A wonder of nature As a human cell begins division, its 23 chromosomes duplicate into identical copies that remain joined at a region called the centromere. Here lies the kinetochore, a complicated assembly of proteins that binds to thread-like structures, the microtubules. As mitosis progresses, the kinetochore gives green light to the microtubules to tear the DNA copies apart, towards the new forming cells. "The kinetochore is a beautiful, flawless machine: You almost never lose a chromosome in a normal cell!", says Musacchio. "We already know the proteins that constitute it, yet important questions about how the kinetochore works are still open: How does it rebuild itself during chromosome replication? ...

Researchers at the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, Finland, study insect biodiversity particularly in Amazonia and Africa. In their studies, they have discovered hundreds of species previously unknown to science. Many of them are exciting in their size, appearance, or living habits. "The species we have discovered show what magnificent surprises the Earth's rainforests can contain. The newly discovered Dolichomitus meii wasp is particularly interesting for its large size and unique colouring. With a quick glance, its body looks black but glitters electric blue in light. Moreover, its wings are golden yellow. Therefore, you could say it's like a flying jewel," says Postdoctoral Researcher Diego Pádua from the Instituto Nacional ...

Contrary to what science once suggested, older people with a declining sense of smell do not have comprehensively dampened olfactory ability for odors in general - it simply depends upon the type of odor. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen reached this conclusion after examining a large group of older Danes' and their intensity perception of common food odours. That grandpa and grandma aren't as good at smelling as they once were, is something that many can relate to. And, it has also been scientifically demonstrated. One's sense of smell gradually begins to decline from about the age of 55. Until now, it was believed that one's sense of smell broadly ...

Plastic waste is considered one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. IASS researchers surveyed consumers in Germany about their use of plastic packaging. Their research reveals that fundamental changes in infrastructures and lifestyles, as well as cultural and economic transformation processes, are needed to make zero-waste shopping the norm. 96 percent of the German population consider it important to reduce packaging waste. Nevertheless, the private end consumption of packaging in Germany has increased continuously since 2009. At 3.2 million tons in 2018, the amount of plastic packaging waste generated by end consumers in Germany ...

One year after infection by SARS-CoV-2, most people maintain anti-Spike antibodies regardless of the severity of their symptoms, according to a study with healthcare workers co-led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) and the Jordi Gol Institute (IDIAP JG), with the collaboration of the Daniel Bravo Andreu Private Foundation. The results suggest that vaccine-generated immunity will also be long-lasting. One of the key questions to better predict the pandemic's evolution is the duration of natural immunity. A growing number of studies suggest that most people generate a humoral ...

The eruption of the Laacher See volcano in the Eifel, a low mountain range in western Germany, is one of Central Europe's largest eruptions over the past 100,000 years. The eruption ejected around 20 cubic kilometers of tephra and the eruption column is believed to have reached at least 20 kilometers in height, comparable to the Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991. Technical advances in combination with tree remains buried in the course of the eruption now enabled an international research team to accurately date the event. Accordingly, the eruption of the Laacher See volcano occurred 13,077 years ago and thus 126 years earlier than previously assumed. This sheds new light on the climate history of the entire North ...

Scientists at the University of Helsinki have found an essential factor from the extracellular matrix that regulates functionality of the breast tissue for instance during pregnancy. Extracellular matrix (ECM) has previously been recognised as an important element for the growth of various epithelial cells, but rather as a scaffold. A new study shows that ECM can also regulate the function of epithelial cells. Our tissues constitute of differentiated cell types, which perform specific tasks that are tightly controlled. Normal growth and functioning of tissues is possible only when the various differentiated cell types interact appropriately. Differentiation and function of breast epithelium is guided by a group of cells responsive for estrogen and progesterone hormones. In the recent ...

Flat optics based on patterned liquid crystals (LCs) has recently received extensive research interest. Comparing with dielectric metasurfaces which are usually fabricated by sophisticated lithography process, LC polymer-based planar optics, owing to the self-assembly properties, can be fabricated through all-solution process. During the past decades, a variety of planar optical devices have been demonstrated based on geometric phase (also termed as Pancharatnum-Berry phase) manipulation. The total effective thickness of the device, including the underlying liquid crystal ...

Hitherto, the development of valvular heart disease in patients with chronic heart failure has been underestimated and rarely treated. This is the finding of a study conducted at the Division of Cardiology within the Department of Medicine II at Vienna General Hospital and MedUni Vienna and published in the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ). Mitral regurgitation was often previously interpreted as part of the progression of heart failure rather than a treatable disease in its own right. Mitral regurgitation is a disease, in which the valve between the left atrium and left ventricle starts to leak, so that blood refluxes with ...

Computer models have been standard tools in basic biomedical research for many years. However, around 70 years after the first publication of an ion current model of a nerve cell by Hodgkin & Huxley in 1952, researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), in collaboration with the Medical University of Graz and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, have finally succeeded in developing the world's first cancer cell model, thus launching "an essential tool for modern cancer research and drug development," reports a delighted Christian Baumgartner. The head of the Institute of Health Care Engineering with European Testing ...

Chronic fatigue syndrome / myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is a disabling disease, in which people have great difficulties in carrying out their daily activities. Despite its high prevalence, there are still no effective tools for its diagnosis, monitoring and treatment. To better understand and promote follow-up, as well as stratify fatigue in these patients, Vall d'Hebron, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) have developed a mobile application that could be useful in the assessment of the severity of fatigue in this syndrome, especially in women. The results of the study in which this technology has been tested have ...

Crystals have fascinated people through the ages. Who hasn't admired the complex patterns of a snowflake at some point, or the perfectly symmetrical surfaces of a rock crystal The magic doesn't stop even if one knows that all this results from a simple interplay of attraction and repulsion between atoms and electrons. A team of researchers led by Atac Imamoglu, professor at the Institute for Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich, have now produced a very special crystal. Unlike normal crystals, it consists exclusively of electrons. In doing so, they have confirmed a theoretical prediction that was made almost ninety years ago and which has since been regarded as a kind of holy grail ...

When researchers at Lund University in Sweden performed advanced analyses of sputum from the airways of severely ill Covid-19 patients, they found high levels of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). It is already a known fact that NETs can contribute to sputum thickness, severe sepsis-like inflammation and thrombosis. After being treated with an already existing drug, the NETs were dissolved and patients improved. The study has now been published in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. Using advanced fluorescence microscopy, the researchers examined sputum in the airways of three severely ...

There might be fewer bonobos left in the wild than we thought. For the last 40 years, scientists have estimated the abundance of endangered bonobos by counting the numbers of sleeping nests left by the apes in forests of the Congo Basin. Now, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior report that the rate of sleeping nest "decay" has lengthened by 17 days over the last 15 years as a result of declining rainfall in the Congo Basin. The study warns that longer nest decay times have serious implications for ape conservation: failure to account for these ...

DALLAS - June 30, 2021 - A relative decline in wealth during midlife increases the likelihood of a cardiac event or heart disease after age 65 while an increase in wealth between ages 50 and 64 is associated with lower cardiovascular risk, according to a new END ...

The cells that make up our bodies are constantly exposed to a wide variety of mechanical stresses. For example, the heart and lungs have to withstand lifelong expansion and contraction, our skin has to be as resistant to tearing as possible whilst retaining its elasticity, and immune cells are very squashy so that they can move through the body. Special protein structures, known as "intermediate filaments", play an important role in these characteristics. Researchers at Göttingen University have now succeeded for the first time in precisely measuring which physical effects determine the properties of the individual filaments, and which specific features only occur through the interaction ...

Melbourne researchers have found that liquid chalk, commonly used in gyms to improve grip, acts as an antiseptic against highly infectious human viruses, completely killing both SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and influenza A viruses. University of Melbourne Professor Jason Mackenzie, a laboratory head at the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) wanted to investigate whether liquid chalk stopped SARS-CoV-2 transmission after conversations with his daughter - an elite rock climber heading to the Tokyo Olympics. "Both of my daughters were lamenting the closure of gyms at the beginning of the pandemic, particularly my daughter Oceania who was trying to train ...

There are certain rules that even the most extreme objects in the universe must obey. A central law for black holes predicts that the area of their event horizons -- the boundary beyond which nothing can ever escape -- should never shrink. This law is Hawking's area theorem, named after physicist Stephen Hawking, who derived the theorem in 1971. Fifty years later, physicists at MIT and elsewhere have now confirmed Hawking's area theorem for the first time, using observations of gravitational waves. Their results appear in Physical Review Letters. In the study, the researchers take a closer look at GW150914, ...

Exercise training can help support management of overweight and obesity in adults, and can contribute to health benefits beyond "scale victories". The supplement published today in Obesity Reviews, based on the work of an expert group convened under the auspices of the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO), provides scientific evidence on health and wellbeing benefits of exercise training for people living with overweight and obesity. Supplement highlights include a summary of key recommendations; additional developed materials provide infographic tools for health care practitioners (HCPs) and people ...

Economists at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, economists found passers-by often donated more when paying via a digital platforms like apps, QR codes, PayPal and even Bitcoin, compared to the centuries' old payment method of loose coins. Using data from the online platform The Busking Project, the study analysed individual payments to over three and half thousand active buskers from 121 countries to predict the characteristics of performers who were more likely to receive online donations. The study found North America and Europe were home to the most active buskers and audiences on the platform, with buskers registered ...

Scientists show that an ocean-bottom seismometer deployed close to the calving front of a glacier in Greenland can detect continuous seismic radiation from a glacier sliding, reminiscent of a slow earthquake. Basal slip of marine-terminating glaciers controls how fast they discharge ice into the ocean. However, to directly observe such basal motion and determine what controls it is challenging: the calving-front environment is one of the most difficult-to-access environments and seismically noisy -- especially on the glacier surface -- due to heavily crevassed ice and harsh weather conditions. A team of scientists from Hokkaido University, ...

An invasive species of aphid could put some threatened plant species on Kangaroo Island at risk as researchers from the University of South Australia confirm Australia's first sighting of Aphis lugentis on the Island's Dudley Peninsula. It is another blow for Kangaroo Island's environment, especially following the Black Summer bushfires that decimated more than half the island and 96 per cent of Flinders Chase National Park. Collected by wildlife ecologist Associate Professor Topa Petit and identified by colleagues from the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, the black aphids were found feeding on seedlings of Senecio odoratus, a native species of daisy, commonly known as the scented groundsel. Of ...

Over the past 20 years, many studies have investigated the effects of acute aerobic exercise on cognitive performance. In recent years, meta-analyses*1 of data from these previous research studies have demonstrated that these a single bout of moderate aerobic exercise temporarily improves cognitive performance. However, close examination of the individual research studies on this topic revealed that in approximately 50% of studies, no beneficial link between acute aerobic exercise and cognitive function was found. An international research collaboration, including Associate ...

Ibaraki, Japan - Flowers come in a multitude of shapes and colors. Now, an international research team led by a researcher from Japan has proposed the novel hypothesis that trade-offs caused by different visitors may play an important role in shaping this floral diversity. In a study published last month, the team explored how the close associations between flowers and the animals that visit them influence flower evolution. Visitors to flowers may be beneficial, like pollinators, or detrimental, like pollen thieves. All of these visitors interact with flowers in different ways and exert different selection pressures on flower traits such as color and scent. For example, a scent that attracts one pollinator may deter other potential pollinators. In this case, the flower would be expected ...

Almost twenty years ago, the process of RNA silencing was discovered in plants, whereby small fragments of RNA inactivate a portion of a gene during protein synthesis. These fragments--called microRNAs (abbreviated as miRNAs)--have since been shown to be essential at nearly every stage of growth and development in plants, from the production of flowers, stems, and roots to the ways plants interact with their environment and ward off infection. The detection and characterization of miRNAs is an active field of research. In the decade following their discovery in plants, over 1,000 bioinformatic tools were used to identify ...