ITHACA, N.Y. -Wind energy scientists at Cornell University have released a new global wind atlas - a digital compendium filled with documented extreme wind speeds for all parts of the world - to help engineers select the turbines in any given region and accelerate the development of sustainable energy. This wind atlas is the first publicly available, uniform and geospatially explicit (datasets tied to locations) description of extreme wind speeds, according to the research, "A Global Assessment of Extreme Wind Speeds For Wind Energy Applications," published in Nature Energy. "Cost-efficient expansion of the wind-energy industry is enabled by access ...

One of the most important ways to stop the spread of COVID-19 is for people who have tested positive, or have symptoms, to isolate themselves from the other people they live with. But a new University of Michigan poll suggests that nearly one in five older adults don't have the ability to do this - and that those who are Hispanic or Black, or who have lower incomes or poor health to begin with, are more likely to lack a safe isolation place in their home. The poll also shows significant inequality in another key aspect of staying safe and healthy during the pandemic: the ability to get outside for fresh air and exercise, and to engage safely with friends, ...

Despite worldwide use of lithium batteries, the exact dynamics of their operation has remained elusive. X-rays have proven to be a powerful tool for peering inside of these batteries to see the changes that occur in real time. Using the ultrabright X-rays of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, a research team recently observed the internal evolution of the materials inside solid-state lithium batteries as they were charged and discharged. This detailed 3D ...

The speed of light has come to 3D printing. Northwestern University engineers have developed a new method that uses light to improve 3D printing speed and precision while also, in combination with a high-precision robot arm, providing the freedom to move, rotate or dilate each layer as the structure is being built. Most conventional 3D printing processes rely on replicating a digital design model that is sliced into layers with the layers printed and assembled upwards like a cake. The Northwestern method introduces the ability to manipulate the original design layer by layer and pivot the printing direction without recreating the model. This "on-the-fly" ...

How do the normal pains of everyday life, such as headaches and backaches, influence our ability to think? Recent studies suggest that healthy individuals in pain also show deficits in working memory, or the cognitive process of holding and manipulating information over short periods of time. Prior research suggests that pain-related impairments in working memory depend on an individual's level of emotional distress. Yet the specific brain and psychological factors underlying the role of emotional distress in contributing to this relationship are not well understood. A new study, titled "Modeling neural and self-reported factors of affective distress in the relationship between pain and working memory in healthy individuals," and published in the journal ...

LOS ANGELES - New research from the Center for Cardiac Arrest Prevention in the Smidt Heart Institute has found for the first time that during nighttime hours, women are more likely than men to suffer sudden death due to cardiac arrest. Findings were published in the journal Heart Rhythm. "Dying suddenly during nighttime hours is a perplexing and devastating phenomenon," said Sumeet Chugh, MD, senior author of the study and director of the Center for Cardiac Arrest Prevention. "We were surprised to discover that being female is an independent predictor of these events." Medical experts are mystified, Chugh says, because during these late hours, most patients are in a resting state, with reduced metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure. Sudden cardiac arrest-also called sudden cardiac ...

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 3, 2021) -- For the first time in humans, investigators at Cedars-Sinai have identified the neurons responsible for canceling planned behaviors or actions--a highly adaptive skill that when lost, can lead to unwanted movements. Known as "stop signal neurons," these neurons are critical in powering someone to stop or abort an action they have already put in process. "We have all had the experience of sitting at a traffic stop and starting to press the gas pedal but then realizing that the light is still red and quickly pressing the brake again," said Ueli Rutishauser, PhD, professor of Neurosurgery, Neurology and Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai and senior author of the study published ...

NEW YORK and LA JOLLA, CA--A phase 1 clinical trial testing a novel vaccine approach to prevent HIV has produced promising results, IAVI and Scripps Research announced today. The vaccine showed success in stimulating production of rare immune cells needed to start the process of generating antibodies against the fast-mutating virus; the targeted response was detected in 97 percent of participants who received the vaccine. "This study demonstrates proof of principle for a new vaccine concept for HIV, a concept that could be applied to other pathogens, as well," says William Schief, Ph.D., a professor and immunologist at Scripps Research and executive director of vaccine design at IAVI's Neutralizing Antibody Center, whose laboratory developed the vaccine. "With our many collaborators ...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Feb. 3, 2021 - New research on gender inequality indicates that fewer leadership prospects in the workplace apply even to women who show the most promise early on in their academic careers. Jill Yavorsky, an assistant professor of sociology at UNC Charlotte, co-led the study, "The Under-Utilization of Women's Talent: Academic Achievement and Future Leadership Positions," with Yue Qian, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. In their paper, published in a leading social science journal, Social Forces, the social scientists discovered that men supervise more individuals ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A study by Mayo Clinic researchers published in Kidney International Reports finds that immune checkpoint inhibitors, may have negative consequences in some patients, including acute kidney inflammation, known as interstitial nephritis. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are used to treat cancer by stimulating the immune system to attack cancerous cells. "Immune checkpoint inhibitors have improved the prognosis for patients with a wide range of malignancies including melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer and renal cancer," says Sandra Herrmann, M.D., ...

URBANA, Ill. - For decades, kibble has been our go-to diet for dogs. But the dog food marketplace has exploded in recent years, with grain-free, fresh, and now human-grade offerings crowding the shelves. All commercial dog foods must meet standards for complete and balanced nutrition, so how do consumers know what to choose? A new University of Illinois comparison study shows diets made with human-grade ingredients are not only highly palatable, they're extremely digestible. And that means less poop to scoop. Up to 66% less. "Based on past research we've conducted I'm not surprised with the results when feeding human-grade compared to an extruded dry diet," says Kelly Swanson, the Kraft Heinz Company Endowed Professor in Human Nutrition in the ...

Like weeds sprouting from cracks in the pavement, cancer often forms in sites of tissue damage. That damage could be an infection, a physical wound, or some type of inflammation. Common examples include stomach cancer caused by H. pylori infection, Barrett's esophagus caused by acid reflux, and even smoking-induced lung cancer. Exactly how tissue damage colludes with genetic changes to promote cancer isn't fully understood. Most of what scientists know about cancer concerns advanced stages of the disease. That's especially true for cancers such as pancreatic cancer that are usually diagnosed very late. Researchers ...

Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) led by Professor Francisco Sánchez-Madrid have found that dendritic cells, which initiate specific immune responses, can reprogram their genes to improve their immune response. The results of the study, funded by Fundación 'la Caixa' and published today in Science Advances, could have important applications in the development of new vaccination and immunotherapy strategies. Dendritic cells are professional antigen-presenting cells that initiate adaptive or specific immune responses. As described by the research team, "dendritic cells capture possible pathogenic agents in different tissues and entry sites, process their components, and transport them to lymph nodes. Here, they ...

Captive marmosets that listened in on recorded vocal interactions between other monkeys appeared to understand what they overheard - and formed judgements about one of the interlocutors as a result, according to behavioral analyses and thermal measurements that corresponded with the marmosets' emotional states. The findings suggest that the eavesdropping monkeys perceived these vocalizations as "conversations" rather than isolated elements and indicate that, on the whole, they prefer to interact with cooperative rather than noncooperative individuals. However, the researchers observed notable differences in how male or female and breeder or helper animals (those without their own offspring) reacted after eavesdropping. While behavioral ...

Scientists have developed a monitoring system based on commercial smartwatches that can detect movement issues and tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease. The system was tested in a study involving 343 patients - including 225 who the researchers followed for 6 months. The system gave evaluations that matched a clinician's estimates in 94% of the subjects. The findings suggest the platform could allow clinicians to remotely monitor the progression of a patient's condition and adjust medication plans accordingly to improve outcomes. Parkinson's disease is marked by a breakdown in voluntary movement ...

Participants in an international survey study reported greater willingness to reshare a call for social distancing if the message was endorsed by well-known immunology expert Anthony Fauci, rather than a government spokesperson or celebrity. Ahmad Abu-Akel of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and colleagues Andreas Spitz and Robert West of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, report these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 3. Previous research has extensively explored how to maximize the effectiveness of public health messages by altering their style and content. However, relatively few studies have examined the impact of spokesperson identity on the effectiveness of health messages, especially during crises like the ongoing COVID-19 ...

DALLAS - Feb. 3, 2021 - Inactivating a gene in young songbirds that's closely linked with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevents the birds from forming memories necessary to accurately reproduce their fathers' songs, a new study led by UT Southwestern shows. The findings, published online today in Science Advances, may help explain the deficits in speech and language that often accompany ASD and could eventually lead to new treatments specifically targeting this aspect of the disorder. Study leader Todd Roberts, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience and a member of the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern, explains that the vocalizations that comprise a central part of human communication are relatively unique among ...

A novel artificial intelligence (AI) approach based on wireless signals could help to reveal our inner emotions, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London. The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, demonstrates the use of radio waves to measure heartrate and breathing signals and predict how someone is feeling even in the absence of any other visual cues, such as facial expressions. Participants were initially asked to watch a video selected by researchers for its ability to evoke one of four basic emotion types; anger, sadness, joy and pleasure. ...

(Boston)-- While a number of topical products designed to reduce the occurrence of sexually transmitted infections have been tested with largely disappointing results, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Mapp Biopharmaceutical have now found that MB66, a vaginal film product containing monoclonal antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 (HIV-1) and herpes simplex viruses types 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and 2), is safe and effective. HIV-1 and HSV-1 and 2 are relatively common sexually transmitted infections associated with significant illness and sometimes even death. Though antiviral drugs can suppress viral concentrations and dramatically slow ...

Humans continuously observe and evaluate interactions between third parties to decide with whom to interact in the future. But it is difficult to measure what information animals gain when they eavesdrop on vocal interactions between conspecifics: If they do understand such conversations, they do not necessarily exhibit behavioral expressions that can be easily observed. To overcome this hurdle, anthropologists from the University of Zurich created a study combining call simulations, thermography methods and behavioral preference measures. Using thermal imaging, the researchers were able to non-invasively measure temperature changes in the faces of marmoset monkeys to quantify ...

Narrowing of the trachea or the main bronchi due to injury or illness can end very badly. If patients get too little air,oxygen, they risk suffocating and often need medical help as quickly as possible. Surgeons insert stents made of medically usable silicone or metal as a way of treating these patients. Although they quickly bring relief, the implants also have disadvantages: Metal stents have to be removed surgically with some effort, which is a burden for the patients, while silicone stents often migrate away from the insertion site. The reason for this is that the implants are not adapted to a patient's anatomy. An ETH Zurich research team, composed of members of the Complex Materials and Drug Formulation and Delivery groups, has now developed an ...

New technology developed by the University of Bristol has the potential to accelerate uptake and development of on-chip diagnostic techniques in parts of the world where rapid diagnoses are desperately needed to improve public health, mortality and morbidity. Microfluidic devices underpin lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technologies which are developed to provide the rapid diagnoses at that are needed at point of care (POC) for the swift and effective treatment of many diseases. Researchers at Bristol have developed a fast, reliable and cost-effective alternative for producing the soft-lithographic moulds used for fabricating microfluidic devices, published in the journal ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 3, 2020 - In a recurring pattern of evolution, SARS-CoV-2 evades immune responses by selectively deleting small bits of its genetic sequence, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Since these deletions happen in a part of the sequence that encodes for the shape of the spike protein, the formerly neutralizing antibody can't grab hold of the virus, the researchers report today in Science. And because the molecular "proofreader" that usually catches errors during SARS-CoV-2 replication is "blind" to fixing deletions, they become cemented into the variant's genetic material. "You can't ...

Researchers have identified a pattern of deletions in the spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 that can prevent antibody binding. Virus lineages featuring this mechanism are currently being transmitted between individuals globally, they say. Their results - reported after analyzing nearly 150,000 S gene sequences collected from many parts of the world - exhibit a form of virus "escape" that resulted from a common, strong selective pressure; for example, the authors identified at least nine instances where deletion variants arose in patients whose COVID-19 infections were persistent. So far, the strongest indicator of protection against SARS-CoV-2 appears to be humoral immunity, such as by antibodies, ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a unique inkjet printing method for fabricating tiny biocompatible polymer microdisk lasers for biosensing applications. The approach enables production of both the laser and sensor in a room temperature, open-air environment, potentially enabling new uses of biosensing technologies for health monitoring and disease diagnostics. "The ability to use an inexpensive and portable commercial inkjet printer to fabricate a sensor in an ambient environment could make it possible to produce biosensors on-site as needed," said research team leader Hiroaki Yoshioka from Kyushu University in Japan. "This could help make biosensing widespread even in economically disadvantaged ...