Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Francis Crick Institute have developed a mass spectrometry-based technique capable of measuring samples containing thousands of proteins within just a few minutes. It is faster and cheaper than a conventional blood count. To demonstrate the technique's potential, the researchers used blood plasma collected from COVID-19 patients. Using the new technology, they identified eleven previously unknown proteins which are markers of disease severity. The work has been published in Nature Biotechnology*. Thousands of proteins are active inside the human body at any given time, providing its structure and enabling reactions which are essential to life. The body raises and lowers the activity ...

Expectant women are more likely to give birth early if they have high blood levels of a chemical used in flame retardants compared with those who have limited exposure, a new study finds. These polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are used in the manufacture of furniture, carpeting, and other products to reduce flammability. Previous studies have found that the substances can leach into household dust and build up in the body where they may interfere with the thyroid, an organ that secretes brain-developing hormones. Childhood exposure to PBDEs has been linked to learning disabilities, autistic ...

Millions of years ago, aphid-like insects called whiteflies incorporated a portion of DNA from plants into their genome. A Chinese research team, publishing March 25th in the journal Cell, reveals that whiteflies use this stolen gene to degrade common toxins plants use to defend themselves against insects, allowing the whitefly to feed on the plants safely. "This seems to be the first recorded example of the horizontal gene transfer of a functional gene from a plant into an insect," says co-author Ted Turlings (@FARCE_lab), a chemical ecologist and entomologist ...

Octopuses are known to sleep and to change color while they do it. Now, a study publishing March 25 in the journal iScience finds that these color changes are characteristic of two major alternating sleep states: an "active sleep" stage and a "quiet sleep" stage. The researchers say that the findings have implications for the evolution of sleep and might indicate that it's possible for octopuses to experience something akin to dreams. Scientists used to think that only mammals and birds had two sleep states. More recently, it was shown that some reptiles also show non-REM and REM sleep. A REM-like sleep state was reported ...

More than half of the opioid tablets prescribed for patients who underwent orthopaedic or urologic procedures went unused in a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Using an automated text messaging system that regularly checked in with patients on their pain and opioid use, the study also showed that most opioids are taken within the first few days following a procedure and may not be necessary to manage pain even just a week following a procedure. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open. "Through simple text messaging we highlight a method which gives clinicians the information they need to reduce prescribing and manage ...

BOSTON - In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have found the new mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to be highly effective in producing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in pregnant and lactating women. They also demonstrated the vaccines confer protective immunity to newborns through breastmilk and the placenta. The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG), looked at 131 women of reproductive age (84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant), ...

Chronic side effects among melanoma survivors after treatment with anti-PD-1 immunotherapies are more common than previously recognized, according to a study published March 25 in JAMA Oncology. The chronic complications, which occurred in 43% of patients, affected the joints and endocrine system most commonly, and less often involved salivary glands, eyes, peripheral nerves and other organs. These complications may be long lasting, with only 14% of cases having been resolved at last follow-up. This finding contrasted with previously reported immunotherapy-related acute complications that affected visceral organs -- including the liver, colon, lungs and kidneys -- which were effectively treated with steroids. However, the vast ...

Pregnant women who consumed the caffeine equivalent of as little as half a cup of coffee a day on average had slightly smaller babies than pregnant women who did not consume caffeinated beverages, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The researchers found corresponding reductions in size and lean body mass for infants whose mothers consumed below the 200 milligrams of caffeine per day--about two cups of coffee--believed to increase risks to the fetus. Smaller birth size can place infants at higher risk of obesity, heart ...

Scientists at the Proteomics Core Unit of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), headed by Javier Muñoz, have described the mechanisms, unknown to date, involved in maintaining embryonic stem cells in the best possible state for their use in regenerative medicine. Their results, published in Nature Communications, will help to find novel stem-cell therapies for brain stroke, heart disease or neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. Naïve pluripotent stem cells, ideal for doing research Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent cells that can grow ...

Quantum holds the promise of increasing the power of sensing technologies. While the field of quantum sensing has shown a lot of potential for detecting very small signals, the ability to truly optimize these sensors has been thwarted by the complexity of control schemes. In a paper published on March 25 in Nature Partner Journals - Quantum Information, a research team based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, explained how they applied two theoretical tools of quantum information to these types of extremely sensitive signal detection tasks. Their research suggests that honing this sensitivity to detect signals while rejecting background noise will enable the use of quantum ...

HOUSTON - (March 25, 2021) - One of nature's most prolific cannibals could be hiding in your pantry, and biologists have used it to show how social structure affects the evolution of selfish behavior. Researchers revealed that less selfish behavior evolved under living conditions that forced individuals to interact more frequently with siblings. While the finding was verified with insect experiments, Rice University biologist Volker Rudolf said the evolutionary principal could be applied to study any species, including humans. In a study published online this week in Ecology Letters, Rudolf, longtime collaborator Mike Boots of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues showed they could drive the evolution of cannibalism in ...

An 'astonishing' deficit of data about how the global boom in educational technology could help pupils with disabilities in low and middle-income countries has been highlighted in a new report. Despite widespread optimism that educational technology, or 'EdTech', can help to level the playing field for young people with disabilities, the study found a significant shortage of evidence about which innovations are best-positioned to help which children, and why; specifically in low-income contexts. The review also found that many teachers lack training on how to use new technology, or are reluctant to do so. The ...

Fish oil supplements are a billion-dollar industry built on a foundation of purported, but not proven, health benefits. Now, new research from a team led by a University of Georgia scientist indicates that taking fish oil only provides health benefits if you have the right genetic makeup. The study, led by Kaixiong Ye and published in PLOS Genetics, focused on fish oil (and the omega-3 fatty acids it contains) and its effect on triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood and a biomarker for cardiovascular disease. "We've known for a few decades that a higher level of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood is associated with a lower risk of heart disease," said Ye, assistant professor ...

Cholinesterase inhibitors are a group of drugs recommended for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, but their effects on cognition have been debated and few studies have investigated their long-term effects. A new study involving researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in the journal Neurology shows persisting cognitive benefits and reduced mortality for up to five years after diagnosis. Alzheimer's disease is a cognitive brain disease that affects millions of patients around the world. Some 100,000 people in Sweden live with the diagnosis, which has a profound impact on the lives of both them and their families. Most of those who receive a diagnosis are over 65, but there are some patients ...

Influenza vaccines need to be evaluated every year to ensure they remain effective against new influenza viruses. Will the same apply to COVID-19 vaccines? In order to gauge whether and to what extent this may be necessary, a team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin compared the evolution of endemic 'common cold' coronaviruses with that of influenza viruses. The researchers predict that, while the pandemic is ongoing, vaccines will need to undergo regular updates. A few years into the post-pandemic period, however, vaccines ...

Alzheimer's disease seems to progress faster in women than in men. The protein tau accumulates at a higher rate in women, according to research from Lund University in Sweden. The study was recently published in Brain. Over 30 million people suffer from Alzheimer's disease worldwide, making it the most common form of dementia. Tau and beta-amyloid are two proteins known to aggregate and accumulate in the brain in patients with Alzheimer's. The first protein to aggregate in Alzheimer's is beta-amyloid. Men and women are equally affected by the first disease stages, and the analysis did not show any differences in the accumulation of ...

How different are men and women's brains? The question has been explored for decades, but a new study led by Rosalind Franklin University neuroscientist END ...

GALVESTON, Texas - A new study conducted at the Galveston National Laboratory at the The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) has shown substantial benefit to combining monoclonal antibodies and the antiviral remdesivir against advanced Marburg virus. The study was published today in Nature Communications. "Marburg is a highly virulent disease in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola. In Africa, patients often arrive to a physician very ill. It was important to test whether a combination of therapies would work better with really sick people, said Tom Geisbert, a professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UTMB and the principal investigator ...

TROY, N.Y. -- Outsourcing routine tasks, like payroll, customer service, and accounting, offers well-known benefits to businesses and contributes to an economy in which entrepreneurial vendors can support industry and expand employment. However, new research from the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute discovered that not all client-vendor relationships are beneficial for the vendors. "It's important to observe and study both sides of a business relationship," said T. Ravichandran, a chaired professor of information systems in Lally and an author of a new study published in Information Systems Frontiers. "For businesses to thrive, they need a vibrant vendor community that will support ...

The ocean's mammals are at a crucial crossroads - with some at risk of extinction and others showing signs of recovery, researchers say. In a detailed review of the status of the world's 126 marine mammal species - which include whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, manatees, dugongs, sea otters and polar bears - scientists found that accidental capture by fisheries (bycatch), climate change and pollution are among the key drivers of decline. A quarter of these species are now classified as being at risk of extinction (vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered on the IUCN Red List), with the near-extinct vaquita porpoise and the critically endangered North Atlantic ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a new microscopy technique that can acquire 3D super-resolution images of subcellular structures from about 100 microns deep inside biological tissue, including the brain. By giving scientists a deeper view into the brain, the method could help reveal subtle changes that occur in neurons over time, during learning, or as result of disease. The new approach is an extension of stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, a breakthrough technique that achieves nanoscale resolution by overcoming the traditional diffraction limit of optical microscopes. Stefan Hell won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing this super-resolution imaging technique. In Optica, The ...

Serotonin, or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), is a kind of neurotransmitter. 5-HT can regulate multifaceted physiological functions such as mood, cognition, learning, memory, and emotions through 5-HT receptors. 5-HT receptors are a type of G protein-coupled receptor and can be divided into 12 subtypes in humans. As drug targets, they play a vital role in the treatment of schizophrenia, depression, and migraine. However, the structural and functional mechanisms of 5-HT receptors have been largely unknown. In a study published in Nature on March 24, Prof. H. Eric XU and Prof. JIANG Yi from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM) of the Chinese Academy of ...

Their study has shown that these malignant melanoma vesicles produced by CSCs have a different molecular composition from that of differentiated tumour cells. These molecules were also found to be detectable in exosomes present in the blood, and they presented differences in patients with malignant melanoma compared to healthy individuals. This makes them potentially suitable as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of this disease. The results have been published in the prestigious scientific journal Molecular Oncology. Malignant melanoma is one of the most aggressive types of skin cancer and its prevalence has been increasing worldwide in recent years. Among the factors that contribute to the life-threatening nature and ...

Dr. Rosario González-Férez, a researcher at the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics and the "Carlos I" Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics of the University of Granada, has published the article "Ultralong-Range Rydberg Bi-molecules" in the prestigious scientific journal Physical Review Letters. The results of the study show a new type of bi-molecule formed from two nitric oxide (NO) molecules, both in their ground state and in the Rydberg electronic state. The work was made possible thanks to the scientific collaboration between the researcher and the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular ...

The novel label-free assay uses unconventional L and inverse-L shaped pillars of deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) microfluidic technology to quantify and profile immune states of white blood cells (WBCs) by assessing biophysical properties of size, deformation, distribution, and cell count The assay requires only 20 microlitres (μl) of unprocessed blood and takes just 15 minutes - much faster than existing methods which require up to 15 millilitres (ml) of blood and take at least a few hours to produce results This new technology measures and profiles the often volatile host immune response, resulting in a more accurate assessment of patient pathophysiology Current methods for early diagnosis of infection focus on ...