Reconfigurable materials can do amazing things. Flat sheets transform into a face. An extruded cube transforms into dozens of different shapes. But there's one thing a reconfigurable material has yet to be able to change: its underlying topology. A reconfigurable material with 100 cells will always have 100 cells, even if those cells are stretched or squashed. Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a method to change a cellular material's fundamental topology at the microscale. The research is published in Nature. "Creating ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) use genetic engineering in mice to further understand how cell fate is determined in the head Tokyo, Japan - Mammalian embryonic development is an extremely complex and precise process. Specific molecular events act as cues that tell cells in the embryo where to move and what type to mature into. The expression levels of different genes in these cells can change at certain points of development, helping produce the signals that further the progression. Now, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University ...

The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, renowned for its exceptionally well preserved volcanic-influenced ecosystem, was buried in lacustrine and occasionally fluvial sediments in northern Hebei and western Liaoning, China. It includes large amount of evolutionarily significant taxonomy, e.g. feathered dinosaurs, early birds, mammals and flowering plants, representing one of the most diversified terrestrial biotas of the Mesozoic and providing exceptional windows into some major fundamental issues in earth and biological sciences, such as the origins of birds and angiosperm, and co-evolution of life and environments. The evolutionary radiation of the Jehol Biota can be broadly divided to ...

In Austria, suicides have fallen by 4% since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, thereby consolidating the pre-2019 trend. An international study now shows that this pattern is similar to the global suicide trends during the initial phase of the coronavirus pandemic up until the end of October. "Figures are now also available from Statistik Austria for the whole of 2020 and these confirm the results of the study," says Thomas Niederkrotenthaler from the Center for Public Health (Department of Social and Preventive Medicine), who took part in the study on behalf of MedUni Vienna along with Paul Plener, Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. A total of around 70 scientists in 21 countries were involved in the study. On average, the trends were found ...

Common ragweed is an annual plant native to parts of the United States and southern Canada. It's an invasive species that has spread to Europe. An important agricultural weed, this plant is particularly well-adapted to living at roadsides, and there are several theories why. Its rapid expansion in Europe can't be explained by its natural dispersal rate, which is limited to distances of around 1 meter. Rather, there are other factors in play, human-mediated, that support its invasion success - along roads, for example, it spreads mainly thanks to agricultural machineries, soil movements, roadside maintenance and ...

Ethiopia may produce less specialty coffee and more rather bland tasting varieties in the future. This is the result of a new study by an international team of researchers that looked at the peculiar effects climate change has on Africa's largest coffee producing nation. Their results are relevant both for the country's millions of smallholder farmers, who earn more on specialty coffee than on ordinary coffee, as well as for baristas and coffee aficionados around the world. "Climate change has conflicting impacts on coffee production in Ethiopia. The area that is suitable for average quality coffee might actually increase ...

Chronic inflammation is increasingly a focus of research. A recent study has now identified differences in indicators of inflammation between novel diabetes subgroups. But what does this mean for the future? Symptoms that increase with age, such as cardiovascular disease, kidney damage or dementia, are common consequences of type 2 diabetes. In addition to metabolic disorders, chronic inflammatory reactions are important causes. The inflammatory cytokines typical for this can have numerous effects on various organs. One of the consequences of this is that the organs ...

An innovative new technique that encourages cancer cells in the kidneys to self-destruct could revolutionise the treatment of the disease, a new study in the journal Pharmaceutics reports. During this unique study, researchers from the University of Surrey and Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University in Russia investigated whether certain naturally occurring proteins within the body can be used to treat cancer. Focusing on cathepsin S, a member of the lysosomal cathepsin proteins that are known to affect cancer progression, and p21 BAX, a protein that can stimulate cell destruction, researchers found that both can be deployed simultaneously ...

BROOKLYN, New York, Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - Studies show wearing masks and social distancing can contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but their combined effectiveness was not precisely known. Researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and Politecnico di Torino in Italy developed a network model to study the effects of these two measures on the spread of airborne diseases like COVID-19. The model shows viral outbreaks can be prevented if at least 60% of a population complies with both measures. "Neither social distancing nor mask wearing alone are likely sufficient to halt the spread of COVID-19, unless almost the entire population adheres to the single measure," said Maurizio Porfiri, institute ...

Costing anywhere from 15 to 70 dollars per mushroom depending on the quality, matsutake mushrooms are some of the most valuable edible fungi in the world. Revered for their delicate scent, matsutake mushrooms are cooked in rice or soups as an Autumn celebration delicacy in Japan. However, there is no way to cultivate matsutake mushrooms and naturally occurring habitats are decreasing with fewer forests conducive to their growth with the changing climate. Corresponding author Professor Akiyoshi Yamada of Shinshu University's Department of Agriculture, Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, and Institute for Mountain Science with 9 other researchers set out to present concrete evidence that matsutake spores germinate, reach the roots of the host, and coexist to produce offspring that ...

As the countdown to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games reaches 100 days, plans to hold the games this summer must be reconsidered as a matter of urgency, argue experts in The BMJ today. Kazuki Shimizu at the London School of Economics and Political Science and colleagues say huge uncertainty remains about the trajectory of the pandemic and they warn that international mass gathering events such as Tokyo 2020 "are still neither safe nor secure." Instead, they say "we must accelerate efforts towards containing and ending the pandemic by maintaining ...

Supplementation of cocoa powder in the diet of high-fat-fed mice with liver disease markedly reduced the severity of their condition, according to a new study by Penn State researchers, who suggest the results have implications for people. Cocoa powder, a popular food ingredient most commonly used in the production of chocolate, is rich in fiber, iron and phytochemicals reported to have positive health benefits, including antioxidant polyphenols and methylxanthines, noted study leader Joshua Lambert, professor of food science in the College of Agricultural Sciences. "While it is typically considered an indulgence food because of its high sugar and fat content, epidemiological and human-intervention ...

TAMPA, Fla. (April 14, 2021)- The order in which your senses interact with food has a tremendous impact on how much you like it. That's the premise of a new study led by the University of South Florida (USF). The findings published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology show that food tastes better if you see it before smelling it. Researchers came to this conclusion following four experiments involving cookies, fruit snacks and lemonade. In the first study, nearly 200 participants interacted with the food, each item wrapped in an opaque versus a transparent package. The ...

For centuries, ivory was often used to make art objects. But to protect elephant populations, the ivory trade was banned internationally in 1989. To restore ivory parts of old art objects, one must therefore resort to substitute materials - such as bones, shells or plastic. However, there has not been a really satisfactory solution so far. TU Wien (Vienna) and the 3D printing company Cubicure GmbH, created as a spin-off of TU Wien, have now developed a high-tech substitute in cooperation with the Archdiocese of Vienna's Department for the Care of Art and Monuments and Addison Restoration: the novel material "Digory" consists of synthetic resin and calcium phosphate particles. It is processed in a hot, liquid state and hardened in the 3D printer with UV ...

International scientists from around the world are warning that chemical pollutants in the environment have the potential to alter animal and human behaviour. A scientific forum of 30 experts formed a united agreement of concern about chemical pollutants and set up a roadmap to help protect the environment from behaviour altering chemicals. The conclusions of their work have been published today in a paper led by Professor Alex Ford, Professor of Biology at the University of Portsmouth, in Environmental Science and Technology. Until now the effect of chemical pollutants on wildlife has ...

Metabolic bone disease is a common complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and involves a broad spectrum of disorders of mineral metabolism that result in both skeletal and extra-skeletal consequences. A new special issue of Calcified Tissue International brings together a comprehensive series of state-of-the-art reviews which discuss key issues in CKD and mineral and bone disorders, known as CKD-MBD. Authored by a multidisciplinary group of leading international experts, the wide-ranging reviews aim to improve the understanding and management of CKD-MBD, and advance interdisciplinary knowledge. Professors ...

According to a Finnish study, the structure and function of the brain areas involved in emotions and their regulation are altered in both psychopathic criminal offenders and otherwise well-functioning individuals who have personality traits associated with psychopathy. Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy, and bold, disinhibited and egotistical traits. However, similar antisocial traits are also common, yet less pronounced, with people who are well-off psychologically and socially. It is possible that the characteristics related to psychopathy form a continuum where only the extreme characteristics ...

Bern's ice core researchers were already able to demonstrate in 2008 how the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has changed over the past 800,000 years. Now, using the same ice core from the Antarctic, the group led by Bernese climate researcher Hubertus Fischer shows the maximum and minimum values between which the mean ocean temperature has fluctuated over the past 700,000 years. The results of the reconstruction have just been published in the journal Climate of the Past. The study's key findings: Mean ocean temperatures have been very similar over the last seven ice ages, averaging about 3.3 °C colder than the pre-industrial reference period, as already suggested by syntheses of deep water ...

It is an open question to what extent protection against reinfection persists after overcoming a SARS-CoV-2 infection. The "Rhineland Study", a population-based study conducted by DZNE in the Bonn area, is now providing new findings in this regard. Blood samples taken last year indicate that an important component of immunity - the levels of specific neutralizing antibodies against the coronavirus - had dropped in most of the study participants with a previous infection after four to five months. In some, antibody titers even fell below the detection limit. These results, published in the scientific journal "Nature Communications", lay the groundwork for planned follow-up studies. Between April ...

Research breakthrough in understanding how neural systems process and store information. A team of scientists from the University of Exeter and the University of Auckland have made a breakthrough in the quest to better understand how neural systems are able to process and store information. The researchers, including lead author Dr Kyle Wedgwood from the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute, have made a significant discovery in how a single cell can store electrical patterns, similar to memories. They compared sophisticated mathematical modelling to lab-based experiments to determine how different parameters, such as how long it takes ...

In a new study, Dr. LU Xiankai and his colleagues from the South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) found that tropical forests can capture carbon dioxide (CO2) into soils and thus reduce emitted CO2. But how exactly do tropical forest soils capture atmospheric CO2? Current knowledge of forest soil carbon sequestration mainly focuses on temperate and boreal forests, where most ecosystems are nitrogen-limited, and an increase in nitrogen supply can enhance net primary productivity (NPP) and subsequent soil carbon ...

A group of researchers from Kobe University and Chiba University has successfully developed a flexible and simple method of artificially producing genetic switches for yeast, a model eukaryotic organism. The group consisted of Researcher TOMINAGA Masahiro*1, Associate Professor ISHII Jun*2 and Professor KONDO Akihiko*3 (of Kobe University's Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation/Engineering Biology Research Center), and Professor UMENO Daisuke et al. (of Chiba University's Graduate School of Engineering). Genetic switches are gene regulatory networks that control gene expression. The researchers established a platform for ...

Oakland, CA-In the first study to report on the health effects of exposure to a toxic environmental chemical over three human generations, a new study has found that granddaughters whose grandmothers were exposed to the pesticide DDT have higher rates of obesity and earlier first menstrual periods. This may increase the granddaughters' risk for breast cancer as well as high blood pressure, diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases. The research by the Public Health Institute's Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS) and the University of California at Davis was published today ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - April 14, 2021 - Investigators at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Health, have identified a set of new genetic markers that could potentially lead to new personalized treatments for lung cancer. The study appears online in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. This study was built on a previous discovery by the precision oncology team at Wake Forest Baptist's Comprehensive Cancer Center, directed by Wei Zhang, Ph.D., professor of cancer biology at Wake Forest School of Medicine and a co-corresponding author of this study. Using DNA sequencing technologies, Zhang's team found that tumors with mutated KMT2 genes, a family of proteins, exhibit a feature ...

A new study based on daily COVID-19 data from Brazil details the fast spread of both cases and deaths in the country, with distinct patterns by state, and where inequities regarding the implementation of policies and resources exacerbated the spread in lower-income regions. Despite an extensive network of primary care availability, Brazil - which did not pursue a coordinated national pandemic response strategy - has suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic. "[T]he federal response has been a dangerous combination of inaction and wrongdoing," write Marcia Castro and colleagues. Using daily data from State Health Offices, Castro ...