Lithium is a vital element in the batteries that power electric vehicles, but soaring lithium demand is expected to exhaust land-based reserves by 2080. KAUST researchers have now developed an economically viable system that can extract high-purity lithium from seawater. The oceans contain about 5,000 times more lithium than the land but at extremely low concentrations of about 0.2 parts per million (ppm). Larger ions, including sodium, magnesium and potassium, are all present in seawater at much higher concentrations; however, previous research efforts to tease ...

Quantum computing and quantum communication are believed to be the future of information technology. In order to achieve the challenging and long-standing goal to make secure, wide-spread quantum communication networks a reality, high-brightness single-photon sources are indispensable. Single-photon emission from semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) has been shown to be a pure and efficient non-classical light source with a high degree of indistinguishability. However, the total internal reflection (TIR) as a result of the high semiconductor-to-air refractive index contrast severely limits the single-photon extraction efficiency. Another crucial step in the development ...

For decades, researchers have debated whether the buildup of certain electrical activities in the brain indicates that human beings are unable to act out of free will. Experiments spanning the 1960s and 1980s measured brain signals noninvasively and led many neuroscientists to believe that our brains make decisions before we do--that human actions were initiated by electrical waves that did not reflect free, conscious thought. However, a new article in Trends in Cognitive Science argues that recent research undermines this case against free will. "This new perspective on the data turns on its head the way well-known findings have been interpreted," said Adina Roskies, the Helman Family Distinguished Professor and professor of philosophy at ...

Durham, NC -- Type 2 diabetes patients who are not overweight and who have had the disorder for less than a decade can benefit from stromal stem cells transplanted from their own bone marrow, according to a study published today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine. In a randomized clinical trial at Vinmec Research Institute of Stem Cell and Gene Technology in Hanoi, Vietnam, researchers investigated the safety and potential therapeutic value of administering bone marrow stromal stem cells to patients with Type 2 diabetes. In each case, the cells were autologous, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (June 3, 2021) -- Since arriving to the northern Atlantic Ocean less than 30 years ago, lionfish have quickly become one of the most widespread and voracious invasive species, negatively impacting marine ecosystems--particularly coral reefs--from the northeast coast of the United States to the Caribbean Islands. In a new study, an international research team including the California Academy of Sciences presents four new records of lionfish off the coast of Brazil, confirming the invasion of the predatory fish into the South Atlantic for the first time. Their findings, published today in Biological Invasions, discuss how the lionfish may have arrived in the ...

A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) and Rice University in the US, has uncovered the key to the outstanding toughness of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). h-BN can withstand ten times the amount of force that graphene can, which is known as one of the toughest materials on Earth. A two-dimensional (2D) material, h-BN has a thickness of just one atom. First used in cosmetics in the 1940s, it was soon abandoned due to its high price, making a resurgence in the late 1990s after technology made its production cheaper. Today, it is used by nearly all leading producers of cosmetic products because of its ability to absorb excess facial sebum and disperse pigment evenly, ...

Mangrove vegetation, which grows naturally in subtropical shorelines, provides a wide range of ecosystem functions such as reducing coastal erosion, promoting biodiversity, and removing nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon dioxide. These vital ecological functions are influenced by the water flow around the intricate mangrove roots, which create a complex energetic process that mixes up sediments and generates a depositional region behind the roots. How these mangrove roots interact with water flow is believed to be a key element in mitigating coastal erosion. Accurately projecting hydrodynamic erosion and the essential amount of mangrove species has been a challenge for managers and restoration experts to forecast a successful component of project designs. That is because ...

WASHINGTON (June 3, 2021) - Nearly three-quarters of breast cancer patients (73%) report using at least one type of complementary medicine after cancer diagnosis, while oncologists believe that less than half (43%) of patients are using these approaches during cancer care. These and other findings from a national survey of oncologists and breast cancer patients were released in conjunction with the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting. The study found that doctors report discussing integrative health with only about half of patients, leading patients to seek information outside the clinic. "Cancer is a complex ...

Astronomers studying the fast-moving jet of material ejected by a still-forming, massive young star found a major difference between that jet and those ejected by less-massive young stars. The scientists made the discovery by using the U.S. National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to make the most detailed image yet of the inner region of such a jet coming from a massive young star. Both low- and high-mass young stars, or protostars, propel jets outward perpendicular to a disk of material closely orbiting the star. In stars with masses similar to the Sun, these jets are narrowed, or focused, relatively tightly near to the star in a process called collimation. Because most high-mass protostars are more distant, studying ...

New research into Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggests that secondary infections and new inflammatory events amplify the brain's immune response and affect memory in mice and in humans - even when these secondary events occur outside the brain. Scientists believe that key brain cells (astrocytes and microglia) are already in an active state due to inflammation caused by AD and this new research shows that secondary infections can then trigger an over-the-top response in those cells, which has knock-on effects on brain rhythms and on cognition. In the study, just published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, the journal ...

Facing the triple threat of climate change, loss of nature and pollution, the world must deliver on its commitment to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land in the next decade - an area about the size of China. Countries also need to add similar commitments for oceans, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), launched as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 gets underway. The report, #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem restoration for People, Nature and Climate, highlights that humanity is using about 1.6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably. That ...

June 3, 2021 - LA JOLLA, CA--Mining the world's most comprehensive drug repurposing collection for COVID-19 therapies, scientists have identified 90 existing drugs or drug candidates with antiviral activity against the coronavirus that's driving the ongoing global pandemic. Among those compounds, the Scripps Research study identified four clinically approved drugs and nine compounds in other stages of development with strong potential to be repurposed as oral drugs for COVID-19, according to results published June 3 in the journal Nature Communications. Of the drugs that prevented the coronavirus from replicating in human cells, 19 were found to work in concert with or boost the activity of remdesivir, an antiviral therapy approved ...

MIT researchers have created the first fiber with digital capabilities, able to sense, store, analyze, and infer activity after being sewn into a shirt. Yoel Fink, who is a professor of material sciences and electrical engineering, a Research Laboratory of Electronics principal investigator, and the senior author on the study, says digital fibers expand the possibilities for fabrics to uncover the context of hidden patterns in the human body that could be used for physical performance monitoring, medical inference, and early disease detection. Or, you might someday store your wedding music in the gown you wore on the big day -- more on that later. Fink and his colleagues describe the features of the digital fiber in Nature Communications. Until now, electronic fibers ...

The number of people engaging with life-enhancing cardiac rehabilitation clinics has declined during the pandemic, according to a BMJ clinical update which makes the case for more home-based and virtual alternatives. Before the covid-19 pandemic, 100?000 people were admitted to hospital with heart attacks and approximately 200?000 were diagnosed with heart failure annually in the UK. There was a 40% decline in the number of patients admitted with heart attacks (acute coronary syndromes ) in 2020. Cardiac rehabilitation is crucial to helping people who have encountered a heart attack or heart failure have a better quality of life. Now, a new review, undertaken by cardiac rehabilitation experts based at the ...

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 3, 2021 -- A new West Health/Gallup survey finds nearly all Democrats (97%) and the majority of Republicans (61%) support empowering the federal government to negotiate lower prices of brand-name prescription drugs covered by Medicare. Overall, 8 in 10 Americans prefer major government action to control prices over concerns about it hurting innovation and competition from the pharmaceutical industry. The results come from a nationally representative poll of more than 3,700 American adults. While President Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress and former President Donald Trump have called for such negotiation, ...

If you have ever tried to chip a mussel off a seawall or a barnacle off the bottom of a boat, you will understand that we could learn a great deal from nature about how to make powerful adhesives. Engineers at Tufts University have taken note, and today report a new type of glue inspired by those stubbornly adherent crustaceans in the journal Advanced Science. Starting with the fibrous silk protein harvested from silkworms, they were able to replicate key features of barnacle and mussel glue, including protein filaments, chemical crosslinking and iron bonding. The result is a powerful non-toxic glue that sets and works as well underwater as it does in dry conditions and is stronger than most synthetic glue products now on the ...

People who use methamphetamine are more likely to have health conditions, mental illness, and substance use disorders than people who do not use the drug, according to a new study by researchers at the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU School of Global Public Health. The findings are published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The use of methamphetamine--a highly addictive and illegal stimulant drug--has increased in recent years, as have overdose deaths. Methamphetamine can be toxic for multiple organs including the heart, lungs, liver, and neurological system, and injecting the drug can increase one's risk for infectious diseases. "Methamphetamine can complicate the management of existing chronic ...

A new study in the journal Sleep finds that increased evening screen time during the Covid-19 lockdown negatively affects sleep quality. During the lockdown period in Italy, daily internet traffic volume almost doubled compared to the same time in the previous year. Researchers here conducted a web-based survey of 2,123 Italian residents during the third and seventh week of Italy's first national lockdown. The survey ran in the third week of lockdown (March 25th - 28th, 2020) and evaluated sleep quality and insomnia symptoms, using the Pittsburgh Sleep ...

A study published in the journal Pediatrics shows the combination of two early reading programs had positive effects on preschool students entering kindergarten in Cincinnati Public Schools over a three-year period. The two early reading programs are: Reach Out and Read, through which children receive a new book and guidance about reading at home during well-visits from newborn through age 5; and Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which mails new books to the child's home once a month from birth through age 5. Each of these is well-established at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and across the nation. "With this early study, we suggest that when combined and sustained, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Many species of ground-dwelling beetles, ladybugs, hoverflies, damsel bugs, spiders and parasitic wasps kill and eat pest species that routinely plague farmers, including aphids and corn rootworm larvae and adults. But the beneficial arthropods that live in or near cropped lands also are susceptible to insecticides and other farming practices that erase biodiversity on the landscape. A new study reveals that beneficial arthropods are nearly twice as abundant and diverse in uncultivated field edges in the spring as they are in areas that ...

A University of Birmingham-led study of over a thousand dental professionals has shown their increased occupational risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first wave of the pandemic in the UK. The observational cohort study, published today (3 June 2021), in the Journal of Dental Research, involved 1,507 Midland dental care practitioners. Blood samples were taken from the cohort at the start of the study in June 2020 to measure their levels of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The team found 16.3% of study participants - which included dentists, dental nurses and dental hygienists - had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, compared to just 6% of the general population at the time. Meanwhile, the percentage of dental ...

Scientific papers suggesting that smokers are less likely to fall ill with covid-19 are being discredited as links to the tobacco industry, reveals an investigation by The BMJ today. Journalists Stéphane Horel and Ties Keyzer report on undisclosed financial links between certain scientific authors and the tobacco and e-cigarette industry in a number of covid research papers. In April 2020, two French studies (shared as preprints before formal peer review) suggested that nicotine might have a protective effect against covid-19 - dubbed the "nicotine hypothesis." The stories made headlines worldwide ...

New York, NY (June 2, 2021) - A phase 3 clinical trial co-led by Mount Sinai researchers is the first to show that immunotherapy after surgery to remove bladder cancer can reduce the risk of relapse for patients who are at high risk of their cancer returning in a deadly metastatic form, according to results published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The immunotherapy nivolumab was used as an adjuvant therapy, which is given after surgery in the hopes of maximizing its effectiveness. The randomized trial, named "Checkmate 274," showed that using nivolumab increased these patients' chance of staying cancer free after surgery compared to patients who received a placebo. The average length of time before relapse nearly doubled ...

June 5, 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the first report of AIDS cases and the onset of the American AIDS epidemic. In a new, thought-provoking paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, Professor Ronald Bayer and co-author Gerald Oppenheiner capture the experiences of the physicians who were central to the AIDS epidemic. In the words of the doctors, they relay what it meant to look back after 40 years and how they "aged together." The doctors called their experiences extraordinary and the conditions demanding, under which they performed their duties and treated their patients. They speak of their work as "in the trenches," giving their careers immediate meaning and value that they never expected. As several physicians expressed, ...

MINNEAPOLIS - Deep brain stimulation continues to be effective in people with Parkinson's disease 15 years after the device is implanted, according to a study published in the June 2, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers found that compared to before deep brain stimulation, study participants continued to experience significant improvement in motor symptoms, which are symptoms that affect movement, as well as a reduction in medications 15 years later. Parkinson's disease can progressively affect speech, walking and balance due to a gradual reduction of a chemical in the brain called dopamine. Parkinson's symptoms of muscle stiffness, tremor and slowness ...