Diamond, like graphite, is a special form of carbon. Its cubic crystal structure and its strong chemical bonds give it its unique hardness. For thousands of years, it has also been sought after as both a tool and as a thing of beauty. Only in the 1950s did it become possible to produce diamonds artificially for the first time. Most natural diamonds form in the Earth's mantle at depths of at least 150 kilometres, where temperatures in excess of 1500 degrees Celsius and enormously high pressures of several gigapascals prevail - more than 10.000 times that of a well-inflated bicycle tyre. There are different theories for the exact mechanisms ...

The liquid electrolytes in flow batteries provide a bridge to help carry electrons into electrodes, and that changes how chemical engineers think about efficiency. The way to boost electron transfer in grid-scale batteries is different than researchers had believed, a new study from the University of Michigan has shown. The findings are a step toward being able to store renewable energy more efficiently. As governments and utilities around the world roll out intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, we remain reliant on coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants to provide energy when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. Grid-scale "flow" batteries are one proposed solution, storing energy for later use. But because they aren't very efficient, ...

New Rochelle, NY, January 20, 2020--SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, blocks the processes of innate immune activation that normally direct the production and/or signaling of type I interferon (IFN-I) by the infected cell and tissues. IFN-I is a key component of host innate immunity that is responsible for eliminating the virus at the early stage of infection, as summarized in a recent review article in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (JICR). By suppressing innate immunity, the virus replicates and spreads in the body unchecked, leading to the disease known as COVID-19. Click here to read the article now. "SARS-CoV-2 utilizes various approaches to evade host IFN-I response, including suppression of IFN-I ...

Even a modest sea level rise, triggered by increasing global temperatures, would place 100 airports below mean sea level by 2100, a new study has found. Scientists from Newcastle University modelled the risk of disruption to flight routes as a result of increasing flood risk from sea level rise. Publishing the findings in the journal Climate Risk Management, Professor Richard Dawson and Aaron Yesudian of Newcastle University's School of Engineering analysed the location of more than 14,000 airports around the world and their exposure to storm surges for current and future sea level. The researchers also studied airports' pre-COVID-19 connectivity and aircraft traffic, and their current level of flood protection. They ...

A brain pressure disorder that especially affects women, causing severe headaches and sometimes permanent sight loss, has risen six-fold in 15 years, and is linked to obesity and deprivation, a new study by Swansea University researchers has shown. Rates of emergency hospital admissions in Wales for people with the disorder were also five times higher than for those without. The condition is called idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH). It causes increased pressure in the fluid surrounding in the brain. This can lead to severely disabling headaches as well as vision loss, which ...

Despite the anticounterfeiting devices attached to luxury handbags, marketable securities, and identification cards, counterfeit goods are on the rise. There is a demand for the next-generation anticounterfeiting technology - that surpasses the traditional ones - that are not easily forgeable and can hold various data. A POSTECH research team, led by Professor Junsuk Rho of the departments of mechanical engineering and chemical engineering, Ph.D. candidates Chunghwan Jung of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Younghwan Yang of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, have together succeeded in making a switchable display device using nanostructures that is capable of encrypting full-color images depending on the polarization of light. These findings were recently published in ...

In a Nature Reviews Endocrinology article authors from the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) highlight the interconnection of obesity and impaired metabolic health with the severity of COVID-19. First, they provide information about the independent relationships of obesity, disproportionate fat distribution and impaired metabolic health with the severity of COVID-19. Then they discuss mechanisms for a complicated course of COVID-19 and how this disease may impact on the global obesity and cardiometabolic pandemics. Finally, they provide recommendations for prevention and treatment in clinical practice and in the public health sector to combat these global pandemics. Norbert Stefan, Andreas Birkenfeld and Matthias Schulze summarize ...

Letters, syllables, words and sentences--spatially arranged sets of symbols that acquire meaning when we read them. But is there an area and cognitive mechanism in our brain that is specifically devoted to reading? Probably not; written language is too much of a recent invention for the brain to have developed structures specifically dedicated to it. According to this novel paper published in Current Biology, underlying reading there is evolutionarily ancient function that is more generally used to process many other visual stimuli. To prove it, SISSA ...

Research led by the universities of Kent and Oxford has found that fans of the least successful Premier League football teams have a stronger bond with fellow fans and are more 'fused' with their club than supporters of the most successful teams. The study, which was carried out in 2014, found that fans of Crystal Palace, Hull, Norwich, Sunderland, and West Bromwich Albion were found to have higher loyalty towards one another and even expressed greater willingness to sacrifice their own lives to save the lives of other fans of their club. This willingness was much higher than that of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool or Manchester City fans. A decade of club statistics from 2003-2013 was used to identify the ...

Schools are closing again in response to surging levels of COVID-19 infection, but staging randomised trials when students eventually return could help to clarify uncertainties around when we should send children back to the classroom, according to a new study. Experts say that school reopening policies currently lack a rigorous evidence base - leading to wide variation in policies around the world, but staging cluster randomized trials (CRT) would create a body of evidence to help policy makers take the right decisions. The pandemic's rapid ...

Despite being the subject of increasing interest for a whole century, how preeclampsia develops has been unclear - until now. Researchers believe that they have now found a primary cause of preeclampsia. "We've found a missing piece to the puzzle. Cholesterol crystals are the key and we're the first to bring this to light," says researcher Gabriela Silva. Silva works at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research (CEMIR), a Centre of Excellence, where she is part of a research group for inflammation in pregnancy led by Professor Ann-Charlotte Iversen. The findings are good news for the approximately three per cent of pregnant ...

Amsterdam, NL, January 21, 2021 - The bacterial gut microbiome is strongly associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), but no studies had previously investigated he role of fungi in the gut. In this novel study published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease, a team of investigators at the University of British Columbia examined whether the fungal constituents of the gut microbiome are associated with PD. Their research indicated that gut fungi are not a contributing factor, thereby refuting the need for any potential anti-fungal treatments of the gut in PD patients. "Several studies conducted since 2014 have characterized changes in the gut microbiome," explained lead investigator Silke Appel-Cresswell, MD, Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre and Djavad ...

The cause of the inflammatory lung disease sarcoidosis is unknown. In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have investigated whether a type of immune cell called a monocyte could be a key player in sarcoidosis pathogenesis and explain why some patients develop more severe and chronic disease than others. The study, which is published in The European Respiratory Journal, opens new possibilities for future diagnostic and therapeutic methods. Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease that in 90 percent of cases affects the lungs, but can also attack the heart, skin and lymph system. The cause of the disease is not yet established, and there is currently ...

Scientists have developed a pioneering new technique that could revolutionise the accuracy, precision and clarity of super-resolution imaging systems. A team of scientists, led by Dr Christian Soeller from the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute, which champions interdisciplinary research and is a hub for new high-resolution measurement techniques, has developed a new way to improve the very fine, molecular imaging of biological samples. The new method builds upon the success of an existing super-resolution imaging technique called DNA-PAINT ...

Scientists have been pondering if the microbiome of plants is due to nature or nurture. Research at Stockholm University, published in Environmental Microbiology, showed that oak acorns contain a large diversity of microbes, and that oak seedlings inherit their microbiome from these acorns. "The idea that seeds can be the link between the microbes in the mother tree and its offspring has frequently been discussed, but this is the first time someone proves the transmission route from the seed to the leaves and roots of emerging plants", says Ahmed Abdelfattah, researcher at the Department of Ecology Environment and Plant ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- In 2018, passengers onboard a flight to Australia experienced a terrifying 10-second nosedive when a vortex trailing their plane crossed into the wake of another flight. The collision of these vortices, the airline suspected, created violent turbulence that led to a free fall. To help design aircraft that can better maneuver in extreme situations, Purdue University researchers have developed a modeling approach that simulates the entire process of a vortex collision at a reduced computational time. This physics knowledge could then be incorporated into engineering design codes so that the aircraft ...

(Boston)--While aging is an unavoidable biological process with many influencing factors that results in visible changes to the hair, there is limited literature examining the characteristics of hair aging across the races. Now a new study describes the unique characteristics of hair aging among different ethnicities that the authors hope will aid in a culturally sensitive approach when making recommendations to prevent hair damage during one's life-time. Among the findings: hair-graying onset varies with race, with the average age for Caucasians being mid-30s, that for Asians being late 30s, and ...

LAWRENCE -- The COVID-19 pandemic has created new perils and challenges for people experiencing substance use disorders and addictive behaviors. Social distancing and isolation can trigger loneliness, anxiety and depression. These circumstances have put some "recreational users" at risk for developing addictions and caused some in recovery from addictions to relapse. At the same time, the pandemic has made it nearly impossible for mutual-help (e.g., AA, NA) recovery groups to gather in person, forcing a scramble to provide remote support through platforms like Zoom. Now, researchers at the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and ...

The colons of African-Americans and people of European descent age differently, new research reveals, helping explain racial disparities in colorectal cancer - the cancer that killed beloved "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman at only 43. Scientists led by UVA Health's Li Li, MD, PhD; Graham Casey, PhD; and Matt Devall, PhD, of the Center for Public Health Genomics, found that one side of the colon ages biologically faster than the other in both African-Americans and people of European descent. In African-Americans, however, the right side ages significantly faster, explaining why African-Americans are more likely to develop cancerous lesions on the right side and why they are more likely to suffer colorectal cancer at a younger age, ...

The study concludes that vegan diet has a broad effect on children's metabolism. Serum biomarker levels for vitamins A and D, cholesterol forms and essential amino acids were significantly lower in children on vegan diet compared to age-adjusted omnivores. In addition, docosahexaenoic acid is absent from vegan diet. The results were recently published in a high-profile international scientific journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. Vegan diets gain popularity especially among young adults, and through choices of the families vegan diet is becoming more common in young children, too. The motives behind choosing a vegan lifestyle are ecological, ethical and health-related: vegan ...

ARLINGTON, Va. (Jan. 21, 2021) -- A new research agenda developed by 40 leading experts in healthcare epidemiology and infectious diseases defines the critical areas of study to inform clinical practice, policy, and prevention strategies for COVID-19 and future pandemics. "COVID-19 Research Agenda for Healthcare Epidemiology," published today in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, identifies the gaps in the understanding of the epidemiology, transmission, and individual as well as public health consequences of viral diseases that were revealed through some of the worst phases of the ...

Philadelphia, January 21, 2021 - Researchers have developed a new integrated genetic/epigenetic DNA-sequencing protocol known as MultiMMR that can identify the presence and cause of mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency in a single test from a small sample of DNA in colon, endometrial, and other cancers. This alternative to complex, multi-step testing workflows can also determine causes of MMR deficiency often missed by current clinical tests. Their results are presented in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier. MMR genes monitor and repair errors that can occur in normal cell replication and recombination. In some inherited and acquired cancers, one or more of the MMR genes are deactivated. "The impact of ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Kerry Karaffa is the first MU Counseling Center psychologist to be embedded specifically within the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, where he provides tailored counseling services for professional students training to become veterinarians. He is also aware that veterinarians are at increased risk for mental health concerns and suicidality compared to the general public due to the stressful demands of the job. To help universities better serve students dealing with high levels of stress and anxiety, Karaffa conducted a research study in which he developed and distributed a survey to other counselors specifically embedded in veterinary ...

A pain management regimen comprised mostly of over-the-counter medication reduced opioid exposure in trauma patients while achieving equal levels of pain control, according to a new study by physician-researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth.) Results of the study, which was conducted at the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, were published today in the Journal of American College of Surgeons. "The research shows us that seriously injured people with acute pain can effectively be treated with an opioid-minimizing strategy," ...

A phase 2 clinical trial providing personalized treatments based on the genetic profile of metastatic tumors in gastroesophageal cancers has found that using customized treatment approaches, and adapting them over time as tumors become resistant, led to higher rates of survival compared to historical controls. The final results were published online on Jan. 21 in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Advances in technology have made it possible for scientists and physicians to use information about the genetic makeup of a cancerous tumor to inform cancer treatment, but genetic heterogeneity ...