The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in preschool and school children is an important benchmark for deciding whether to open kindergartens and schools. The screening study "Fr1da" led by Anette-Gabriele Ziegler tests children in Bavaria for an early stage of type 1 diabetes. These tests include the collection of blood samples. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers had decided to use the valuable study infrastructure of the Fr1da study to detect SARS-CoV-2 infections, too. For this, they developed a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test with particularly high accuracy. During the first ...

The rainfall over the Yangtze River Valley (YRV) in June 2020 broke the record since 1979 (Figure 1). As of June 28, the People's Daily Online reported that there were more than 12 million people affected by flood disasters related to this torrential rain, with deaths or disappearances of 78 persons and a direct economic loss of more than 25 billion CNY. Recently, scientists from South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO), Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed the cause of the record-breaking rainfall over the YRV. According to their study published in Science China Earth Sciences on March 19, 2021, all three oceans of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) demonstrate an mRNA delivery system that effectively produces BDNF protein in rat brain to protect neurons from ischemia Tokyo - A lack of oxygen to brain tissue--known as ischemia--leads to the death of neurons, which results in stroke. Despite considerable research, there are currently no treatments that successfully prevent neuronal death. Now, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) researchers have reported a way of delivering mRNA to produce a therapeutic protein that protects neurons. Their findings, demonstrated in rats, ...

Cycling at moderate intensity during dialysis could drastically improve the heart health of patients with kidney failure and result in significant savings for the NHS, according to new research by the University of Leicester supported by the charity Kidney Research UK and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. Patients in the CYCLE-HD study were offered 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise on a specially adapted bicycle during their regular dialysis sessions. Dialysis can lead to long-term scarring of the heart, which can accumulate over time and lead to heart failure. The study set out to examine ...

Ensuring sustainability of crop and timber production would mitigate the greatest drivers of terrestrial wildlife decline, responsible for 40% of the overall extinction risk of amphibians, birds and mammals, according to a paper published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. These results were generated using a new metric which, for the first time, allows business, governments and civil society to assess their potential contributions to stemming global species loss, and can be used to calculate national, regional, sector-based, or institution-specific targets. The work was led by the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Post-2020 Taskforce, hosted by Newcastle ...

New Curtin University-led research has found climate change will have a substantial impact on global food production and health if no action is taken by consumers, food industries, government, and international bodies. Published in one of the highest-ranking public health journals, the Annual Review of Public Health, the researchers completed a comprehensive 12-month review of published literature on climate change, healthy diet and actions needed to improve nutrition and health around the world. Lead researcher John Curtin Distinguished Emeritus Professor Colin Binns, from the Curtin School of Population Health at Curtin University, said climate change has had a detrimental impact on health and food production for the past 50 years and far more needs to be ...

A Curtin University study has found the introduced European honeybee could lead to native bee population decline or extinction when colonies compete for the same nectar and pollen sources in urban gardens and areas of bush. Published in the 'Biological Journal of the Linnean Society', the research found competition between the native bees and the introduced European honeybee could be particularly intense in residential gardens dominated by non-native flowers, and occurred when the bees shared the same flower preferences. Under these conditions, it would appear that European honeybees, being very abundant, and effective foragers, with the ...

How can large amounts of data be transferred or processed as quickly as possible? One key to this could be graphene. The ultra-thin material is only one atomic layer thick, and the electrons it contains have very special properties due to quantum effects. It could therefore be very well suited for use in high-performance electronic components. Up to this point, however, there has been a lack of knowledge about how to suitably control certain properties of graphene. A new study by a team of scientists from Bielefeld and Berlin, together with researchers from other research institutes in Germany and Spain, is changing this. The team's findings have been published in the journal Science Advances. Consisting of carbon atoms, graphene is a material just one atom ...

As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread in France, a thorough characterization of hospital care needs and of the trajectories of hospital patients, as well as how they have changed over time, is essential to support planning. This led scientists from the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases Unit at the Institut Pasteur and the University of Cambridge to develop a probabilistic model that can be used to analyze detailed patient trajectories based on 198,846 hospitalizations in France during the first nine months of the pandemic (from March to No-vember 2020). These findings were published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe on March 20, 2021. This ...

Leesburg, VA, April 8, 2021--According to an open-access article in ARRS' American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), IV contrast-enhanced 2-millisievert CT (2-mSv CT) is comparable to conventional-dose CT (CDCT) for the diagnosis of right colonic diverticulitis. "By mitigating concern of missed diagnosis of right colonic diverticulitis, our results further support the use of low-dose CT for suspected appendicitis," wrote first author Hae Young Kim from the department of radiology at Korea's Seoul National University Bundang Hospital. "To our knowledge," Kim et al. maintained, "this is the first study to formally measure the diagnostic performance of CT for right colonic diverticulitis." Kim and colleagues' large pragmatic randomized controlled trial data included 3,074 patients ...

Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University have created a decision support system (DSS) for dispatching personnel of electric power systems (EPS). The system allows dispatchers to quickly test their actions on the management of the EPS, to control and evaluate their consequences using a digital simulator in a regime faster than real time. The article devoted to the research work is published in the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems (Q1, IF 6.074) academic journal, one of the most peer-reviewed journals in energy, energy technology, electrical engineering and electronics ...

Fabrication of 3D freeform structures of thermoplastics involving overhang (non-anchored) structures is successfully showcased by fused deposition modeling (FDM) and direct ink writing (DIW), yet limited in terms of applicable materials and conditions of printing. 3D printing of freeform structures requires support materials that enable printing of thermoplastics in non-anchored locations. In order to address the difficulty of freeform fabrication via extrusion-based printing, the use of microparticulate gels as embedding media has been widely explored. Such methods are collectively termed embedded 3D printing (e3DP). In these demonstrations, ...

Researchers from the University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa, University of British Columbia (UBC), San Diego State University (SDSU), and elsewhere have created 3D molecular maps of bacteria, viruses, and biochemicals across coral colonies along with their interacting organisms such as algae and other competing corals. This allowed the team to discover specific microbial and viral functions that appear to be key components of the coral microbiome. The study, published recently in Frontiers of Marine Science, used a novel combination of state-of-the-art molecular methods with cutting-edge 3D imaging techniques to create high-resolution molecular maps on coral reef organisms. Healthy coral reefs ...

Forecasts aren't just for the weather. Scientists can use weather radar and related technology to chart the journeys of billions of migratory birds, which can help protect these global travelers from a growing array of threats. In a new breakthrough on this front, a team led by Colorado State University used millions of observations from 143 weather surveillance radars to evaluate a forecasting system for nocturnal bird migration in the United States. Using these tools, the team discovered that a mere 10 nights of action are required to reduce risk to 50% of avian migrants passing over a ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., April 6, 2021--In the vast Colorado River basin, climate change is driving extreme, interconnected events among earth-system elements such as weather and water. These events are becoming both more frequent and more intense and are best studied together, rather than in isolation, according to new research. "We found that concurrent extreme hydroclimate events, such as high temperatures and unseasonable rain that quickly melt mountain snowpack to cause downstream floods, are projected to increase and intensify within several critical regions of the Colorado ...

Okazaki, Japan -mm dd, 2021--Many people with Parkinson's disease develop abnormal movements called L-DOPA induced dyskinesia, a major side effect of long-term medication. The mechanism underlying this side effect has been unknown. In this study, researchers have revealed relation between changes of neuronal activities and dyskinesia. Parkinson's disease (PD) is the common age-related neurological disorder affecting 7 - 10 million people worldwide. It is caused by loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain region called the substantia nigra, and induces difficulty in execution of movements (akinesia), muscle stiffness (rigidity), walking difficulty, tremorous hand movements ...

Details: According to a linguistic survey report, people often confuse the pronunciation of /hi/ with that of /si/ in the dialect of Tokyo and the Tohoku region of Japan. A team of researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology and the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) found that the confusion is resulted from the articulation of the tongue varying in the transverse direction while the tongue tip is positioned at the same place of articulation. The study was published online in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America on April 7, 2021. In the Japanese language, the consonant /s/ followed by vowel /i/ is distinct ...

Osaka, Japan - Catalysts are crucial to making industrial processes viable. However, many of the non-precious metal catalysts used for synthesis have low activity, are difficult to handle, and/or require harsh reaction conditions. Osaka University researchers have developed a single-crystal cobalt phosphide nanorod catalyst that overcomes several of the limitations of conventional cobalt catalysts. Their findings were published in JACS Au. Reductive amination is an important chemical reaction that is used to convert carbonyl compounds into amines. It is a key step in the production of many materials such as polymers, dyes, and pharmaceuticals, and is attractive because the reagents are cost effective and widely available, ...

An adaptive cognitive training program could help treat attention and working memory difficulties in children with sickle cell disease (SCD), a new study published in the of Journal of Pediatric Psychology shows. These neurocognitive difficulties have practical implications for the 100,000 individuals in the U.S. with SCD, as 20-40% of youth with SCD repeat a grade in school and fewer than half of adults with SCD are employed. Interventions to prevent and treat neurocognitive difficulties caused by SCD have the potential to significantly improve academic outcomes, vocational attainment and quality of life. The study, led by Steven Hardy, Ph.D., director of Psychology and Patient Care Services at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's ...

Extremely structured electromagnetic pulse carries not only the ultimate human dream of ultra-fast and ultra-intense energy extraction but also numerous extraordinary fundamental physical effects. As a traditional viewpoint, Electromagnetic pulses are typically treated as space-time (or space-frequency) separable solutions of Maxwell's equations, where spatial and temporal (spectral) dependence can be treated separately. However, recent advances in structured light and topological optics have highlighted the nontrivial wave-matter interactions of pulses with complex space-time separability (STNS), as well as their potential for energy and information transfer. Recently, a research ...

Stem cell research has allowed medicine to go places that were once science fiction. Using stem cells, scientists have manufactured heart cells, brain cells and other cell types that they are now transplanting into patients as a form of cell therapy. Eventually, the field anticipates the same will be possible with organs. A new paper written by a group of international researchers led by Tsutomu Sawai, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi) and the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), explains the future ethical implications of this research ...

Travel and economic slowdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic combined to put the brakes on shipping, seafloor exploration, and many other human activities in the ocean, creating a unique moment to begin a time-series study of the impacts of sound on marine life. A community of scientists has identified more than 200 non-military ocean hydrophones worldwide and hopes to make the most of the unprecedented opportunity to pool their recorded data into the 2020 quiet ocean assessment and to help monitor the ocean soundscape long into the future. They aim for a total of 500 hydrophones capturing the signals of whales and other marine life while assessing the racket levels of human activity. ...

Animals are remarkably diverse in their sleep and activity patterns due to foraging strategies, social behavior and their desire to avoid predators. With more than 3,000 types of cichlids, these freshwater fish may just be one of the most diverse species in the world. Lake Malawi alone, which stretches 350 miles through eastern Africa, is home to more than 500 cichlid species. They evolved from a few species that likely entered the lake about 3 million years ago and now display very different behaviors and inhabit well-defined niches throughout ...

Scientists are reporting results of the first frontline clinical trial to use targeted therapy to treat high-risk pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma. The study showed that the addition of brentuximab vedotin achieved excellent outcomes, reduced side effects, and allowed for reduced radiation exposures. The study was the result of work by a multi-site consortium dedicated to pediatric Hodgkin-lymphoma. Collaborating institutions include St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Stanford University School of Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Maine Children's Cancer Program and OSF Children's Hospital of Illinois. A paper detailing the findings was published today in ...

The Mfd protein repairs bacterial DNA, but can also, to scientists' surprise, promote mutation. Bacterial mutations can lead to antibiotic resistance. Understanding this second "role" of the Mfd protein opens up opportunities for combating antibiotic resistance, and also the resistance of tumours to anti-cancer drugs and therapies. Using a specialized protein, all bacteria are capable of rapidly and effectively repairing damage to their DNA from UV. However, this mutation frequency decline (Mfd) protein plays another role and causes mutations. A team involving ...