On Feb 5th, Seoul National University, College of Engineering (Dean Kookheon Char) announced that Professor Sang Woo Seo's research team (Dr. Jina Yang and Mr. Yong Hee Han (graduate student)) at School of Chemical and Biological Engineering has developed a synthetic protein quality control system to enhance full-length translation in bacteria. This technology is expected to increase the efficiency of the production of biopharmaceuticals, industrial enzymes, and bio-based chemicals. Recombinant proteins are used in various industrial fields from protein drugs such as insulin to industrial proteins such as laundry detergents. Since proteins can perform their functions only with full-length and proper 3D structure, recombinant protein production ...

Against the background of global warming, extreme heat days (EHDs) occur frequently and greatly threaten human health and societal development. Therefore, it is of great importance to understand the variation of EHDs. Previous studies have indicated that the frequency of EHDs is mainly modulated by the mean state of temperature, and thus the frequency of EHDs mostly presents an increasing trend. "However, the variability of the daily maximum temperature also plays an important role in the interdecadal change of extreme heat days over Northeast China," says Ms. Liu Wenjun, a Master's student from the group of Dr. Ruidan Chen in the School of Atmospheric Sciences ...

Researchers from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CU Medicine) have jointly developed the Spermine Risk Score which, coupled with the use of a urine test, provides a non-invasive and more reliable method for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. In a study conducted by the researchers, about 37% of the patients, who were ultimately found to have no prostate cancer, can avoid undergoing a prostate biopsy procedure. The findings have just been published in the scientific journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases. Demand for more reliable and non-invasive diagnosis Prostate cancer is the third most common and the fourth most fatal cancer for the male ...

Which bananas end up in your shopping basket-- the uniformly yellow ones or those with brown spots? If you are like most people, you skip the spotted ones and select those that are perfectly yellow. This is because emotions play an an oversized role in our shopping decisions, according to a new study by Danish and Swedish researchers. "We choose food based upon an expectation of what it will taste like that is bound to our feelings. So, if we expect a brown banana to not match the taste of a yellow one, we opt for the latter," explains Karin Wendin, an associate professor at University of Copenhagen's Department of Food Science, and one of the researchers behind the study. Approximately 716,000 tonnes ...

A team of researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a new material, that when electricity is applied to it, can flex and bend forty times more than its competitors, opening the way to better micro machines. Conversely, when it is bent, it generates electricity very effectively and could be used for better "energy harvesting" - potentially recharging batteries in gadgets just from everyday movements. The novel material is both electrostrictive and piezoelectric. Its electrostrictive properties means it can change shape when an electric current is applied, while piezoelectric means the material can convert pressure into electric charges. When an electric field is applied, the atoms that make up electrostrictive ...

Although SGLT-2 inhibitors are central to the treatment of diabetes, their exact mode of action was hitherto unknown. In a study conducted by a research group led by Peter Wolf, Martin Krssak and Michael Krebs from MedUni Vienna's Department of Medicine III, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to show that there is a direct correlation between the elimination of glucose via the kidneys and new glucose production in the liver. A single dose of the SGLT-2 inhibitor dapagliflozin gives rise to a beneficial regulation mechanism, in which glucose loss due to drug-induced SGLT-2 inhibition is exactly balanced out by an equal increase in new glucose production in the liver. The study has been published in the leading journal Diabetes Care. Dapagliflozin is a drug from the group ...

Researchers at the Kobe University Graduate School of Science have revealed that when captive-bred juvenile red-spotted masu salmon are released into natural streams, very few individuals become migrants. Red-spotted masu salmon was an important fish species for the fishing industry in the rivers of west Japan, however in recent years their numbers are declining rapidly. The results of this research offer important suggestions for stocking practices and the management of river environments. The research group consisted of graduate school students TANAKA Tatsuya and UEDA Rui and Associate Professor SATO Takuya. The results were published in Biology Letters ...

[Background] The human body consists of about 60 trillion cells that are renewed day by day to maintain homeostasis of body tissues. In particular, cells of the digestive tract are renewed completely within several weeks thanks to vigorous proliferation where tissue stem cells of every tissue play critical roles in supplying those cells. Tissue stem cells play essential roles in various phenomena such as histogenesis and recovery from damage by producing differentiated cells while dividing. They do this by producing identical cells (self-renewal) or by differentiating into other types of cells. The research team led by Profs. Murakami and Barker of the Cancer Research Institute, Kanazawa University revealed ...

Betelgeuse is normally one of the brightest, most recognizable stars of the winter sky, marking the left shoulder of the constellation Orion. But lately, it has been behaving strangely: an unprecedentedly large drop in its brightness has been observed in early 2020 (Figure 1), which has prompted speculation that Betelgeuse may be about to explode. To find out more, an international team of scientists, including Ken'ichi Nomoto at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), conducted a rigorous examination of Betelgeuse. They concluded that the star is in the early core helium-burning phase (which is more than 100,000 ...

A study reveals the genetic factors that may expose or protect people with Down syndrome from SARS-CoV-2 infection, as well as the prognosis of COVID-19. Their findings, which are published in the journal Scientific Reports, follow previous studies showing a tenfold mortality risk of COVID-19 for people with Down syndrome, adding further evidence to boost existing calls for priority vaccination of the medically vulnerable group. The researchers analysed all publicly available Down syndrome transcriptomic data to uncover alterations that might affect SARS-CoV-2's infection and disease progression. TMPRSS2, a gene that codes for an enzyme critical for aiding the entry of SARS-CoV-2 in human cells, had 60% higher levels ...

A study carried out at the University of Helsinki indicates that agricultural activity confuses the mechanisms that regulate the occurrence of plant diseases in nature. A wider variety of virus species was found in meadows close to agricultural fields compared to those located in natural surroundings, with the richness of plant species having no effect on the number of virus species. However, maintaining biodiversity is worthwhile, as plant richness did reduce the number of viral infections in the meadows. An increasing share of the global land area is used for agricultural purposes, with more and more of the remaining area located at the boundary between agricultural and natural land, also known as the agro-ecological ...

As part of a worldwide collaboration, Carnegie Mellon University chemists have helped discover that iodic acids can rapidly form aerosol particles in the atmosphere, giving scientists more knowledge of how iodine emissions can contribute to cloud formation and climate change. "Essentially all uncertainty around climate change and the atmosphere has something to do with particles and cloud droplets," said Neil Donahue, Thomas Lord University Professor of Chemistry and a professor in the departments of Chemical Engineering, and Engineering and Public Policy. The Donahue ...

Face masks mandates have led people to spend less time at home, but whether this has exposed Americans to more risk is still a question, according to a new study published Thursday in Scientific Reports. Using anonymized location data from smart devices, the study, conducted by Yale School of the Environment Professor Eli Fenichel, Youpei Yan, YSE postdoctoral associate, Colorado State University Assistant Professor Jude Bayham and Aaron Richter, a Yale research affiliate, examined changes in behavior of residents two weeks before and two weeks after mask mandates were implemented in regions of the United States. The study found that residents spent between 11-24 more minutes outside their homes after a facemask mandate was issued, even as COVID-19 rates were rising in the U.S. ...

A new study of autism risk genes by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley scientists implicates disruption in prenatal neurogenesis - a process in which specialized "progenitor" cells give rise to new brain cells - in the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The study also shows that estrogen, perhaps in a form produced within brain cells, can protect against this disruption and steer the brain on a normal course of development. The most striking findings in the study, published on January 25, 2021 in Neuron, were derived from experiments using embryos of the western clawed frog (Xenopus tropicalis), a species prized by biologists for the unique insights it offers into development. Human genes involved in development ...

Prompted by the need to improve conventional treatments for people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), a team from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has identified a therapeutic approach to restore the effectiveness of immune cells. The study, led by doctoral student Hamza Loucif and Professor Julien van Grevenynghe, was published in the journal Autophagy. Most people infected with HIV-1 require daily antiretroviral therapy to control the infection. These drugs cause significant side effects without fully restoring the normal functioning of the immune system. ...

SPOKANE, Wash. - Diabetic patients taking the natural product goldenseal while taking the prescription drug metformin may be unwittingly sabotaging their efforts to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. This concern arose from a recent study published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Metformin--the world's most-prescribed oral glucose-lowering medication--was included in a cocktail of selected drugs given to participants in a clinical study led by scientists at Washington State University's College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The study sought to determine the impact of goldenseal on specific ...

A new study by scientists at Utrecht University and the United Nations University concludes that about half of global wastewater is treated, rather than the previous estimate of 20%. Despite this promising finding, the authors warn that treatment rates in developing countries are still very low. The study and its dataset were published Open Access in the journal Earth System Science Data. Humans and factories produce vast quantities of wastewater per day. If not properly collected and treated, wastewater may severely threaten human health and pollute the environment. 144 million swimming pools The authors use national statistics to estimate volumes of wastewater production, collection, treatment and reuse. "Globally, about 359 ...

Faster speech rate, greater intensity in the middle of the word, and falling pitch at the end of the word: that is the prosody[1] to adopt if one wants to come across as reliable and honest to one's listeners. Scientists from the Science and Technology for Music and Sound laboratory (CNRS/Ircam/Sorbonne Université/Ministère de la Culture)[2] and the Perceptual Systems Laboratory (CNRS/ENS PSL) have conducted a series of experiments[3] to understand how we decide, based on the voice, whether a speaker is honest and confident, or on the contrary dishonest and uncertain. They have also shown that this signature was perceived similarly ...

The sense of hearing is, quite literally, a molecular tightrope act. Turns out, it involves acrobatics as well. In a paper published in Nature Communications on Feb 8, researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital show that a dynamic and delicate connection between two pairs of diminutive protein filaments plays a central role in in hearing. The tension held by these filaments, together called a tip link, is essential for the activation of sensory cells in the inner ear. The team's analyses reveal that the filaments, which are joined end-to-end, work together like trapeze artists holding ...

COVID-19 has not only caused a temporary drop in global CO2 emissions, it has also reduced the share of power generated by burning coal - a trend that could in fact outlast the pandemic. This is the key result of a new study by a team of economists based in Potsdam and Berlin that looked at COVID-19's impact on the energy system and demand for electricity. Their findings show that the pandemic, while putting a terrible toll on people's lives and the economy, has also opened a window of opportunity to make this current trend of decreasing coal use irreversible: Supported by the right climate policy measures, power sector emissions could decline more rapidly than previously thought. "Coal has been hit harder by the Corona crisis than other power sources - and the reason is ...

Higher blood pressure at night than in daytime may be a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease in older men. This is suggested by a new study from researchers at Uppsala University, now published in the journal Hypertension. 'Dementia' is an umbrella term used to describe a category of symptoms marked by behavioural changes and gradually declining cognitive and social abilities. Numerous factors, including hypertension (high blood pressure), affect the risk of developing these symptoms. Under healthy conditions, blood pressure (BP) varies over 24 hours, with lowest values reached at night. Doctors call this nocturnal blood pressure fall 'dipping'. However, in some people, ...

A new process for inserting synthetic gene circuits into host cells, developed by a team of bioengineers at Arizona State University, has broad implications for improving the effectiveness of a range of disease therapies. Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary research field that uses engineering principles to create biological components that don't exist in the natural world. These synthetic components mimic naturally evolved organisms, but are customized to fight disease, including cancer. A paper recently published in Nature Communications, "Winner-Takes-All Resource Competition Redirects Cascading Cell Fate Transitions," outlines how gene circuits can be reconfigured so that they do not overwhelm the host cells. "We ...

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an almost 80% decrease in primary care office visits in Ontario and a 56-fold increase in virtual visits, found new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Initial reports from primary care providers during the pandemic in both Canada and the United States showed major disruptions to care, decreased payments, challenges keeping offices functioning, lack of personal protective equipment and widespread uptake of virtual care, but we didn't know how COVID-19 had affected in-person office visits," says ...

People living in regions with high levels of outdoor artificial light at night may face a higher risk of developing thyroid cancer. The finding comes from a study published early online in END ...

A new national survey of more than 2,000 Americans by END ...