Scientists from the University of Melbourne and University of Queensland have revealed the mystery behind the unique reproductive parts of the much-loved echidna. In the paper, "The Unique Penile Morphology of the Short-Beaked Echidna, Tachyglossus aculeatus", the team detail how the male monotreme's testes never descend, have no scrotum, and when not in use, their penis is stored internally. They also detail how the echidna penis has four heads, which are actually rosette-like glans at the end. Just two of the four glans ever become functional during erection ...

Led by Professor Andreas Hartmann, from the University of Freiburg (Germany), the researchers analyzed the presence of several pollutants in water from many karst aquifers of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, relating fast infiltration processes to an increased concentration of these substances. The findings of this research are published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). This way, they warn that during rainfall events -when aquifers recharge, especially during autumn rainfall- the concentration of pollutants and pathogenic microorganisms can significantly exceed the safe levels, causing serious consequences for human consumption. "About one quarter of the ...

Obesity is generally linked to poor eating habits and the availability of tasty, high-calorie foods. However, a new study led by researchers from the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research Unit in the Department of Radiology at Hospital del Mar and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, has found that more elements are involved. Thanks to images obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers found that certain parts of the brains of obese children show alterations with respect to normal-weight or overweight children of the same age. ...

At the heart of almost every sufficiently massive galaxy there is a black hole whose gravitational field, although very intense, affects only a small region around the centre of the galaxy. Even though these objects are thousands of millions of times smaller than their host galaxies our current view is that the Universe can be understood only if the evolution of galaxies is regulated by the activity of these black holes, because without them the observed properties of the galaxies cannot be explained. Theoretical predictions suggest that as these black holes grow they generate sufficient energy to heat ...

New research has revealed that people with the ability to visualise vividly have a stronger connection between their visual network and the regions of the brain linked to decision-making. The study also sheds light on memory and personality differences between those with strong visual imagery and those who cannot hold a picture in their mind's eye. The research, from the University of Exeter, published in Cerebral Cortex Communications, casts new light on why an estimated one-three per cent of the population lack the ability to visualise. This phenomenon was named "aphantasia" by the University of Exeter's Professor Adam Zeman in 2015 Professor Zeman called those with highly ...

Homocysteine (HCY) is a sulfur-containing aminoacid, which attract more and more attention as the increase of homocysteine level associates with a number of pathological conditions. Hyperhomocysteinemia (hHCY) is an elevation of HCY level in plasma and develops due to genetic mutations of enzymes involved in regulation of HCY metabolism, nutritional deficiencies of vitamins B12, B6 and folate; chronic renal failure; alcoholism, smoking, excess coffee consumption, hypothyroidism; taking a number of medications like antiepileptic drugs and LDOPA; and aging. hHcy is a well-known ...

The movement of electrons can have a significantly greater influence on spintronic effects than previously assumed. This discovery was made by an international team of researchers led by physicists from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). Until now, a calculation of these effects took, above all, the spin of electrons into consideration. The study was published in the journal "Physical Review Research" and offers a new approach in developing spintronic components. Many technical devices are based on conventional semiconductor electronics. Charge currents are used to store and process information in these components. However, this electric current generates heat and energy is lost. To get around this problem, ...

BOSTON - In the three months since Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, more than 10 million Americans have received the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The single-shot viral vector vaccine -- developed in collaboration with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) immunologist Dan Barouch, MD, PhD -- was authorized for use based on clinical trial data showing strong clinical efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 in the United States, Latin ...

A joint research project based in Kumamoto University, Japan has developed a new, highly sensitive analytical method that can detect degraded β-lactam antibacterial agents used in the treatment of bacterial infections. With this method, researchers found that reactive sulfur species produced by bacteria degrade and inactivate β-lactam antibiotics. Bacteria are different from animal cells in that their outer layer is covered with a rigid structure called a cell wall. β-lactam antimicrobial agents interfere with the processes that form the cell wall. This results in bacteria no longer being able to withstand their own internal pressure so they rupture and die. β-lactam antimicrobial agents are very potent ...

For nearly half a century, astrophysicists and organic chemists have been on the hunt for the origins of C6H6, the benzene ring - an elegant, hexagonal molecule comprised of 6 carbon and 6 hydrogen atoms. Astrophysicists say that the benzene ring could be the fundamental building block of polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs, the most basic materials formed from the explosion of dying, carbon-rich stars. That swirling mass of matter would eventually give shape to the earliest forms of carbon - precursors to molecules some scientists say are connected to ...

New research shows transmission of the virus behind COVID-19 varies seasonally, but warmer conditions are not enough to prevent transmission. The study, led by Imperial College London researchers and published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to incorporate environmental data into epidemiological models of the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. The team show that temperature and population density are the most important factors determining how easily the virus spreads, but only in the absence of mobility-restricting measures, such as lockdowns. First author of the study Dr Tom Smith, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: "Our results ...

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo (June 9, 2021) - A new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has updated the global population estimate for the Critically Endangered Grauer's gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) - the world's largest gorilla subspecies- to 6,800 individuals from a previous global estimate of 3,800 individuals. This revised estimate comes from recent field surveys conducted in one of this animal's largest remaining strongholds, in areas that were previously inaccessible for surveys. However, these gorillas continue to be heavily impacted by ongoing insecurity, and by human incursion into their remaining habitat in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Publishing in the American Journal of Primatology, ...

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have identified a common mechanism underlying a spectrum of epilepsy syndromes and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, that are caused by variations in a gene encoding a vital transporter protein in the brain. Their findings, reported last month in the journal Brain, suggest that boosting transporter function via genetic or pharmacological means could be beneficial in treating brain disorders linked to these genetic variations. "This points (to) a clear direction of treating a wide spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders, from various epilepsy syndromes (and) autism to neurodevelopmental delay and intellectual ...

June 9, 2021 - The first analysis of medical evidence on domestic mass shooters in the U.S. finds that a large majority of perpetrators have psychiatric disorders for which they have received no medication or other treatment, reports a study in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Without losing sight of the larger perspective that most who are violent are not mentally ill, and most of the mentally ill are not violent, our message is that mental health providers, lawyers, and the public should be made aware that some unmedicated patients do pose an increased risk of violence," according to the report by Ira D. Glick, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine and colleagues. In-depth analysis of ...

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists are one step closer to understanding why some corals can weather climate change better than others, and the secret could be in a specific protein that produces a natural sunscreen. As their name implies, Hawaiian blue rice corals sport a deep blue pigment, which is created by chromoprotein and filters out harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. Although UV damage may produce long-term impacts to reproduction in many coral species--including brown rice coral--it may not have the same effect on blue rice coral. The findings of this study were published June 9 in ...

From 1980 to 2016, grain production in Brazil increased more than fourfold, and the country now stands as the world's largest soybean exporter and the second largest exporter of corn. The two main drivers of this increase in food production were cropland expansion and double-cropping, harvesting two crops, such as corn and soybeans, from the same field in a single year. While cropland expansion has long been recognized as one of the drivers behind the increase in Brazil's agricultural output, a new study published in Nature Food quantifies for the first time the impact that double-cropping also ...

The fairy circles of the Namib are one of nature's greatest mysteries. Millions of these circular barren patches extend over vast areas along the margins of the desert in Namibia. In 1979, G.K. Theron published the first research about their origin. His hypothesis was that poisonous substances from Euphorbia damarana leaves induced fairy circles. As part of a new study, scientists from the University of Göttingen and the Gobabeb Namib Research Institute located the original euphorbia plants that were part of Theron's study. Four decades later, the researchers are now able to conclusively disprove Theron's original hypothesis. Their results were published in the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. In the late 1970s, South African botanist Theron noticed ...

A University of Oklahoma doctoral student, graduate and undergraduate research assistants, and an associate professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences are lead authors on a paper describing a "changing-look" blazar - a powerful active galactic nucleus powered by supermassive blackhole at the center of a galaxy. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal. Hora D. Mishra, a Ph.D. student, and faculty member Xinyu Dai are lead authors of the paper, along with Christopher Kochanek and Kris Stanek at the Ohio State University and Ben Shappee at the University of Hawaii. The paper represents the findings of researchers from 12 different institutions who participated ...

Tsukuba, Japan - Holographic displays help add a three-dimensional--and thus more life-like--feel to what would otherwise appear as a two-dimensional image. Now, researchers in Japan have tested how this may work on a supramolecular level; such tests could lead to improved displays. Commonly, one cannot overlay a certain type of molecular component that underlies helically arranged liquid crystals onto their molecular mirror images, much like a person cannot overlay their two hands and have them match up exactly without flipping one over. Molecules with this property are described as "chiral." Some materials make use of the principle of chirality to rotate light in a plane perpendicular to the direction of the light wave, known as circular ...

Researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) have developed novel techniques, known as Automated Fibre Embedding (AFE), to produce complex fibre and silicone composite structures for soft robotics applications. Their work was published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Many soft robot components, including sensors and actuators, utilise embedded continuous fibres within elastomeric substrates to achieve various functionalities. However, manual embedding of continuous fibres in soft substrates is challenging due to the complexities involved in handling precise layering, and ...

Thermotherapy or heat treatment can help in treating lesions and other tissue injuries. For example, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, when combined with thermotherapy, kills tumorous cells more effectively. Thermotherapy is considered a promising approach for treating internal lesions, but the advancement in the field depends on the availability of patient-friendly heat-inducing devices capable of rapidly increasing the temperature of target tissues. Current clinical practices around thermotherapy majorly employ heat-generating devices that are probed inside ...

DALLAS - June 9, 2021 - A phenomenon in which an RNA named NORAD drives a protein named Pumilio to form liquid droplets in cells, much like oil in water, appears to tightly regulate the activity of Pumilio. A new study led by UT Southwestern scientists suggests that such RNA-driven "phase separation," in turn, protects against genome instability, premature aging, and neurodegenerative diseases, and may represent a previously unrecognized way for RNAs to regulate cellular processes. "It's becoming more and more clear that phase separation is an important organizing ...

A research team, led by Professor Kyoung-Duck Park in the Department of Physics at UNIST has succeeded in investigating and controlling the physical properties of naturally-formed nanoscale wrinkles in two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. This is thanks to their previously-developed hyperspectral adaptive tip-enhanced photoluminescence (a-TEPL) spectroscopy. This will be a major step forward in developing paper-thin, ultra-flexible displays. Wrinkles are an inevitable structural deformation in 2D semiconductor materials, which gives rise to spatial heterogeneity in material properties, according to the research team. Such structural deformation has long been considered one of the top technical challenges in semiconductor manufacturing, as this would harm the uniformity ...

Young clownfish living closest to shore are dying faster than those further offshore because they are being exposed to artificial lighting, says an international research team. Working on the reefs around Moorea in French Polynesia, scientists from France, the United Kingdom, Chile and Australia found that nearshore juvenile clownfish living in anemones under lights had higher mortality than juveniles in anemones not exposed to artificial light. The scientists also found that the surviving clownfish grew 44 per cent more slowly than clownfish under natural lighting conditions. Professor Stephen Swearer, a marine ecologist, from the University of Melbourne, ...

Scientists have leapt over the emerging problem of publication bias within genetic research by performing a meta-analysis of publicly available databases of 'transcriptomes', or the full range of messenger RNA molecules produced by an organism. Researchers from Hiroshima University applied the technique to their own field--the study of the genes that are activated when an organism experiences low-oxygen conditions--but it should also be applicable in any other fields that make use of the transcriptome, providing a powerful weapon against the threat posed by publication bias. The meta-analysis technique ...