Coffee rust is a parasitic fungus and a big problem for coffee growers around the world. A study in the birthplace of coffee - Ethiopia - shows that another fungus seems to have the capacity to supress the rust outbreaks in this landscape. "Coffee leaf rust is a fungal disease that is a problem for coffee growers around the world, especially on Arabica coffee, which accounts for three quarters of global coffee production and has the finest cup quality. There is a need to learn more about natural solutions instead of just applying pesticides," says Kristoffer Hylander, professor at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences (DEEP) at Stockholm ...

Many nations place drugs into various schedules or categories according to their risk of being abused and their medical value. At times, drugs are rescheduled to a more restrictive category to reduce misuse by constricting supply. A new study examined lessons from past efforts worldwide to schedule and reschedule drugs to identify general patterns and found that rescheduling drugs can lower use as well as the dangers associated with the drug. The findings have implications for policy. The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), is published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. "Our review suggests that rescheduling drugs can often disrupt trends in prescribing, use, or harms," says Jonathan Caulkins, professor of operations research and public policy at CMU's ...

In the first longitudinal study to follow Georgia pre-K students through middle school, Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett, associate dean for academic programs and professor in UGA's Mary Frances Early College of Education, found that participating in pre-K programs positively predicted mathematical achievement in students through seventh grade. "Students who participated in the study were twice as likely to meet the state standards in their mathematics achievement," said Neuharth-Pritchett. "School becomes more challenging as one progresses through the grades, and so if ...

Russian enterprises have limited opportunities to carry out technological modernisation on their own. Their technological portfolios reveal a high dependence on imported solutions and a limited deployment of their own developments, HSE University researchers discovered. In recent years, there has been a growing demand for the use of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) in Russia. Between 2011 and 2018, the number of AMT used increased by 33%, and in 2018 they amounted to almost 255,000 units in absolute terms. Meanwhile, innovation strategies focused on independent development of novel manufacturing solutions are not widespread in Russia. Fewer than ...

GROUND-BREAKING research from the University of Huddersfield, announced ahead of World Cancer Day 2021, proves that scalp cooling physically protects hair follicles from chemotherapy drugs. It is the world's first piece of biological evidence that explains how scalp cooling actually works and the mechanism behind its protection of the hair follicle. The study, entitled 'Cooling-mediated protection from chemotherapy drug-induced cytotoxicity in human keratinocytes by inhibition of cellular drug uptake', has been published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE . The data was part of an innovative hair follicle research project carried out by the dedicated Scalp Cooling ...

Antimicrobial packaging is being developed to extend the shelf life and safety of foods and beverages. However, there is concern about the transfer of potentially harmful materials, such as silver nanoparticles, from these types of containers to consumables. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces illustrate that silver embedded in an antimicrobial plastic can leave the material and form nanoparticles in foods and beverages, particularly in sweet and sugary ones. Some polymers containing nanoparticles or nanocomposites can slow ...

In the Namib Desert in southwestern Africa, the Kuiseb River, an ephemeral river which is dry most of the year, plays a vital role to the region. It provides most of the vegetation to the area and serves as a home for the local indigenous people, and migration corridor for many animals. The overall vegetation cover increased by 33% between 1984 and 2019, according to a Dartmouth study published in Remote Sensing . The study leveraged recent drone imagery and past satellite imagery to estimate past vegetation cover in this linear oasis of the Kuiseb River, a fertile area in the middle of one of the driest deserts ...

Some of the most commonly used drugs for treating hereditary breast and ovarian cancers may not work the way we thought they did, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research. The paper, published February 2 in the journal Nature Communications, sheds new light on how they do work and could open the door to new next-generation medications that work better, the authors said. "Despite the success of these drugs which sell in the billions of dollars per year and treat many thousands of patients, there are many unknowns about their potency and efficacy that if better understood ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A popular streaming service boasts a film inventory approaching 4,000 titles. When it's time to pick a movie, are you more likely to quickly make a decision or meticulously sift through the possibilities? Psychologists refer to those who search minimally for something to arrive at an adequate choice as "satisficers." It's the "maximizers," meantime, who search exhaustively for what might be considered as the perfect option. Previous studies exploring both strategies after making a choice often present satisficing as a more psychologically ...

An important bacterial disease that affects citrus trees and causes lesions, citrus canker has been effectively controlled by spraying copper. However standard management techniques involve spraying excessive amounts of copper and water without consideration for the size of the trees. "This technique resulted in a waste of resources as well as higher costs, detrimental environmental impact, and risk for development of copper resistant strains," explained plant pathologist Franklin Behlau, who recently published an article discussing a more sustainable approach to managing citrus canker. Behlau and his colleagues showed that it is possible to control citrus canker by spraying ...

The instrumental climate record is the cultural heritage of humankind, the result of the diligent work of many generations of people all over the world. However, the changes in the way in which temperature is measured, as well as the environment in which weather stations are located can produce spurious trends. An international study carried out by researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), the State Meteorology Agency and the University of Bonn (Germany) have succeeded in identifying the most reliable methods that help correct these trends. These "homogenization methods" are a key step in converting the enormous effort made by observers into reliable data about climate change. The results of this research, funded by ...

The inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris marks a new era for science policy in the U.S. and beyond. The new administration has inherited a global pandemic and worsening climate change, among other science-related issues. A cover story in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, delves into what this means for chemists and chemistry as a whole. One of the most pressing issues facing the Biden administration is the fight against climate change. Biden campaigned on net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and has laid out a sweeping plan to switch the U.S. to cleaner energy sources, which experts say ...

For decades, scientists have wrestled with rival theories to explain how interactions between species, like competition, influence biodiversity. Tracking microbial life across the planet, researchers from McGill University show that biodiversity does in fact foster further diversity in microbiomes that are initially less diverse. However, diversity rates plateau with increased competition for survival and space in more diverse microbiomes. Published in eLife, the findings could help scientists better understand how microbiomes - communities of micro-organisms living together in particular habitats like humans, animals and plants or even soils and oceans ...

C polymorphism is associated with susceptibility to T2D in men, possibly interacting with exercise, and contributing to the risk of T2D in sedentary males by reducing the activity of MOTS-c. Dr. Noriyuki Fuku from The Juntendo University and Dr. Pinchas Cohen from The University of Southern California said, "The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is growing dramatically." While diabetes syndromes directly caused by mutations in mtDNA are extremely rare, several genetic analyses reveal that mtDNA polymorphisms contribute to T2D risk in both European ...

Aging-US published "Screening of Alzheimer's disease by facial complexion using artificial intelligence" which reported that despite the increasing incidence and high morbidity associated with dementia, a simple, non-invasive, and inexpensive method of screening for dementia is yet to be discovered. This study aimed to examine whether artificial intelligence could distinguish between the faces of people with cognitive impairment and those without dementia. 121 patients with cognitive impairment and 117 cognitively sound participants were recruited for the study. The binary differentiation of dementia / non-dementia facial image was expressed as a "Face AI score". However, MMSE score showed significantly stronger ...

Aging-US published "Sulforaphane promotes C. elegans longevity and healthspan via DAF- 16/DAF-2 insulin/IGF-1 signaling" which reported that the broccoli-derived isothiocyanate sulforaphane inhibits inflammation, oxidative stress and cancer, but its effect on healthspan and longevity are unclear. The authors used the C. elegans nematode model and fed the wildtype and 9 mutant strains ±sulforaphane. Sulforaphane increased the lifespan and promoted a health-related phenotype by increasing mobility, appetite and food intake and reducing lipofuscin accumulation. Mechanistically, sulforaphane inhibited DAF-2-mediated insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling and its downstream targets AGE-1, AKT-1/AKT-2. This was associated with increased nuclear translocation of ...

Amsterdam, NL, February 3, 2021 - Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and healthcare professionals caring for them have expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine's efficacy and safety in the specific context of PD and its symptomatic treatment. In a END ...

WHAT: An experimental single-dose, intranasal influenza vaccine was safe and produced a durable immune response when tested in a Phase 1 study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The investigational vaccine, called Ad4-H5-VTN, is a recombinant, replicating adenovirus vaccine designed to spur antibodies to hemagglutinin, a protein found on the surface of influenza viruses that attaches to human cells. The investigational vaccine was developed by Emergent Biosolutions Inc., (Gaithersburg, Maryland). It was administered intranasally (28 study participants), as an oral capsule (10 participants) and via a tonsillar swab (25 participants) to ...

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA - In patients with type 2 diabetes, big swings in blood sugar levels between doctors' visits are associated with an increased risk of heart disease. The study, published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity & Metabolism, looked at more than 29,000 patients with type 2 diabetes over a two-year period. Patients who already had heart disease were excluded. The American Diabetes Association recommends adults with diabetes maintain an A1c, the average blood sugar level over the past two to three months, of less than 7 percent to reduce complications from diabetes, such ...

A study published in the journal Applied Ergonomics compared the standardised processes set out for community pharmacists to follow when dispending medication to what happens in reality. A gap was revealed and researchers also looked at the reasons for this. The research, "Mind the gap: Examining work-as-imagined and work-as-done when dispensing medication in the community pharmacy setting"*, was conducted by the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC). The Centre is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. The research involved observing pharmacists and pharmacy staff as they conducted the task of dispensing, ...

Sneakers can be about style, history and even community. A new study reveals that for "Sneakerheads," sneakers are an important facet of their identities, particularly for African-American men who grew up in the 1970s and '80s coveting sneakers popularized by hip-hop stars and basketball legends. In the journal Fashion and Textiles, researchers report new insights into the motivations, brand preferences and identity considerations of Sneakerheads. The findings were drawn from interviews with 12 men in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, many whom are African-American, and ...

Researchers have developed a computerized adaptive screener to identify youth at risk for attempting suicide. The screener, called the computerized adaptive screen for suicidal youth (CASSY), consists of 11 questions on average and correctly identified 82.4% of youth who went on to attempt suicide in the three months following screening. The results suggest this screener could serve as an easy-to-use way for providers to detect youth suicide risk in emergency department settings. The findings, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), ...

Today, neuroscience and robotics are developing hand in hand. Mikhail Lebedev, Academic Supervisor at HSE University's Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces, spoke about how studying the brain inspires the development of robots. Robots are interesting to neuroscience and neuroscience is interesting to robots - this is what the article 'Neuroengineering challenges of fusing robotics and neuroscience' was about in the journal Science Robotics. Such collaborative development contributes to progress in both fields, bringing us closer to developing more advanced android robots and a deeper understanding ...

Among the many avenues that viruses can use to infect humans, drinking water may pose only a tiny risk for spreading certain viruses like the novel coronavirus. However, in cases where there is unauthorized wastewater disposal or other events of inadvertent mixing of wastewater with water sources, the possibility of transmission through drinking water remains unknown. Using a surrogate of the coronavirus that only infects bacteria, researchers at Texas A&M University have now presented strong evidence that existing water purification plants can easily reduce vast quantities of the virus thereby protecting our household water from such contagions. In particular, the researchers showed that the water purification step called coagulation could alone get rid of 99.999% of ...

The economic value of insect pollinators was $34 billion in the U.S. in 2012, much higher than previously thought, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University. The team also found that areas that are economically most reliant on insect pollinators are the same areas where pollinator habitat and forage quality are poor. "Pollinators like bees play an extremely important role in agriculture," explained senior author Vikas Khanna, Wellington C. Carl Faculty Fellow and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering. "The insects that pollinate farmers' crops underpin our ecosystem biodiversity and function, ...