Announcing a new article publication for BIO Integration journal. In this mini review article the authors Meiyu Qiu and Pei Li from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea summarize CRISPR/Cas-based Diagnostics and Gene Therapy. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology, an easy, rapid, cost-effective, and precise gene-editing technique, has revolutionized diagnostics and gene therapy. Fast and accurate diagnosis of diseases is essential for point-of-care-testing (POCT) and specialized medical institutes. The CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins system shed light on the new diagnostics methods at point-of-care (POC) owning to its advantages. In addition, CRISPR/Cas-based gene-editing ...

People's ability to perceive speech sounds has been deeply studied, specially during someone's first year of life, but what happens during the first hours after birth? Are babies born with innate abilities to perceive speech sounds, or do neural encoding processes need to age for some time? Researchers from the Institute of Neurosciences of the University of Barcelona (UBNeuro) and the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute (IRSJD) have created a new methodology to try to answer this basic question on human development. The results, published in the Nature's open-access journal Scientific Reports, ...

Not all stars shine brightly all the time. Some have a brightness that changes rhythmically due to cyclical phenomena like passing planets or the tug of other stars. Others show a slow change in this periodicity over time that can be difficult to discern or capture mathematically. KAUST's Soumya Das and Marc Genton have now developed a method to bring this evolving periodicity within the framework of mathematically "cyclostationary" processes. "It can be difficult to explain the variations of the brightness of variable stars unless they follow a regular pattern over time," says Das. "In this study we created methods that can explain the evolution of the brightness of a variable star, even if it ...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in ski wax have been receiving a lot of attention recently, but waxes constitute only a limited part of the problem of the PFAS group of toxicants. PFAS are a large group of man-made fluorocarbon toxicants, and you are most likely full of them. The toxic substances don't break down and instead accumulate, both in nature and in your body. "Due to their extensive use, humans and animals all over the world are continuously exposed to PFAS," says Håkon Austad Langberg, a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) who has studied several of them in the last few years. PFAS are used in many different products beyond the fluorinated ski wax that ends up in the ground on ski slopes and on trails, ...

The corona pandemic has made us all focus on new ways of organizing our work. More and more companies and organizations around the world are considering how to meet their employees' demand for flexibility while at the same time reducing their office space and expensive rents. There are advantages and disadvantages to working from home, and many factors that affect the peoples' experience of it, such as their job function, age and seniority, whether they have children, whether they are a manager or employee, etc. Researchers from DTU Management have identified six main areas that company managers should focus on when developing strategies for remote work in future. Associate Professor at DTU Management Christine ...

People who take a commonly-prescribed drug for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) should not assume they are protected after a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, after a large-scale study found many had poor antibody responses. The research measured antibody responses after vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in 865 people treated with infliximab, an anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) biologic drug, prescribed to around two million people worldwide. Anti-TNF drugs are effective treatments for immune-mediated inflammatory ...

The Chauvet Cave, which lies by the entrance to the Gorges of the Ardèche, is home to the world's oldest cave paintings, dating back 36,000 years. Their state of preservation and aesthetic qualities earned them a spot on the World Heritage List in 2014, 20 years after their discovery. The location of the cavern--surrounded by a remarkable landscape, next to the Pont d'Arc natural archway--raises the question of whether the people who executed these artworks looked and walked out upon the same landscape as today. Did they see the same natural archway? Scientists from the CNRS, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle1 ...

Researchers from Skoltech (Russia) and their colleagues from SINTEF (Norway) have developed a mathematical model of freezing water droplets moving in cold air. This model is a part of a joint RFBR-supported Russian-Norway research project. The project is focused on predicting ice accretion on ships and other offshore structures operated in Arctic climate, which may interfere with their proper functioning and endanger crew members and cargo. The paper was published in the journal Energies. Ships travel in cold northern waters under constant bombardment by tiny water droplets populating the chilly air. ...

Ishikawa, Japan - Robots today have come a long way from their early inception as insentient beings meant primarily for mechanical assistance to humans. Today, they can assist us intellectually and even emotionally, getting ever better at mimicking conscious humans. An integral part of this ability is the use of speech to communicate with the user (smart assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo are notable examples). Despite these remarkable developments, they still do not sound very "human". This is where voice conversion (VC) comes in. A technology used to ...

Just one third of people in the UK managed to access the hospital care they needed at the peak of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic - according to new research from the University of East Anglia. A new study published today looks at the extent to which people managed to access NHS healthcare in April 2020, and as lockdown restrictions eased. The researchers found that, despite high levels of unmet need, there was equal access to NHS hospital care for people at different levels of income. And the NHS principle of equal treatment for equal need was upheld. However, people on higher incomes had better access to GP consultations, prescriptions and medical helplines at ...

Steroids should not be used to treat smell loss caused by Covid-19 according to an international group of smell experts, including Prof Carl Philpott from the University of East Anglia. Smell loss is a prominent symptom of Covid-19, and the pandemic is leaving many people with long-term smell loss. But a new study published today shows that corticosteroids - a class of drug that lowers inflammation in the body - are not recommended to treat smell loss due to Covid-19. Instead, the team recommend 'smell training' - a process that involves sniffing at least four different odours twice a day for several months. Smell loss expert Prof Carl Philpott from UEA's Norwich Medical School, said: "The huge rise in smell loss caused by Covid-19 has created an unprecedented worldwide demand for ...

According to the Motorik-Modul-Längsschnittstudie (MoMo, Motor Module Longitudinal Study) of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Karlsruhe University of Education (PHKA), mental health of children and adolescents decreased during the first lockdown. For children aged between 4 and 10 years and for girls irrespective of their age, mental health was found to promote physical activity during Covid-induced lockdown in spring 2020. This is reported in Children (DOI: 10.3390/children8020098). "The impacts of the lockdown on children and adolescents is discussed widely," ...

Deaths of people who suffered strokes increased during the first lockdown compared to the three previous years, new data analysis has found. Despite the pandemic, health care quality was maintained at a high level. In their paper, published today in Stroke American Heart Association, research teams from King's College London, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation and the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) analysed the data of 184,017 patients admitted to hospital with confirmed stroke during October-April periods across four consecutive years. This patient data were collected from 114 hospital trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Starting from the third week of February 2020 there was ...

One of the biggest challenges in Alzheimer's research is to identify biomarkers that can identify people who are at risk of developing dementia. Biomarkers could be used to screen people so they might be helped before they develop dementia. Researchers have focused primarily on three such biomarkers. Two are Alzheimer's-related proteins, amyloid and tau. Amyloid forms clumps in brains, and tau forms skeins of filaments called neurofibrillary tangles. Both can be detected in cerebral spinal fluid or by specialized positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The third marker, brain atrophy, can be seen with CT or MRI scans. To guide researchers, the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association ...

Proteins are undoubtedly some of the most fascinating biomolecules, and they perform many of the functions that (in our eyes) separate life from inanimate matter. Multi-molecular protein assemblies even have large-scale structural functions, as evidenced by feathers, hair, and scales in animals. It should come as no surprise that, with progress in advanced nanotechnology and bioengineering, artificial protein assemblies have found applications in a variety of fields, including catalysis, molecular storage, and drug delivery systems. However, producing ordered protein assemblies remains challenging. It is particularly difficult to get monomers, the building blocks of proteins, to assemble stably into the desired structures; this generally ...

Although most oncological diseases are not infectious, some viruses can cause cancer. According to the World Health Organization, two HPV subtypes account for 70% of cervical cancer cases and pre-existing conditions. Moreover, HPV considerably increases the risks of other types of cancer. Within an infected cell, a viral protein called E6 binds with human proteins from the 14-3-3 family. 14-3-3 proteins are present in cells of all eukaryotic organisms and can interact with hundreds of other important players of intracellular processes to regulate cell division, gene activity, metabolism, cell death, and intracellular ...

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have created an artificial intelligence platform that can identify the specific proteins that allow bacteria to infect the intestines - a method that paves the way for the creation of smart drugs that will neutralize the proteins and prevent disease, without the use of antibiotics. Participating in the study, which was published in the prestigious journal Science, were Ph.D. student Naama Wagner and Prof. Tal Pupko, head of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at the Faculty of Life Sciences and the new Center for Artificial Intelligence ...

Prof. PAN Jianwei and his colleagues from the University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences investigated the high-loss free space high-precision time-frequency dissemination experiment between remote locations, simulating the high-precision time-frequency high-orbit satellite-ground links in the channel loss, atmospheric noise, and transmission delay effects. This link experiment exhibits that the instability of the time-frequency transfer via a satellite in middle-high earth orbits might reach E-18 at 10,000 s, enabling ...

The University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen have come together to study the effects of Football Fitness on various health parameters and self-rated health following treatment for breast cancer. The results of the project, called Football Fitness After Breast Cancer (ABC), have now been published in three scientific articles published in international sports medicine, cardiology and oncology journals. "The main conclusion is that Football Fitness is an intense and good form of training for women treated for breast cancer, with beneficial effects on balance, muscle strength and bone density," says END ...

The CDC's opioid prescribing guideline has failed to reduce addiction and overdoses, significantly worsened the quality of pain care in the United States and should be revoked, according to a large new survey of patients and healthcare providers by Pain News Network, an independent, non-profit news organization. Nearly 4,200 patients and providers participated in the online survey, which was conducted as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepares to update and possibly expand its 2016 guideline, which discourages doctors from prescribing opioid ...

NEW YORK, NY (April 26, 2021) -Brain research and advocacy nonprofit Cohen Veterans Bioscience (CVB) today announced the launch of a National TBI Precision Solutions Research Roadmap, with the advent of the first in a series of publications resulting from its Brain Trauma Blueprint framework program. The Brain Trauma Blueprint is a framework that enables stakeholder groups across government, academia, foundations, and industry to advance precision diagnostics and treatments for brain trauma through a coordinated effort. The framework comprises a 12-step process to jointly identify unmet patient needs, associated research priorities, landscape state of the science, identify research gaps and barriers, and provide ...

SPOKANE, Wash. - Touching patients while providing care is an important and unavoidable aspect of the nursing profession. Nurses can also transform touch into a useful therapeutic tool to improve patients'-- and their own--wellbeing. That is the topic of a study, "'Permission to Touch': Nurses' Perspectives of Interpersonal Contact during Patient Care," published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research.The authors include two Washington State University College of Nursing faculty, Associate Professor Marian Wilson and Assistant Professor Tullamora Landis, former faculty member Michele Shaw, and lead author Enrico DeLuca, of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, who visited WSU in 2018 to work with Wilson on the study. Nurses touch patients frequently ...

Creating the best conditions for cells to make energy and survive critical illness is a challenge little understood in modern medicine. Now a new study led by scientists at the University of Plymouth, in collaboration with University College London and the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, shows early signs that cells in some critically ill patients actually adapt to their conditions by producing energy more efficiently. The research, published in the journal Redox Biology, took muscle and blood samples over seven days from 21 critically ill patients (ie those with two or more organs failing) in intensive care, and 12 healthy people, comparing cells' behaviour. The study showed that all of the critically ill ...

The obstacles associated with shopping, such as shipping costs or the time needed to go to the shop, are crucial to the individual choice of where to shop. When deciding between online shopping and local shopping, personal opinion on purchasing security, environmental protection aspects, and work conditions plays a role. This is found by a study using microeconometric models at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Some of the results of the representative study funded by the German Research Foundation are reported in Papers in Applied Geography and Raumforschung und Raumordnung. For the evaluations reported, data were collected in 2019, that is before local shopping was restricted due to the pandemic. "During the lockdowns, ...

Few sites in the world preserve a continuous archaeological record spanning millions of years. Wonderwerk Cave, located in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, is one of those rare sites. Meaning "miracle" in Afrikaans, Wonderwerk Cave has been identified as potentially the earliest cave occupation in the world and the site of some of the earliest indications of fire use and tool making among prehistoric humans. New research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, led by a team of geologists and archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ...