A new study could lead to improved decision making in assigning treatments for children with the aggressive cancer rhabdomyosarcoma after revealing key genetic changes underlying development of the disease. In the largest and most comprehensive study of rhabdomyosarcoma to date, scientists found that specific genetic changes in tumours are linked to aggressiveness, early age of onset and location in the body. All these factors affect the chances that children will survive their disease - and understanding how they are driven by a cancer's genetics could lead to new ways of tailoring treatment for each patient. Rhabdomyosarcoma is a rare type of cancer that resembles muscle tissue and mostly affects ...

Ozone levels in the earth's troposphere (the lowest level of our atmosphere) can now be forecasted with accuracy up to two weeks in advance, a remarkable improvement over current systems that can accurately predict ozone levels only three days ahead. The new artificial intelligence system developed in the University of Houston's Air Quality Forecasting and Modeling Lab could lead to improved ways to control high ozone problems and even contribute to solutions for climate change issues. "This was very challenging. Nobody had done this previously. I believe we are the first to try to forecast surface ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Tossing worn-out solar panels into landfills may soon become electronics waste history. Designing a recycling strategy for a new, forthcoming generation of photovoltaic solar cells - made from metal halide perovskites, a family of crystalline materials with structures like the natural mineral calcium titanate - will add a stronger dose of environmental friendliness to a green industry, according to Cornell University-led research published June 24 in Nature Sustainability. The paper shows substantial benefits to recycling perovskite solar panels, though ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - As mosquito-borne diseases pose risks for half the world's population, scientists have been releasing sterile or genetically modified male mosquitos in attempts to suppress populations or alter their traits to control human disease. But these technologies have failed to spread very rapidly because they require successful mating of modified mosquitoes with mosquitoes in nature and not enough research exists to fully explain which male traits females seek when they choose a mate. Now, a new Cornell study of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes investigates how a mating cue called "harmonic convergence" might affect immunity against parasites, bacteria and dengue virus in offspring, which has important ...

HOUSTON - (June 24, 2021) - Hold on there, graphene. Seriously, your grip could help make better catalysts. Rice University engineers have assembled what they say may transform chemical catalysis by greatly increasing the number of transition-metal single atoms that can be placed into a carbon carrier. The technique uses graphene quantum dots (GQD), 3-5-nanometer particles of the super-strong 2D carbon material, as anchoring supports. These facilitate high-density transition-metal single atoms with enough space between the atoms to avoid clumping. An international team led by chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian Wang of Rice's Brown School of ...

Optical superoscillation refers to a wave packet that can oscillate locally in a frequency exceeding its highest Fourier component. This intriguing phenomenon enables production of extremely localized waves that can break the optical diffraction barrier. Indeed, superoscillation has proven to be an effective technique for overcoming the diffraction barrier in optical superresolution imaging. The trouble is that strong side lobes accompany the main lobes of superoscillatory waves, which limits the field of view and hinders application. There also are tradeoffs between the main lobes and the side lobes of superoscillatory wave packets: reducing the superoscillatory feature size of the ...

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists identified how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, gets inside cells to cause infection. All current COVID-19 vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics were designed to disrupt this route into cells, which requires a receptor called ACE2. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a single mutation gives SARS-CoV-2 the ability to enter cells through another route - one that does not require ACE2. The ability to use an alternative entry pathway opens up the possibility of evading COVID-19 antibodies or vaccines, but the researchers did not find evidence of such evasion. However, the discovery does show that the ...

DUARTE, Calif. -- City of Hope, a world-renowned cancer research and treatment center, has identified how cancer cells in patients with early-stage breast cancer change and become resistant to hormone or combination therapies, according to a END ...

Scientists from Helmholtz Zentrum München revise the current textbook knowledge about gastrulation, the formation of the basic body plan during embryonic development. Their study in mice has implications for cell replacement strategies and cancer research. Gastrulation is the formation of the three principal germ layers - endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm. Understanding the formation of the basic body plan is not only important to reveal how the fertilized egg gives rise to an adult organism, but also how congenital diseases arise. In addition, gastrulation serves as the basis to understand processes during embryonic development called epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition which is known to lead to cancer metastasis in adulthood ...

When most Americans think of seaweed, they probably conjure images of a slimy plant they encounter at the beach. But seaweed can be a nutritious food too. A pair of UConn researchers recently discovered Connecticut-grown sugar kelp may help prevent weight gain and the onset of conditions associated with obesity. In a paper published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry by College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources faculty Young-Ki Park, assistant research professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, and Ji-Young Lee, professor and head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences, the researchers reported significant findings supporting the nutritional benefits of Connecticut-grown sugar kelp. They found brown sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) ...

FRANKFURT. Cancer and many other diseases are based on genetic defects. The body can often compensate for the defect of one gene; it is only the combination of several genetic errors that leads to the clinical picture. The 3Cs multiplex technique based on CRISPR-Cas technology developed at Goethe University Frankfurt now offers a way to simulate millions of such combinations of genetic defects and study their effects in cell culture. These "gene scissors" make it possible to introduce, remove and switch off genes in a targeted manner. For this purpose, small snippets of genetic material ("single ...

New research from the University of California, Santa Cruz shows how regional shelter-in-place orders during the coronavirus pandemic emboldened local pumas to use habitats they would normally avoid out of fear of humans. This study, published in the journal END ...

Roads, bridges, pipelines and other types of infrastructure in Alaska and elsewhere in the Arctic will deteriorate faster than expected due to a failure by planners to account for the structures' impact on adjacent permafrost, according to research by a University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute permafrost expert and others. The researchers say planners must account for the sideward repercussions of their projects in addition to the usual projection of the direct top-down effects. The finding was presented in a May 31 paper in The Cryosphere, a publication of the European Geosciences Union. UAF Geophysical Institute geophysics professor Vladimir Romanovsky is among the 13 authors ...

For the past several years, chemical engineer Michelle O'Malley has focused her research on the anaerobic fungi found in the guts of herbivores, which make it possible for those animals to fuel themselves with sugars and starches extracted from fibrous plants. O'Malley's work, reflected in multiple research awards and journal articles, has centered on how these powerful fungi might be used to extract value-added products from the nonedible parts of plants -- roots, stems and leaves -- that are generally considered waste products. Now, her lab has discovered that those same fungi likely produce novel "natural products," which could function as antibiotics or other compounds of use for biotechnology. The research is described in a paper titled "Anaerobic gut ...

The body's immune cells naturally fight off viral and bacterial microbes and other invaders, but they can also be reprogrammed or "trained" to respond even more aggressively and potently to such threats, report UCLA scientists who have discovered the fundamental rule underlying this process in a particular class of cells. In END ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers report that small quantities of useful molecules such as hydrocarbons are produced when carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of light and a silver nanoparticle catalyst. Their validation study - made possible through the use of a high-resolution analytical technique - could pave the way for CO2-reduction technologies that allow industrial-scale production of renewable carbon-based fuels. The study, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chemistry professor Prashant Jain, probes chemical activity at the surface of silver nanoparticle catalysts under visible light and uses carbon isotopes to track the origin and production of these previously undetected chemical reactions. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. Sunlight-driven ...

By Benjamin Boettner (Boston) - Muscular dystrophies are a group of genetic diseases that lead to the progressive loss of muscle mass and function in patients, with the incurable Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), which affects all the body's muscles primarily in boys, being particularly severe. DMD can be caused by more than 7,000 unique mutations in the largest gene of the human genome, which encodes a central protein in muscle fibers. While this astounding number of mutations all variably block muscle function, the affected muscles share another common feature - chronic inflammation. As chronic inflammation ...

Scientists need to focus on tangible efforts to boost equity, diversity and inclusion in citizen science, researchers from North Carolina State University argued in a new perspective. Published in the journal Science, the perspective is a response to a debate about rebranding "citizen science," the movement to use crowdsourced data collection, analysis or design in research. Researchers said that while the motivation for rebranding is in response to a real concern, there will be a cost to it, and efforts to make projects more inclusive should go deeper than that. Their recommendations speak to a broader discussion about how to ensure science is responsive to the needs of a diverse audience. "At its heart, citizen science is a system of knowledge production ...

Parents of children with the most complex medical conditions are more likely to report poor or fair mental health and struggle to find community help, according to a study completed by researchers at University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Golisano Children's Hospital. The study was published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The study, "A National Mental Health Profile of Parents of Children with Medical Complexity," examined parent-reported data from the National Survey of Children's Health, and compared three groups: households of children with medical complexity (CMC), households of noncomplex children with special health care needs, and households of children ...

Not all stresses are created equal, according to a pair of new studies, which shows that distinct ubiquitination patterns underlie cell recovery following different environmental stressors. Eukaryotic cells respond to environmental stressors - such as temperature extremes, exposure to toxins or damage, for example - through adaptive programs that help to ensure their survival, including the shutdown of key cellular processes. These responses are often associated with the formation of stress granules (SGs) - dense cytoplasmic aggregations of proteins and RNA - as well as with ...

Although the Antibody Mediated Prevention (AMP) study that launched in 2016 failed to show significant efficacy in a pair of clinical trials, Denis Burton argues in a Perspective that the AMP study's results represent a landmark in AIDS research; they show - for the first time - that a broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb) can protect humans against exposure to some strains of HIV. According to Burton, the AMP study's data - despite not showing a significant difference between the numbers of infected individuals in the treated groups versus those in the placebo groups - still have tremendous implications for future HIV vaccine design and passive bnAb use strategies. The AMP study evaluated the immunotherapeutic ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Analysis of recently discovered fossils found in Israel suggest that interactions between different human species were more complex than previously believed, according to a team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam. The research team, led by Israel Hershkovitz from Tel Aviv University, published their findings in Science, describing recently discovered fossils from the site of Nesher Ramla in Israel. The Nesher Ramla site dates to about 120,000-140,000 years ago, towards the very end of the Middle Pleistocene time period. The human fossils were found by Dr. Zaidner of ...

Researchers at Tufts University, University College London (UCL), Cambridge University and University of California at Santa Barbara have demonstrated that a catalyst can indeed be an agent of change. In a study published today in Science, they used quantum chemical simulations run on supercomputers to predict a new catalyst architecture as well as its interactions with certain chemicals, and demonstrated in practice its ability to produce propylene - currently in short supply - which is critically needed in the manufacture of plastics, fabrics and other chemicals. The improvements have potential for highly efficient, "greener" chemistry with a lower carbon footprint. The demand for propylene is ...

The discovery of a new Homo group in this region, which resembles Pre-Neanderthal populations in Europe, challenges the prevailing hypothesis that Neanderthals originated from Europe, suggesting that at least some of the Neanderthals' ancestors actually came from the Levant. The new finding suggests that two types of Homo groups lived side by side in the Levant for more than 100,000 years (200-100,000 years ago), sharing knowledge and tool technologies: the Nesher Ramla people who lived in the region from around 400,000 years ago, and the Homo sapiens who arrived later, some 200,000 years ago. The new discovery also gives clues about a mystery in human evolution: How did genes of Homo sapiens penetrate the Neanderthal population that had presumably lived in Europe long before ...

Mythological nymphs reincarnate as a group of corn smut proteins to launch a battle on maize immunity. One of these proteins appears to stand out among its sister Pleiades, much like its namesake character in Greek mythology. The research carried out at GMI - Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences - is published in the journal PLOS Pathogens. Pathogenic organisms exist under various forms and use diverse strategies to survive and multiply at the expense of their hosts. Some of these pathogens are termed "biotrophic", as they are parasites that maintain their hosts alive. These biotrophic pathogens deregulate physiological processes in their hosts by suppressing their immune defenses and favoring disease development. ...