Native reptile populations on Christmas Island have been in severe decline with two species, Lister's gecko and the blue-tailed skink, entirely disappearing from the wild. While previously the main driver for this decline is likely predation by invasive species and habitat destruction, a silent killer is now threatening to wipe the species out entirely. Those bred in captivity on the Australian Territory in the Indian Ocean have also been mysteriously dying, leaving the two species - which number only around 1000 each - in danger of extinction. Veterinary scientists from the University of Sydney, the Australian Registry of Wildlife ...

A radio telescope located in outback Western Australia has observed a cosmic phenomenon with a striking resemblance to a jellyfish. Published today in The Astrophysical Journal, an Australian-Italian team used the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope to observe a cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2877. Lead author and PhD candidate Torrance Hodgson, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, said the team observed the cluster for 12 hours at five radio frequencies between 87.5 and 215.5 megahertz. "We looked at the data, and as we turned down the frequency, we saw a ghostly jellyfish-like ...

The research team led by Prof. YANG Lihua from Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, School of Chemistry and Materials Science of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed nanomicelles composed solely of macromolecules as a new approach for treating pancreatic tumor. The study was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Host dense peptides (HDP) is a part of the innate immunity of eukaryotic organism. It helps the host fence back attack by microbes through disrupting cellular membrane integrity. Inspired by HDP, membrane-disruptive macromolecules are designed with two most HDP's common structural characteristics (cationic and amphipathic) to realize similar membrane-disrupting ...

WASHINGTON--People who start eating before 8:30 a.m. had lower blood sugar levels and less insulin resistance, which could reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study presented virtually at ENDO 2021, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting. "We found people who started eating earlier in the day had lower blood sugar levels and less insulin resistance, regardless of whether they restricted their food intake to less than 10 hours a day or their food intake was spread over more than 13 hours daily," said lead researcher Marriam Ali, M.D., of Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill. Insulin resistance occurs when the body doesn't respond as well to the insulin that the pancreas is producing and glucose is less able to enter the cells. People with insulin resistance ...

WASHINGTON--Nearly one-third of adults age 65 and older who take thyroid hormone also take medications that are known to interfere with thyroid function tests, according to a study presented virtually at ENDO 2021, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting. "Our findings highlight the complexity of managing thyroid hormone replacement in older adults, many of whom take medications for other medical conditions," said first author Rachel Beeson, M.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Until now, the prevalence of concurrent use of thyroid hormone and interfering medications in older adults, and patient characteristics associated with this practice, has been unknown." Thyroid ...

WASHINGTON--Less than one in 10 commercially insured patients in the United States who broke a hip, a major complication of osteoporosis, receive any osteoporosis medical treatment within two calendar quarters of their fracture, according to a study whose results will be presented at ENDO 2021, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting. Rates of treatment with osteoporosis, or bone loss, medicines dropped dramatically over the past decade from 15 percent to 8 percent, a new analysis of a large nationwide private insurance database found. The decrease comes despite ...

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, a team of astronomers have directly measured winds in Jupiter's middle atmosphere for the first time. By analysing the aftermath of a comet collision from the 1990s, the researchers have revealed incredibly powerful winds, with speeds of up to 1450 kilometres an hour, near Jupiter's poles. They could represent what the team have described as a "unique meteorological beast in our Solar System". Jupiter is famous for its distinctive red and white bands: swirling clouds of moving gas that astronomers traditionally use to track winds in Jupiter's lower atmosphere. Astronomers ...

A large gathering of fish tempts harbour porpoises to search for food around oil and gas platforms, even though the noise from these industrial plants normally to scare the whales away. Decommissioned platforms may therefore serve as artificial reefs in the North Sea. Harbour porpoises are one of the smallest of all whales and the only whale that with certainty breeds in Danish waters. The harbour porpoise was protected in 1967 in Danish Waters, and researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, have previously shown that underwater noise from ships, and seismic surveys of the seabed scare the porpoises away. A brand new study now shows that in some parts of the year there are actually ...

A new study by Novateur Ventures provides a comparative analysis of twelve COVID-19 Vaccines that had initiated or announced the Phase III clinical trial stage by early November 2020. The study highlights the early successes, as well as the hurdles and barriers yet to be overcome for ending the global COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 vaccines analyzed for the study messenger RNA - Moderna and Pfizer/BioNtech Viral Vector-based (non-replicating) Vaccines - Astra Zeneca/University of Oxford, CanSino Biologics, Gamaleya Research Institute, Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (J&J)) Recombinant Protein-based Vaccines - Novavax and Medicago Inactivated Virus - Three Chinese conglomerates and one Indian company The study 'Target Product Profile Analysis ...

Biodiversity is increasingly ruined by humanity's many impacts, a major aspect of which is biological invasion. Although there are a lot of studies reporting that invasive predators decrease the population size of native species, only a few studies have reported impact on phenotypic traits such as morphology and performance of native species. Particularly island ecosystem is very sensitive to invasive predators because strong predators such as mammalian predators are not in such environment. Researchers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) analyzed predators' effect on frogs in a Japanese island and their findings were reported in Biological ...

If you reach for water when a muscle cramp strikes, you might want to think again. New research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) has revealed drinking electrolytes instead of pure water can help prevent muscle cramps. The study, published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, found that people who drank electrolyte enhanced water during and after exercise were less susceptible to muscle cramps than those who drank pure water. Muscle cramps are a common painful condition affecting many people, including around 39 per cent of marathon runners, 52 per cent of rugby players and 60 per cent of cyclists. ...

Scientists are learning that a lesser-studied region on the pandemic coronavirus is recognized by COVID-19 infection-fighting antibodies. These antibodies were identified in blood samples from previously infected patients, and were found to potently prevent the virus from infecting cells. The coronavirus spike protein is the key that unlocks the door to the cell, and antibodies bind to the spike protein to jam this function. Much attention has been given to studying antibodies that target the receptor-binding domain on the coronavirus spike protein. (The receptor-binding domain of the spike is responsible for triggering the merging of the ...

Anemia, a condition characterized by the lack of healthy red blood cells in the body, is common in patients with chronic kidney disease who need to undergo routine hemodialysis (a process that helps to "clean" the blood when the kidneys don't function well). Thus, red blood cell-stimulating agents (called "erythropoiesis-stimulating agents" or ESAs) and iron supplements (ISs) are administered as part of this process. But, complications can arise if the patients have an altered iron metabolism or poor response to medications. Moreover, the medications tend to be expensive and impose a heavy financial burden on public health. Thus, with such patients currently ...

Malting, the processing of cereal grains into malt, generates rootlets as a side-stream product, which is currently mostly utilised as animal feed. However, this leftover material has not only a high protein content, but also high amounts of phytochemicals, which makes it a highly potential source of development for the food industry, according to a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland, published in npj Science of Food. Germination increased the amount of phytochemicals The study utilised metabolomics to analyse samples from grains of four cereals typically used in malting: barley, rye, wheat, and oats. The researchers were particularly interested in phytochemicals, which are bioactive compounds ...

Leesburg, VA, March 18, 2021--According to ARRS' American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) showed concordance with MRI in women with newly diagnosed breast cancer and breast augmentation. Noting that CEM has not been investigated in women with breast augmentation, Molly Carnahan and her Mayo Clinic team in Phoenix, AZ, concluded, "the findings suggest a possible role of CEM for staging in women with breast augmentation and contraindication or limited access to MRI." From an institutional database of 2,215 women who underwent ...

The immense diversity in the living world and how it came into being has always been a subject of human enquiry. After centuries of playing detective in search of the basis of the parities and disparities that we see among living beings around us, the past century stood witness to some marvellous discoveries in biology and today the Central Dogma of life has been disclosed to us: DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein (a facile view of a much more complex sequence of events). Together with contributing environmental factors, proteome(s) (total protein content of a cell) collectively influence 'traits' or characteristics of organisms that vary among individuals of a population. In a population, individuals with traits better suited to their environment have a higher chance at survival ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The triggers and causes of a severe scarring disease of the lungs -- idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF -- remain unclear. Now research published in Science Translational Medicine shows how cadmium and carbon black can trigger lung macrophages to produce a modified protein, citrullinated vimentin, or cit vim, which leads to lung fibrosis. Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and three other American universities also describe a sequence of mechanistic steps in lung macrophages and lung fibroblasts that leads to the lung scarring. One of the enzymes involved in these steps -- peptidylarginine deiminase 2, or PAD2 -- may be a promising target to attenuate cadmium/carbon black-induced ...

March 18, 2021 -- A study conducted at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health reports a high global prevalence of both depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic and shows how implementation of mitigation strategies including public transportation and school closures, and stay-at-home orders impacted such disorders. The results are published in Psychological Medicine. "Our research found an elevated global prevalence of these mental health issues during COVID-19 and also revealed there was a wide variance in each at the region- and country-level," said, João Castaldelli-Maia, MD, PhD, NIDA-INVEST Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Epidemiology, and ...

Our knowledge of Alzheimer's disease has grown rapidly in the past few decades but it has proven difficult to translate fundamental discoveries about the disease into new treatments. Now researchers at the California National Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis, have developed a model of the early stages of Alzheimer's disease in rhesus macaques. The macaque model, published March 18 in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association could allow better testing of new treatments. The model was developed by Professor John Morrison's laboratory ...

IN BRIEF: It's a first: approximately 100 scientists in 42 countries joined forces to learn about the incidence of parental burnout. They found that Western countries are the most affected by parental burnout. The cause? The often individualistic culture of Western countries. This international study, published in Affective Science, shows how culture, rather than socio-economic factors, plays a predominant role in parental burnout. The individualism is more pronounced during health crises. Does the incidence of parental burnout depend on a country's culture? This question was at the heart of the first international study on the subject for which hundreds of scientists in 42 countries mobilised. In other words, the global scientific ...

The results, published in the renowned scientific journal The Cryosphere, have made it possible to reliably describe snow trends at up to 2000 metres above sea level. Higher than that, there are too few measuring stations to be able to extract reliable information for the entire Alpine region. This consistent data set spans five decades and was created through the collaboration of more than 30 scientists from each of the Alpine states. The results and data collected represent a valuable aid for future studies, especially those which centre on climate change. "This ...

Bottlenose dolphins learn to cope with coastal construction activities. That is the conclusion of a study published in END ...

A large gathering of fish tempts harbour porpoises to search for food around oil and gas platforms, even though the noise from these industrial plants normally to scare the whales away. Decommissioned platforms may therefore serve as artificial reefs in the North Sea. Harbour porpoises are one of the smallest of all whales and the only whale that with certainty breeds in Danish waters. The harbour porpoise was protected in 1967 in Danish Waters, and researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, have previously shown that underwater noise from ships, and seismic surveys of the seabed scare the porpoises away. A brand new study now shows that in some parts of the year there are ...

A new study in Behavioral Ecology, published by Oxford University Press, finds that women are less likely to procreate in urban areas that have a higher percentage of females than males in the population. Although the majority modern cities have more women than men and thus suffer from lower fertility rates, the effects of female-biased sex ratios - having more women than men in a population - is less studied than male-biased ratios. Researchers here analyzed how female-biased sex ratios are linked to marriages, reproductive histories, dispersal, and the effects of urbanization on society. The research team from University of Turku, University of Helsinki and Pennsylvania ...

A joint research team, affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a novel electrolyte additive that could enable a long lifespan and fast chargeability of high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Published in the February 2021 issue of Nature Communications, this research has been carried out by Professor Nam-Soon Choi and Professor Sang Kyu Kwak in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Sung You Hong in the Department of Chemistry at UNIST. It has also been participated by Professor Jaephil Cho in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST. As the demand for large-capacity batteries (i.e., EV batteries) increases, efforts are actively underway to replace the conventional lithium-ion ...