Imbued with special electric, mechanical and other physical properties due to their tiny size, nanofibers are considered leading-edge technology in biomedical engineering, clean energy and water quality control, among others. Now, researchers in Italy and UK have developed an automatic process to assess nanofiber fabrication quality, producing 30% more accurate results than currently used techniques. Details were published on January 2021 in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, a joint publication of the IEEE and the Chinese Association of Automation. "In recent years, nanostructured materials have gained continuously growing interest both in scientific and industrial contexts, because of their research appeal and versatile applications," ...

SMN or in full Survival Motor Neuron: Professor Utz Fischer has been analyzing this protein and the large molecular complex of the same name, of which SMN is one of the building blocks, for many years. He holds the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the Julius-Maximilian's University of Würzburg (JMU), and he first discovered the molecule during his search for the root cause of spinal muscular atrophy. As scientists found out a few years ago, this disease is caused by a lack of the SNM complex. The work group around Prof. Fischer has now succeeded in presenting a first three-dimensional model of the ...

In a ground-breaking first, researchers have fabricated 3D scaffold implants containing antibiotics at high temperatures. These scaffolds not only support bone regeneration but manage the bone infections that can arise as a result of injury or surgery. Each year, around 4 million people worldwide develop bone infection following an open fracture or surgery. The gold standard treatment consists of a lengthy antibiotic therapy, usually delivered orally or Intravenously, and the removal of infected bone tissue, which often leaves behind a hole too large for the body to fill via normal bone regeneration. In a study published in the KeAi journal Bioactive Materials, a group of researchers from the Netherlands, Italy and Spain, outline a new treatment ...

A genetic variation that regulates iron metabolism may enhance athletes' endurance performance, researchers at the University of Toronto have shown. The findings could help explain studies that show an association between the genetic variation and elite athletes across many sports, and may help competitive athletes fine-tune their iron intake to boost performance. The variation, found in the homeostatic iron regulator (HFE) gene, is a known cause of iron overload, a condition called hemochromatosis in which the body absorbs too much iron leading to organ and joint damage. Athletes at risk for hemochromatosis but with iron stores below potentially toxic levels could have ...

Bacteria plucked from a desert plant could help crops survive heatwaves and protect the future of food. Global warming has increased the number of severe heatwaves that wreak havoc on agriculture, reduce crop yields and threaten food supplies. However, not all plants perish in extreme heat. Some have natural heat tolerance, while others acquire heat tolerance after previous exposure to higher temperatures than normal, similar to how vaccines trigger the immune system with a tiny dose of virus. But breeding heat tolerant crops is laborious and expensive, and slightly warming entire fields is even trickier. There is growing interest in harnessing microbes to protect plants, and biologists have shown that root-dwelling bacteria can help their herbaceous ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) identify biomaterials that can be used to modulate liver immune cell behavior Tokyo, Japan - Biomaterials are substances, natural or manmade, that are used in medicine to interact with the human body for various purposes, such as wound healing and tissue regeneration. Previous work on biomaterials has shown that they can affect cells in many ways, including how they grow, move, and the type of cell they develop into. Scientists have recently begun investigating biomaterials with properties that can be fine-tuned to optimize their use in regenerative ...

Usually scaled, the skin of fish can also be naked or made up of bony plates that form an armour, sometimes even covered with teeth. But how has this skin evolved over the ages? To answer this question, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have reconstructed the evolution of the protective skin structures in fish, going back to the common ancestor of ray-finned fish, more than 420 million years ago. They found that only fish that had lost their scales were able to develop a bony armour, and that the protective state of their skin influenced their choice of open water or sea floor habitats. This study, published in the journal Evolution Letters, provides a new explanation for the incredible ...

In spring 2020, when the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit Finland, older adults drastically reduced their out-of-home activities. During the period of government restrictions, physical exercise was the most common reason to leave home, a recent study at the University of Jyväskylä Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences finds. "In spring 2020, it was feared that the closure of many activity destinations and the recommendations to avoid close contact with persons from other households put in place by the government would decrease physical activity levels, and thus, negatively affect older adults' physical functional capacity," Senior ...

The tiger shark is one of the largest predatory sharks known today. This shark is a cosmopolitan species occurring in all oceans worldwide. It is characterized by a striped pattern on its back, which is well marked in juveniles but usually fades in adults. The fossil history of modern sharks reaches back to the Permian, about 295 million years ago. Complete fossil shark skeletons are very rare - the skeleton, which consists almost entirely of cartilage, is only preserved under very special circumstances during the fossilization processes. Due to the lifelong continuous tooth replacement, most extinct sharks are therefore only known by their well-mineralized teeth, which, nonetheless, can provide deep insights into their evolutionary history. The ...

Heavy elements known as the actinides are important materials for medicine, energy, and national defense. But even though the first actinides were discovered by scientists at Berkeley Lab more than 50 years ago, we still don't know much about their chemical properties because only small amounts of these highly radioactive elements (or isotopes) are produced every year; they're expensive; and their radioactivity makes them challenging to handle and store safely. But those massive hurdles to actinide research may one day be a thing of the past. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley have demonstrated how a world-leading ...

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a pathological condition characterized by excessive fat stored in the liver that is not attributed to heavy alcohol consumption, which can lead to liver failure and even cancer. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol levels are all risk factors for this disease, and like the global prevalence of obesity, the prevalence of NAFLD is coincidently expected to rise as well. It is therefore critical for clinicians to handle effective tools for diagnosing NAFLD. The current standard method for diagnosis is analysis of liver biopsy ...

Researchers led by TMDU fabricate a material that will aid bone healing, help medical practitioners clearly assess the full damage to bones after an injury, and clarify probable patient outcomes Tokyo, Japan - Bone repair wasn't generally successful until the late 1800s. Until then, there were few options to repair major bone damage. Most materials don't have the functionality of bone and don't support blood vessels growing through them. Repair materials such as clay were commonly used yet often failed. In 1892, medical practitioners started using gypsum--calcium ...

Tobacco smoke-exposed children utilize emergency and urgent care services more often than unexposed children, which contributes to a large toll on the nation's health care system, says research led by the University of Cincinnati. The study, recently published in the journal PLOS ONE, concluded: · Children who are exposed to tobacco smoke have higher pediatric emergency department visit costs compared to unexposed children. · A higher number of tobacco smoke-exposed children had an urgent care visit over a one-year period compared to unexposed children. · Tobacco smoke-exposed children had nearly twice the risk of being admitted to the hospital over a one-year period compared to unexposed children. ...

Floating solar farms could help to protect lakes and reservoirs from some of the harms of climate change, a new study suggests. However, given the complex nature of water bodies and differing designs of solar technologies, there could also be detrimental ecosystem impacts of deploying floating solar arrays. Conventional solar farms are controversial due to the amount of land they take up. This is leading to increasing interest in floating solar farms - making use of the additional space that bodies of water provide. So far, there are three commercial-size floating solar arrays in the UK, and hundreds more across the world. The number of installations is likely to grow significantly in coming decades as demand rises for renewable energy sources with more countries committing ...

For scientists, especially graduate students, who conduct fieldwork, every day is precious. Researchers meticulously prepare their equipment, procedures and timelines to make sure they get the data they need to do good science. So you can imagine the collective anxiety that fell across academia in spring 2020 when COVID-19 struck and many universities suspended in-person activities, including fieldwork. But for Austin Green, a doctoral student in the School of Biological Sciences and 2019 recipient of a National Geographic Society Early Career Grant, who studies the wildlife that lives in the canyons of the Wasatch Front, that anxiety was tempered by the knowledge that pandemic or no pandemic, his network of automated ...

The largest flightless bird ever to live weighed in up to 600kg and had a whopping head about half a metre long - but its brain was squeezed for space. Dromornis stirtoni, the largest of the 'mihirungs' (an Aboriginal word for 'giant bird'), stood up to 3m high and had a cranium wider and higher than it was long due to a powerful big beak, leading Australian palaeontologists to look inside its brain space to see how it worked. The new study, just published in the journal Diversity, examined the brains of the extinct giant mihirungs or dromornithid birds that were a distinctive part of the Australian fauna for many millions of years, before going extinct around 50,000 ...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have grown accustomed to wearing facemasks, but many coverings are fragile and not easily disinfected. Metal foams are durable, and their small pores and large surface areas suggest they could effectively filter out microbes. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Nano Letters have transformed copper nanowires into metal foams that could be used in facemasks and air filtration systems. The foams filter efficiently, decontaminate easily for reuse and are recyclable. When a person with a respiratory infection, such ...

Nature produces a startling array of patterned materials, from the sensitive ridges on a person's fingertip to a cheetah's camouflaging spots. Although nature's patterns arise spontaneously during development, creating patterns on synthetic materials is more laborious. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have found an easy way to make patterned materials having complex microstructures with variations in mechanical, thermal and optical properties -- without the need for masks, molds or printers. In animals, patterns form before birth ...

Honeybees play a scent-driven game of telephone to guide members of a colony back to their queen, according to a new study led by University of Colorado Boulder. The research, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights how insects with limited cognitive abilities can achieve complex feats when they work together--even creating what looks like a miniature and buzzing version of a telecommunications network. The findings also serve as a testament to a honeybee's love for its queen. These matriarchs are the most important members of any hive: They're the only females able ...

Given the finite nature of fossil fuel reserves and the devastating environmental impacts of relying on fossil fuels, the development of clean energy sources is among the most pressing challenges facing modern industrial civilization. Solar energy is an attractive clean energy option, but the widescale implementation of solar energy technologies will depend on the development of efficient ways of converting light energy into chemical energy. Like many other research groups, the members of Professor Takehisa Dewa's research team at Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan have turned to biological photosynthetic apparatuses, which ...

[Background] Decreasing the emission and efficient utilization (fixation) of carbon dioxide (CO2) are worldwide issues to prevent global warming. Promotion of the use of renewable energy is effective in reducing CO2 emissions. However, since there are large time-dependent fluctuations and large regional differences in renewable energy production, it is necessary to establish a fixation technology to allow efficient energy transportation and storage. Thus, there is increasing interest in technologies for synthesizing useful chemicals from CO2 using electricity derived from renewable energy. ...

A new study suggests that Sargramostim, a medication often used to boost white blood cells after cancer treatments, is also effective in treating and improving memory in people with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. This medication comprises of a natural human protein produced by recombinant DNA technology (yeast-derived rhu GM-CSF/Leukine®). The study, from the University of Colorado Alzheimer's and Cognition Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU Anschutz), presents evidence from their clinical trial that shows that Sargramostim may ...

(Boston)--Being persistently lonely during midlife (ages 45-64) appears to make people more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) later in life. However, people who recover from loneliness, appear to be less likely to suffer from dementia, compared to people who have never felt lonely. Loneliness is a subjective feeling resulting from a perceived discrepancy between desired and actual social relationships. Although loneliness does not itself have the status of a clinical disease, it is associated with a range of negative health outcomes, including sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, and stroke. Still, feeling lonely may happen to anyone at some point in life, ...

A new study shows that if the population were fixed at current levels, the risk of population displacement due to river floods would rise by ~50% for each degree of global warming. However, if population increases are taken into account, the relative global flood displacement risk is significantly higher. The research, by an international team from Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands, used a global climate-, hydrology- and inundation-modelling chain, including multiple alternative climate and hydrological models, to quantify the effect of global warming on displacement ...

Extremely hot and dry conditions that currently put parts of the UK in the most severe danger of wildfires once a century could happen every other year in a few decades' time due to climate change, new research has revealed. A study, led by the University of Reading, predicting how the danger of wildfires will increase in future showed that parts of eastern and southern England may be at the very highest danger level on nearly four days per year on average by 2080 with high emissions, compared to once every 50-100 years currently. Wildfires need a source of ignition which ...