Russian scientists have proposed a new algorithm for automatic decoding and interpreting the decoder weights, which can be used both in brain-computer interfaces and in fundamental research. The results of the study were published in the Journal of Neural Engineering. Brain-computer interfaces are needed to create robotic prostheses and neuroimplants, rehabilitation simulators, and devices that can be controlled by the power of thought. These devices help people who have suffered a stroke or physical injury to move (in the case of a robotic chair or prostheses), communicate, use a computer, and operate household appliances. In addition, in combination with machine learning methods, neural interfaces ...

In the hours after we die, certain cells in the human brain are still active. Some cells even increase their activity and grow to gargantuan proportions, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago. In a newly published study in the journal Scientific Reports, the UIC researchers analyzed gene expression in fresh brain tissue -- which was collected during routine brain surgery -- at multiple times after removal to simulate the post-mortem interval and death. They found that gene expression in some cells actually increased after death. These 'zombie genes' -- those that increased expression after the post-mortem interval -- were specific to one type of cell: inflammatory cells called ...

Potassium is an essential nutrient for all living things. Plants need it in large quantities, especially for growth and in order to withstand stress better. For this reason, they absorb large quantities of potassium from the soil. In agriculture, this leads to a lack of available potassium in the soil - which is why the mineral is an important component in fertilizers. A team of German and Chinese researchers has now shown, for the first time, where and how plants detect potassium deficiency in their roots, and which signalling pathways coordinate the adaptation of root growth and potassium absorption ...

A number of studies have shown that human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19, appear to attack neurons and the nervous system in vulnerable populations. This neuroinvasion through the nasal cavity leads to the risk of neurological disorders in affected individuals. Research conducted at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has identified ways to prevent the spread of infection within the central nervous system (CNS). The study, led by Professor Pierre Talbot and his research associate Marc Desforges, now at CHU-Sainte-Justine, ...

According to a recent Finnish study, accumulating more brisk and vigorous physical activity can curb adiposity-induced low-grade inflammation. The study also reported that diet quality had no independent association with low-grade inflammation. The findings, based on the ongoing Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children (PANIC) Study conducted at the University of Eastern Finland, were published in the European Journal of Sport Science. The study was made in collaboration among researchers from the University of Jyväskylä, the University of Eastern Finland, the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, and the University of Cambridge. Low-grade inflammation is linked to many chronic diseases, but exercise can ...

Casual sex is on the decline for both young men and women, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick study that found less alcohol consumption among both genders is a major reason while playing video games and living at home with parents are another--but only for men. The study, published in the journal Socius, found that between 2007 and 2017, the percentage of 18-to 23-year-old men who had casual sex in the past month dropped from 38 percent to 24 percent. The percentage dropped from 31 percent to 22 percent for young women of the same age. The most important factor driving the decline among young men is the decrease in drinking, which alone explains more than ...

The vast reservoir of carbon that is stored in soils probably is more sensitive to destabilization from climate change than has previously been assumed, according to a new study by researchers at WHOI and other institutions. The study found that the biospheric carbon turnover within river basins is vulnerable to future temperature and precipitation perturbations from a changing climate. Although many earlier, and fairly localized, studies have hinted at soil organic carbon sensitivity to climate change, the new research sampled 36 rivers from around the ...

As the pandemic's economic effects drive more people to enroll in Medicaid as safety-net health insurance, a new study suggests that the program's dental coverage can improve their oral health in ways that help them seek a new job or do better at the one they have. The study focuses on the impact of dental coverage offered through Michigan's Medicaid expansion, called the Healthy Michigan Plan. The researchers, from the University of Michigan, used a survey and interviews to assess the impact of this coverage on the health and lives of low-income people who enrolled. In all, 60% of the 4,090 enrollees surveyed for the new study had visited a dentist at least once since enrolling ...

Daily national surveys by Carnegie Mellon University show that while COVID-19 vaccine uptake has increased, the proportion of vaccine-hesitant adults has remained unchanged. The concerns about a side effect remain high, especially among females, Black adults and those with an eligible health condition. The Delphi Research Group at CMU in partnership with Facebook released its latest survey findings. The analyses show that vaccine hesitancy persists and point to potential tactics to combat it. "Prior research by the CDC has found that Black and Hispanic adults are the least likely to receive the annual flu vaccine each year," said Alex Reinhart, assistant teaching professor in CMU's Department of Statistics & Data Science and a member of the Delphi ...

It can be hard to resist lapsing into an exaggerated, singsong tone when you talk to a cute baby. And that's with good reason. Babies will pay more attention to baby talk than regular speech, regardless of which languages they're used to hearing, according to a study by UCLA's Language Acquisition Lab and 16 other labs around the globe. The study found that babies who were exposed to two languages had a greater interest in infant-directed speech -- that is, an adult speaking baby talk -- than adult-directed speech. Research has already shown that monolingual babies prefer baby talk. Some parents worry that teaching two languages could mean an infant won't learn to speak on time, but the new study shows bilingual babies are developmentally right ...

In Slovakia, in counties subject to two rounds of rapid antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 where those who tested positive then isolated, the approach helped decrease the prevalence of positive tests by more than 50% in a week - all while primary schools and workplaces remained open. "While it was impossible to disentangle the precise contribution of control measures and mass testing," the authors said, mass testing is likely to have had a substantial effect, their modeling showed. Applying mass testing may provide a valuable tool in future containment of SARS-CoV-2 elsewhere, they say. ...

Rapid 3D microscopic imaging of fluorescent samples has gained increasing importance in numerous applications in physical and biomedical sciences. Given the limited axial range that a single 2D image can provide, 3D fluorescence imaging often requires time-consuming mechanical scanning of samples using a dense sampling grid. In addition to being slow and tedious, this approach also introduces additional light exposure on the sample, which might be toxic and cause unwanted damage, such as photo-bleaching. By devising a new recurrent neural network, UCLA researchers have demonstrated a deep learning-enabled volumetric microscopy framework for 3D imaging of fluorescent samples. This new method only requires a few 2D images of the sample to be ...

NIMS and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have jointly discovered that the chemical compound Ca3SiO is a direct transition semiconductor, making it a potentially promising infrared LED and infrared detector component. This compound--composed of calcium, silicon and oxygen--is cheap to produce and non-toxic. Many of the existing infrared semiconductors contain toxic chemical elements, such as cadmium and tellurium. Ca3SiO may be used to develop less expensive and safer near-infrared semiconductors. Infrared wavelengths have been used for many purposes, including optical fiber communications, photovoltaic power generation and night vision devices. Existing semiconductors ...

Imperial physicists are part of a team that has announced 'intriguing' results that potentially cannot be explained by our current laws of nature. The LHCb Collaboration at CERN has found particles not behaving in the way they should according to the guiding theory of particle physics - the Standard Model. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that particles called beauty quarks, which are measured in the LHCb experiment, should decay into either muons or electrons in equal measure. However, the new result suggests that this may not be happening, which could point to the existence of new particles or interactions not explained by the Standard Model. Physicists from Imperial College ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, March 23, 2021 - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have found that the Pfizer Coronavirus vaccine is moderately less effective against the South African variant, but still neutralizes the British variant and the original SARS-CoV-2 strain. Their research was just published in the prestigious journal Cell Host and Microbe. "Our findings show that future variants could necessitate a modified vaccine as the virus mutates to increase its infectivity," says principal investigator Dr. Ran Taube of the Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics in the Faculty of Health Sciences. The BGU scientists evaluated the vaccine effectiveness ...

Metallic microstructures are the key components in almost every current or emerging technology. For example, with the next wireless communication standard (6G) being established, the need for advanced components and especially antennas is unbroken. The drive to yet higher frequencies and deeper integration goes hand in hand with miniaturization and fabrication technologies with on-chip capability. Via direct laser writing - an additive manufacturing technology that offers sub-micron precision and feature sizes - highly sophisticated and integrated components come into reach. One big advantage of direct laser writing is that it is not limited to the fabrication of planar structures but enables almost arbitrary 3D microstructures. This ...

A study has found that a new 'care bundle' can reduce the incidence of facial pressure injuries in frontline COVID-19 healthcare workers caused by the prolonged wearing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The study, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences Skin Wounds and Trauma (SWaT) Research Centre, is published in the current edition of the Journal of Wound Care. The research took place over a two-month period amongst healthcare workers in a large acute hospital in Ireland. In the study, approximately 300 frontline staff were provided with a care ...

Glioma is a fatal neurological disorder that has limited interventional treatment, despite extensive research over the past several decades. A research team led by Dr. Gong Chen, a former professor at Penn State University and now leading a brain repair center at Jinan University in China, has developed a novel gene therapy to reprogram glioma cells into functional neurons, shedding new light on glioma treatment. The work has been published in Cancer Biology & Medicine on March 22, 2021 Glioma is a common malignant cancer growing in the central nervous system. For patients with a type of severe glioma ...

Scientists have developed a pioneering new procedure that will help diagnose a potentially lethal fungal lung disease with greater speed and accuracy, and with less distress to the patient. A team of international scientists, including Professor Chris Thornton from the University of Exeter, has created a new diagnostic procedure for pulmonary aspergillosis. Aspergillus is a common mold readily found worldwide in a variety of environments, such as soil and decaying plant material, and can easily be inhaled as air-borne spores in everyday life. While people with ...

Serious complications due to blood clots, such as heart attacks and strokes, that are experienced by some COVID-19 survivors may be caused by a lingering immune response in the blood vessels after recovery, suggests a study published today in eLife. The findings may help explain why some COVID-19 survivors, so-called 'long-haulers', report lasting COVID-19 symptoms or why some experience strokes or heart attacks weeks or months after recovery. They may also suggest potential strategies to help prevent these complications. "During the initial stages of infection, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that ...

The last glacial period, which lasted about 100,000 years, reached its peak about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago: Huge ice sheets covered large parts of northern Europe, North America and northern Asia, some of them kilometres thick, and the sea level was about 125 metres below today's level. The Earth looked very different during this so-called Last Glacial Maximum than it does today. This relatively recent period of the last maximum ice extent has long been of interest to researchers and subject to intensive research. What actually led to this extreme glacier growth, however, ...

A study of young men with COVID-19 has revealed a genetic variant linked to disease severity. The discovery, published recently in eLife, means that men with severe disease could be genetically screened to identify who has the variant and may benefit from interferon treatment. For most people, COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, causes only mild or no symptoms. However, severe cases can rapidly progress towards respiratory distress syndrome. "Although older age and the presence of long-term conditions such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes are known risk factors, they alone do not fully explain differences in severity," explains first author ...

New research from Copenhagen Business School finds sexual harassment in the workplace severely hurts company value. "Sexual harassment has serious consequences for the victim. But it is also something managers and investors should be interested in for purely financial reasons, as it can wipe off enormous amounts of market value in a matter of days," says Associate Professor Ulf Nielsson from the Department of Finance at Copenhagen Business School. The research found that the stock market value of a listed company drops by 1.5% following sexual ...

When so-called beauty quarks are produced during the collision of high-energy proton beams in the Large Hadron Collider - the particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva - they decay almost immediately on the spot. Researchers of the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) reconstruct the properties of the composite particles based on their decay products. According to the established laws of particle physics - the so-called Standard Model - it is expected that beauty quarks decay with the same probability into a final state with electrons and muons, the ...

In 2016 the Bank of England introduced plastic (polymer) banknotes, alongside 50 other countries that use polymer banknotes Counterfeit polymer banknotes on the streets have increased over the last few years, therefore the need to prevent and identify counterfeit banknotes has increased Using a technique called Polymer Substrate Fingerprinting, researchers from the University of Warwick are able to identify each banknote's own fingerprint, which is unique and unclonable Since the introduction of plastic (polymer) banknotes in 2016, the number of counterfeit notes on the streets has increased, however, researchers from Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick have developed a novel technique called Polymer Substrate Fingerprinting, which identifies every ...