers introduce CellChat, a computational platform that enables the decoding of signaling molecules that transmit information and commands between the cells that come together to form biological tissues and even entire organs. "To properly understand why cells do certain things, and to predict their future actions, we need to be able to listen ...

Law enforcement and those in the military, rather than doctors and celebrities, are the most preferred messengers on firearm safety, a Rutgers study found. The findings, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, can help communicate the importance of safe firearm storage and reduce the rate of suicides, Rutgers researchers say. "We know that safe firearm storage is a key component to suicide prevention, but that belief is not widespread among firearm owners," said lead author Michael Anestis, executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and an associate professor of Urban-Global Public Health at Rutgers School ...

A research team including the geobiologist Dr. Helge Missbach from the University of Cologne has detected organic molecules and gases trapped in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks. A widely accepted hypothesis says that the earliest life forms used small organic molecules as building materials and energy sources. However, the existence of such components in early habitats on Earth was as yet unproven. The current study, published in the journal 'Nature Communications', now shows that solutions from archaic hydrothermal vents contained essential components that formed a basis for the earliest life on our planet. Specifically, the scientists examined about ...

Weighing in at roughly 21 solar masses, the black hole in the X-ray binary system Cygnus X-1 is so massive that it challenges current stellar evolution models, a new study reveals. Ultimately, the mass of a black hole is determined by its parent star's properties and is generally constrained by the mass lost to stellar winds throughout its lifetime. If a black hole interacts with a binary companion star, the system emits X-rays and can sometimes form radio jets, which make the systems visible to electromagnetic observations as an X-ray binary. Measurements from known x-ray binaries have shown that black holes in these systems all have masses below 20 solar masses (M?), with the largest being 15-17 M?. However, gravitational wave detections of black hole merger events have found ...

Nearly 42,000 years ago, when Earth's magnetic fields reversed, this triggered major environmental changes, extinction events, and long-term changes in human behavior, a new study reports. The findings, made possible by a new radiocarbon record derived from New Zealand's ancient kauri trees, raise important questions about the evolutionary impacts of geomagnetic reversals and excursions throughout the deeper geological record, the authors say. "Before this work," says author Chris Turney in a related video, "we knew there were a lot of things happening around the world at 42,000 years ago, but we didn't know precisely how... For the first time, we've been able to precisely date what happened when Earth's magnetic fields last flipped." Written in the geological ...

Few of Earth's freshwater areas remain untouched by humans. More than half of the planet's freshwater river basins have been heavily impacted by human activities, according to a new study, which presents a novel, multi-faceted approach for evaluating biodiversity change at a global scale. Although rivers and lakes cover less than 1% of the planet's surface, they support a substantial component of the planet's biodiversity, including a quarter of Earth's vertebrates. Further, freshwater systems support the functioning and stability of a variety of ecosystems, including those that contribute to human wellbeing. Centuries of human activity - overfishing, non-native species introductions, on-river development, ...

Scientists have used a technique to grow bile duct organoids - often referred to as 'mini-organs' - in the lab and shown that these can be used to repair damaged human livers. This is the first time that the technique has been used on human organs. The research paves the way for cell therapies to treat liver disease - in other words, growing 'mini-bile ducts' in the lab as replacement parts that can be used to restore a patient's own liver to health - or to repair damaged organ donor livers, so that they can still be used for transplantation. Bile ducts act as the liver's waste disposal system, and malfunctioning bile ducts are behind a third of adult and 70 per cent of children's liver transplantations, with no ...

Organoids grown from bile duct epithelial cells can be used to repair damaged bile ducts in transplanted human livers, researchers report. The results provide proof of concept for using ex vivo cell-based therapy to improve organ function before transplantation, which could ultimately increase the number of useable organs on the transplant waiting list. Bile produced in the liver is carried to the small intestine through a network of bile ducts formed by biliary epithelial cells known as cholangiocytes. While crucial for digestion, bile becomes toxic when it accumulates in the liver. As a result, chronic liver diseases that affect cholangiocytes often result in liver failure ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Bacteria have many ways to evade the antibiotics that we use against them. Each year, at least 2.8 million people in the United States develop an antibiotic-resistant infection, and more than 35,000 people die from such infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Most of the mutations known to confer resistance occur in the genes targeted by a particular antibiotic. Other resistance mutations allow bacteria to break down antibiotics or pump them out through their cell membranes. MIT researchers have now identified another class of mutations that helps bacteria develop resistance. In a study of E. coli, they discovered that mutations to genes involved ...

The temporary breakdown of Earth's magnetic field 42,000 years ago sparked major climate shifts that led to global environmental change and mass extinctions, a new international study co-led by UNSW Sydney and the South Australian Museum shows. This dramatic turning point in Earth's history - laced with electrical storms, widespread auroras, and cosmic radiation - was triggered by the reversal of Earth's magnetic poles and changing solar winds. The researchers dubbed this danger period the 'Adams Transitional Geomagnetic Event', or 'Adams Event' for short - a tribute to science fiction writer Douglas Adams, who wrote in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that '42' was the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The findings are published today ...

"For decades, chemistry has been governed by two ambitions goals," says Professor Stefan Tautz, head of the Quantum Nanoscience subinstitute at END ...

Cygnus X-1, a binary star system first discovered in 1964, comprises one of the closest black holes to Earth. New observations of this black hole, the first ever detected, have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe's most mysterious objects. An international team, including researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), recently found that the stellar-mass black hole in the Cygnus X-1 binary system has a mass 21 times the mass of the Sun and rotates at a speed close to the speed of light. The study was published in Science on Feb. 18. The researchers used the Very Long Baseline Array - a continent-sized radio ...

Engineers have developed a technique that allows them to precisely place microscopic devices formed from folded DNA molecules in not only a specific location but also in a specific orientation. As a proof-of-concept, they arranged more than 3,000 glowing moon-shaped nanoscale molecular devices into a flower-shaped instrument for indicating the polarization of light. Each of 12 petals pointed in a different direction around the center of the flower, and within in each petal about 250 moons were aligned to the direction of the petal. Because each moon only glows when struck by polarized light matching its orientation, the end result is a flower whose petals light up in sequence as the polarization of light shined upon it is rotated. The flower, which ...

Inhibitors based on approved drugs and designed to disrupt the SARS-CoV-2 viral protein Mpro display strong antiviral activity both in vitro and in a transgenic mouse model, a new study reports. While vaccines are an important tool in the fight against COVID-19, it remains a high priority to develop antiviral drugs, especially with the rise of variants that may partially evade vaccines. The viral protein Mpro is a protease that is required for cleaving precursor polyproteins into functional viral proteins. This essential function makes it a key drug target. Jingxin Qiao et al. designed 32 ...

The COVID-19 pandemic's heavy toll on older Americans highlights the need to strengthen the nation's safety net for people in need of long-term services and supports, an Oregon Health & Science University researcher and co-authors argue in a new report published by Milbank Quarterly. The report proposes a system of universal coverage to support the long-term care of all older Americans. "This approach would protect against financial catastrophe and end the current system that is based on the need to be financially destitute in order to access coverage via Medicaid," ...

BOSTON -- COVID-19, the source of the current pandemic, may be caused by a single virus, but it has a variety of presentations that make treatment difficult. Children, for example, almost exclusively experience mild or asymptomatic COVID-19, while adults can develop severe or even fatal COVID-19. But children who contract COVID-19 are at risk for a rare but serious syndrome called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). Severe cases of MIS-C can lead to cardiac disease and ventricular failure, and require hospitalization and intense medical support. Researchers Galit Alter, PhD, core member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, and Lael Yonker, MD, ...

The effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other conventional antidepressants are believed to be based on their increasing the levels of serotonin and noradrenalin in synapses, while ketamine, a new rapid-acting antidepressant, is thought to function by inhibiting receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Neurotrophic factors regulate the development and plasticity of the nervous system. While all antidepressants increase the quantity and signalling of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the brain, the drugs have so far been thought to act on BDNF indirectly, through serotonin or glutamate receptors. A new study published this week in Cell demonstrates, however, that antidepressants bind directly to a BDNF receptor known as TrkB. This finding challenges ...

NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 18, 2021)--A new study from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found that suicide mortality can be reduced by a Federally coordinated approach employing scientifically proven options. Columbia researchers J. John Mann, MD, Christina A. Michel, MA, and Randy P. Auerbach, PhD, conducted a systematic review, determining which suicide prevention strategies work and are scalable to national levels. The study, "Improving Suicide Prevention Through Evidence-Based Strategies: A Systematic Review," was published online in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The researchers found that screening school children or the general population for those at risk for suicide--the ...