Globally, the Earth system has thousands of terragrams (Tg) (1 Tg = 10 12 g) of mineral nanoparticles moving around the planet each year. These mineral nanoparticles are ubiquitously distributed throughout the atmosphere, oceans, waters, soils, in and/or on most living organisms, and even within proteins such as ferritin. In natural environments, mineral nanozymes can be produced by two pathways: "top down" and "bottom up" processes. Specifically, the weathering or human-promoted breakdown of bulk materials can result in nanomaterials directly (a top-down process), or nanomaterials ...

A team of researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore (NP), and the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) have invented a tool that could speed up the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), their innovation uses electrocardiograms (ECGs) to diagnose coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure to an accuracy of more than 98.5 per cent. The joint development of the diagnostic tool is timely, as the number of deaths caused by cardiovascular disease in Singapore has increased over the past three years. According to the Singapore Heart Foundation, 29.3 per cent of all deaths in Singapore in 2019, or almost 1 out of 3 deaths in Singapore, was due to heart ...

Osteoporosis is a condition that does not exhibit symptoms until there is a bone fracture, so it is said that there is a high percentage of people who remain unaware of their condition. When people are unaware their bones have weakened, the condition is left untreated, and the recent rise of the elderly population has caused an increase in bone fractures. This has a large societal impact, such as overwhelming medical costs and long-term care. Simple screenings at resident health exams are one way for an increase in osteoporosis detecting without having to go to the hospital. When suspected osteoporosis and osteopenia is properly detected and patients are encouraged to get further evaluation at the hospital, ...

Scientists have observed for the first time what it looks like in the key memory region of the brain when a mistake is made during a memory trial. The findings have implications for Alzheimer's disease research and advancements in memory storage and enhancement, with a discovery that also provides a view into differences between the physiological events in the brain during a correct memory versus a faulty one. The study was published today in the journal Nature Communications. In both correct and incorrect recall of a spatial memory, researchers could observe patterns of cell activation in the brain that were similar, though the pace of activation differed. "We could see the memories activating," said Laura Colgin, an associate professor of neuroscience at The University ...

SAN RAMON, Calif., June 8, 2021--CooperVision today announced its scientific research program for the 2021 British Contact Lens Association Virtual Clinical Conference and Exhibition, which begins Sunday, June 13. For the first time, the biennial event will be streamed live over the course of 30 hours, welcoming members of the global eye care community to experience and discuss the latest category advancements. More than 20 CooperVision-authored and sponsored investigations were accepted by the conference committee. The papers and posters span a range of topics that underpin the contact lens industry's evolution, including new data and insights on the complex lifestyle factors involved with addressing presbyopia, misperceptions surrounding soft toric lens fitting, ...

An unprecedented analysis of almost 10,000 Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) events worldwide over the past 33 years was launched today by UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. The first-ever global statistical analysis examined ~9,500 HABs events over 33 years and found that the harm caused by HABs rises in step with growth of the aquaculture industry and marine exploitation and calls for more research on linkages. Conducted over seven years by 109 scientists in 35 countries, the study found that reported HAB events have increased in some regions and decreased or held steady in others. ...

UPTON, NY--Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have published the first detailed atomic-level model of the SARS-CoV-2 "envelope" protein bound to a human protein essential for maintaining the lining of the lungs. The model showing how the two proteins interact, just published in the journal Nature Communications, helps explain how the virus could cause extensive lung damage and escape the lungs to infect other organs in especially vulnerable COVID-19 patients. The findings may speed the search for drugs to block the most severe effects of the disease. "By obtaining atomic-level details of the protein interactions we can explain why the damage occurs, and search for inhibitors ...

Natural selection can reverse evolution that occurs through sexual selection and this can lead to better females, new research shows. The study - led by the University of Exeter and Okayama University - examined broad-horned flour beetles, whose males have exaggerated mandibles, while females do not. Male beetles with the largest mandibles win more fights and mate with more females - an example of "sexual selection", where certain characteristics (like a male peacock's tail) improve mating success. However, having bigger mandibles requires a masculinised body (large head and neck), ...

Women who will develop potentially life-threatening disorders during pregnancy can be identified early when hormone levels in the placenta are tested, a new study has shown. Pregnancy disorders affect around one in ten pregnant women. Nearly all of the organ systems of the mother's body need to alter their function during pregnancy so that the baby can grow. If the mother's body cannot properly adapt to the growing baby this leads to major and common issues including fetal growth restriction, fetal over-growth, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia - a life-threatening high blood pressure ...

New research has shown that by injecting an alkalinizing agent into the ocean along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, it would be possible, at the present rate of anthropogenic carbon emissions, to offset ten years' worth of ocean acidification. The research, by CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, used a high-resolution model developed for the Great Barrier Reef region to study the impact of artificial ocean alkalinization on the acidity of the waters in the Great Barrier Reef. The study is based on the use of existing shipping infrastructure to inject a source of alkalinity into the ocean, which could also be considered as an acceleration of the chemical weathering of minerals through natural ...

Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Beijing Tiantan Hospital have recently uncovered a new gene mutation responsible for the non-familial patients of cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM) - a brain vascular disorder which inflicted about 10~30 million people in the world. While the mutation of three genes: namely CCM1, CCM2, and CCM3, were known to be a cause of CCM - they mostly targeted patients who has family history in this disorder - which only account for about 20 per cent of the total inflicted ...

Philadelphia, June 8, 2021 - When shopping online, participants surveyed spent more money, purchased more items, and spent less on candy and desserts than when they shopped in-store, according to a END ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- New research from Binghamton University, State University of New York shows the human trauma and family separation that resulted from the Trump Administration's zero tolerance policy on undocumented immigration. The news reports surrounding the Trump Administration's "zero tolerance" policy on undocumented immigration were stark: children separated from their parents, uncertain whether they would ever see them again. All told, the official zero tolerance policy lasted only a few months, from April to June 2018. But family separations occurred before and after those dates: at least 5,512 children were separated from their families since July 2017, and 1,142 families were separated ...

Anyone who collects mushrooms knows that it is better to keep the poisonous and the non-poisonous ones apart. Not to mention what would happen if someone ate the poisonous ones. In such "classification problems", which require us to distinguish certain objects from one another and to assign the objects we are looking for to certain classes by means of characteristics, computers can already provide useful support to humans. Intelligent machine learning methods can recognise patterns or objects and automatically pick them out of data sets. For example, they could pick out those pictures from a photo database that show non-toxic ...

A 3D printer that rapidly produces large batches of custom biological tissues could help make drug development faster and less costly. Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego developed the high-throughput bioprinting technology, which 3D prints with record speed--it can produce a 96-well array of living human tissue samples within 30 minutes. Having the ability to rapidly produce such samples could accelerate high-throughput preclinical drug screening and disease modeling, the researchers said. The process for a pharmaceutical company to develop a new drug can take up to 15 years and cost up to $2.6 billion. It generally begins with screening tens of thousands of drug candidates in ...

NEW YORK, NY--A new global study of 30-day outcomes in children and adolescents with COVID-19 found that while death was uncommon, the illness produced more symptoms and complications than seasonal influenza. The study, "30-day outcomes of Children and Adolescents with COVID-19: An International Experience," published online in the journal Pediatrics, also found significant variation in treatment of children and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19. Early in the pandemic, opinions around the impact of COVID-19 on children and adolescents ranged from it being no more than the common flu to fear of its potential impact on lesser-developed immune systems. This OHDSI global network study compared the real-world observational data of more ...

The emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle native to Southeast Asia, threatens the entire ash tree population in North America and has already changed forested landscapes and caused tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue to the ash sawtimber industry since it arrived in the United States in the 1990s. Despite the devastating impact the beetle has had on forests in the eastern and midwestern parts of the U.S., climate change will have a much larger and widespread impact on these landscapes through the end of the century, according to researchers. "We really wanted to focus on isolating the impact of the emerald ash borer ...

An experimental, lab-made antibody can completely prevent nonhuman primates from being infected with the monkey form of HIV, new research published in Nature Communications shows. The results will inform a future human clinical trial evaluating leronlimab as a potential pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, therapy to prevent human infection from the virus that causes AIDS. "Our study findings indicate leronlimab could be a new weapon against the HIV epidemic," said the study's lead researcher and co-corresponding author of this paper, Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., an Oregon Health & Science University professor at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Center and Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute. "The results of this pre-clinical ...

Cambridge, UK, 7th June 2021: The Cambridge Research Laboratory of Toshiba Europe today announced the first demonstration of quantum communications over optical fibres exceeding 600 km in length. The breakthrough will enable long distance quantum-secured information transfer between metropolitan areas and is a major advance towards building the future Quantum Internet. The term Quantum Internet describes a global network of quantum computers connected by long distance quantum communication links. It is expected to allow the ultrafast solution of complex optimization problems ...

An international group of researchers has developed a new technique that could be used to make more efficient low-cost light-emitting materials which are flexible and can be printed using ink-jet techniques. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and the Technical University of Munich, found that by swapping one out of every one thousand atoms of one material for another, they were able to triple the luminescence of a new material class of light emitters known as halide perovskites. This 'atom swapping', or doping, causes the charge ...

Heart attacks and strokes -- the leading causes of death in human beings -- are fundamentally blood clots of the heart and brain. Better understanding how the blood-clotting process works and how to accelerate or slow down clotting, depending on the medical need, could save lives. New research by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University published in the journal Biomaterials sheds new light on the mechanics and physics of blood clotting through modeling the dynamics at play during a still poorly understood phase of blood clotting called clot contraction. "Blood clotting is actually a physics-based phenomenon that must occur to stem bleeding after ...

The concrete world that surrounds us owes its shape and durability to chemical reactions that start when ordinary Portland cement is mixed with water. Now, MIT scientists have demonstrated a way to watch these reactions under real-world conditions, an advance that may help researchers find ways to make concrete more sustainable. The study is a "Brothers Lumière moment for concrete science," says co-author Franz-Josef Ulm, professor of civil and environmental engineering and faculty director of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, referring to the two brothers who ushered in the era of projected films. Likewise, Ulm says, the MIT team has provided a glimpse of early-stage cement hydration that is like cinema in Technicolor ...

A new technology could dramatically improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries that operate with gas electrolytes at ultra-low temperatures. Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego developed a separator--the part of the battery that serves as a barrier between the anode and cathode--that keeps the gas-based electrolytes in these batteries from vaporizing. This new separator could, in turn, help prevent the buildup of pressure inside the battery that leads to swelling and explosions. "By trapping gas molecules, this separator can function as a stabilizer for volatile electrolytes," said Zheng Chen, a ...

To describe something as slow and boring we say it's "like watching grass grow", but scientists studying the early morning activity of plants have found they make a rapid start to their day - within minutes of dawn. Just as sunrise stimulates the dawn chorus of birds, so too does sunrise stimulate a dawn burst of activity in plants. Early morning is an important time for plants. The arrival of light at the start of the day plays a vital role in coordinating growth processes in plants and is the major cue that keeps the inner clock of plants in rhythm with day-night cycles. This inner circadian clock helps plants prepare for the day such as when to make the best use of sunlight, the best time to open flowers ...

Citizen opposition to COVID-19 vaccination has emerged across the globe, prompting pushes for mandatory vaccination policies.  But a new study based on evidence from Germany and on a model of the dynamic nature of people's resistance to COVID-19 vaccination sounds an alarm: mandating vaccination could have a substantial negative impact on voluntary compliance. Majorities in many countries now favor mandatory vaccination. In March, the government of Galicia in Spain made vaccinations mandatory for adults, subjecting violators to substantial fines. Italy has made vaccinations mandatory for care workers. The University of California and California State University systems announced in late April that vaccination ...