In northern Canada, the forest floor is carpeted with reindeer lichens. They look like a moss made of tiny gray branches, but they're stranger than that: they're composite organisms, a fungus and algae living together as one. They're a major part of reindeer diets, hence the name, and the forest depends on them to move nutrients through the ecosystem. They also, at least in parts of Quebec, are having a lot more sex than scientists expected. In a new study in the American Journal of Botany, researchers found that the reindeer lichens they examined have unexpected levels of genetic diversity, indicating that the lichens have been doing more gene-mixing with each other than the scientists would have guessed. "We were surprised because this species of reindeer lichen had ...

(Singapore--January 29, 2021 11:00 p.m. SPT/10:00 a.m. EST)--On February 27, 2020, the flagship journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, published a case study that described two patients from Wuhan, China who recently underwent lung lobectomies for adenocarcinoma and were retrospectively found to have had COVID-19 at the time of surgery. Eleven months later, the lung cancer research community gathered virtually at the IASLC 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer Singapore to share a number of research ...

CHICAGO (January 29, 2021): Trauma patients and patients who need emergency surgery have little to no opportunity to get acquainted with the surgeon and team that will perform their operation. However, a large study has found that effective and meaningful physician communication is a more important contributor to the overall satisfaction of trauma patients and those having emergency surgery than it is for patients admitted to the hospital for medical reasons or for elective procedures. The study was selected for the 2020 Southern Surgical Association Program and published as an "article in press" on the website of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons in advance of print. The researchers found an unexpectedly significant effect of physician communication ...

In a study evaluating the BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine's ability to neutralize the B.1.1.7 ("UK") viral variant, researchers found no loss of immune protection compared to that against the original Wuhan reference strain. Their analysis was based on blood samples from 40 people who had received the BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during clinical trials. The authors conclude their results show it is "unlikely that the UK variant virus will escape ... protection" as mediated by this vaccine. In September 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 was discovered in the United Kingdom. It subsequently increased in prevalence, showed enhanced transmissibility, and spread to other continents. ...

[Abstract] The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Tohoku University, Toin University of Yokohama, and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) have succeeded in developing a scanless high-speed holographic fluorescence microscopy system with submicron resolution for a 3D space. The system is based on digital holography. The developed microscopy system has an algorithm to acquire 3D information of fluorescent objects toward scanless 3D measurement in less than 1 millisecond. Scanless 3D sensing with submicron resolution and color-multiplexed holographic fluorescence imaging have been demonstrated using the algorithm. The microscopy system will be further developed to achieve holographic 3D motion-picture sensing of specimens ...

Thrombosis, the clogging of blood vessels, is a major cause of heart attacks and embolism. Scientists have now engineered the first inhibitors of thrombin, a protease promoting thrombosis, that is three-fold efficient. In a study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the authors demonstrate that attacking three sites of the thrombin molecule is more efficient than attacking only two sites, which is the mode of action of many natural agents. Soon after an injury, thrombin appears at the site of the wound, promoting platelet coagulation and fibrin development to clog the wound and grow new tissue. Unfortunately, inside blood ...

An international team of scientists, coordinated by the Seville Institute of Biomedicine (IBiS) and the University of Seville has solved one of the hitherto unresolved enigmas of basic biology: how exactly do lipids distribute proteins within a cell? To do this, they used a new, completely innovative microscopy technology, which they applied to "mutant" cells they designed in their laboratory. This discovery represents a major advance in understanding how proteins are distributed in cells to perform their vital functions, and could open the door to understanding the causes of diseases associated with failures in protein distribution at the ...

Researchers have completed the first ever multi-level hydrological tracking of the Yangtze River from the ground, air and space in order to investigate the properties of cloud formation during the mei-yu--an intense rainy season that forms part of East Asia's summer monsoon. The effort should permit greater understanding of the mei-yu precipitation process and thus enable much more accurate forecasts of this key meteorological phenomenon in the region. The mei-yu, also known as the "Plum Rain", is a period of severe, concentrated rainfall that lasts for up to two months during the late ...

Knowledge about health is a cornerstone in a child's development of physical and psychosocial health. Since 2016, around 25,000 pupils in years 4-6 in 86 of Denmark's municipalities have taken part in the project "11 for Health in Denmark", an 11-week exercise and health education programme offered to all schools in a collaboration between the University of Southern Denmark and the Danish Football Association. More than 3,000 of these pupils completed questionnaires before and after the programme aimed at determining their knowledge about health and understanding their experience of the 11-week programme. An increase of 10 percentage ...

New particle formation (NPF) is a major source of aerosol particles in the global atmosphere. In polluted megacities, such as Beijing, the role of new particle formation events and their contribution to haze formation through subsequent growth is still unclear. To improve the understanding of the sources, meteorological conditions, and chemistry behind air pollution, the research teams led by Prof. Yele Sun with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. Markku Kulmala with the University of Helsinki performed simultaneous measurements ...

Research on manufacturing battery cells is gaining momentum - and there is a strong need, considering the future demand for energy storage: For the year 2030, global production of rechargeable batteries will double from today's 750 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year to 1,500 GWh. A recently published review article in the magazine "Nature Energy" on cell production of various battery types suggests that the currently established lithium-ion batteries (LIB) dominate the market of rechargeable high-energy batteries in the coming years. Alternative battery technologies, ...

Large parts of today's Sahara Desert were green thousands of years ago. Prehistoric engravings of giraffes and crocodiles testify to this, as does a stone-age cave painting in the desert that even shows swimming humans. However, these illustrations only provide a rough picture of the living conditions. Recently, more detailed insights have been gained from sediment cores extracted from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya. An international research team examined these cores and discovered that the layers of the seafloor tell the story of major environmental changes in North Africa over ...

The biological process of photosynthesis is found at the beginning of nearly all food chains. It produces oxygen to breathe and provides the energetic foundation for using biotechnological processes to synthesize biofuels and chemical feedstock. Therefore, researchers are particularly interested in rapidly growing cyanobacteria. These organisms use light as an energy source and can carry out photosynthesis, similar to plants. However, the required photosynthetic protein complexes bind many nutrients. Vanessa Krauspe and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hess from the working group for Genetics & Experimental Bioinformatics of the Faculty of Biology of ...

Who hasn't at some point been chewing on an almond and tasted an unpleasant and unexpected aftertaste that has nothing to do with the taste we are used to from one of the most consumed nuts in the world? The culprit has a name: amygdalin, a diglucoside that, when in contact with enzymes present in saliva, breaks down into glucose, benzaldehyde (the cause of the bitter taste) and hydrogen cyanide. To reduce this unpleasant 'surprise', the Farming Systems Engineering (AGR-128) and Food Technology (AGR-193) research groups at the University of Cordoba's School of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, ...

SORLA is a protein trafficking receptor that has been mainly studied in neurons, but it also plays a role in cancer cells. Professor Johanna Ivaska's research group at Turku Bioscience observed that SORLA functionally contributes to the most reported therapy-resistant mechanism by which the cell-surface receptor HER3 counteracts HER2 targeting therapy in HER2-positive cancers. Removing SORLA from cancer cells sensitized anti-HER2 resistant breast cancer brain metastasis to targeted therapy. HER2 protein is a strong driver of tumor growth. HER2 amplification occurs ...

High-intensity tropical cyclones have been moving closer to coasts over the past 40 years, potentially causing more destruction than before. The trend of tropical cyclones - commonly known as hurricanes or typhoons - increasingly moving towards coasts over the past 40 years appears to be driven by a westward shift in their tracks, say the study's authors from Imperial College London. While the underlying mechanisms are not clear, the team say it could be connected to changes in tropical atmospheric patterns possibly caused by climate change. The research is published today in Science. Globally, 80 to 100 cyclones develop over tropical oceans each year, impacting regions in the Pacific, ...

New research by Mimi E. Lam (University of Bergen) just published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications identifies and explores the impacts of salient viral or COVID-19 behavioural identities that are emerging. "These emergent COVID-19 behavioural identities are being hijacked by existing social and political identities to politicize the pandemic and heighten racism, discrimination, and conflict," says Lam. She continues: "the COVID-19 pandemic reminds us that we are not immune to each other. To unite in our fight against the pandemic, it is important to recognize the basic dignity of all and value the human diversity currently dividing us." "Only ...

Drawing on animal-foraging theory, a new model predicts psychological factors that may lead to panic buying during times of crisis. The model is largely supported by real-world data from the COVID-19 pandemic. Richard Bentall of the University of Sheffield, England, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 27. In the early stages of the pandemic, consumers in several countries around the world engaged in "panic buying" of household items, causing temporary shortages of toilet rolls and other products. Such behavior is typical during times of crisis, but few studies have examined the psychology of crisis-driven over-purchasing. To better understand this phenomenon, Bentall and colleagues turned to animal-foraging ...

As one of the most experienced archaeologists studying California's Native Americans, Lynn Gamble(link is external) knew the Chumash Indians had been using shell beads as money for at least 800 years. But an exhaustive review(link is external) of some of the shell bead record led the UC Santa Barbara professor emerita of anthropology to an astonishing conclusion: The hunter-gatherers centered on the Southcentral Coast of Santa Barbara were using highly worked shells as currency as long as 2,000 years ago. "If the Chumash were using beads as money 2,000 years ago," Gamble said, "this changes our thinking of hunter-gatherers and sociopolitical and economic complexity. This may be the first example of the use of money anywhere in the ...

As part of standard patient protocol, doctors inform women of the risks of pregnancy. But there is one exception to this standard: stillbirth. University of Arkansas law professor Jill Wieber Lens argues that women have a right to know of the risk of stillbirth, and, consistent with the evolution of informed consent law, this right should be enforceable through a medical malpractice tort claim. Stillbirth, or pregnancy loss after 20 weeks but before birth, is not uncommon. Annually, 26,000 U.S. women give birth to a stillborn baby, or roughly one out every 160 pregnancies. The United States' stillbirth rate ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md.--The amount of methane released into the atmosphere as a result of coal mining is likely much higher than previously calculated, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union recently. The study estimates that methane emissions from coal mines are approximately 50 percent higher than previously estimated. The research was done by a team at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others. The higher estimate is due mainly to two factors: methane that continues to be emitted from thousands of abandoned mines and the higher methane content in coal seams that are ever deeper, according to chief ...

The Japanese now have their own reference genome thanks to researchers at Tohoku University who completed and released the first Japanese reference genome (JG1). Their study was published in the journal Nature Communications on January 11, 2021. "JG1 can aid with the clinical sequence analysis of Japanese individuals with rare diseases as it eliminates the genomic differences from the international reference genome," said Jun Takayama, co-author of the study. Back in 2003, the Human Genome Project, through a gargantuan global effort, cracked the code of life and mapped all the genes of the human genome. Since then, more accurate versions of the human reference genome have ...

The researchers of the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth system research at the University of Helsinki have investigated how atmospheric particles are formed in the Arctic. Until recent studies, the molecular processes of particle formation in the high Arctic remained a mystery. During their expeditions to the Arctic, the scientists collected measurements for 12 months in total. The results of the extensive research project were recently published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal. The researchers discovered that atmospheric vapors, particles, and cloud formation have clear differences within various Arctic environments. The study clarifies how Arctic warming and sea ice loss strengthens processes where different vapors are emitted to the atmosphere. The ...

The Covid-19 pandemic has made home offices, virtual meetings and remote learning the norm, and it is likely here to stay. But are people paying attention in online meetings? Are students paying attention in virtual classrooms? Researchers Jens Madsen and Lucas C. Parra from City College of New York, demonstrate how eye tracking can be used to measure the level of attention online using standard web cameras, without the need to transfer any data from peoples computers, thus preserving privacy. In a paper entitled "Synchronized eye movements predict test scores in online video education," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they show that just ...

Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and ETH Zurich have developed a process to produce commodity chemicals in a much less hazardous way than was previously possible. Such commodity chemicals represent the starting point for many mass-produced products in the chemical industry, such as plastics, dyes, and fertilizers, and are usually synthesized with the help of chlorine gas or bromine, both of which are extremely toxic and highly corrosive. In the current issue of Science, the researchers report that they have been able to utilize electrolysis, i.e., the application of an electric current, to obtain chemicals known as dichloro and dibromo compounds, which can then be used to synthesize ...