Between 2018 and 2020, 1,4 million EU citizens signed the petition 'End the Cage Age', with the aim of ending cage housing for farm animals in Europe. In response to this citizens initiative, the European Parliament requested a study by Utrecht University researchers on the possibilities to end cage housing. On 13 April, the scientists will present their report 'End the Cage Age - Looking for Alternatives' to the European Parliament. In the report, behavioural biologists, animal scientists, veterinarians and ethicists from Utrecht University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine analysed the available scientific literature on alternatives to cage housing. "Our focus was on laying hens and pigs" says Bas Rodenburg, Professor of Animal Welfare at Utrecht University. "Because these ...

Many women "risk" allowing natural grey hair to show in order to feel authentic, a new study shows. Researchers from the University of Exeter surveyed women who chose not to dye their grey hair, and found a "conflict" between looking natural and being seen as competent. Participants in the study - mostly from English-speaking countries - belonged to online groups whose members allow their natural grey hair to show, and the researchers noted "solidarity and sisterhood" among these women. "We are all constrained by society's norms and expectations when it comes to appearance, but expectations are more rigorous for women - especially older women," said lead author Vanessa Cecil, of the University of Exeter. "The 'old woman' is an undesirable character in Western societies, being seen ...

Why is sugar not transparent? Because light that penetrates a piece of sugar is scattered, altered and deflected in a highly complicated way. However, as a research team from TU Wien (Vienna) and Utrecht University (Netherlands) has now been able to show, there is a class of very special light waves for which this does not apply: for any specific disordered medium--such as the sugar cube you may just have put in your coffee--tailor-made light beams can be constructed that are practically not changed by this medium, but only attenuated. The light beam penetrates the medium, and a light pattern arrives on the other ...

Blood vessels deliver nutrients and oxygen to each organ in our body. They are difficult to completely restore to their original conditions once damaged by myocardial infarction or severe ischemic diseases. This is because various angiogenic growth factors must be applied sequentially in order to restore the vascular structure. Recently, a research team at POSTECH has bioengineered a novel adhesive patch platform that can efficiently deliver blood vessel-forming growth factors spatiotemporally using mussel adhesive protein (MAP), a bio-adhesive material that is made from mussels harmless to humans. A POSTECH research team led by Professor Hyung Joon ...

Squirrels and other tree-dwelling rodents evolved to have bigger brains than their burrowing cousins, a study suggests. This greater brain power has given them key abilities needed to thrive in woodland habitats, including better vision and motor skills, and improved head and eye movements, researchers say. Scientists have shed light on how the brains of rodents - a diverse group that accounts for more than 40 per cent of all mammals - have changed since they evolved around 50 million years ago. Few studies looking into factors affecting brain size in mammals have taken account ...

New Orleans, LA - A study led by Hui-Yi Lin, Ph.D., Professor of Biostatistics, and a team of researchers at LSU Health New Orleans Schools of Public Health and Medicine has found that adequate levels of five antioxidants may reduce infection with the strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) associated with cervical cancer development. Findings are published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Although previous studies have suggested that the onset of HPV-related cancer development may be activated by oxidative stress, the association had not been clearly understood. This study evaluated associations between 15 antioxidants and vaginal HPV infection status -- no, low-risk, and oncogenic/high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) -- in 11,070 women aged 18-59 who participated ...

In 2018, Pompeu Fabra University launched its Planetary Wellbeing initiative, a long-term institutional strategy spurred by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and based on the Planetary Health project promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation and The Lancet. Fifteen academics and public officials, led by the three directors of the initiative, Josep Maria Antó, scientific director of ISGlobal; Josep Lluís Martí, UPF vice-rector for innovation projects, and Jaume Casals, UPF rector, are the authors of an academic article published in the journal ...

Cancer is one of the top causes of death worldwide. The cancer burden is related not only to genetic predisposition, but also to environmental pollution and socioeconomic factors such as lifestyle. Consequently, the burden of this disease is not uniform across all countries. In fact, the public health of China, a country known for the rapid change in its development status in the last few decades, has undergone a paradigm shift with respect to cancer incidence and mortality. To better understand the cancer burden of the country, a team of researchers from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College reviewed the data of GLOBOCAN 2020, an online database of cancer incidence and mortality compiled by the International Agency for Research ...

Researchers at the Laboratory of Cluster Catalysis at St Petersburg University have synthesised polymers from biomass. What makes them different is that they can be easily recycled. Today, our life is simply unthinkable without polymers. Plastics, fibres, films, paint and lacquer coating - they are all polymers. We use them both in our everyday life and in industry. Yet the goods made from polymers, e.g. bottles, bags, or disposable tableware, are used just once or for a short period of time before they are thrown away. Due to the chemical compounds that they may release during recycling, they pose a real threat to our environment. There ...

Study: "Students Enrolled in Late-Start-Time Districts Report Higher Academic Achievement and Sleeping More" Authors: Julio Caesar (Bloomington Public Schools), Rik Lamm (University of Minnesota), Michael C. Rodriguez (University of Minnesota), David J. Heistad (Bloomington Public Schools) This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Annual Meeting. Session: Organizational Effects Examining Academic Achievement and Student Support Date/Time: Saturday, April 10, 2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. ET Main Finding: Later school start times are linked ...

Study: "Exploring the Association Between Student-College Match and Student Outcomes Over Time" Author: Amanda M. Cook (Northwestern University) This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. Session: Nuances and Challenges to Traditional Notions of College Success Date/Time: Saturday, April 10, 10:40 a.m. - 12:10 p.m. ET Main Findings: Over the past 20 years, bachelor's degree completion rates for students who overmatch (i.e., attend colleges that may appear too academically selective for them) have improved substantially. Over the same time period, bachelor's degree completion rates for students who undermatch (i.e., attend colleges that appear too academically unselective ...

Study: "Characterizing Remote Instruction Provided by Elementary School Teachers during School Closures due to COVID-19" Authors: Michael Hebert (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), J. Marc Goodrich (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Jessica M. Namkung (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. Session: Technology Supports and Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic Date/Time: Saturday, April 10, 10:40 a.m. - 11:40 a.m. ET Main Findings: While teachers in spring 2020 felt that 60 percent of their students were prepared for the next grade level, in ...

Study: "Do Students in Gifted Programs Perform Better? Linking Gifted Program Participants to Achievement and Nonachievement Outcomes" Authors: Christopher Redding (University of Florida), Jason A. Grissom (Vanderbilt University) This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. Session: On the Road to Equity: Studies of the Impact and Influences of Education Policy Date/Time: Saturday, April 10, 2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. ET Main Findings: Participating in elementary school gifted programs is associated with reading and math achievement for the average student, ...

There are many questions surrounding the elementary particle neutrino, in particular regarding its mass. Physicists are also interested in whether besides the "classic" neutrinos there are variants such as the so-called sterile neutrinos. The KATRIN experiment has now succeeded in strongly narrowing the search for these elusive particles. The publication appeared recently in the journal Physical Review Letters. Strictly speaking, the neutrino is not a singleparticle but rather comprises several species: the electron neutrino, the muon neutrino, and the tau neutrino. These particles are constantly transforming ...

A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institutes of Developmental Biology in Tübingen and the Max Planck Computing and Data Facility in Garching develops new search capabilities that will allow to compare the biochemical makeup of different species from across the tree of life. Its combination of accuracy and speed is hitherto unrivalled. Humans share many sequences of nucleotides that make up our genes with other species - with pigs in particular, but also with mice and even bananas. Accordingly, some proteins in our bodies - strings of amino acids assembled according to the blueprint of the genes - can also be the same as (or similar to) some proteins in other species. These similarities might sometimes indicate that two species ...

A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and the University of Bayreuth have created a novel tool that provides a real-time visualization of the growth-regulating hormone auxin in living plant cells. This new biosensor enables them to observe spatial and temporal redistribution dynamics of the plant hormone, for example in conjunction with changing environmental conditions. Auxin plays a central role in plant life. The hormone regulates various processes, from embryonic development to the formation of roots and the directional growth in response to light and gravity. Auxin binds to specific receptors in the nucleus of a cell, leading to an activation of signaling cascades that ...

Study: "The Infrastructure of Social Control: A Multi-Level Counterfactual Analysis of Surveillance, Punishment, Achievement, and Persistence" Authors: Odis Johnson (Johns Hopkins University), Jason F. Jabbari (Washington University in St. Louis) This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. Session: The School-to-Prison and Prison-to-School Pipelines: Studies of the Nexus of Schooling and the Justice System Date/Time: Sunday, April 11, 10:40 a.m. - 12:10 p.m. ET Main Findings: After controlling for levels of school social disorder and student misbehavior, students attending ...

New research by Yale Cancer Center shows insights into modeling resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors, a form of cancer immunotherapy. The study was presented today at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) virtual annual meeting. "Acquired resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors is a growing clinical challenge. About 50% of lung cancer patients who initially respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors eventually develop acquired resistance to these therapies," said Camila Robles-Oteiza, lead author of the study from Yale Cancer Center. ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Coastal communities face increasing danger from rising water and storms, but the level of risk will be more closely tied to policy decisions regarding development than the varying conditions associated with climate change, new research by Oregon State University suggests. The findings, published in the journal Water, provide an important framework for managing the interactions between human-made and natural systems in cities and towns along shorelines as the Earth continues to warm, the researchers said. Professor Peter Ruggiero of OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and John Bolte, chair of OSU's Biological and Ecological Engineering program, led the study, which employed a modeling platform known as ...

Groundbreaking research from Tel Aviv University may lead to a significant breakthrough in the battle against deadly brain cancer. To begin with, the researchers identified a failure in the brain's immune system, leading to the amplification of cell division and spread of Glioblastoma cancer cells. The failure results partially from the secretion of a protein called P-Selectin (SELP), which, when bound to its receptor on the brain immune cells, alters their function so that instead of inhibiting the spread of cancer cells, they do the opposite, enabling them to proliferate and penetrate brain tissues. At the next stage of the study, the researchers were able to inhibit the secretion of the SELP protein, thereby neutralizing the failure in the immune system, restoring its normal activity, ...

A comprehensive analysis of 80 scientific studies has identified a 'window of impairment' of between three and 10 hours caused by moderate to high doses of the intoxicating component of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The findings have implications for the application of drug-driving laws globally, researchers say. The study found the exact duration of impairment depends on the dose of THC, whether the THC is inhaled or taken orally, whether the cannabis user is regular or occasional and the demands of the task being undertaken while intoxicated. The study represents the first ...

The search for life on other planets has received a major boost after scientists revealed the spectral signatures of almost 1000 atmospheric molecules that may be involved in the production or consumption of phosphine, a study led by UNSW Sydney revealed. Scientists have long conjectured that phosphine - a chemical compound made of one phosphorous atom surrounded by three hydrogen atoms (PH3) - may indicate evidence of life if found in the atmospheres of small rocky planets like our own, where it is produced by the biological activity of bacteria. So when an international team of scientists last year claimed to ...

The economies of northern Central Asia rely heavily on agriculture and are particularly affected by changes in the local hydrological cycle. However, this region is one of the largest dryland regions in the Northern Hemisphere and is facing a crisis of water resources shortage in recent decades. One example is the rapid desiccation and salinization of the Aral Sea. While the construction of dams, diversion of waterways and wasting of water have been blamed for the shortage, how climate change has influenced regional water resources remains unknown. In a recently published research article in Geophysical Research Letters (drying trend over northern Central Asia), Jie Jiang and Tianjun Zhou from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese ...

Clouds play a key role in balancing incoming and outgoing solar and thermal radiation. This is a critical process in the earth-atmosphere system. Monitoring cloud height, particle size, particle concentration, etc. are integral to understanding climate dynamics and global climate change. These physical attributes determine the radiative forcing effect of a cloud, or how much incoming radiation that a cloud reflects back to space. Satellites and ground-based radar can measure the cloud top height (CTH). However, inconsistencies exist between various satellites and radar data due to different detection methods and algorithms used to process raw information. To quantify these conflicts, Bo Liu, jointly supervised by Dr. Juan Huo and Prof. Daren Lyu from Institute of Atmospheric ...

KAIST researchers have developed a novel nanofiber production technique called 'centrifugal multispinning' that will open the door for the safe and cost-effective mass production of high-performance polymer nanofibers. This new technique, which has shown up to a 300 times higher nanofiber production rate per hour than that of the conventional electrospinning method, has many potential applications including the development of face mask filters for coronavirus protection. Nanofibers make good face mask filters because their mechanical interactions with aerosol particles give them a greater ability ...