Exploiting the unusual metal-reducing ability of the iron-breathing bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens, KAUST researchers have demonstrated a cheap and reliable way to synthesize highly active single-atom catalysts. The innovation, which could dramatically improve the efficiency and cost of hydrogen production from water, highlights the role nature can play in the search for new energy systems. Many chemical reactions require a catalyst as a reactive surface where atoms or molecules are brought together with the right amount of energy to spark a chemical change. Water, for example, can be split into hydrogen and oxygen atoms by reacting on a pair of electrodes made of platinum and iridium oxide. The efficiency of the reaction, however, depends largely ...

Water freezes and turns to ice when brought in contact with a cold surface - a well-known fact. However, the exact process and its microscopic details remained elusive up to know. Anton Tamtögl from the Institute of Experimental Physics at TU Graz explains: "The first step in ice formation is called 'nucleation' and happens in an incredibly short length of time, a fraction of a billionth of a second, when highly mobile individual water molecules 'find each other' and coalesce." Conventional microscopes are far too slow to follow the motion of water molecules and so it is impossible to use them to 'watch' how molecules combine on top of solid surfaces. Findings turn previous understanding of ice formation upside down With the help ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- What makes preschoolers eat their veggies? Raise their hand? Wait their turn? "Because I say so" is a common refrain for many parents. But when it comes to getting kids to behave, recent research suggests that the voice of adult authority isn't the only thing that matters. Around age three, fitting in with the group starts to count big too. That's the finding of a new study by Duke University researchers showing that, by their third birthday, children are more likely to go along with what others say or do for the sake of following the crowd, rather than acting out ...

Malignant tumour cells undergo mechanical deformation more easily than normal cells, allowing them to migrate throughout the body. The mechanical properties of prostate cancer cells treated with the most commonly used anti-cancer drugs have been investigated at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow. According to the researchers, current drugs can be used more effectively and at lower doses. In cancer, a key factor contributing to the formation of metastasis is the ability of the neoplastic cells to undergo ...

Although vaccination programmes against pertussis are very effective in Europe, new Finnish study shows that the disease is still very common among middle-aged adults in various European countries. At the same time, the results show that the disease is underdiagnosed as the annually reported figures are considerably lower than those discovered in the study. The primary cause of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is the Bordetella pertussis agent which spreads through the respiratory mucosa and produces toxins that damage the mucous membrane. These toxins incapacitate the body's ...

The first ever vaccine target for trypanosomes, a family of parasites that cause devastating disease in animals and humans, has been discovered by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. By targeting a protein on the cell surface of the parasite Trypanosoma vivax, researchers were able to confer long-lasting protection against animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) infection in mice. The study, published today (26 May 2021) in Nature, is the first successful attempt to induce apparently sterile immunity against a trypanosome parasite. A vaccine was long thought impossible due to the sophisticated ability of the parasites to evade the host immune system. As well as a strong ...

NEW YORK (May 26, 2021) -- About 12,000 bacteria and viruses collected in a sampling from public transit systems and hospitals around the world from 2015 to 2017 had never before been identified, according to a study by the International MetaSUB Consortium, a global effort at tracking microbes that is led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. For the study, published May 26 in Cell, international investigators collected nearly 5,000 samples over a three-year period across 60 cities in 32 countries and six continents. The investigators analyzed the samples using a genomic sequencing ...

May 26, 2021 - Social media sites - especially Instagram - have revolutionized the way plastic surgeons market their practice. These platforms allow surgeons to post testimonials, educational videos, and before-and-after photos. This information can help to guide patients in making decisions about whether to undergo cosmetic surgery and which plastic surgeon to choose, based on factors like the surgeon's experience and results achieved. However, patient perceptions of plastic surgeons' skills may also be affected by implicit bias - based solely on the ethnicity of the surgeon's name. "In our survey of responses to otherwise-identical Instagram ...

Threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields are weaving a tapestry of energy at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A new image of this new cosmic masterpiece was made using a giant mosaic of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. The new panorama of the Galactic Center builds on previous surveys from Chandra and other telescopes. This latest version expands Chandra's high-energy view farther above and below the plane of the Galaxy - that is, the disk where most of the Galaxy's stars reside - than previous imaging campaigns. In the image featured in our main graphic, X-rays from Chandra are orange, green, blue and purple, showing different X-ray energies, and the ...

Children with ADHD are generally treated with medication and/or behavioral treatments. However, medication-alone is insufficient in a quarter to a third of the children. For that reason, the scientists investigated whether a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) would have a positive effect on children who did not respond sufficiently to other ADHD treatments. MBIs can elicit positive effects on psychological symptoms and behavior of children and parents. In the study, two groups of children between the ages of eight and sixteen were compared. One group received only regular care (CAU, care-as-usual), and the other group also received MYmind, the mindfulness-based intervention ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Decades after federal bans ended widespread use of lead in paint and gasoline, some urban soils still contain levels of the highly toxic metal that exceed federal safety guidelines for children, a Duke University study finds. To conduct their study, the researchers analyzed and mapped soil lead concentrations along 25 miles of streets in Durham, N.C., a city of about 270,000 people. They found that while soil lead levels have generally decreased since the 1970s, they have decreased much less near residential foundations than along streets. The researchers collected soil samples near foundations of houses built before 1978. Samples within a meter of the older homes averaged 649 milligrams (mg) of lead per kilogram (kg) of soil, more than ...

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Neuroscientists from Synapsy - the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research into Mental Illness - based at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and Lausanne University (UNIL) have recently demonstrated that lactate, a molecule produced by the body during exercise, has an antidepressant effect in mice. Lactate is best known for the pivotal role it plays in the nutrition of neurons inside the brain. Yet it can also counter the inhibition of the survival and proliferation of new neurons, a loss ...

Normal cells usually have multiple solutions for fixing problems. For example, when DNA becomes damaged, healthy white blood cells can use several different strategies to make repairs. But cancer cells may "put all their eggs in one basket," getting rid of all backup plans and depending on just one pathway to mend their DNA. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Christopher Vakoc focuses on probing cancers to figure out if they have any unique dependencies. His lab was surprised to discover that a single DNA repair method remained in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive cancer that originates in bone marrow. They discovered that if they shut down that pathway in cells grown in the ...

New insights into the ability of DNA to overcome harmful genetic changes have been discovered by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Lausanne and their collaborators. The team found that 26 per cent of harmful mutations were suppressed by naturally occurring variants in at least one wild yeast strain. In each instance examined in detail, a single 'rescue mutation' was responsible for cancelling out another mutation that would have threatened the organism's survival. The study, published today (27 May 2021) in Molecular Systems Biology, provides ...

Millions of surgical procedures performed each year would not be possible without the aid of general anesthesia, the miraculous medical ability to turn off consciousness in a reversible and controllable way. Researchers are using this powerful tool to better understand how the brain reconstitutes consciousness and cognition after disruptions caused by sleep, medical procedures requiring anesthesia, and neurological dysfunctions such as coma. In a new study published in the journal eLife, a team led by anesthesiologists George Mashour, M.D., Ph.D. of University of Michigan Medical School, Michigan Medicine, Max Kelz, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and Michael Avidan, MBBCh ...

This striking image showcases the unusually contorted appearance of NGC 2276, an appearance caused by two different astrophysical interactions -- one with the superheated gas pervading galaxy clusters, and one with a nearby galactic neighbour. The interaction of NGC 2276 with the intracluster medium -- the superheated gas lying between the galaxies in galaxy clusters -- has ignited a burst of star formation along one edge of the galaxy. This wave of star formation is visible as the bright, blue-tinged glow of newly formed massive stars towards the left side of this image, and gives the galaxy a strangely lopsided appearance. NGC 2276's recent burst of star formation is also related to the appearance of more exotic inhabitants -- black holes and neutron stars ...

What does quark-gluon plasma - the hot soup of elementary particles formed a few microseconds after the Big Bang - have in common with tap water? Scientists say it's the way it flows. A new study, published today in the journal SciPost Physics, has highlighted the surprising similarities between quark-gluon plasma, the first matter thought to have filled the early Universe, and water that comes from our tap. The ratio between the viscosity of a fluid, the measure of how runny it is, and its density, decides how it flows. Whilst both the viscosity ...

Woods Hole, Mass. (May 27, 2021) - With the expansion of oxygen-depleted waters in the oceans due to climate change, some species of foraminifera (forams, a type of protist or single-celled eukaryote) that thrive in those conditions could be big winners, biologically speaking. A new paper that examines two foram species found that they demonstrated great metabolic versatility to flourish in hypoxic and anoxic sediments where there is little or no dissolved oxygen, inferring that the forams' contribution to the marine ecosystem will increase with the expansion of oxygen-depleted habitats. In addition, the paper ...

Twenty scientists from 14 countries warn of a hidden "pandemic within the pandemic" in two current publications. On the one hand, physical activity levels have gone down significantly, on the other hand, psychological well-being has suffered. "Governments and those responsible for health systems should take our findings seriously," emphasizes the author team, headed by Dr Jan Wilke from the Institute for Sport Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt. About 15,000 people in participating countries answered standardised questionaires as part of an international survey. In April/May 2020, they reported physical activity levels (13,500 participants) as well as their mental and physical well-being (15,000 participants) ...

With global warming decreasing the size of New Zealand's alpine zone, a University of Otago study found out what this means for our altitude-loving kea. The study, published in Molecular Ecology, analysed whole genome DNA data of the kea and, for the first time, its forest-adapted sister species, the kākā, to identify genomic differences which cause their habitat specialisations. The researchers found the kea is not an alpine specialist, but rather one that adapted to using such an open habitat because it was least disturbed by human activity. Co-author Associate Professor Michael Knapp, of the Department of Anatomy, says that is not likely to surprise people ...

Different from small molecules, polymer will fold into lamellar crystals during crystallization and further assemble into lamellar stacks. Synchrotron Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) is an important tool to characterize such nanoscale structure and understand polymer crystallization. However, its scattering mechanism in semi-crystalline polymers is not completely elucidated yet. Recently, a research group led by Prof. TIAN Xingyou from Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), proposed a complete set of new methods to characterize polymer lamellar crystals ...

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most common lethal gynaecological cancer. Ovarian cancer is usually treated with platinum-based chemotherapy; however, a significant number of patients are resistant to such treatments and relapse soon afterwards. To improve their survival, there is a need to first identify which patients may be platinum-resistant, so that newer treatments may be administered early. Now, researchers from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), have discovered a way to predict which patients are resistant to platinum chemotherapy. The study, co-led by CSI Singapore Principal ...

Current best practices for encouraging more female students to pursue degrees in economics may actually have the opposite effect and worsen gender disparities in the field, a recent study from Oregon State University found. The study examined whether mass emails telling introductory economic students about promising career and earning opportunities helped increase female participation in higher-level economics courses. But instead, these emails appealed more to male students, increasing male enrollment and widening the existing gender gap. There was no change in the probability of female students majoring in economics. Researchers say this demonstrates a need for more personalized, deliberate interventions. "There ...

Using renewable energy to replace fossil energy is now considered the best solution for greenhouse gas emission and air pollution problems. As a result, the demand for new and better energy storage technology is strong. As part of the effort to improve this technology, a group led by Prof. ZHANG Suojiang from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) recently found that ionophobic electrodes can boost energy storage performance. Their study was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A on May 8. Electric Double-Layer Capacitors (EDLCs) with ionic liquids (ILs)--as a new type of energy storage device--can fill the gap between the power density of batteries and the ...

Human-driven global change is challenging the scientific community to understand how marine species might adapt to predicted environmental conditions in the near-future (e.g. hypoxia, ocean warming, and ocean acidification). The effects of the uptake of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 by oceans affects (i.e. ocean acidification) propagate across the biological hierarchy, from changes in the building blocks of life at nano-scales to organism, physiology and behaviour through ecosystem processes and their properties. To survive in a reduced pH environment, marine organisms have to adjust their physiology which, at the molecular level, is achieved by modifying the expression ...