In the 1970s, Fleischmann, the scientist in British, discovered that on noble metallic nanostructure, the Raman scattering of pyridine was enhanced hundreds-hold. Then, the scientists attributed the enhancement to the localized electric field highly amplified near the surface of specific noble metallic nanostructures. Thus, this phenomenon was termed surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Currently, although the enhancement mechanism of SERS is still in the debate, the SERS exhibits incomparable abilities of monitoring and sensing with high sensitivity in diverse fields ...

Human's understanding of the oceans is still limited. The oceans are rich of various kinds of resource which have great exploitation potential and are far away from fully development. Marine biosafety also needs to be noticed. There are not only many animal and plant species undiscovered, but also a much larger and diverse number of microorganisms such as viruses. Traditional studies of marine viruses have focused on bacteriophage represented DNA viruses, and little is known about the genetic diversity, distribution characteristics and transmission patterns of marine invertebrate RNA viruses. Here, CUI Jie's team have collected a total of 58 marine invertebrate samples from 3 phyla and 6 classes and ...

The research team led by Prof. XIONG Wei and Prof. CANG Chunlei from Life Science and Medicine of University of Science and Technology of China, realized lysosome typing based on single lysosome metabonomic information for the first time by stablishing a single lysosome metabonomic mass spectrometry detection technology. A deeply explore to the heterogeneity changes of lysosome metabonomics in the process of cellular senescence has been achieved. The result was published on Nature Methods. Lysosomes are organelles present in almost all eukaryotic cells. Lysosomes are essential for maintaining energy and metabolic homeostasis, signal transduction, and recovery of damaged proteins and organelles. Previous reports indicate that cellular senescence is closely related to lysosomes and their ...

As the average life expectancy of residents increases, there are more and more cases of human bone tissue disease. With the upgrading of treatment methods, more and more bone tissue lesions can be treated with artificial implants for replacement. Due to the huge demand in the field of biophysical therapy, biomedical materials have very broad market prospects. In the past 10 years, the market growth rate of biomedical materials has remained at 20-25%, and the world population is nearly 6.5 billion. Statistics show that there are close to 400 million disabled people, 60 million physically disabled, and about 2 billion dental patients. At present, there are only 35 million implanters of biomaterial devices, and the annual joint replacement volume is about 1.5 million, ...

Research team, led by academician GUO Guangcan from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with researchers from Sun Yat-sen University and Zhejiang University, realized two-photon quantum interference in the structure of valley-dependent topological insulators based on the valley Hall effect. The study was published in Physical Review Letters on June 11st, 2021. Topological photonics has a practical application prospect in the research of photonic chips due to its robust energy transport prosperities. The key to topological phase transition is to generate an energy gap at certain degenerate points by breaking either the time-reversal ...

Saturated fatty acid levels unexpectedly rise in the brain during memory formation, according to END ...

Newly-available scientific evidence, which could prove critical to the success of climate-related lawsuits, is often not produced in court, according to a new study published today by the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme and Environmental Change Institute. Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation in Nature Climate Change, a leading interdisciplinary science journal, is the first global study on the use and interpretation of climate-science evidence in lawsuits. The study reveals evidence submitted by litigants in 73 lawsuits across 14 jurisdictions is significantly behind state-of-the-art ...

(Boston)--Amyloid diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, type-2 diabetes and other life-threatening diseases, involve pathologic deposits of normally soluble proteins or peptides as insoluble amyloid fibrils. When this happens in vital organs, such as the brain, kidney, liver and heart, it causes organ damage and, if left untreated, death. Unfortunately, the available treatment options are very limited. Now a new study from researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) improves our understanding of how heparan sulfate and related biopolymers such as heparin, which is perhaps best known as a blood thinner, can promote amyloid deposition in various organs. The researchers ...

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) - While little research exists on how and why the rates of Black youth suicide are rising, research does show the rate of suicide in Black youth younger than 13 years of age is approximately two times higher compared to white peers. From 2009 to 2019, the percentages of Black youth who considered suicide, made a suicide plan and attempted suicide all increased. In a statement published in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers at the Nationwide Children's Hospital, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the nonprofit research institute RTI International ...

What The Study Did: The rates, duration and dosages of opioids prescribed to children, adolescents and young adults from 2006 to 2018 were examined in this study. Authors: Madeline H. Renny, M.D., of the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.1832) Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: ...

What The Study Did: Researchers compared health care access and quality scores for the United States with high-income countries with universal health insurance coverage and compared scores among U.S. states with varying insurance coverage. Authors: Marcia R. Weaver, Ph.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.14730) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other ...

What The Study Did: High school students in Austria were surveyed about their well-being, sleep quality, eating and symptoms of depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Authors: Christoph Pieh, M.D., of Danube University in Krems, Austria, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.14866) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The full study ...

A gene variant that lowers white blood cell levels and is common in individuals with African ancestry contributes to unnecessary bone marrow biopsies, according to a study published June 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The findings from three institutions, led by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, provide an example of how using genetic data could reduce a health disparity. "We've essentially created this racial health disparity by not fully considering how genetic variation affects white blood cell levels," said Jonathan Mosley, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at VUMC. "Our study supports genotyping African Americans before ...

Most people associate the term "wearable" with a fitness tracker, smartwatch, or wireless earbuds. But what if you could wear cutting-edge biotechnology in your clothing, and it could warn you when you were exposed to something dangerous? A team of researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found a way to embed synthetic biology reactions into fabrics, creating wearable biosensors that can be customized to detect pathogens and toxins and alert the wearer. The team has integrated this technology into standard face masks to detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a patient's breath. The button-activated mask ...

Researchers at Northwestern and George Washington (GW) universities have developed the first-ever transient pacemaker -- a wireless, battery-free, fully implantable pacing device that disappears after it's no longer needed. The thin, flexible, lightweight device could be used in patients who need temporary pacing after cardiac surgery or while waiting for a permanent pacemaker. All components of the pacemaker are biocompatible and naturally absorb into the body's biofluids over the course of five to seven weeks, without needing surgical extraction. The device wirelessly harvests energy from an external, remote antenna using near-field ...

A worldwide team led by UC Santa Barbara scientists at Las Cumbres Observatory has discovered the first convincing evidence for a new type of stellar explosion -- an electron-capture supernova. While they have been theorized for 40 years, real-world examples have been elusive. They are thought to arise from the explosions of massive super-asymptotic giant branch (SAGB) stars, for which there has also been scant evidence. The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, also sheds new light on the thousand-year mystery of the supernova from A.D. 1054 that was visible all over the world in the daytime, before eventually becoming the Crab Nebula. Historically, supernovae have ...

A worldwide team led by scientists at Las Cumbres Observatory has discovered the first convincing evidence for a new type of stellar explosion -- an electron-capture supernova. While they have been theorized for 40 years, real-world examples have been elusive. They are thought to arise from the explosions of massive super-asymptotic giant branch (SAGB) stars, for which there has also been scant evidence. The discovery also sheds new light on the thousand-year mystery of the supernova from A.D. 1054 that was seen all over the world in the daytime, before eventually becoming the Crab Nebula. Historically, there have been two main supernova types. One is a thermonuclear supernova -- the explosion of a white dwarf star after it gains matter in a binary star system. These white ...

Engineers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a novel face mask that can diagnose the wearer with Covid-19 within about 90 minutes. The masks are embedded with tiny, disposable sensors that can be fitted into other face masks and could also be adapted to detect other viruses. The sensors are based on freeze-dried cellular machinery that the research team has previously developed for use in paper diagnostics for viruses such as Ebola and Zika. In a new study, the researchers showed that the sensors could be incorporated into not only face masks but also clothing such as lab coats, potentially offering a new way to ...

All life on Earth 500 million years ago lived in the oceans, but scientists know little about how these animals and algae developed. A newly discovered fossil deposit near Kunming, China, may hold the keys to understanding how these organisms laid the foundations for life on land and at sea today, according to an international team of researchers. The fossil deposit, called the Haiyan Lagerstätte, contains an exceptionally preserved trove of early vertebrates and other rare, soft-bodied organisms, more than 50% of which are in the larval and juvenile stages of development. Dating to the Cambrian geologic period approximately 518 million years ago and providing researchers with ...

The world of microbes living in the human gut can have far-reaching effects on human health. Multiple diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), are tied to the balance of these microbes, suggesting that restoring the right balance could help treat disease. Many probiotics -- living yeasts or bacteria -- that are currently on the market have been optimized through evolution in the context of a healthy gut. However, in order to treat complex diseases such as IBD, a probiotic would need to serve many functions, including an ability to turn off inflammation, reverse damage and restore the gut microbiome. Given all of these needs, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital have developed a "designer" ...

A new discovery in rats shows that the brain responds differently in immersive virtual reality environments versus the real world. The finding could help scientists understand how the brain brings together sensory information from different sources to create a cohesive picture of the world around us. It could also pave the way for "virtual reality therapy" for learning and memory-related disorders ranging including ADHD, Autism, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and depression. Mayank Mehta, PhD, is the head of W. M. Keck Center for Neurophysics and a professor in the departments of physics, neurology, and electrical and computer engineering at UCLA. His laboratory studies a brain region called the hippocampus, which is a primary driver of learning and memory, ...

An international team of astronomers has observed the first example of a new type of supernova. The discovery, confirming a prediction made four decades ago, could lead to new insights into the life and death of stars. The work is published June 28 in Nature Astronomy. "One of the main questions in astronomy is to compare how stars evolve and how they die," said Stefano Valenti, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the team that discovered and described supernova 2018zd. "There are many links still missing, so this is very exciting." There ...

NEW YORK, NY (June 28, 2021)--In the first analysis of its kind, researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and several other institutions have linked distinct patterns of genetic mutations with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in humans. The work, published online June 28 in Nature Neuroscience, confirms the validity of targeting specific genes to develop new OCD treatments and points toward novel avenues for studying this often debilitating condition. OCD, which affects 1% to 2% of the population, often runs in families and genes are known to play a large role in determining who develops the disease. However, the identity of many OCD genes remains unknown. "Many neurological diseases are ...

Slow earthquakes are long-period earthquakes that are not so dangerous alone, but are able to trigger more destructive earthquakes. Their origins lie in tectonic plate boundaries where one plate subsides below another. Though the causal mechanism is already known, there has been a lack of data to accurately model the life cycle of slow earthquakes. For the first time, researchers use deep-sea boreholes to gauge pressures far below the seafloor. They hope data from this and future observations can aid the understanding of earthquake evolution. The surface of the Earth lies upon gargantuan ...

New York, NY--June 28, 2021--Predicting what someone is about to do next based on their body language comes naturally to humans but not so for computers. When we meet another person, they might greet us with a hello, handshake, or even a fist bump. We may not know which gesture will be used, but we can read the situation and respond appropriately. In a new study, Columbia Engineering researchers unveil a computer vision technique for giving machines a more intuitive sense for what will happen next by leveraging higher-level associations between people, animals, and objects. "Our algorithm is a step toward machines being able to make better predictions about human behavior, and ...