As an indicator and "amplifier" of global climate change, the Arctic's health and stability is the cornerstone of the stability of our climate system. It has far-reaching impacts on ecosystems, coastal resilience, and human settlements in the middle and high latitudes. The Arctic has experienced amplified warming and extensive sea-ice retreat in recent decades. On 15 September 2020, the Arctic sea-ice extent (SIE) reached its annual minimum, which, based on data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, was about 3.74 million km2 (1.44 million square miles). This value was about 40% less than the climate average (~6.27 million km2) during 1980-2010. It was ...

Anastasia Malashina, a doctoral student at HSE University, has proposed a new method to assess vulnerabilities in encryption systems, which is based on a brute-force search of possible options of symbol deciphering. The algorithm was also implemented in a programme, which can be used to find vulnerabilities in ciphers. The results of the study were published in a paper 'Software development for the study of natural language characteristics'. Most of online messages are sent in encrypted form since open communication channels are not protected from data interception. Messengers, cloud services, banking systems--all of these ...

A breakthrough astrophysics code, named Octo-Tiger, simulates the evolution of self-gravitating and rotating systems of arbitrary geometry using adaptive mesh refinement and a new method to parallelize the code to achieve superior speeds. This new code to model stellar collisions is more expeditious than the established code used for numerical simulations. The research came from a unique collaboration between experimental computer scientists and astrophysicists in the Louisiana State University Department of Physics & Astronomy, the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, Indiana University Kokomo and Macquarie University, Australia, culminating in over of a year of benchmark testing and scientific simulations, supported by multiple NSF grants, ...

Fentanyl, oxycodone, morphine--these substances are familiar to many as a source of both pain relief and the cause of a painful epidemic of addiction and death. Scientists have attempted for years to balance the potent pain-relieving properties of opioids with their numerous negative side effects--with mostly mixed results. Work by John Traynor, Ph.D., and Andrew Alt, Ph.D., and their team at the University of Michigan Edward F. Domino Research Center, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, seeks to side-step these problems by harnessing the body's own ability to block pain. All opioid drugs--from poppy-derived opium to heroin--work on receptors that are naturally present in the brain and elsewhere in the body. One such receptor, the mu-opioid receptor, ...

LEBANON, NH - Researchers at Dartmouth's and Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) hope to make estrogen therapy a more accessible treatment option for breast cancer patients who could benefit from it. Anti-estrogen treatments, which block growth signals from estrogen receptors (ER) in tumors, are effective treatments for ER+ breast cancer. But it is common for breast tumors to become resistant to anti-estrogen treatments over time. The research team, led by molecular biologist Todd Miller, PhD, and Nicole Traphagen, a PhD candidate in the Miller Laboratory, found that in mice, cycling between estrogen treatment and anti-estrogen treatment at a specific point in time can dramatically increase ...

FRANKFURT. Originally, oxygen radicals - reactive oxygen species, or ROS for short - were considered to be exclusively harmful in the body. They are produced, for example, by smoking or UV radiation. Because of their high reactivity, they can damage many important molecules in cells, including the hereditary molecule DNA. As a result, there is a risk of inflammatory reactions and the degeneration of affected cells into cancer cells. Because of their damaging effect, however, ROS are also deliberately produced by the body, for example by immune or lung epithelial cells, which destroy invading bacteria and viruses with ROS. This requires relatively high ROS concentrations. In low concentrations, on the ...

Copper remains one of the single most ubiquitous metals in everyday life. As a conductor of heat and electricity, it is utilized in wires, roofing and plumbing, as well as a catalyst for petrochemical plants, solar and electrical conductors and for a wide range of energy related applications. Subsequently, any method to harvest more of the valuable commodity proves a useful endeavor. Debora Rodrigues, Ezekiel Cullen Professor of Engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, in collaboration with Francisco C. Robles Hernandez, ...

Anyone with children knows that while controlling one child can be hard, controlling many at once can be nearly impossible. Getting swarms of robots to work collectively can be equally challenging, unless researchers carefully choreograph their interactions -- like planes in formation -- using increasingly sophisticated components and algorithms. But what can be reliably accomplished when the robots on hand are simple, inconsistent, and lack sophisticated programming for coordinated behavior? A team of researchers led by Dana Randall, ADVANCE Professor of Computing and Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor of Physics, both at Georgia Institute of Technology, sought to show that ...

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in America and causes about 30% of all cancer deaths. That's why researchers with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center wanted to study the impact of a California law passed in 2016 that raised the tobacco sales age from 18 to 21. Their new study published in Preventive Medicine examines smoking behavior after the state implemented one of the first tobacco 21 (T21) policies. The study, conducted by UC Davis researchers Melanie Dove, Susan Stewart and Elisa Tong, looked at smoking patterns before and after the law passed and compared California and other states without a T21 policy. The data was from the 2012-2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. "Most adult tobacco users start smoking ...

Batteries are a part of everyday modern life, powering everything from laptops, phones and robot vacuums to hearing aids, pacemakers and even electric cars. But these batteries potentially pose safety and environmental risks. In a study recently published in Cell Reports Physical Science, researchers at Texas A&M University investigated the components of a different kind of battery -- a metal-free, water-based battery -- which would reduce the flammable nature of standard batteries and decrease the number of metal elements used in their production. Most batteries are ...

Researchers led by Katsunori Tanaka and Kenward Vong at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) in Japan have demonstrated that tumor growth can be reduced by therapy that tags cancer cells with different therapeutic molecules. In one case, the group was able to prevent tumors from forming in mice by targeting cancer cells with a compound that makes it difficult for the cells to clump together and form tumors. For tumors that already existed, they targeted cancer cells with toxic compounds that destroyed them. This study was published on April 23 in Science Advances. One of the major problems with current cancer treatments is that their effects are not limited to cancerous cells in ...

An international team of researchers led by the University of Bergen has uncovered how organisms from crops to corals may avoid deadly DNA damage during evolution. Our cells, and those of animals, plants and fungi, contain compartments that produce chemical fuel. These compartments contain their own DNA, which stores instructions for important cellular machinery. But this so-called oDNA (organelle DNA) can become mutated, corrupting the instructions and preventing cells making enough energy. In humans and some other animals, a process called the "bottleneck" allows some offspring to inherit less mutated oDNA. This process needs mothers' egg cells to develop early, like in humans, where a human girl is born with all ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Fruits and veggies are good for you and if you are a lemur, they may even help mitigate the effects of habitat loss. A new study sequencing the genome of four species of sifakas, a genus of lemurs found only in Madagascar's forests, reveals that these animals' taste for leaves runs all the way to their genes, which are also more diverse than expected for an endangered species. Sifakas are folivores, meaning that the bulk of their diet is composed of leaves. Leaves can be difficult to digest and full of toxic compounds meant to prevent them from being eaten. Unlike our carefully selected spinach, tree leaves also don't taste great, and are not very nutritious. Because of that, leaf-eaters ...

Strenuous efforts to prevent and treat malaria in recent decades have brought great benefits, particularly against disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum in countries in Africa and the Americas. But malaria caused by its "stealthier and more resilient cousin", P. vivax, now needs to be confronted with high priority, say Lorenz von Seidlein and Nicholas White of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand in a Perspective. The piece introduces a Collection on the prevention and treatment of P. vivax malaria in the open access journal PLOS Medicine, published ahead of World Malaria Day on April 25th. In a Review article in the Collection, Sarah Auburn of the Menzies School of Health Research and Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia ...

Extremist perpetrators of violence often quote verses from their religion's holy scriptures that authorize, or even prescribe, attacks on enemies of the faith. Abdullah H., the Syrian now on trial who stabbed a homosexual couple with a knife and killed a man in Dresden in October 2020, also testified that he had been inspired to commit the crime by a Quranic sura. However, whether the religious motivation that extremist perpetrators of violence emphasize is causally related to their actions is often doubted. Now, WZB researchers Ruud Koopmans and Eylem Kanol can prove for the first time that verses in religious scriptures that legitimize violence can increase support for killing enemies of the faith. Together with Dietlind Stolle, a German-Canadian ...

In a rare exchange, scientists and water resources engineers from Iran and Utah are collaborating on a bold scientific study to restore one of the world's largest saline lakes. Lake Urmia -- a massive salt lake in Iran's northwest and a sister to Utah's Great Salt Lake -- has lost nearly 95 percent of its volume over the last two decades. As water levels drop, salinity spikes, threatening the lake's brine shrimp population and the flamingos and other bird species that depend on the shrimp for food. Lake levels are so low that at some coastal resorts, tourism boats must be pulled a kilometer (0.6 mile) or more from shore by tractor before reaching suitable depths. In addition, new land bridges are forming in the drying lake bed which allows mainland predators ...

Over the last 60 years, scientists have been able to observe how and when genetic information was replicated, determining the existence a "replication timing program", a process that controls when and in what order segments of DNA replicate. However, scientists still cannot explain why such a specific timing sequence exists. In a study published today in Science, Dr. David Gilbert and his team have answered this 60-year-old question. "Why would cells care about the order in which they replicate DNA?" asked lead scientist Dr. Gilbert. "After all - all cells need to replicate all their DNA. Our hypothesis has been ...

A lobster's underbelly is lined with a thin, translucent membrane that is both stretchy and surprisingly tough. This marine under-armor, as MIT engineers reported in 2019, is made from the toughest known hydrogel in nature, which also happens to be highly flexible. This combination of strength and stretch helps shield a lobster as it scrabbles across the seafloor, while also allowing it to flex back and forth to swim. Now a separate MIT team has fabricated a hydrogel-based material that mimics the structure of the lobster's underbelly. The researchers ran the material through a battery of stretch and impact tests, and showed ...

What The Study Did: This simulation modeling study estimates the benefits of identifying silent COVID-19 infections among children as a proxy for their vaccination. Authors: Alison P. Galvani, Ph.D., of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.7097) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, ...

What The Study Did: Baseline corrected QT interval (QTc) on 12-lead electrocardiograms and ensuing changes among patients with and without COVID-19 are evaluated in this study. Authors: Marc P. Waase, M.D., Ph.D., and Elaine Y. Wan, M.D., of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.6842) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding ...

What The Study Did: This study examines the test result positivity rate and health outcomes of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection among perinatally exposed newborns. Authors: Asimenia Angelidou, M.D., Ph.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.7523) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial ...

BOSTON - At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, very little was known about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Over the past year, more evidence has become available on how the virus is transmitted, who is at the greatest risk and best practices to prevent exposure. Yet questions still remain about how the virus impacts the health of pregnant women and newborns. In a new study published in JAMA Network Open, physician-researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital reveal that, while ...

(Boston)-- Being a parent of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) infant does not come with its own playbook of instructions. Preparing to care for a medically needy infant requires the mastery of technical skills, knowledge, emotional comfort and confidence. After confirming that an infant is medically ready for discharge, the quality of NICU discharge training/teaching is the strongest predictor of discharge readiness. A new study reinforces the importance of discharge preparation and transition to home planning. NICU discharge readiness is defined as the "masterful attainment of technical skills and knowledge, emotional ...

Evolution is unfolding in real time within many natural animal populations and researchers are now observing how this influences biodiversity in the field. In a newly published study in Molecular Ecology a team of Drexel University scientists examined the biological variations in pea aphids, insects that reproduce frequently enough to evolve before our eyes, by tracing the prevalence of their protective endosymbiont, Hamiltonella defensa, which the insects use to ward off parasitoid wasps. "We know that certain organisms have many generations in a season, and we know sometimes it just takes a handful of generations for evolution to unfold; and aphids are one of those types of organisms," explained END ...

DES PLAINES, IL - The diagnostic value of the Head-Impulse, Nystagmus, Test of Skew (HINTS) exam in the emergency department setting is limited. This is the result of a study titled END ...