PHILADELPHIA-- In addition to sickening and taking the lives of millions across the globe, COVID-19 complicated patient care in a range of less-direct ways, from increased incidence of END ...

HAMILTON, ON June 28, 2021 -- Researchers at McMaster University have developed a promising new cancer immunotherapy that uses cancer-killing cells genetically engineered outside the body to find and destroy malignant tumors. The modified "natural killer" cells can differentiate between cancer cells and healthy cells that are often intermingled in and around tumors, destroying only the targeted cells. The natural killer cells' ability to distinguish the target cells, even from healthy cells that bear similar markers, brings new promise to this branch of immunotherapy, say ...

A few males are enough to fertilise all the females. The number of males therefore has little bearing on a population's growth. However, they are important for purging bad mutations from the population. This is shown by a new Uppsala University study providing in-depth knowledge of the possible long-term genetic consequences of sexual selection. The results are published in the scientific journal Evolution Letters. The study supports the theory that in many animal species selection acting on males can impose the fortuitous benefit to the population of causing offspring to inherit healthy genes. Stiff competition among males results ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that a specific chemical feature of a key protein known as tau may cause it to accumulate in the brain and trigger illnesses like Alzheimer's. They found that disulfide bonds on certain amino acids act to stabilize tau and cause it to accumulate, an effect that got worse with increased oxidative stress. The identification of chemical targets triggering tau accumulation may lead to breakthrough treatments. The tau protein is key to the healthy function of biological cells. It helps form and stabilize microtubules, the thin filaments that crisscross cell interiors to help keep them structurally rigid and provide 'highways' to shuttle molecules between organelles. However, when they ...

A new vaccine to protect against deadly cholera has been made by grinding up genetically modified grains of rice. The first human trial has shown no obvious side effects and a good immune response. Researchers based at the University of Tokyo and Chiba University have published the peer-reviewed results of the Phase 1 clinical trial of the vaccine, named MucoRice-CTB, in The Lancet Microbe. Vaccine manufacturing has made enormous strides in 2020, spurred on by COVID-19. However, the complexity of mRNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines has highlighted the value of inoculations that can be made, transported and stored cheaply and without refrigeration. The MucoRice-CTB vaccine is stable at room temperature from start to finish. "I'm very optimistic for the future of our MucoRice-CTB vaccine, ...

Just as humans have their own individual personalities, new research in the Journal of Comparative Psychology shows that elephants have personalities, too. Moreover, an elephant's personality may play an important role in how well that elephant can solve novel problems. The article was written by Lisa Barrett and Sarah Benson-Amram in the University of Wyoming's Animal Behavior and Cognition Lab, led by Benson-Amram. It may be viewed here. The authors of the paper tested 15 Asian elephants and three African savanna elephants in three zoos across the country -- the San Diego Zoo, the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park and the Oklahoma City Zoo -- with the help of elephant caretakers. Previous work from Barrett and Benson-Amram demonstrated ...

FINDINGS A UCLA-led study comparing brain cells known as astrocytes in humans and mice found that mouse astrocytes are more resilient to oxidative stress, a damaging imbalance that is a mechanism behind many neurological disorders. A lack of oxygen triggers molecular repair mechanisms in these mouse astrocytes but not in human astrocytes. In contrast, inflammation activates immune-response genes in human astrocytes but not mouse astrocytes. BACKGROUND Although the mouse is a ubiquitous laboratory model used in research for neurological diseases, results from studies in mice are not always applicable to humans. In fact, more than 90% of drug candidates that show preclinical promise for neurological disorders ultimately fail when tested in humans, in part ...

Crude oil production and natural gas withdrawals in the United States have lessened the country's dependence on foreign oil and provided financial relief to U.S. consumers, but have also raised longstanding concerns about environmental damage, such as groundwater contamination. A researcher in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences, and a team of scientists from Penn State, have developed a new machine learning technique to holistically assess water quality data in order to detect groundwater samples likely impacted by recent methane leakage during oil and gas production. Using that model, the team concluded that unconventional drilling ...

Irvine, CA - June 25, 2021 - New research from the University of California, Irvine reveals how the circadian regulation of glucose production in the liver is lost during lung cancer progression, and how the resulting increase in glucose production may fuel cancer cell growth. The new study titled, "Glucagon regulates the stability of REV-ERBα to modulate hepatic glucose production in a model of lung cancer-associated cachexia," published today in Science Advances, illustrates how the circadian clock is regulated under conditions of stress such as during lung cancer progression and cancer-associated tissue wasting ...

After suffering a stroke, patients often are unable to use the arm on their affected side. Sometimes, they end up holding it close to their body, with the elbow flexed. In a new study, Northwestern University and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab researchers have discovered that, in an attempt to adapt to this impairment, muscles actually lose sarcomeres -- their smallest, most basic building blocks. Stacked end to end (in series) and side to side (in parallel), sarcomeres make up the length and width of muscle fibers. By imaging biceps muscles with three noninvasive methods, the researchers found that stroke patients had fewer sarcomeres along the length ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center are studying a potential new chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy (CAR-T cell therapy) treatment for multiple myeloma. Their findings were published on Friday, June 24, in The Lancet. "CAR-T cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that involves harnessing the power of a person's own immune system by engineering their T cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells," says Yi Lin, M.D., a Mayo Clinic hematologist and lead author of the study. Dr. Lin says the Food and Drug Administration approved ...

The promise of 5G Internet of Things (IoT) networks requires more scalable and robust communication systems -- ones that deliver drastically higher data rates and lower power consumption per device. Backscatter radios ? passive sensors that reflect rather than radiate energy ? are known for their low-cost, low-complexity, and battery-free operation, making them a potential key enabler of this future although they typically feature low data rates and their performance strongly depends on the surrounding environment. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Nokia Bell Labs, and Heriot-Watt University have found a low-cost way for backscatter radios to support high-throughput communication and 5G-speed Gb/sec data transfer using only a single transistor when previously ...

Three years ago, Arthur Ashkin won the Nobel Prize for inventing optical tweezers, which use light in the form of a high-powered laser beam to capture and manipulate particles. Despite being created decades ago, optical tweezers still lead to major breakthroughs and are widely used today to study biological systems. However, optical tweezers do have flaws. The prolonged interaction with the laser beam can alter molecules and particles or damage them with excessive heat. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have created a new version of optical tweezer technology that fixes this problem, a development ...

Want a smartphone that stretches, takes damage, and still doesn't miss a call? A team of Virginia Tech researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Macromolecules Innovation Institute has created a new type of soft electronics, paving the way for devices that are self-healing, reconfigurable, and recyclable. These skin-like circuits are soft and stretchy, sustain numerous damage events under load without losing electrical conductivity, and can be recycled to generate new circuits at the end of a product's life. Led by Assistant Professor Michael Bartlett, the team recently published its findings in END ...

Scientists from the National University of Science and Technology "MISIS" (NUST MISIS) in cooperation with their colleagues from the Siberian Federal University and the Research and Production Centre of Magnetic Hydrodynamics (Krasnoyarsk) have developed a technology for producing a unique heat-resistant aluminium alloy with improved durability. According to the researchers, this new alloy could replace more expensive and heavier copper conductors in aircraft and high-speed rail transport. The study results were published in an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, the Materials Letters. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167577X2100896X) Researchers have created a method for producing ...

Night and day, oil tankers, yachts and cargo ships stacked with shipping containers ply the 80-kilometer (50-mile) waterway through the jungles of Panama between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean: about 40 ships every 24 hours. But even though the Canal is fed by freshwater rivers that empty through the locks on each end, a system that generally prevents fish and smaller marine invertebrates from hopping from ocean to ocean, some still manage to get through, clinging to the hulls of ships. Other invading species arrive from far-flung ports, dumped with ballast water as ships prepare for transit. "Panama is a major shipping hub that provides amazing opportunities to test key ideas about marine invasions by studying ...

A team of engineers and clinicians has developed an ultra-thin, inflatable device that can be used to treat the most severe forms of pain without the need for invasive surgery. The device, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, uses a combination of soft robotic fabrication techniques, ultra-thin electronics and microfluidics. The device is so thin - about the width of a human hair - that it can be rolled up into a tiny cylinder, inserted into a needle, and implanted into the epidural space of the spinal column, the same area ...

A new electrode that could free up 20% more light from organic light-emitting diodes has been developed at the University of Michigan. It could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops, or make next-gen televisions and displays much more energy efficient. The approach prevents light from being trapped in the light-emitting part of an OLED, enabling OLEDs to maintain brightness while using less power. In addition, the electrode is easy to fit into existing processes for making OLED displays and light fixtures. "With our approach, you can do it all in ...

More corn is grown in the United States than any other crop, but we only use a small part of the plant for food and fuel production; once people have harvested the kernels, the inedible leaves, stalks and cobs are left over. If this plant matter, called corn stover, could be efficiently fermented into ethanol the way corn kernels are, stover could be a large-scale, renewable source of fuel. "Stover is produced in huge amounts, on the scale of petroleum," said Whitehead Institute Member and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) biology professor Gerald Fink. "But there are enormous technical challenges to using them cheaply to create biofuels and other important chemicals." And so, year after year, most of the woody corn material is left in the fields to rot. Now, a ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a tablet-sized device that can reliably detect multiple COVID-19 antibodies and biomarkers simultaneously. Initial results show the test can distinguish between antibodies produced in response to SARS-CoV-2 and four other coronaviruses with 100% accuracy. The researchers are now working to see if the easy-to-use, energy-independent, point-of-care device can be used to predict the severity of a COVID-19 infection or a person's immunity against variants of the virus. Having also recently shown the same "D4 assay" platform can detect Ebola infections a day earlier than the gold standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, the researchers say the results show how flexible the technology can be to adapt to other ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Boosting production of biofuels such as ethanol could be an important step toward reducing global consumption of fossil fuels. However, ethanol production is limited in large part by its reliance on corn, which isn't grown in large enough quantities to make up a significant portion of U.S. fuel needs. To try to expand biofuels' potential impact, a team of MIT engineers has now found a way to expand the use of a wider range of nonfood feedstocks to produce such fuels. At the moment, feedstocks such as straw and woody plants are difficult to use for biofuel production because they first need to be broken down to fermentable sugars, a process that releases numerous byproducts that are toxic to yeast, the microbes most commonly used to produce biofuels. The ...

Tuberculosis is one of the top ten causes of death worldwide, infecting about one-quarter of the world's population. Although it is treatable, the rise of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis poses a major threat to global health security, and has been declared by the World Health Organization as a global health emergency. Reduced access to diagnosis and treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to dramatically increase the number of tuberculosis infections. This will set global efforts to tackle the disease back several years. Tuberculosis is caused by infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a bacterium that infects human lungs and other organs by using complex molecular ...

When Winter Storm Uri hit, many Texans lost power from February 14-20, resulting in losses of lives and economic activity, and damages to their homes that for some are still not completely repaired. Now, four months later as demand for electricity has increased at the start of the summer amid tight supply, Texans continue to prioritize improvements to the power grid, albeit with doubt as to whether the Texas Legislature and Governor can get the job done. In a survey by the Hobby School of Public Affairs and UH Energy at the University of Houston fielded between May 13-24, 1,500 individuals in Texas aged 18 and older responded to a series of questions regarding their experience during Winter Storm Uri and their evaluation ...

BOSTON - At the recent 2021 Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) presented positive updates on their trials of the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine to safely and significantly lower blood sugars. In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease which currently has no cure, T cells attack the pancreas and destroy its ability to create insulin, a hormone vital in allowing glucose to enter cells to produce energy. In prior work, Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director ...

A new study by UC Davis researchers confirms the low likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 contamination on hospital surfaces is infectious. END ...