Anaphylaxis is a systemic allergic reaction that can affect the skin, the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory system and the cardiovascular system. The most severe form of anaphylaxis is anaphylactic shock, which features hypotension and can cause death. This reaction can have several causes, such as allergic reactions to food, medicines or insect venom. The molecular mechanisms that cause the severity of these kinds of reactions is still unknown. In a study led by researchers of the University of Barcelona and IDIBAPS, researchers analyzed the mutation of a gen detected in a patient who suffered from recurrent anaphylactic shocks caused ...

Growing the right crop in the right place within an impaired watershed can achieve significant water quality improvements, according to Penn State researchers, who conducted a novel study in the drainage of a Susquehanna River tributary in an agricultural area in southeastern Pennsylvania. The research may reveal a potential path for restoring the troubled Chesapeake Bay, said Patrick Drohan, associate professor of pedology in the College of Agricultural Sciences and one of the study's authors. The bay -- which long has been impaired in large part by nutrients and sediment washing off crop fields and getting into surface waters that feed it -- needs bold solutions, such as changing cropping systems, he suggested. "Other than when wastewater treatment plants came into compliance ...

BROOKLYN, New York, Monday, February 8, 2021 -- A holy grail for orthopedic research is a method for not only creating artificial bone tissue that precisely matches the real thing, but does so in such microscopic detail that it includes tiny structures potentially important for stem cell differentiation, which is key to bone regeneration. Researchers at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute (NYSF) have taken a major step by creating the exact replica of a bone using a system that pairs biothermal imaging with a heated "nano-chisel." In a study, "Cost and Time Effective Lithography of Reusable Millimeter Size Bone Tissue Replicas with Sub-15 nm Feature Size on a Biocompatible ...

A team of researchers from the Laboratory of Biophysics at NUST MISIS, Lomonosov Moscow State University and D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia has summarized metal-containing diagnostic agents for positron emission tomography (PET), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging of Alzheimer's disease (AD). According to the researchers, metal-containing radiopharmaceuticals are not only highly effective for detecting early markers of Alzheimer's disease, but also synchrotron-independent and ...

Bats are the only mammals that can actively fly. Some species travel over one hundred kilometres on their nocturnal excursions in search of food. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Radolfzell have now discovered that European free-tailed bats use uplifting winds for their ascents - a behaviour that was previously known only from birds. To do this, they tracked the bats using mini GPS loggers and then linked the flight data to weather data. The animals can thus gain altitude of well over 1,000 metres without expending much energy. The results ...

DNA sequences that can fold into shapes other than the classic double helix tend to have higher mutation rates than other regions in the human genome. New research shows that the elevated mutation rate in these sequences plays a major role in determining regional variation in mutation rates across the genome. Deciphering the patterns and causes of regional variation in mutation rates is important both for understanding evolution and for predicting sites of new mutations that could lead to disease. A paper describing the research by a team of Penn State scientists is available online in the journal Nucleic Acids Research. "Most of the time we think about DNA as the classic ...

A 'biological age' score predicts that being male, overweight, a smoker and having depression all contribute to biological aging, a study published today in eLife reports. Aging can be measured in different ways. While chronological age is measured by date of birth, scientists have developed a range of measurements to determine our biological age. These include measuring the length of telomeres (little caps on the end of our chromosomes that shorten as we grow older), chemical changes to our DNA (epigenetics), and changes to the proteins and metabolites in our bodies ...

According to the Education Act, schools in the ethnically divided Bosnia and Herzegovina must teach students "democratic ideals in a multicultural society." But according to new research from the University of Copenhagen, the opposite happens: Segregated schools perpetuate ethnic divisions between Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks, making reconciliation after the 1992-1995 wars extremely difficult. 25 years ago, the warring factions in the war in former Yugoslavia signed a peace agreement. Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 100,000 people lost their lives during the war, is now an independent state comprising the Bosnian-Croatian Federation and the Republika Srpska. It is a division that ...

Social conflicts, from policy debates to family disagreements, can easily devolve into angry words and personal attacks. Such heated confrontations, however, seldom resolve disagreements and can entrench opposing views. A better approach to resolving interpersonal disagreements is to embrace characteristics that psychological scientists associate with wisdom, like intellectual humility, diverse viewpoints, and open-mindedness. But applying these elements of wisdom can be difficult, especially during confrontations. The trick, according to new research published ...

The global problem of unowned domestic cats, driven by the cats' phenomenal reproductive success, carries significant economic, animal welfare and biodiversity costs. Big-data research led by an expert on veterinary medicine and infectious diseases at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has found that although more than 80% of cats in Australia were desexed, only a fraction have had surgery before reaching puberty, thus creating a "pregnancy gap". To close this gap and prevent unwanted litters, it is recommended that the age of desexing is before four months. The research was led by Professor ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. - Breast cancer death rates have stopped declining for women in the U.S. younger than age 40, ending a trend that existed from 1987 to 2010, according to a new study in Radiology. Researchers expressed hope that the findings would raise awareness of breast cancer in younger women and spur research into the causes behind the change. Breast cancer is the most common non-skin cancer and the second most common cause of cancer deaths in women in the U.S., accounting for 30% of all cancers in women. Although most invasive breast cancers occur in women age 40 years and older, ...

Scientific and public health experts have been raising the alarm for decades, imploring public officials to prepare for the inevitability of a viral pandemic. Infectious epidemics seemingly as benign as "the flu" and as deadly as the Ebola virus provided ample warning, yet government officials seemed caught off guard and ill prepared for dealing with COVID-19. Three future-oriented researchers and policy experts map out an "Epidemiological Blueprint for Understanding the Dynamics of a Pandemic." COVID Detectives Researchers around the world have become forensic, Sherlock Holmes-like "consulting detectives" for government officials and public health organizations. Handling tens of thousands ...

In the span of only 15 years, a small academic elite has increased its share of academic citations significantly. In the year 2000, 14 per cent of all citations went to the top one percent of the most cited researchers. New research shows that this figure had risen to 21 per cent in 2015. The people behind these remarkable findings are senior researcher Jens Peter Andersen, Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy (CFA) at Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, and associate professor Mathias Wullum Nielsen (former CFA, now University of Copenhagen). Their examination of almost 26 million scientific papers and four million authors has just been published in the well-established interdisciplinary journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ...

Animal owners frequently report concerns and worries relating to caring for their animal during the pandemic, new research suggests. The study, by the University of York, also revealed owners had increased their appreciation of their animals during the first lockdown phase. The notion that people "could not live without" their animals and that they were a "godsend" or a "lifeline" in the pandemic was frequently expressed. The study has been investigating the role of animals as sources of emotional and physical support during the pandemic. More than 40 per cent of UK households are estimated to own at least one animal. There was consensus among participants that companion animals constituted a reliable source of support, providing unconditional love, ...

When human cells have to adapt due to a wide variety of external influences, the BAF complex plays a central role because it controls the accessibility of the DNA and thus the information stored in it. In every fifth human cancer, a mutation is found in one of the BAF complex genes. Scientists from the research group of Principal Investigator Stefan Kubicek at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have investigated this complex in more detail using novel techniques and were able to show how quickly changes in the BAF complex genes influence the accessibility of DNA. The study has now been published in Nature Genetics. Chromatin is a central component of the cell nucleus and refers to the material that ...

In nature, as in everyday life, we are surrounded by resonance - the phenomenon that describes how each object has a frequency that it prefers to vibrate at. The note of a guitar string and the sound of Big Ben chiming are examples of resonance. Vibrations near resonance cause strong impacts. Bridges collapse if soldiers march in unison; a kid can 'push' themselves on a swing by moving their legs at the correct rate, and two pendulum clocks on the same table will synchronise. These examples show the enhanced sensitivity given to an object when it is provided with energy at a specific (that is, resonant) frequency. It's no wonder then that physicists and engineers are always looking for ways to use ...

Causal reasoning is ubiquitous - from physics to medicine, economics and social sciences, as well as in everyday life. Whenever we press the button, the bell rings, and we think that the pressing of the button causes the bell to ring. Normally, causal influence is assumed to only go one way - from cause to effect - and never back from the effect to the cause: the ringing of the bell does not cause the pressing of the button that triggered it. Now researchers from the University of Oxford and the Université libre de Bruxelles have developed a theory of causality in quantum theory, according to which cause-effect relations can sometimes form cycles. This theory offers a novel understanding of exotic processes in which events do not have a definite causal ...

"86 percent of the respondents rate the home office regulation as appropriate," says BfR-President Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel. "This illustrates that people also accept changes in their everyday occupational life in order to contain the coronavirus." https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/349/210119-bfr-corona-monitor-en.pdf Day-care centres and schools are still closed except for emergency care. However, this measure is judged as appropriate by a decreasing number of respondents: Since the beginning of the year, approval has dropped by 10 percentage points from 67 percent to now 57 percent. A similar development can be seen in the acceptance of the closure ...

Understanding the interaction of organisms in the evolution of species is an important topic in ecology. Insects and plants, for example, are two large groups on earth that are linked by a variety of interactions. Since the mid-20th century, theories linking this diversity and specific interactions have proliferated. The development of new technologies and new methods has made it possible to study the interaction between plants and insects in greater detail and to reveal the impact of these interactions on their respective evolution. In a new study, an international team of researchers, including botanist Prof. Stefan Wanke of TU Dresden, has established the link between ecological changes, ...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, small and medium-sized firms (SME) have become increasingly dependent on social media as a tool for their international sales process, according to a recent study published in International Business Review. Digital communication tools seem to be most prevalent in finding and reaching new prospects and in the persuasion phase, whereas more traditional communication tools still prevail in customer relationship management. "During the COVID-19 outbreak, small and medium sized firms have become more reliant on social media tools to reach internationally dispersed prospects and customers. Such use has helped them to overcome limitations set to face-to-face interaction by ...

In both life and music, the secret to success is love. This universal emotion stands out as the key protagonist in the most listened-to songs of all time. According to a study by Salvador Climent Roca and Marta Coll-Florit from the GRIAL applied linguistics research group (tied to the UOC Faculty of Arts and Humanities), love is central to 52 of the 71 songs that topped the Billboard magazine's year-end charts from 1946 to 2016. "Pop music is created to achieve commercial success, and evocations of feelings of love and unrequited love are powerfully attractive for all types of audiences," said the authors. Their analysis, published in open access in ...

Low-income mothers feminize their children in the womb by adjusting their hormones, whereas high-income mothers masculinize their children, a major study based on finger length, led by a Swansea University expert, has found. The phenomenon is an unconscious evolutionary response aimed at boosting their offspring's chances of successful reproduction. It helps, in part, explain associations between low income, low levels of testosterone before birth, and major causes of mortality such as cardiovascular disease. The study was based on the relationship between the length of a person's index and ring fingers, known as the 2D:4D ratio. A longer ring finger is a marker of higher levels of testosterone, whereas ...

Rising global temperatures are causing frozen Arctic soil-- permafrost--in the northern hemisphere to thaw and release CO2 that has been stored within it for thousands of years. The amount of carbon stored in permafrost is estimated to be four times greater than the combined amount of CO2 emitted by modern humans. Research results from an international team, which includes a researcher from the University of Copenhagen among others, suggests that the newly discovered phenomenon will release even larger quantities of CO2 than once supposed from organic matter in permafrost--a pool of carbon previously thought to be bound tightly and safely sequestered by iron. The amount of stored carbon that is bound to iron and gets converted ...

The high stakes of first dates require would-be partners to make and interpret first impressions. But, can we rely on these first impressions to accurately assess someone's personality? According to researchers from McGill University, the answer is yes, although it may be more difficult than in more casual settings. Forming an accurate impression of an individual on a first date is important because people often rely on these impressions in deciding whether to pursue a romantic relationship. While previous studies have shown that people can form accurate impressions of new acquaintances in platonic settings - like casual conversations with new classmates - the researchers wanted to find out if the ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - Publishing their work in Nature, scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health found that the orally administered experimental drug EIDD-2801 halts SARS-CoV-2 replication and prevents infection of human cells in a new in vivo lab model containing human lung tissue. Separate phase 2 and 3 clinical trials are ongoing to evaluate EIDD-2801 safety in humans and its effect on viral shedding in COVID-19 patients. The number of new COVID-19 cases continues to rise in many parts of the world, with the highest incidence in the United States. Although some highly efficacious vaccines have been ...