Tsukuba, Japan - An earthquake is generally viewed to be caused by a rupture along a fault that is transmitted outward from its point of origin in a uniform, predictable pattern. Of course, given the complexity of the environments where these ruptures typically occur, the reality is often much more complicated. In a new study published in Scientific Reports, a research team led by the University of Tsukuba developed a new method to model the details of complex earthquake rupture processes affecting systems of multiple faults. They then applied this method to the magnitude ...

An international team of interdisciplinary researchers has identified mathematical metrics to characterize the fragility of financial markets. Their paper "Network geometry and market instability" sheds light on the higher-order architecture of financial systems and allows analysts to identify systemic risks like market bubbles or crashes. With the recent rush of small investors into so-called meme stocks and reemerging interest in cryptocurrencies talk of market instability, rising volatility, and bursting bubbles is surging. However, "traditional economic theories cannot foresee events like the US subprime mortgage collapse of 2007" according ...

Point Epithelial cell rests of Malassez derived from the periodontal ligament were transformed into progenitor stem-like cells by stimulation with epigenetic agents. Subsequently, the progenitor stem-like cells were directly differentiated into endothelial, mesenchymal stem, and osteogenic cells that constitute the periodontal ligament. Background Stem cells derived from the dental pulp or periodontal ligament have been used for regenerative dentistry. Although it is relatively easy to collect the dental pulp stem cells, it is difficult to obtain adequate numbers of good quality cells; a ...

Using an improved version of the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9, researchers knocked out up to twelve genes in plants in a single blow. Until now, this had only been possible for single or small groups of genes. The approach was developed by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB). The method makes it easier to investigate the interaction of various genes. The study appeared in The Plant Journal. The inheritance of traits in plants is rarely as simple and straightforward as Gregor Mendel described. The monk, whose experiments in the 19th century on trait inheritance in peas laid the foundation of genetics, in fact got lucky. "In the traits that ...

Patricia Bernal, a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Department of Microbiology of the University of Seville's Faculty of Biology, is working with the bacterium Pseudomonas putida, a biological control agent found in the soil and in plant roots and which, as such, has the ability to protect plants from pathogen attacks (organisms that cause diseases) also known as phytopathogens. Specifically, the US researcher is studying a molecular weapon that bacteria use (Type VI Secretion System or T6SS) to eliminate their competitors. The T6SS could be compared to a harpoon with a poisonous tip that bacteria throw at their enemies to annihilate them. In a recent paper, which has just been published in the scientific journal PNAS and for ...

Igor Stagljar made his career building molecular tools to combat cancer. But when the pandemic hit last March, he aimed his expertise at a new adversary, SARS-CoV-2. Stagljar is a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at U of T's Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Last spring, with support from U of T's Toronto COVID-19 Action Fund, his team began developing a new method for measuring immunity to coronavirus in those who recovered from COVID-19. They are now ready to reveal their creation -- a pinprick test that accurately measures ...

"You have to win the battle against depression", "what counts is not surrendering" and "this is not a short road" are examples of conceptual metaphors typically used to describe experiences and issues associated with disorders like depression. Such expressions allude to abstract concepts but do so using familiar terms that enable better understanding of the experience. This kind of metaphor is often used unconsciously, going unnoticed by both speaker and listener. However, the study of metaphors can help access and understand the thinking, beliefs and feelings of individuals with mental disorders. The conceptual metaphors of depression found in 23 blogs written by people with major depressive disorders were analysed by a multidisciplinary UOC team composed of Marta Coll-Florit and Salvador ...

The results argue for a comprehensive approach to disease prevention. The scientists have now published their findings in the journal Nature Medicine. Many elderly people suffer simultaneously from several, frequently very different diseases, a condition also known as multimorbidity. Their quality of life is severely restricted, and they receive medication from different doctors, a process which is difficult and often insufficiently coordinated. Observations indicate that certain diseases commonly occur together, but the causes of this are largely ...

It's well known that mentoring opportunities are critical for development and career advancement, and are associated with greater job satisfaction and increased earnings and promotions. Yet a recent study co-authored by RMIT University's Professor Andrew R. Timming found women may be missing out on these opportunities due to fears by male managers of potential misconduct allegations. "Workplace relations between males and females have changed over the past two years. Male managers are significantly less likely than female managers to mentor or interact one-on-one with female employees," Timming said. "We found that male managers were less likely to work one-on-one in an office with the door closed and less likely to have ...

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2021 -- What's better at finding a hidden bomb -- a dog or an electronic chemical detector? In this episode, the Reactions team travels to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to find out: https://youtu.be/TRwqOFHOjac. INFORMATION: Reactions is a video series produced by the American Chemical Society and PBS Digital Studios. Subscribe to Reactions at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions and follow us on Twitter @ACSReactions. The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS' mission is to advance the broader ...

March 22, 2021 (BRONX, NY)-- Most people with cancer who are infected by the novel coronavirus produce antibodies at a rate comparable to the rest of the population--but their ability to do so depends on their type of cancer and the treatments they've received, according to a new study by researchers at Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The findings, published online today in Nature Cancer, may lead to better care for cancer patients, who face a heightened risk of dying from COVID-19, and suggests that cancer patients should ...

PHILADELPHIA--Hormone drugs that reduce androgen levels may help disarm the coronavirus spike protein used to infect cells and stop the progression of severe COVID-19 disease, suggests a new preclinical study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and published online in Cell Press's iScience. Researchers show how two receptors--known as ACE2 and TMPRSS2--are regulated by the androgen hormone and used by SARS-CoV-2 to gain entry into host cells. Blocking the receptors with the clinically proven inhibitor Camostat and other anti-androgen therapies prevented viral entry and replication, they also showed in lab studies. The findings provide more insight into the molecular mechanisms of the virus but also support ...

There are some tasks that traditional robots -- the rigid and metallic kind -- simply aren't cut out for. Soft-bodied robots, on the other hand, may be able to interact with people more safely or slip into tight spaces with ease. But for robots to reliably complete their programmed duties, they need to know the whereabouts of all their body parts. That's a tall task for a soft robot that can deform in a virtually infinite number of ways. MIT researchers have developed an algorithm to help engineers design soft robots that collect more useful information about their surroundings. The deep-learning algorithm suggests an optimized placement of sensors within the robot's body, allowing it to better interact with ...

Tsukuba, Japan - Researchers from the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Tsukuba demonstrated second-order nonlinear optical effects in diamonds by taking advantage of internal color center defects that break inversion symmetry of diamond crystal. This research may lead to faster internet communications, all-optical computers, and even open a route to next generation quantum sensing technologies. Current fiber optical technology uses light pulses to transfer broad-bandwidth data that let you check your email, watch videos, and everything else on the Internet. The main drawback is that light pulses hardly interact with each other, so the information must be converted into electrical signals to allow your computer ...

In a recent study testing the effects of exercise on overall metabolism, researchers at Oregon State University found that even a single session of moderate aerobic exercise makes a difference in the cells of otherwise sedentary people. Mitochondria are the part of the cell responsible for the biological process of respiration, which turns fuels such as sugars and fats into energy, so the researchers focused only on mitochondria function. "What we found is that, regardless of what fuel the mitochondria were using, there were mild increases in the ability to burn off the fuels," said Matt Robinson, lead author on the study and an assistant professor ...

Melbourne researchers have revealed how melanoma cells are flooded with DNA changes as this skin cancer progresses from early, treatable stages through to fatal end-stage disease. Using genomics, the team tracked DNA changes occurring in melanoma samples donated by patients as their disease progressed, right through to the time the patient died. This revealed dramatic and chaotic genetic changes that accumulated in the melanoma cells as the cancers progressed, providing clues to potential new approaches to treating this disease. The research, published in Nature Communications, was led by Professor Mark Shackleton, Professor Director of Oncology at Alfred Health and Monash University; Professor ...

Clinically, multiple lines of evidence show that chronic pain and depressive symptoms are frequently encountered. Patients suffered from both pain and depression are likely to become insensitive to drug treatment, indicating a refractory disease. The neural mechanism under this comorbidity remains unclear. In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, the research team led by Prof. ZHANG Zhi and Dr. LI Juan from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), reported the discrete thalamocortical circuits underlying the pain symptom caused by tissue injury and depression-like states. Being the gateway towards cerebral cortex and considered as the major source of 'nociceptive ...

The research team led by Prof. ZHANG Jie from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences made progress on real-time determination of earthquake focal mechanism through deep learning. The work was published in Nature Communications. Since there are connections between characteristics of the rupture surface of the source fault and seismic wave radiated by the source, it's vital to monitor the earthquake by immediate determination of the source focal mechanism which inferred from multiple ground seismic records. However, it's hard to calculate the mechanism from the simple ...

A combination of an array of atomic-level techniques has allowed researchers to show how changes in an environment-sensing protein enable bacteria to survive in different habitats, from the human gut to deep-sea hydrothermal vents. "The study gives us unprecedented atomic-level insight into how bacteria adapt to changing conditions," says Stefan Arold, professor of bioscience at KAUST. "To obtain these insights, we pushed the limits of three different methods of investigation and combined their results into a unified picture." The histone-like nucleoid-structuring (H-NS) protein allows bacteria to sense changes in their environment, such as changes in temperature and salinity. Previously, the team had shown how the intestinal pathogen Salmonella typhimurium ...

People are not very nice to machines. The disdain goes beyond the slot machine that emptied your wallet, a dispenser that failed to deliver a Coke or a navigation system that took you on an unwanted detour. Yet USC researchers report that people affected by COVID-19 are showing more goodwill -- to humans and to human-like autonomous machines. "The new discovery here is that when people are distracted by something distressing, they treat machines socially like they would treat other people. We found greater faith in technology due to the pandemic and a closing of the gap between humans and machines," said Jonathan Gratch, senior author of the study and director for virtual humans research at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. The findings, which appeared recently ...

Cancer immunotherapy may get a boost from an unexpected direction: bacteria residing within tumor cells. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their collaborators have discovered that the immune system "sees" these bacteria and shown they can be harnessed to provoke an immune reaction against the tumor. The study may also help clarify the connection between immunotherapy and the gut microbiome, explaining the findings of previous research that the microbiome affects the success of immunotherapy. Immunotherapy treatments of the past decade or so have dramatically improved recovery rates from certain ...

National work-family policies that give lower-income families more time together while allowing them paid time off are more effective for children's psychological health than cash transfers, according to a study of developed nations led by Baylor University. In a study of about 200,000 children in 20 developed nations, the United States ranked lowest in overall policies aimed at helping parents support children. The study, published in the journal Social Forces, supports the view of critics who say that the United States government does not do enough to mandate ...

Repeatedly getting angry, hitting, shaking or yelling at children is linked with smaller brain structures in adolescence, according to a new study published in Development and Psychology. It was conducted by Sabrina Suffren, PhD, at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte?Justine Research Centre in partnership with researchers from Stanford University. The harsh parenting practices covered by the study are common and even considered socially acceptable by most people in Canada and around the world. "The implications go beyond changes in the brain. I think what's ...

Cancers are not only made of tumor cells. In fact, as they grow, they develop an entire cellular ecosystem within and around them. This "tumor microenvironment" is made up of multiple cell types, including cells of the immune system, like T lymphocytes and neutrophils. The tumor microenvironment has predictably drawn a lot of interest from cancer researchers, who are constantly searching for potential therapeutic targets. When it comes to the immune cells, most research focuses on T lymphocytes, which have become primary targets of cancer immunotherapy ...

Wikipedia page views could be used to monitor global awareness of biodiversity, proposes a research team from UCL, ZSL, and the RSPB. Using their new metric, the research team found that awareness of biodiversity is marginally increasing, but the rate of change varies greatly between different groups of animals, as they report in a paper included in an upcoming special section of Conversation Biology. Lead author, PhD student Joe Millard (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UCL Biosciences and Institute of Zoology, ZSL) said: "As extinctions and biodiversity losses ramp up worldwide, largely due to climate change and other human actions, it's vital that ...