Overview: A research team at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology developed a nanosecond pulse laser-assisted photoporation method using titanium-oxide nanotubes (TNTs) for highly efficient and low-cost intracellular delivery. The proof of concept for the possibility of intracellular delivery after irradiation with nanosecond pulse laser on TNTs was validated. TNTs were formed on titanium sheets using the electrochemical anodization technique at different voltages and times. HeLa - human cervical cancer cells were cultured in the nanotubes and submerged in a solution of biomolecules. After cells were exposed to nanosecond pulse laser, we successfully delivered ...

There isn't much in Kamchatka, a remote peninsula in northeastern Russia just across the Bering Sea from Alaska, besides an impressive population of brown bears and the most explosive volcano in the world. Kamchatka's Shiveluch volcano has had more than 40 violent eruptions over the last 10,000 years. The last gigantic blast occurred in 1964, creating a new crater and covering an area of nearly 100 square kilometers with pyroclastic flows. But Shiveluch is actually currently erupting, as it has been for over 20 years. So why would anyone risk venturing too close? Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, including Michael Krawczynski, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences and graduate student ...

Abusive bosses may retain their positions by taking superficial steps to repair their social images following outbursts, without acting meaningfully to change their behaviors, according to research led by a University of Wyoming business management expert. Shawn McClean, an assistant professor in UW's College of Business, joined colleagues from the University of Iowa, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Texas A&M University in conducting the research, which appears in the journal Personnel Psychology. Their study also was featured in Harvard Business Review, a preeminent business magazine. "Our study shows that supervisors are often driven by simply repairing their social image rather than ...

Male breast cancer patients were found to have a high prevalence of cardiovascular conditions, in a small study of this rare patient population presented at the American College of Cardiology's Advancing the Cardiovascular Care of the Oncology Patient Virtual course. "Due to the rarity of male breast cancer, there is no cardiovascular data from larger clinical trials or population studies. The lack of large data makes it even more important to individualize cardiovascular assessment and management based on each patient's unique oncologic, therapeutic and pre-existing cardiovascular risk profile to support them through cancer treatment into survivorship," said Michael Ibrahim, fourth year ...

PHILADELPHIA, PA - January 25, 2021 - Opertech Bio, Inc., today announced the publication of a seminal research article describing the application of its pioneering TāStation® technology to the pharmacological characterization of human taste discrimination. The findings are published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, JPET. The paper, entitled "Rapid throughput concentration-response analysis of human taste discrimination," is the first to quantitatively define the concentration-response function for human taste discrimination, a crucial step in understanding ...

In a study of local rivers, experts at the University of Nottingham in the UK have discovered more invertebrates - animals without a backbone, such as insects and snails - living on litter than on rocks. In urban rivers where there are no better alternatives, litter provided the largest, most stable and complex habitat available for invertebrates to live on. The findings could have important implications for the management of urban rivers, including how river clean-up events are conducted. The research team, in the School of Geography, studied three local rivers; the River Leen, Black Brook, and Saffron Brook, in ...

DISCOVERY BRIEF: The first new skull of a rare species of the dinosaur Parasaurolophus (recognized by the large hollow tube that grows on its head) discovered in 97 years. Exquisite preservation of the new skull gives paleontologists their first opportunity to definitively identify how such a bizarre structure grew on this dinosaur. For the first time, this study found characteristics to link tube-crested dinosaur species found in southern North America (New Mexico, Utah), distinct from the only northern species (Alberta). The locality, in northwestern New Mexico, is dated to about 75 million years ago, a time when North America was divided by a shallow sea and teemed with duckbilled dinosaurs, horned dinosaurs and early tyrannosaurs. Fossils from ...

The cover for issue 2 of Oncotarget features Figure 4, "Combination therapy TA99/ICB reduced the lung tumor burden in the B16 model of metastases," published in "Improved therapeutic efficacy of unmodified anti-tumor antibodies by immune checkpoint blockade and kinase targeted therapy in mouse models of melanoma" by Pérez-Lorenzo, et al. which reported that here, the authors showed that removing immune suppression and enhancing stimulatory signals increased the anti-tumor activity of unmodified TA99 antibodies with a significant reduction of ...

The cover for issue 1 of Oncotarget features Figure 2, "Results in clinical trials," published in "Drug resistant cells with very large proliferative potential grow exponentially in metastatic prostate cancer" by Blagoev, et al. which reported that most metastatic cancers develop drug resistance during treatment and continue to grow, driven by a subpopulation of cancer cells unresponsive to the therapy being administered. There is evidence that metastases are formed by phenotypically plastic cancer cells with stem-cell-like properties. Currently, the population structure and growth dynamics ...

The cover for issue 52 of Oncotarget features Figure 1, "Volcano plots of DNA methylation in tumor tissues compared with nontumor tissue," published in "Reduction of T-Box 15 gene expression in tumor tissue is a prognostic biomarker for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma" by Morine, et al. which reported that the authors conducted a genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation of the tumor and non-tumor tissue of 15 patients with Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and revealed TBX15 was the most hypermethylated gene of the tumor. Another validation set, which comprised 58 HCC with radical resection, was analyzed to investigate the relationships between tumor phenotype and TBX15 mRNA expression. TBX15 mRNA levels in tumor tissues were significantly lower compared ...

Aging-US Issue 1 Volume 13 features "PAM (PIK3/AKT/mTOR) signaling in glia: potential contributions to brain tumors in aging" which reported that despite a growing proportion of aged individuals at risk for developing cancer in the brain, the prognosis for these conditions remains abnormally poor due to limited knowledge of underlying mechanisms and minimal treatment options. While cancer metabolism in other organs is commonly associated with upregulated glycolysis and hyperactivation of PIK3/AKT/mTOR pathways, the unique bioenergetic demands of the central nervous system ...

Aging-US published "Neuroprotective effects and mechanisms of action of nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) in a photoreceptor degenerative model of retinal detachment" which reported that here, the authors investigated nicotinamide mononucleotide, a precursor of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, in a retinal detachment induced photoreceptor degeneration. NMN administration after RD resulted in a significant reduction of TUNEL photoreceptors, CD11b macrophages, and GFAP labeled glial activation; a normalization of protein carbonyl content, and a preservation of the outer nuclear layer thickness. NMN administration significantly increased NAD levels, SIRT1 protein expression, and heme oxygenase-1 expression. Delayed NMN administration still exerted protective effects after RD. This ...

A nuclear war could trigger an unprecedented El Niño-like warming episode in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, slashing algal populations by 40 percent and likely lowering the fish catch, according to a Rutgers-led study. The research, published in the journal END ...

DALLAS, Jan. 25, 2021 -- Psychological health can positively or negatively impact a person's health and risk factors for heart disease and stroke, according to "Psychological Health, Well-Being, and the Mind-Heart-Body Connection," a new American Heart Association Scientific Statement, published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation. The statement evaluates the relationship between psychological health and heart health, summarizing ways to help improve psychological health for people with and at risk for heart disease. "A person's mind, heart and body are all interconnected and interdependent in what can be termed 'the mind-heart-body-connection,'" said Glenn N. Levine, M.D., FAHA, master clinician and professor of medicine at ...

DALLAS, Jan. 25, 2021 -- The continued global burden of stroke and how it disproportionately affects women are highlighted in new science published online today in the February issue of Stroke, a journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association. Stroke editors selected nine manuscripts focused on stroke disparities in women in this collaboration with Go Red for Women®, the Association's global movement to end heart disease and stroke in women. "Stroke continues to be a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, with women being more adversely affected by the global burden of stroke," said Stroke Editor-In-Chief Ralph L. Sacco, M.D., M.S., FAHA, ...

Scientists have identified a key nutrient source used by algae living on melting ice surfaces linked to rising sea levels. The Greenland ice sheet - the second largest ice body in the world after the Antarctic ice sheet - covers almost 80% of the surface of Greenland. Over the last 25 years, surface melting and water runoff from the ice sheet has increased by about 40%. The international research team, led by the University of Leeds, analysed samples from the southwestern margin on Greenland's 1.7 million km² ice sheet over two years. They discovered that phosphorus containing minerals may be driving ever-larger algal blooms on the Greenland Ice Sheet. As the algal blooms grow they darken the ice surface, decreasing albedo - ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - An international team of researchers led by Michigan State University's Morteza Mahmoudi has developed a new method to better understand how nanomedicines -- emerging diagnostics and therapies that are very small yet very intricate -- interact with patients' biomolecules. Medicines based on nanoscopic particles have the promise to be more effective than current therapies while reducing side effects. But subtle complexities have confined most of these particles to research labs and out of clinical use, said Mahmoudi, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiology and the Precision Health Program. "There's been a considerable investment of taxpayer money in cancer nanomedicine research, but that research hasn't successfully translated ...

Even before public announcements of the first cases of COVID-19 in Europe were made, at the end of January 2020, signals that something strange was happening were already circulating on social media. A new study of researchers at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, published in END ...

The rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet is speeding up, according to new research. And the findings also reveal that the Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017 - equivalent to a sheet of ice 100 metres thick covering the whole of the UK. The figures have been published today (Monday, 25 January) by a research team which is the first to carry out a survey of global ice loss using satellite data. The team, led by the University of Leeds, found that the rate of ice loss from the Earth has increased markedly within the past three decades, from 0.8 trillion tons per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tons per year by 2017. Ice melt across the globe ...

Female childhood cancer survivors face a lower likelihood of becoming pregnant than women in the general population, but once pregnant, they are not more likely to undergo an abortion. The findings come from a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Cancer survivors might be reluctant to start a family due to concerns for their children's health as well as the potential recurrence of their own cancer. This could lead to a greater likelihood of induced abortions in female survivors who become pregnant. To examine whether pregnancies of childhood cancer survivors are more likely to end with ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. (January 25, 2021) - Immediately after a traumatic brain injury and as long as one year later, there are increased levels of immune cells called ILCs in the brain promoting inflammation, which can worsen brain damage, scientists report. They also report for the first time that the cell energy sensor AMPK is a brake that can stop what becomes a chronic state of destructive inflammation driven by these ILCs, or innate lymphoid cells. "We think ILCs are kind of a master regulator of all that inflammation happening within the brain," says Dr. Krishnan Dhandapani, neuroscientist in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. "It's like the ...

These results were published in the prestigious journal ChemSusChem and thanks to the remarkable reviews, the paper was ranked among the top five percent publications in the field, thus earning a Very Important Paper (VIP) status. Furthermore, the editorial board featured this study on its cover. Plastic pollution has become one of the most complex environmental issues, especially in the context of increasing production and demand for plastic materials. While innovations in polymer chemistry have radically changed our lives in the mid-20th century, the outstanding properties of plastics such as durability, chemical stability, strength and many other pose a serious problem ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Man's best friend might actually belong to a woman. In a cross-cultural analysis, Washington State University researchers found several factors may have played a role in building the mutually beneficial relationship between humans and dogs, including temperature, hunting and surprisingly - gender. "We found that dogs' relationships with women might have had a greater impact on the dog-human bond than relationships with men," said Jaime Chambers, a WSU anthropology Ph.D. student and first author on the paper published in the Journal of Ethnobiology. "Humans were more likely to regard dogs as a type of person if the dogs had a special ...

Arctic sea ice is rapidly diminishing due to global warming, and scientists have found that sea ice dynamics have a big impact on circulation and precipitation patterns in Arctic Alaska, which lies at a climatological crossroads between the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans. Recent studies--most of which focus on current trends in the region and on what will happen in the future--have shown that circulation patterns in the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans influence one another. Doctoral candidate Ellie Broadman of Northern Arizona University's School of Earth and Sustainability wanted to learn about this relationship on a longer timescale, so she developed and led a ...

A group of scientists is calling on governments to consider the continued use of strict control measures as the only way to reduce the evolution and spread of new COVID-19 variants. The experts in evolution, virology, infectious disease and genomics - at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Earlham Institute and University of Minnesota - warn that while governments are negotiating a "precarious balance" between saving the economy and preventing COVID-19 fatalities, stronger action now is the best way to mitigate against more serious outcomes from such virulent strains later. While COVID-19 vaccine deployment is now underway, a threat to vaccine effectiveness comes from other emerging strains, both existing - such as the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants ...