WASHINGTON, March 2, 2021 -- Cardiovascular disease remains the number one cause of death globally. Unfortunately, the heart cannot regenerate new tissue, because the cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells, do not divide after birth. In their paper, published in APL Bioengineering by AIP Publishing, Syracuse researchers developed a shape memory polymer to grow cardiomyocytes. Raising the material's temperature from 30 degrees Celsius to 37 degrees Celsius turned the polymer's flat surface into nanowrinkles, which promoted cardiomyocyte alignment. The research is part of the growing field of mechanobiology, which investigates how physical forces between cells and changes ...

A 'Fish DJ' at The University of Queensland has used her knowledge of cool beats to understand brain networks and hearing in baby fish. The DJ-turned-researcher used her acoustic experience to design a speaker system for zebrafish larvae and discovered that their hearing is considerably better than originally thought. PhD candidate Rebecca Poulsen from the Queensland Brain Institute said that combining this new speaker system with whole-brain imaging showed how larvae can hear a range of different sounds they would encounter in the wild. "For many years ...

[LAKEWOOD, CO; BRIDGEWATER, NJ; March 2, 2021] Two of the world's leading veterinary organizations are proud to announce updated recommendations in the 2021 AAHA/AAFP Feline Life Stage Guidelines. The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) convened a Task Force of experts in feline medicine to define distinct feline life stages and provide a framework for individualized healthcare plans. Understanding a cat's life stage and lifestyle greatly impacts healthcare strategies. Veterinary professionals have a responsibility to stress ...

New energy tariffs could leave people on bad deals even worse off despite the potential benefits for everyone, research has found. The study, led by the University of Leeds, found new types of energy contracts designed for a low carbon future could benefit all types of customer, with opportunities to sell excess energy from solar panels or incentives for using energy at off-peak times. However, many people were unlikely to choose them because they were disengaged from the energy market, didn't trust energy companies, or already feel satisfied with their current tariffs. ...

Advances in wearable devices have enabled e-textiles, which fuse lightweight and comfortable textiles with smart electronics, and are garnering attention as the next-generation wearable technology. In particular, fiber electronic devices endowed with electrical properties, while retaining the specific characteristics of textiles, are key elements in manufacturing e-textiles. Optoelectronic devices are generally constructed using layers of semiconductors, electrodes, and insulators; their performance is greatly affected by the size and structure of the electrodes. Fiber electronic components for e-textiles need to be fabricated on thin, pliable threads; since these ...

The agricultural cultivation of the staple food of rice harbours the risk of possible contamination with arsenic that can reach the grains following uptake by the roots. In their investigation of over 4,000 variants of rice, a Chinese-German research team under the direction of Prof. Dr Rüdiger Hell from the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) of Heidelberg University and Prof. Dr Fang-Jie Zhao of Nanjing Agricultural University (China) discovered a plant variant that resists the toxin. Although the plants thrive in arsenic-contaminated fields, the grains contain far less arsenic than other ...

WASHINGTON -- About 17 years ago, J. Martin Laming, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, theorized why the chemical composition of the Sun's tenuous outermost layer differs from that lower down. His theory has recently been validated by combined observations of the Sun's magnetic waves from the Earth and from space. His most recent scientific journal article describes how these magnetic waves modify chemical composition in a process completely new to solar physics or astrophysics, but already known in optical sciences, having been the subject of Nobel Prizes awarded to Steven Chu in 1997 and Arthur Ashkin in 2018. Laming ...

Travellers looking to book a hotel should trust their gut instinct when it comes to online reviews rather than relying on computer algorithms to weed out the fake ones, a new study suggests. Research, led by the University of York in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, shows the challenges of online 'fake' reviews for both users and computer algorithms. It suggests that a greater awareness of the linguistic characteristics of 'fake' reviews can allow online users to spot the 'real' from the 'fake' for themselves. Dr Snehasish Banerjee, Lecturer in Marketing from the University of York's Management School, said: "Reading and writing online reviews ...

A UK wide survey of 2252 adults, carried out five weeks into the first lockdown revealed 95% of those who took part were following lockdown restrictions. Of that 95% more than 80% reported finding it challenging. Adjusting to changes in daily routines, and mental and physical health struggles were the most common challenges faced by participants. Women and adults under the age of 55 were most likely to report experiencing challenges. The research, 'What challenges do UK adults face when adhering to COVID-19-related instructions? Cross-sectional survey in a representative sample'*, was published in the journal, Preventive ...

TAMPA, Fla. - Advanced melanoma is one of the deadliest types of cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of only 27% for patients with distant metastases. Recent advances in targeted therapies and immunotherapies have greatly improved patient prognosis; however, many patients eventually develop resistance and disease recurrence. Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center are investigating how to combine and sequence new therapies to improve survival. In a new article published in Cancer Immunology Research, the Moffitt team shows that sequential administration of immunotherapy followed by targeted therapy prolongs anti-tumor responses in preclinical models and may be a potential ...

A foundational study conducted by scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows for the first time that white-rot fungi are able to use carbon captured from lignin as a carbon source. The research confirms a hypothesis from Davinia Salvachúa Rodriguez, the senior author of a newly published paper. Until now, scientists were unsure whether white-rot fungi--the most efficient lignin-degrading organisms in nature--actually consume the products generated from breaking down lignin. "What we have demonstrated here is that white-rot fungi can actually utilize lignin-derived aromatic compounds as a carbon source, which means they can eat them and utilize them to grow," Salvachúa said. "That is another strategy for carbon sequestration in ...

Inherited retinal dystrophy is a common cause of blindness, with as many as two million people suffering from the disorder globally. No effective treatment is available for retinal dystrophies. Gene therapy is expected to offer a solution, but developing such therapies is possible only when the genetic cause of the disease is known. Related mutations have been identified in more than 70 genes so far, but the genetic background of the disease remains unknown in as many as half of the patients. "Retinal dystrophy has been described in over 100 dog breeds, with related investigations helping to identify new genes associated and pathogenic mechanisms with blindness across different ...

In a recent collaborative study led by the University of Maryland (UMD), researchers find that consumers tend to buy something less fuel efficient than they normally would for their second car after springing for an eco-friendly vehicle. While this sounds like an all-too-logical conclusion, the study reports a 57% reduction in the benefits of driving your fuel efficient car for carbon emissions purely based on the purchase of your second vehicle. Since about three-quarters of cars are purchased into multi-car households, these findings could have major implications for carbon emissions, and especially for the design of carbon mitigation programs like Cash-for-Clunkers and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that aren't taking ...

Philadelphia, March 2, 2021 - Researchers from the Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have demonstrated how one combination of therapies may be beneficial for patients with mitochondrial respiratory chain disorders. This preclinical research paves the way to develop more tailored treatment options for patients with inherited mitochondrial disease and acquired energy disorders. The findings emphasize the importance of rational therapeutic modeling to target specific cellular deficiencies and provide proper cellular nutrition as an effective means to manage mitochondrial disease. The findings were published online ...

Optomechanical microcavities are extremely small structures with diameters of less than 10 micrometers (about a tenth of a human hair) inside which light and mechanical vibrations are confined. Thanks to their small size and to efficient microfabrication techniques that enable them to hold intense light energy and interact with mechanical waves, microcavities can be used as mass and acceleration sensors and in Raman scattering (a spectroscopy technique deployed to analyze materials, including gases, liquids, and solids). A sound understanding of these phenomena can contribute in future to advances in areas such as biomedicine, including the development of ...

The study gives the first detailed description of a volcanic eruption from Sierra Negra found on Isla Isabela - the largest of the Galápagos Islands and home to nearly 2,000 people. The findings, published in Nature Communications, reveal how the volcano inflated and fractured before it erupted and captures a new level of detail for any eruption from a volcano on the islands. Networks of ground-based seismic and GPS monitoring stations, and satellites, captured data for 13 years before Sierra Negra's eruption, in June 2018. The surface of the volcano rose during this time, indicating a gradual accumulation of molten rock - known as magma - found in a reservoir under the ...

Ithaca, NY--The message about the bird-conservation benefits of shade-grown coffee may not be getting through to the people most likely to respond--birdwatchers. A team of researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Virginia Tech surveyed birdwatchers to learn if they drank shade-grown coffee and, if not, why not. Their findings were published today in the journal People and Nature. "One of the most significant constraints to purchasing bird-friendly coffee among those surveyed was a lack of awareness," said Alicia Williams, lead author and former research assistant at the Cornell Lab and Virginia Tech. "I was surprised to see that only 9 percent of those surveyed purchased bird-friendly ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The liver has a rare superpower among body organs - the ability to regenerate, even if 70% of its mass is removed. It also keeps up its metabolic and toxin-removing work during the process of regeneration, thanks to a subset of cells that expand their workload while the rest focus on multiplication, a new study in mice found. Furthermore, the cells of the liver communicate with each other to coordinate regeneration activity, which progresses from the center to the periphery of the missing liver lobes, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said. "It's remarkable how we still don't understand many aspects of liver regeneration," said Illinois biochemistry professor Auinash ...

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital have identified a new drug that could prevent Alzheimer's disease by modulating, rather than inhibiting, a key enzyme involved in forming amyloid plaques in the brain. The study, which will be published March 2 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), demonstrates that the drug is safe and effective in rodents and monkeys, paving the way for future clinical trials in humans. A key pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease involves the formation of amyloid plaques composed of small protein fragments known as amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides. These peptides are generated ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. - Attendance at regular mammography screening substantially reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer, according to a large study of over half a million women, published in the journal Radiology. Researchers said women who skip even one scheduled mammography screening before a breast cancer diagnosis face a significantly higher risk of dying from the cancer. Breast cancer screening with mammography has helped reduce disease-related deaths by enabling detection of cancer at earlier, more treatable stages. Despite mammography's well-established ...

Recently, research group led by Professor CHENG Lin from School of Microelectronics, University of science and technology of China has made significant achievements in the field of fully integrated isolated power chip design. They proposed a chip based on glass fan-out wafer-level package (FOWLP), achieving 46.5% peak transformation efficiency and 50mW/mm2 power density. Compared with the traditional isolated power supply chip, this new design interconnects the receiving and transmitting chips through the micro transformer made of the rewiring layer, showing no need of additional transformer chips. In this way, it lowered the need ...

The pandemic has impacted significantly on people who suffer chronic pain. A study performed by the eHealth Lab, a research group affiliated with the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's eHealth Center, has shown that 70% of the people with chronic pain have seen their condition worsen in terms of severity, frequency of episodes and interference in their daily activities. A total of 502 patients took part in the study; 88% were women aged between 30 and 59, with long-duration chronic pain (mean duration, 7 years). Most participants (87.6%) had pain in more than one point; the most frequent locations were the abdomen, lower back and neck. The participants answered online surveys, designed in accordance with ...

Organometallic reagents are essential tools in synthetic chemistry. They work even better and more effectively in combination with alkali alkoxides. The exact nature of this effect has never been well understood. A team based in Switzerland has now performed a detailed study of the mechanism of reaction of aryl bromides with organo-magnesium reagents and lithium alkoxides. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, a complex equilibrium of bimetallic intermediates plays a key role. Substituted aromatic ring systems are an important class of building block for the synthesis of many products, including pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and ...

Recently, the Laboratory of Micro and Nano Engineering, School of Engineering Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has made important progress in the field of structural chirality detection research using vortex light and found that photon orbital angular momentum can efficiently detect the optical chiral signal of structures. The achievement was published in an international well-known journal PNAS. Chiral structures are widely found in nature, such as DNA double helix structures, plant tendrils and shells. In addition to observing the geometry of objects, their chirality can also be distinguished by the interaction of light with matter. For example, the detection of circular ...

Aqueous free-radical precipitation polymerization is one of the most useful methods to prepare the uniformly sized hydrogel microspheres (microgels), and an understanding of the polymerization mechanism is crucial to control the structure or physicochemical properties of microgels. However, the details of the mechanism of precipitation polymerization remain unclear. Thus, first author Yuichiro Nishizawa, Prof. Daisuke Suzuki of the Graduate School of Textile Science & Technology, Shinshu University and Prof. Takayuki Uchihashi of Nagoya University set out to clarify the formation mechanism of microgels during precipitation polymerization by evaluating structural evolution and thermoresponsiveness of developing microgels during ...