The PCR test is the most accurate tool to identify SARS-CoV-2. However, valid results are often available only after days. Moreover, the laboratory must be well equipped, have trained personnel and sufficient financial resources. All of this is usually a problem in Africa. A portable suitcase could help. In cooperation with several African universities, scientists at Leipzig University have found that this mini-laboratory provides test results that are almost as good as a PCR test - and almost in real time. The researchers have now published their findings in the journal "Analytical Chemistry". The compact case could provide rapid coronavirus test results in regions of ...

Neuroblastomas are malignant solid tumours that occur mainly in early childhood. They arise from degenerated immature cells of the sympathetic nervous system. One prognostic marker to assess the malignancy of the tumour is the MYCN oncogene. High-risk neuroblastoma patients often have amplification of MYCN, i.e. very high levels of this protein, which drives uncontrolled tumour growth. Conversely, inhibiting MYCN or its function could be a promising therapeutic opportunity. An important step towards this direction was taken by an international research project led by scientists ...

A urine test based on University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center research could have avoided one third of unnecessary prostate cancer biopsies while failing to detect only a small number of cancers, according to a validation study that included more than 1,500 patients. The findings appear in the March issue of the Journal of Urology. The MyProstateScore test, which is being commercialized by LynxDX, a U-M startup company, measures levels of cancer-specific genes in a patient's urine. It is based on U-M research that discovered that half of all prostate tumors harbor a certain ...

Among firearm-owning individuals who died by suicide, handgun ownership was associated with greater odds of having died by self-inflicted gunshot wound rather than by another method, according to a Rutgers researcher. The study, published in the Archives of Suicide Research, surveyed surviving loved ones of 121 handgun and shotgun owners who died by suicide -- 93 of whom died with a firearm and 28 who died through other means -- and asked about the numbers and types of firearms the individuals had and the circumstances of their deaths. The researchers found that 77 percent of those who died using a firearm, as well as 61 percent of those who died using another method, owned a handgun. They also found that 88.8 percent of individuals who only owned handguns used a firearm in their ...

Superconductors -- materials that conduct electricity without resistance -- are remarkable. They provide a macroscopic glimpse into quantum phenomena, which are usually observable only at the atomic level. Beyond their physical peculiarity, superconductors are also useful. They're found in medical imaging, quantum computers, and cameras used with telescopes. But superconducting devices can be finicky. Often, they're expensive to manufacture and prone to err from environmental noise. That could change, thanks to research from Karl Berggren's group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The researchers are developing a superconducting nanowire, which could enable more efficient superconducting electronics. The ...

It is no secret that U.S. politics is polarized. An experiment conducted by MIT researchers now shows just how deeply political partisanship directly influences people's behavior within online social networks. Deploying Twitter bots to help examine the online behavior of real people, the researchers found that the likelihood that individuals will follow other accounts on Twitter triples when there appears to be a common partisan bond involved. "When partisanship is matched, people are three times more likely to follow other accounts back," says MIT professor David Rand, co-author of a new paper detailing the study's results. "That's a really big effect, and clear evidence of how important a role partisanship plays." The finding helps reveal ...

A new largescale genetic analysis has found biological mechanisms that contribute to making people more susceptible to muscle weakness in later life, finding that diseases such as osteoarthritis and diabetes may play a large role in susceptibility. As we get older we lose muscle strength, and in some people this severe weakness impacts their ability to live everyday lives, a condition called sarcopenia. Around 10 per cent of people over 50 experience sarcopenia. Many causes thought to impact likelihood of developing this weakness, which is linked to higher death rates. In a genetic analysis of over 250,000 people aged over 60 from UK Biobank and 21 other cohorts, an international team led by researchers at the University of Exeter ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have created a new plasmonic metasurface that achieves record high light efficiency over the entire centimeter-scale metasurface. The advance makes the new nanostructured thin film practical for use in a variety of applications from light-based communication to fluorescence-based biosensing. "The major obstacles for using plasmonic structures for practical applications is that they are either too inefficient or their nanoscale properties aren't easily scalable to larger sizes," said research team leader Maiken H. Mikkelsen from Duke University. "We designed ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Visible and infrared light can carry more data than radio waves, but has always been confined to a hard-wired, fiber-optic cable. Working with Facebook's Connectivity Lab, a Duke research team has now made a major advance toward the dream of ditching the fiber in fiber optics. While working to create a free-space optical communication system for high-speed wireless internet, the researchers also show that speed and efficiency properties previously demonstrated on tiny, single-unit plasmonic antennas can also be achieved on larger, centimeter-scale devices. The research appears online Feb. 11 in the journal Optica. In 2016, researchers from Internet.org's Connectivity Lab--a subsidiary of Facebook--outlined a new type of light detector that could ...

A total of 1.1 million bitcoin were stolen in the 2013-2017 period. Given the current price for Bitcoin exceeding $40,000, the corresponding monetary equivalent of losses is more than $44 billion highlighting the societal impact of this criminal activity. The question arises how does the uncertainty in the Bitcoin market - measured by its volatility - respond to such cyberattacks. A recently published research article from Dr. Klaus Grobys (University of Vaasa, Finland) in the well-known journal Quantitative Finance addresses this question. In his study, he examined 29 hacking incidents that occurred in the Bitcoin market in the 2013-2017 period. A surprising result of this study is that Bitcoin volatility does not respond to hackings with a subsequent ...

Research from the University of Kent, Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main, and the Philipps-University in Marburg has provided crucial insights into the biological composition of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, revealing vital clues for the discovery of antiviral drugs. Researchers compared SARS-CoV-2 and the closely related virus SARS-CoV, the cause of the 2002/03 SARS outbreak. Despite being 80% biologically identical, the viruses differ in crucial properties. SARS-CoV-2 is more contagious and less deadly, with a fatality rate of 2% compared to SARS-CoV's 10%. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 can be spread by asymptomatic individuals, whereas SARS-CoV was only transmitted by those who were already ill. Most functions in cells are carried ...

A team of researchers studying the effectiveness of different types of face masks has found that in order to provide the best protection against COVID-19, the fit of a mask is as important, or more important, than the material it is made of. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, carried out a series of different fit tests, and found that when a high-performance mask - such as an N95, KN95 or FFP2 mask - is not properly fitted, it performs no better than a cloth mask. Minor differences in facial features, such as the amount of fat under the skin, make significant differences in how well a mask fits. The results, published in the journal PLoS ONE, also suggest that the fit-check routine used in many healthcare settings has high failure rates, as minor leaks ...

Current electronic components in computers, mobile phones and many other devices are based on microstructured silicon carriers. However, this technology has almost reached its physical limits and the smallest possible structure sizes. Two-dimensional (2D) materials are therefore being intensively researched. One can imagine these materials as extremely thin films consisting of only one layer of atoms. The best known is graphene, an atomically thin layer of graphite. For its discovery, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. While ...

Our world needs reliable telecommunications more than ever before. However, classic devices have limitations in terms of size and cost and, especially, power consumption - which is directly related to greenhouse emissions. Graphene could change this and transform the future of broadband. Now, Graphene Flagship researchers have devised a wafer-scale fabrication technology that, thanks to predetermined graphene single-crystal templates, allows for integration into silicon wafers, enabling automation and paving the way to large scale production. This work, published in the prestigious journal ACS Nano, is a great example of a collaboration fostered by the ...

During the first confinement (18 March to 10 May 2020), people who reported worse sleep quality during a night also reported an increase in negative mood, psychotic-type like experiences and somatic complaints on the next day. Furthermore, daily reports of deaths caused by Covid-19 predicted psychological symptoms on the same day and sleep quality the following night. This is the result of research carried out in three countries (Belgium, Hungary, Spain) under direction of Peter Simor with researchers at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Rebeca Sifuentes-Ortega, Ariadna Albajara Saenz, Oumaïma Benkirane, Anke Van Roy and Philippe Peigneux from the CRCN (Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences) and the UNI (ULB Neurosciences Institute) ...

Personality traits such as conscientiousness or sociability are patterns of experience and behavior that can change throughout our lives. Individual changes usually take place slowly as people gradually adapt to the demands of society and their environment. However, it is unclear whether certain personality traits can also be psychologically influenced in a short-term and targeted manner. Researchers from the universities of Zurich, St. Gallen, Brandeis, Illinois, and ETH Zurich have now investigated this question using a digital intervention. In their study, around 1,500 participants were provided with a specially developed smartphone app for three months and the researchers then assessed whether and ...

A mathematician from RUDN University suggested a stable difference scheme for solving inverse problems for elliptic-telegraph and differential equations that are used to describe biological, physical, and sociological processes. The results of the study were published in the Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations journal. Elliptic equations are a class of differential equations in partial derivatives that are used, among other things, to model time-independent processes. Telegraph equations are presented in a nonstationary form. They were initially obtained for a telegraph communication line, but today they are also used to model the movement of insects, the flow of blood ...

PHOENIX -- A Mayo Clinic team, led by Rahmi Oklu, M.D., Ph.D., a vascular and interventional radiologist at Mayo Clinic, in collaboration with Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., of Harvard University, report the development of a new ionic liquid formulation that killed cancer cells and allowed uniform distribution of a chemotherapy drug into liver tumors and other solid tumors in the lab. This discovery could solve a problem that has long plagued drug delivery to tumors and provide new hope to patients with liver cancer awaiting a liver transplant. The preclinical study results are published in Science Translational Medicine. Dr. Oklu, study author and director of Mayo Clinic's ...

Two international studies of a consortium including more than a dozen institutions the world over, including Empa, published today in the journal Nature show levels of CFC-11 emissions, one of many chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) chemicals once widely used in refrigerators and insulating foams, are back on the decline - less than two years after their shock resurgence in the wake of suspected rogue production in eastern China was widely publicized. "The findings are very welcome news and hopefully mark an end to a disturbing period of apparent regulatory breaches", says Luke Western from the University of Bristol, a ...

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is characterized by damage to the blood vessels and parenchyma in the brain. It presents as a multitude of symptoms, which makes the diagnosis difficult. Matters are complicated further when SVD sets in along with other comorbidities with similar symptoms. Therefore, accurate diagnosis at an early stage of disease progression helps in defining better prognosis and management strategies for patients with cerebral SVD. A team of researchers from the United Kingdom set out to review more than 10,000 studies on clinical diagnosis, risk factors, progression, and intervention ...

Experts have spent decades warning us about the rising rates of childhood obesity, which has become an epidemic among recent generations in many places around the world, including Spain. The transition from the traditional Mediterranean diet to the consumption of processed foods with low nutritional value is a key contributor, with child-targeted advertising also partly to blame. According to the Breakfast Food Advertisements in Mediterranean Countries: Products' Sugar Content in Adverts from 2015 to 2019 report produced by UOC Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences professor and researcher, Mireia Montaña, the majority of breakfast products ...

In recent years, active, self-propelled particles have received growing interest amongst the scientific community. Examples of active particles and their systems are numerous and very diverse, ranging from bacterium films to flocks of birds or human crowds. These systems can demonstrate unusual behavior, which is challenging to understand or model. To this end, large-scale models of active particles were being scrutinised by experts at Leicester, in order to understand basic principles underlying active particle dynamics and apply them in a scenario of an evacuation strategy for customers in crowded place. Unexpectedly, the 'super-particles' milling in a circular motion were stumbled upon ...

There's a reason that ideas--even erroneous ones--catch fire on social media or in popular culture: groupthink. New research co-authored by Berkeley Haas Asst. Prof. Douglas Guilbeault shows that large groups of people all tend to think alike, and also illustrates how easily people's opinions can be swayed by social media--even by artificial users known as bots. In a series of experiments, published in the journal Nature Communications, Guilbeault and co-authors Damon Centola of the University of Pennsylvania and Andrea Baronchelli of City University London created an online game that asked numerous people to identify ...

Just as beneficial microbes in the human gut can be affected by antibiotics, diet interventions and other disturbances, the microbiomes of other animals can also be upset. In a rare study published this week, Andrea Jani, a researcher with the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), determined the skin microbiome of an endangered frog was altered when the frogs were infected by a specific fungus, and it didn't recover to its initial state even when the frog was cured of the infection. All animals host symbiotic microbes--many ...

WASHINGTON--Chinese people are more likely to face high blood pressure and other health risks as a result of higher body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than people from other racial and ethnic groups, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's END ...