Studying the violent collisions of black holes and neutron stars may soon provide a new measurement of the Universe's expansion rate, helping to resolve a long-standing dispute, suggests a new simulation study led by researchers at UCL (University College London). Our two current best ways of estimating the Universe's rate of expansion - measuring the brightness and speed of pulsating and exploding stars, and looking at fluctuations in radiation from the early Universe - give very different answers, suggesting our theory of the Universe may be wrong. A third type of measurement, looking at the explosions of light and ripples in the fabric of space caused ...

Under the background of global warming, the energy budget of the earth is out of balance with more than 90% of additional heat entering the ocean. The tropical Pacific Ocean has an important influence on the global tropical climate and the climate of China, and the tropical Pacific Western Boundary Currents (WBCs) that flow through it plays an important role in the climate system. Large-scale ocean circulation redistributes ocean heat and mass and is hence one of the basic dynamic processes that shape the earth's Marine environment. The tropical Pacific WBCs system is a key part of the global ocean circulation system. ...

It is challenging to analyze proteins at low concentrations, especially for those in a mixture of various conformations such as intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). A research team led by Prof. HUANG Jinqing, Assistant Professor of Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has developed optical tweezers-coupled Raman spectroscopy that can directly probe the structural features of alpha-synuclein, an IDP closely linked to Parkinson's disease, at the physiological concentration by focusing on individual protein molecules. IDPs play an important role in biological processes and many of them are associated with incurable neurodegenerative ...

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Surrey have found that well-fitting, three-layered cloth masks can be as effective at reducing the transmission of COVID-19 as surgical masks. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 139 countries mandated the use of face coverings in public space such as supermarkets and public transports. The World Health Organization also advises the use of face coverings and offers guidance on their effective features. Face coverings suppress the onward transmission of COVID-19 through exhalation and protect the wearer on inhalation. In a paper published by the Physics of Fluids journal, the researchers detail how they looked at how liquid ...

Areas in Sweden with early access to electricity at the start of the 1900s underwent rapid change. Electrification led to more strikes, but it was not those who were threatened by the new technology who protested. Instead, it was the professional groups who had acquired a stronger negotiating position - thanks to technological development, according to new research from Lund University. Labour market conditions are affected by new technology. Currently, the impact of automation on the labour market is often discussed, whether jobs will disappear as computers take over, or whether digitalisation drives development towards a gig economy with uncertain employment conditions. One fear is that the technological development could generate social unrest and a risk of increased ...

Like a chameleon of the night sky, the Moon often changes its appearance. It might look larger, brighter or redder, for example, due to its phases, its position in the solar system or smoke in Earth's atmosphere. (It is not made of green cheese, however.) Another factor in its appearance is the size and shape of moon dust particles, the small rock grains that cover the moon's surface. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are now measuring tinier moon dust particles than ever before, a step toward more precisely explaining the Moon's apparent color ...

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with their Swiss colleagues at the University Hospital of Bern, have cracked the code for controlling a group of enzymes that affect our metabolism. The researchers' findings could help us avoid diseases ranging from high cholesterol to infertility to certain types of cancer, which are all due, among other things, to hormonal imbalances. They have found a way to influence a special protein called cytochrome P450 reductase (POR) -- popularly characterized as the 'conductor' of the body's protein orchestra, which helps regulate our hormones and makes it possible to break down medicinal products in the liver. "We have developed a method to ...

Fast growth of the global human population has long been regarded as a major challenge that faces mankind. Presently, this challenge is becoming even more serious than before, in particular because many natural resources are estimated to deplete before the end of this century. The increasing population pressure on agriculture and ecosystems and the environment more generally is predicted to result in worldwide food and water shortages, pollution, lack of housing, poverty and social tension. The situation is exacerbated by global climate change as considerable areas of land are predicted to be flooded and hence taken out of human's use. It is widely believed ...

According to the researchers, three songs from a playlist are enough to identify the person who chose the songs. Hence, companies like YouTube and Spotify can accumulate a great deal of information about their users based only on their musical preferences. The study was led by Dr. Ori Leshman of the Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education at Tel Aviv University and Dr. Ron Hirschprung of the Department of Management and Industrial Engineering at Ariel University. The study was published in the journal Telematics and Informatics. The study included ...

PITTSBURGH, April 28, 2021 - Asthma exacerbations rose following a catastrophic Christmas Eve fire two years ago that destroyed pollution controls at the Clairton Coke Works--the largest such facility in the nation, a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health analysis concludes. The study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, was possible because of a collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Asthma and Environmental Lung Health Institute at UPMC and the Allegheny County Health Department, with funding from The Heinz Endowments. "In addition to verifying that people living within a 10-mile radius of the coke works had higher rates of asthma exacerbations and use of albuterol rescue medication than those living outside the radius, we learned ...

A comprehensive study from Uppsala University demonstrates that socioeconomic deprivation modifies genetic effects on higher education and abstract reasoning. The paper illustrates how genes play a greater role in educational attainment in more socioeconomically deprived regions of the United Kingdom. The study was recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Education is an important factor in an individual's life and strongly linked to economic outcomes and quality of life. The likelihood of completing higher education is partly determined by genetic factors. Common genetic variants have previously been estimated to contribute 11-13% ...

Breast cancer diagnosis: Around 88 percent of patients survive the dangerous disease in the first five years. Work is important for getting back to normality. Researchers from the University of Bonn and the German Cancer Society investigated how satisfied former patients are with their occupational development over a period of five to six years since diagnosis. About half experienced at least one job change during the study period. Around ten percent of those affected even report involuntary changes. The researchers conclude that there is a need for long-term support measures for patients. The study is now published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship. Breast cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in women. ...

Amsterdam, April 28, 2021 - Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by slowness of movement and tremors, which often appear asymmetrically in patients. The new model of PD described in this review article published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease may explain these perplexing asymmetrical motor symptoms and other known variations such as different degrees of constipation and sleep disorders. PD is a heterogenous disorder. Symptoms and the speed with which symptoms progress vary greatly among patients. In three-quarters of patients, motor symptoms initially appear in one side of the body. Some ...

In an interdisciplinary research project carried out at Tel Aviv University, researchers from the School of Plant Sciences affiliated with the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences collaborated with their colleagues from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine in order to study the course of plant root growth. The plant researchers were aided by a computational model constructed by cancer researchers studying cancer cells, which they adapted for use with plant root cells. The fascinating and groundbreaking findings: For the first time in the world, it has been demonstrated, at the resolution of a single cell, that the root grows ...

In the quantum realm, electrons can group together to behave in interesting ways. Magnetism is one of these behaviors that we see in our day-to-day life, as is the rarer phenomena of superconductivity. Intriguingly, these two behaviors are often antagonists, meaning that the existence of one of them often destroys the other. However, if these two opposite quantum states are forced to coexist artificially, an elusive state called a topological superconductor appears, which is exciting for researchers trying to make topological qubits. Topological qubits are exciting as one of the potential technologies for future quantum computers. In particular, topological qubits provide the basis for topological quantum ...

Even though more and more vaccines against the coronavirus are being administered all over the world, many countries are still battling with outbreaks and face difficulties providing help to those in need. One of those countries is Brazil. Here, they are facing a massive second wave outbreak, many daily deaths and instances of the health care systems collapsing. In the city of Manaus things have looked exceptionally bleak from December and through to the early spring. The city was hit so hard by the first wave in 2020 that it was actually thought to be one of the few places in the world to have reached herd immunity. An estimated 75 percent of the population in the city had been infected. But then the second wave ...

The research team led by Prof. WENG Jianping from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has implemented a comprehensive preconception-to-pregnancy management plan, namely CARNATION study, for women with type1 diabetes (T1D), to reduce the risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes and improve the pregnancy care since 2015. The study was published in Diabetes Care. The management plan, approved by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, is made up of the checklist for the relevant health care providers (HCPs) covering 20 items of care in different ...

Computer scientists often encounter problems relevant to real-life scenarios. For instance, "multiagent problems," a category characterized by multi-stage decision-making by multiple decision makers or "agents," has relevant applications in search-and-rescue missions, firefighting, and emergency response. Multiagent problems are often solved using a machine learning technique known as "reinforcement learning" (RL), which concerns itself with how intelligent agents make decisions in an environment unfamiliar to them. An approach usually adopted in such an endeavor is policy iteration (PI), which starts off with a "base policy" and then improves on it to generate a "rollout policy" (with the process of generation ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- For more than a decade, ecologists have been warning of a downward trend in bumble bee populations across North America, with habitat destruction a primary culprit in those losses. While efforts to preserve wild bees in the Midwest often focus on restoring native flowers to prairies, a new Illinois-based study finds evidence of a steady decline in the availability of springtime flowers in wooded landscapes. The scarcity of early season flowers in forests - a primary food source for bumble bees at this time of year - likely endangers ...

WASHINGTON - The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) has released an expert consensus statement providing cardiologists, cath lab directors, and hospital leadership guidance for contemporary cath lab standards. The document, "SCAI Expert Consensus Update on Best Practices in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory" will be presented today at the SCAI 2021 Virtual Scientific Sessions with simultaneous publication in Catheterization & Cardiovascular Interventions. The statement has been endorsed by the American College of Cardiology Clinical Policy Approval Committee, American Heart Association, ...

Cells breathe, to an extent, exchanging gases, taking in energy sources from the environment and processing it. Now, researchers from Tohoku University in Japan have shone a light on the process in a new way. Their demonstrated visualization method in model systems was made available online on March 12th in Biosensors and Bioelectronics, ahead of the June print edition. The researchers used spheroids - cultured cells within a close-to-natural environment - to mimic a biological tissue using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Due to MCSs' ability to self-renew and differentiate into various ...

Our bodies and behaviors often seem to have rhythms of their own. Why do we go to the bathroom at the same time every day? Why do we feel off if we can't go to sleep at the right time? Circadian rhythms are a behind-the-scenes force that shape many of our behaviors and our health. Michihiro Mieda and his team at Kanazawa University in Japan are researching how the brain's circadian rhythm control center regulates behavior. Termed the superchiasmatic nucleus, or SCN, the control center contains many types of neurons that transmit signals using the molecule GABA, but little is known about how each type contributes to our bodily rhythms. In their newest study, the researchers focused on GABA neurons that produce arginine vasopressin, a hormone that regulates ...

WASHINGTON, D.C, (April 28, 2021) - A new study reveals the use of a potassium ferrate hemostatic patch (PFHP) reduces the time to hemostasis for patients receiving cardiac catherization. The findings indicate a faster approach to removing the compression band used during the procedure, without compromising safety. Positive results of the STAT2 trial follow an initial pilot study and are being presented as late-breaking clinical science at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 2021 Virtual Scientific Sessions. Cardiac ...

WASHINGTON, D.C, (April 28, 2021) - A retrospective analysis of risk factors for coronary artery disease (CAD) in young African American patients is being presented today at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 2021 Virtual Scientific Sessions. The findings reveal this specific patient segment, African-Americans under age 45, experiences greater CAD risk factors related to smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV as well as mental health conditions including anxiety and depression. CAD is the most common type of heart disease, with high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea and diabetes among traditional risk factors. African Americans are disproportionally ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., (April 28, 2021) - Results from a retrospective observational study, presented today at Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 2021 Virtual Scientific Sessions, reveal a 70% decline in the number of patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during April 2020 compared to April 2019. While the number of patients with AMI seeking care at hospitals dropped during the pandemic, those that did receive care experienced more severe symptoms because of delays in patients seeking emergency services. AMI, commonly recognized as a heart attack, is responsible for more than one million deaths in the U.S. every year. For the best patient outcomes, seeking care within the ...