In a new study, published recently in the journal Circulation Research, scientists discover how the production of protective molecules known as specialised pro-resolving mediators (SPM) is altered in patients with COVID-19. The results suggest that treatments which increase SPM production, such as dexamethasone or SPM based drugs, could play a key role in limiting inflammation in these patients. Currently there is little understanding around the mechanisms that lead to uncontrolled inflammation in patients with COVID-19. The study found a link between decreased SPM blood levels and disrupted white blood cell responses in patients with a higher disease burden. The findings also revealed that dexamethasone, the first drug ...

More than 820 million people in the world don't have enough to eat, while climate change and increasing competition for land and water are further raising concerns about the future balance between food demand and supply. The results of a new IIASA-led study can be used to benchmark global food security projections and inform policy analysis and public debate on the future of food. Despite the fact that food supply has increased dramatically since the 1960s, the question of how to eradicate global hunger - one of the Sustainable Development Goals - and feed the growing world population in years to come, remains a major challenge. Climate change and increasing competition ...

Alexandria, Va., USA - Xingying Qi, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China, presented the oral session "Cannabidiol Promotes Oral Ulcer Healing by Inactivating CMPK2-Mediated NLRP3 Inflammasome" at the virtual 99th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), held in conjunction with the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the 45th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR), on July 21-24, 2021. The oral ulcer is a common oral inflammatory lesion with severe pain but little ...

Alexandria, Va., USA - Iain Chapple, University of Birmingham, England, presented the oral session "Longitudinal Serological and Vaccination Responses to SARS-COV-2 in Dental Professionals" at the virtual 99th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), held in conjunction with the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the 45th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR), on July 21-24, 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted ...

An international team of scientists has reported strong indications of freshened groundwater offshore the coastline between Valletta and Marsascala, in the south-east of Malta. This discovery is based on an oceanographic expedition carried out in 2018. Seismic reflection profiles acquired during this expedition were used to generate a geological model of the seafloor offshore the Maltese Islands, whereas electromagnetic surveying was carried out to identify resistivity anomalies, or high values of electromagnetic resistivity beneath the seafloor. These observations indicate that freshened groundwater occurs as an isolated body hosted in Globigerina Limestone located 3 ...

Alexandria, Va., USA - Jiachen Lin, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Mass., USA., presented the poster "Burden of Oral Diseases in Emerging Countries: A Prediction Model" at the virtual 99th General Session & Exhibition of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), held in conjunction with the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the 45th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR), on July 21-24, 2021. The goal of this study was to investigate the burden of oral diseases and predict trends by 2025 in the U.S. and emerging countries. Global Burden of Disease data from 1990-2017 was used to analyze the prevalence and disability-adjusted life years of oral diseases ...

In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oea.2021.200030 , Researchers led by Professor Liu Yan from Xidian University, China and Professor Gan Xuetao from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China consider generation and application of the high-Q resonance in all-dielectric metasurfaces. Metamaterials are artificial composite electromagnetic structures consisting of subwavelength units, which can realize efficient and flexible control of the electromagnetic waves. Metamaterials are an emerging research area for optoelectronics, physics, chemistry and materials, due to their novel ...

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is a recognized treatment option for certain blood and bone marrow cancers as well as some autoimmune and hereditary disorders. Performed to replace or modulate the body's malfunctioning hematopoietic system (which produces blood cells) or a compromised immune system following a medical condition or treatment, HCT can be autologous or allogenic. In autologous HCT, a patient's own stem cells are injected into the bloodstream, while in allogenic HCT donor stem cells are used. Although a difficult procedure, over the years, the safety of HCT has been improved ...

Irvine, Calif., July 21, 2021 -- It's not exactly X-ray vision, but it's close. In research published in the journal Optica, University of California, Irvine researchers describe a new type of camera technology that, when aimed at an object, can rapidly retrieve 3D images, displaying its chemical content down to the micrometer scale. The new tech promises to help companies inspect things like the insides of computer chips without having to pry them open -- an advancement the researchers say could accelerate the production time of such goods by more than a hundred times. "This is a paper about a way to visualize things in 3D very fast, even at video rate," said Dmitry Fishman - director of laser spectroscopy labs in the UCI Department of ...

New University of Otago research has been examining how alpine-based hedgehogs hibernate from a different perspective - their backs. Dr Nick Foster from the Department of Zoology has been involved with the Te Manahuna Aoraki project and has been attaching small transmitting 'backpacks' onto hedgehogs in the Mackenzie Basin's alpine zones. The mammals are considered pests in New Zealand for the damage they cause to native insects and wildlife throughout the country. The goal of this study, which has just been published in the New Zealand Journal of Ecology, was to find out whether hedgehogs, which can be found up to 2000 metres in summer, travel ...

FINDINGS Scientists from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a key protein, transcription factor TAF12, that plays a critical role in the formation of a preinitiation complex, which consists of over one hundred proteins that are necessary for the transcription of protein-coding genes. The team found by eliminating TAF12, the entire preinitiation complex is destroyed and the genome-wide transcription is downregulated drastically. The findings could help pave the way for cancer therapies that target TAF12, potentially stopping transcription in cancer cells and helping decrease the growth of cancerous tumors. TAF12 had previously been shown by ...

The future of Samoa's electricity system could go green, a University of Otago study has shown. Pacific Island nations are particularly susceptible to climate change and face high costs and energy security issues from imported fossil fuels. For these reasons many Pacific Island nations have developed ambitious 100 per cent renewable energy targets. However, they have not been subject to rigorous peer-reviewed studies to help develop these targets and pathways for achieving them in the same way as more developed countries. To meet this need, Otago Energy Science and Technology Masters student Tupuivao Vaiaso mapped future scenarios for Samoa's electricity system by carefully balancing renewable supply and electricity demand. The study, published in Renewable ...

Leesburg, VA, July 22, 2021--According to ARRS' American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), the standardized non-invasive clear cell likelihood score (ccLS)--derived from MRI--correlates with the growth rate of small renal masses (cT1a, END ...

Scientists have completed the largest and most diverse genetic study of type 1 diabetes ever undertaken, identifying new drug targets to treat a condition that affects 1.3 million American adults. Several potential drugs are already in the pipeline. Drugs targeting 12 genes identified in the diabetes study have been tested or are being tested in clinical trials for autoimmune diseases. That could accelerate the drugs' repurposing for treating or preventing type 1 diabetes, the researchers say. "This work represents the largest, most ancesty-diverse study of type 1 diabetes ...

DALLAS - July 20, 2021 - UT Southwestern researchers report the first structural confirmation that endogenous - or self-made - molecules can set off innate immunity in mammals via a pair of immune cell proteins called the TLR4?MD-2 receptor complex. The work has wide-ranging implications for finding ways to treat and possibly prevent autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and antiphospholipid syndrome. The TLR4?MD-2 receptor complex is well known for its role in the body's response to infection by gram-negative bacteria. Its role in autoimmunity had been long suspected, although direct proof was lacking. The team, led by Nobel Laureate Bruce Beutler, M.D., director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense (CGHD), identified lipids called sulfatides ...

In one out of every six local authorities, rates of hunger are more than 150 per cent (one and a half times) the national average. Shockingly, in one in 10 local authorities, the rate is almost double, according to new research by the University of Sheffield. Researchers at the University of Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food modelled data from the Food Foundation, who surveyed people across the UK, and for the first time were able to identify food insecurity at a local authority scale. Local authority percentages show the marked variation in levels of food insecurity between local areas and, whereas national ...

Persistence may be the key when quitting smoking using an electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS), commonly known as vaping, a University of Otago study found. Researchers found people attempting to switch from cigarettes to ENDS reported highly varied smoking and ENDS use. They recommend people persist in their attempts to transition away from smoking, even if their progress feels slow and uncertain. Lead author Associate Professor Tamlin Conner, of the Department of Psychology, says, although people may plan to use ENDS exclusively instead of cigarettes, making the switch is not always straightforward. "We found that dual use of ENDS and cigarettes was very common, suggesting that people ...

A new quantitative study suggests people seeking asylum are more likely to experience mental health deterioration as they spend more time living in refugee camps, backing up qualitative evidence from aid organisations. The research, co-authored by Dr Francisco Urzua from the Business School (formerly Cass) alongside practitioners from Moria Medical Support (MMS) and academics from Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile and University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands measured incidences of acute mental health crises arising from extended stays in the Moria refugee camp on ...

Researchers from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King's College London have automated brain MRI image labelling, needed to teach machine learning image recognition models, by deriving important labels from radiology reports and accurately assigning them to the corresponding MRI examinations. Now, more than 100,00 MRI examinations can be labelled in less than half an hour. Published in European Radiology, this is the first study allowing researchers to label complex MRI image datasets at scale. The researchers say it would take years to manually perform labelling of more than 100,000 MRI examinations. Deep learning typically requires tens of thousands of labelled images to ...

Scientists have developed a 'nanobody' - a small fragment of a llama antibody - that is capable of chasing out human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) as it hides away from the immune system. This then enables immune cells to seek out and destroy this potentially deadly virus. Around four out of five people in the UK are thought to be infected with HCMV, and in developing countries this can be as high as 95%. For the majority of people, the virus remains dormant, hidden away inside white blood cells, where it can remain undisturbed and undetected for decades. ...

The research team of Prof. Xiaobo Ji and associate Prof. Guoqiang Zou has proposed an ingenious oxygen vacancy (OV)-engineering strategy to realize high content anionic doping in TiO2 and offered valuable insights into devise electrode materials with fast charge transfer kinetics in the bulk phase. The article titled "High content anion (S/Se/P) doping assisted by defect engineering with fast charge transfer kinetics for high-performance sodium ion capacitors" is published in Science Bulletin. Xinglan Deng is listed as first author and Prof. Guoqiang Zou as corresponding author. The ...

An international research team has come up with an innovative method for metal recovery from industrial waste. The new method allows the simultaneous recovery of multiple metals from waste oxides in a single process. This novel route will lower the burden on waste storage facilities with significant contributions to the economic and environmental sustainability of industrial waste management. The study was published in Journal of Environmental Management. This work is the first in a series of studies aimed at developing cost-effective and environmentally sustainable solutions for industrial waste recycling. Some of the major industries ...

Using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, astronomers have unambiguously detected the presence of a disc around a planet outside our Solar System for the first time. The observations will shed new light on how moons and planets form in young stellar systems. "Our work presents a clear detection of a disc in which satellites could be forming," says Myriam Benisty, a researcher at the University of Grenoble, France, and at the University of Chile, who led the new research published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Our ALMA observations were obtained at such exquisite resolution that we could clearly identify ...

Cambridge, MA ¬- Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have helped detect the clear presence of a moon-forming region around an exoplanet -- a planet outside of our Solar System. The new observations, published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, may shed light on how moons and planets form in young stellar systems. The detected region is known as a circumplanetary disk, a ring-shaped area surrounding a planet where moons and other satellites may form. The observed disk surrounds exoplanet PDS 70c, one of two giant, Jupiter-like planets orbiting a star nearly 400 light-years away. Astronomers had found hints of a "moon-forming" disk around this exoplanet before but since ...

Participation in elite adult rugby may be associated with changes in brain structure. This is the finding of a study of 44 elite rugby players, almost half of whom had recently sustained a mild head injury while playing. The study, part of the Drake Rugby Biomarker Study, was led by Imperial College London and published in the journal Brain Communications. The research found a significant proportion of the rugby players had signs of abnormalities to the white matter, in addition to abnormal changes in white matter volume over time. White matter is the 'wiring' of the brain, and helps brain cells communicate with each other. The research team say more work is now needed to investigate the long-term effects of professional rugby on brain health. Professor David Sharp, senior author ...