LA JOLLA--(May 6, 2021) Plants are unparalleled in their ability to capture CO2 from the air, but this benefit is temporary, as leftover crops release carbon back into the atmosphere, mostly through decomposition. Researchers have proposed a more permanent, and even useful, fate for this captured carbon by turning plants into a valuable industrial material called silicon carbide (SiC)--offering a strategy to turn an atmospheric greenhouse gas into an economically and industrially valuable material. In a new study, published in the journal RSC Advances on April 27, 2021, scientists at the Salk Institute transformed tobacco and corn husks into SiC ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - By swiping surfaces in commercial food processing plants with specially designed rapid-testing adenosine triphospate (ATP) swabs - which produce a light similar to the glow of fireflies in the presence of microorganisms - spoilage and foodborne illness could diminish, according to a new study from Cornell University food scientists. During food production, routine cleaning and surface sanitation are keys to help prevent microbial contamination in the end food products. Without such a sanitation regime, food from processing plants can become more vulnerable ...

PHILADELPHIA-- When evaluating the opioid crisis, research reveals that external factors - such as the volume of pre-filled syringes, or a default number of opioid tablets that could easily be ordered at discharge for the patient - can shift prescribing and compel emergency department (ED) physicians to administer or prescribe greater quantities of opioids. A new study published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology reveals that opioid prescribing behavior can also be decreased by external factors, such as a supply shortage. Led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers evaluated pharmacy data from the electronic medical records (EMR) collected before, during, and after a period of parenteral ...

BOSTON - New research led by a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) points to a promising strategy to boost tumors' intake of cancer drugs, thereby increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatments. The group's findings are published in Nature Nanotechnology. Getting enough anticancer drugs into a tumor is often difficult, and a potential strategy to overcome this challenge involves binding the medications to albumin, the most abundant protein in blood. The strategy relies on tumors' large appetite for protein nutrients that fuel malignant growth. When consuming available albumin, the tumors will inadvertently take in the attached drugs. A popular albumin-bound drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is ...

How did people living in the Bronze Age manage their finances before money became widespread? Researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Rome have discovered that bronze scrap found in hoards in Europe circulated as a currency. These pieces of scrap - which might include swords, axes, and jewellery broken into pieces - were used as cash in the late Bronze Age (1350-800 BC), and in fact complied with a weight system used across Europe. This research suggests that something very similar to our 'global market' evolved across Western Eurasia from the everyday use of scrap for cash by ordinary people some 1000 years before the beginning of classical civilizations. The results were published in Journal of Archaeological Science. This study analysed around ...

'Natural disasters,' sparked by climate change and other natural hazards, increase the triggers for violence against women and girls by boosting the means, opportunity, and underlying drivers, finds a review of the available evidence, published in the online journal BMJ Global Health. As these disasters are increasing in frequency, severity, and duration worldwide, this consequence must now be formally recognised in public health, violence prevention, and disaster management strategies, urge the researchers. Over the past two decades, 7348 ...

New research from Simon Fraser University suggests that students learning remotely become night owls but do not sleep more despite the time saved commuting, working or attending social events. The study, led by psychology professor Ralph Mistlberger, Andrea Smit and Myriam Juda, at SFU's Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Lab, compared self-reported data on sleep habits from 80 students enrolled in a 2020 summer session course at SFU with data collected from 450 students enrolled in the same course during previous summer semesters. The study results were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE. "There is a widespread belief among ...

In a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers show that although two doses of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 -- the virus that causes COVID 19 -- confers some protection for people who have received solid organ transplants, it's still not enough to enable them to dispense with masks, physical distancing and other safety measures. This is a follow-up study to an earlier one published in March in JAMA, in which the researchers reported that only 17% of the participating transplant recipients produced sufficient antibodies after just one dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine regimen. "While there was an ...

Loneliness and social isolation have been significant problems for the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic, but for cancer patients these issues were particularly acute, likely due to isolation and social distancing, according to a new UCSF study. The study, which is the first to evaluate loneliness, anxiety, depression, fatigue and other symptoms in a single group of patients, is published in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. "We found that oncology patients were experiencing a deep sense of loneliness," ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina Greensboro made a surprising finding while examining areas where sand flies rear their young: a new species of bacteria that is highly attractive to pregnant, or gravid, sand flies. The findings could advance the production of ecologically safe baits or traps to reduce sand fly populations. Sand flies are vectors for important parasitic diseases affecting people in tropical and subtropical regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. One of those diseases is Leishmaniasis, which generally causes ...

HOUSTON - (May 6, 2021) - A Rice University laboratory has adapted its laser-induced graphene technique to make high-resolution, micron-scale patterns of the conductive material for consumer electronics and other applications. Laser-induced graphene (LIG), introduced in 2014 by Rice chemist James Tour, involves burning away everything that isn't carbon from polymers or other materials, leaving the carbon atoms to reconfigure themselves into films of characteristic hexagonal graphene. The process employs a commercial laser that "writes" graphene patterns into surfaces that to date have included wood, paper and even food. The new iteration writes fine patterns of graphene into photoresist polymers, light-sensitive materials used in photolithography and ...

As the human body's largest organ, the skin is responsible for protecting against a wide range of possible infections on all fleshy surfaces, from head to toe. So how exactly does the skin organize its defenses against such an array of threats? A new Yale study shows that the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, is comprised of an army of immune cells that station themselves at regular intervals across the skin's vast expanse to resist infection. When necessary, the researchers found, these immune system soldiers are able to reposition themselves to protect vulnerable areas. The study, published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, was conducted by the lab of Valentina ...

The introduction of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has revolutionized technology as a whole, leading to major advances in consumer goods across nearly all sectors. Battery-powered devices have become ubiquitous across the world. While the availability of technology is generally a good thing, the rapid growth has led directly to several key ethical and environmental issues surrounding the use of Li-ion batteries. Current Li-ion batteries utilize significant amounts of cobalt, which in several well-documented international cases is mined using child labor in dangerous working ...

The idea of creating quantum computers has long captured the minds of researchers and experts of IT corporations. They are the most powerful computers operating according to the laws of the quantum world and capable of solving many problems more efficiently than the most productive classical supercomputers. Similar developments are underway, for example, at Google and IBM. However, many such projects require the use of cryostats. These are vessels with liquid nitrogen or compressed helium, inside which quantum processors are cooled to temperatures below -270°C. Such a low temperature is required to maintain the superconductivity effect, which is necessary for the operation ...

Today's 10,000 species of birds live in virtually every habitat on Earth, but only a handful have adaptations enabling them to hunt active prey in the dark of night. Scientists have long wondered whether theropod dinosaurs - the group that gave rise to modern birds - had similar sensory adaptations. A new study led by University of the Witwatersrand scientist, Professor Jonah Choiniere, sought to investigate how vision and hearing abilities of dinosaurs and birds compared. The international team of researchers used CT scanning and detailed measurements to collect information ...

New Haven, Conn. -- If paleontologists had a wish list, it would almost certainly include insights into two particular phenomena: how dinosaurs interacted with each other and how they began to fly. The problem is, using fossils to deduce such behavior is a tricky business. But a new, Yale-led study offers a promising entry point -- the inner ear of an ancient reptile. According to the study, the shape of the inner ear offers reliable signs as to whether an animal soared gracefully through the air, flew only fitfully, walked on the ground, or sometimes went swimming. In some cases, the inner ear even indicates whether ...

The findings, published in the journal Science today, demonstrate how integrating vertical descent and horizontal gene transfer can be used to infer the root of the bacterial tree and the nature of the last bacterial common ancestor. Bacteria comprise a very diverse domain of single-celled organisms that can be found almost everywhere on Earth. All Bacteria are related and derive from a common ancestral Bacterial cell. Until now, the shape of the bacterial tree of life and the placement of its root has been contested, but is necessary to shed light on the early evolution of life on our ...

The uncertainty principle, first introduced by Werner Heisenberg in the late 1920's, is a fundamental concept of quantum mechanics. In the quantum world, particles like the electrons that power all electrical product can also behave like waves. As a result, particles cannot have a well-defined position and momentum simultaneously. For instance, measuring the momentum of a particle leads to a disturbance of position, and therefore the position cannot be precisely defined. In recent research, published in Science, a team led by Prof. Mika Sillanpää at Aalto University in Finland has shown that there is a way to get around ...

In the 150 years since Charles Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa, the number of species in the human family tree has exploded, but so has the level of dispute concerning early human evolution. Fossil apes are often at the center of the debate, with some scientists dismissing their importance to the origins of the human lineage (the "hominins"), and others conferring them starring evolutionary roles. A new review out on May 7 in the journal Science looks at the major discoveries in hominin origins since Darwin's works and argues that fossil apes can inform us about essential aspects of ape and human evolution, including the nature ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A research team from Brown University has made a major step toward improving the long-term reliability of perovskite solar cells, an emerging clean energy technology. In a study to be published on Friday, May 7 in the journal Science, the team demonstrates a "molecular glue" that keeps a key interface inside cells from degrading. The treatment dramatically increases cells' stability and reliability over time, while also improving the efficiency with which they convert sunlight into electricity. "There have been great strides ...

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researchers added to the understanding of the protective immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a study published in April in iScience. The team found that approximately 3% of the population is asymptomatic, which means that their bodies can get rid of the virus without developing signs of illness. The researchers screened more than 60,000 blood samples from symptomless individuals in the Southeastern U.S., including Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, for the IgG antibody to the viral spike protein. What began as a highly collaborative statewide effort to detect SARS-CoV-2 accurately, ...

Recently published research from the University of Arizona Health Sciences shows that advanced-stage kidney cancer is more common in Hispanic Americans and Native Americans than in non-Hispanic whites, and that both Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in Arizona have an increased risk of mortality from the disease. "We knew from our past research that Hispanic Americans and Native Americans have a heavier burden of kidney cancer than non-Hispanic whites," said Ken Batai, PhD, a Cancer Prevention and Control Program research member at the UArizona Cancer Center and research assistant professor of urology in the College of Medicine - Tucson. "But we also know that around 90% of the Hispanic population in Arizona is Mexican American - either U.S.-born or Mexican-born ...

The air in the United States and Western Europe is much cleaner than even a decade ago. Low-sulfur gasoline standards and regulations on power plants have successfully cut sulfate concentrations in the air, reducing the fine particulate matter that harms human health and cleaning up the environmental hazard of acid rain. Despite these successes, sulfate levels in the atmosphere have declined more slowly than sulfur dioxide emissions, especially in wintertime. This unexpected phenomenon suggests sulfur dioxide emission reductions are less efficient than expected for cutting sulfate aerosols. A new study led by Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Hokkaido University and the University ...

The ability of antibodies to recognize specific cancer cells is used in oncology to specifically target those cells with small active agents. Research published in the journal Angewandte Chemie shows that scientists have now built a transport system that delivers even large protein-based drugs into cancer cells. This study demonstrates how proteins can arrive at their target intact, protected from destructive proteases by polymer brushes. Developing anticancer treatments involves two recurring problems for researchers. An active agent needs to be able to kill the body's cells at the root of the cancer, and it should be active in target cancer cells rather than in healthy cells. Many medical researchers ...

When you save an image to your smartphone, those data are written onto tiny transistors that are electrically switched on or off in a pattern of "bits" to represent and encode that image. Most transistors today are made from silicon, an element that scientists have managed to switch at ever-smaller scales, enabling billions of bits, and therefore large libraries of images and other files, to be packed onto a single memory chip. But growing demand for data, and the means to store them, is driving scientists to search beyond silicon for materials that can push memory devices to higher densities, ...