Computational models of air quality have long been used to shed light on pollution control efforts in the United States and Europe, but the tools have not found widespread adoption in Latin America. New work from North Carolina State University and Universidad de La Salle demonstrates how these models can be adapted to offer practical insights into air quality challenges in the Americas outside the U.S. Computational air quality models can be used in multiple ways. For example, they can be used to determine which sources are responsible for what fraction of air pollution. They can also help authorities predict how air pollution might change if different pollution control methods are adopted. "Historically, it's been very challenging to apply these modeling ...

Polymer scientists from the University of Groningen and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, both in the Netherlands, have developed a polymer membrane from biobased malic acid. It is a superamphiphilic vitrimer epoxy resin membrane that can be used to separate water and oil. This membrane is fully recyclable. When the pores are blocked by foulants, it can be depolymerized, cleaned and subsequently pressed into a new membrane. A paper describing the creation of this membrane was published in the journal Advanced Materials on 7 March 2021. How do you clean up an oil spill in ...

Study Reveals New Hope for Men With Common Urinary Issues A new systematic review of evidence recommends the use of behavioral self-management treatments for common urinary issues experienced by upwards of 70 percent of older men. Common symptoms include trouble urinating, increased frequency and incontinence. These symptoms can have a substantial negative impact on sleep, social functioning and quality of life. Several guidelines recommend self-management techniques like health education, advice on fluid intake, and bladder retraining; however, in practice, self-management is often excluded from the menu of treatment options that include medication and surgery. Researchers at Bond University's Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare found that ...

What would a truly progressive city look like? A city that pays more than lip service to issues that directly affect low-income residents, seniors, marginalized communities and others whom neoliberal policies have seemingly left behind? ...

Since 1983, the bacteria Pantoea ananatis has been known to infect several important crops including onions, rice, and corn. It was unclear, however, what molecules were involved. A new study, published in mBio, has identified one of the culprits: pantaphos. Intriguingly, the researchers have discovered that pantaphos can also act as an herbicide and it is toxic to glioblastoma cells, making it an exciting candidate for agricultural and biomedical applications. "Herbicide resistant weeds are an issue in agriculture," said William Metcalf (MMG leader), a professor of microbiology. "Unfortunately, there hasn't been a new class of herbicide ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC -- A comprehensive review by University of North Carolina researchers and colleagues of hundreds of publications, incorporating more than two dozen articles on prevention screening for lung cancer with low-dose spiral computed tomography (LDCT), shows there are both benefits and harms from screening. The review is published in JAMA on March 9, 2021. The results of the decadelong National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed that LDCT could detect lung cancer better than conventional X-rays in current or previous heavy smokers. Based on those results, the United States Preventive Services ...

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 -- The University of Minnesota School of Music was concerned about one-on-one teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and wondered if it should supplement its ventilation system with portable HEPA air purifiers. So, school officials reached out to Suo Yang, a professor within the College of Science and Engineering, and his team to figure it out. In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, Yang and the researchers describe their work to predict how virus particles spread within a music classroom. "The airborne transmission of COVID-19 through ...

By closely examining the jaw mechanics of juvenile and adult tyrannosaurids, some of the fiercest dinosaurs to inhabit earth, scientists led by the University of Bristol have uncovered differences in how they bit into their prey. They found that younger tyrannosaurs were incapable of delivering the bone-crunching bite that is often synonymous with the Tyrannosaurus Rex and that adult specimens were far better equipped for tearing out chunks of flesh and bone with their massive, deeply set jaws. The team also found that tension from the insertion of the lower pterygoid muscle is linked to decreasing stresses near the front of the typical tyrannosaur jaw, where the animals may have applied their highest impact bite ...

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 -- One of the primary ways the COVID-19 virus is transmitted is via airborne diffusion of saliva microdroplets, so it is paramount to find methods to kill the virus in airborne microdroplets. The extreme confusion that abounded at the beginning of the pandemic about safe social distances, mask wearing, and social behavior inspired Marche Polytechnic University researchers, who happen to be intrigued by saliva droplet diffusion, to search for answers and ways to help. In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, Valerio D'Alessandro and colleagues describe using a supercomputer to do numerical modeling ...

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) - To minimize transmission of COVID-19, in spring 2020, most U.S. states passed policies promoting social distancing through stay-at-home orders prohibiting non-essential travel. Vehicle-miles traveled in the U.S. decreased by 41% in April 2020 compared to 2019. A new study led by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital estimated associations between COVID-19-related social-distancing policies, traffic volume, and motor vehicle crash-related outcomes in Ohio. The study, published today in JAMA, found the number of individuals involved in a motor vehicle crash, sustaining injury, sustaining ...

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 -- Researchers at Toshiba Corporation in Japan have studied the operation of a small device fabricated in the write gap of a hard disk drive's write head to extend its recording density. The device, developed by HWY Technologies, is based on a design concept known as microwave-assisted magnetic recording, or MAMR. This technology, reported in the Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, uses a microwave field generator known as a spin-torque oscillator. The spin-torque oscillator emits a microwave field causing the magnetic particles of the recording medium to wobble the way a spinning top does. This makes them much easier to flip over when the write head applies a recording magnetic ...

People over 65 shouldn't take three or more medicines that act on their brain and nervous system, experts strongly warn, because the drugs can interact and raise the risk of everything from falls to overdoses to memory issues. But a new study finds that 1 in 7 people with dementia who live outside nursing homes are taking at least three of these drugs. Even if they received the drugs to calm some of dementia's more troubling behavioral issues, the researchers say, taking them in combination could accelerate their loss of memory and thinking ability, and raise their chance of ...

PITTSBURGH, 9 March 2021 - If approved, the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring would be the first biomedical HIV prevention method designed specifically for cisgender women, as well as the first long-acting method. Looking to the future, researchers from the National Institutes of Health-funded END ...

Researchers from the group of Hans Clevers identified and characterized rare cell types in the upper gastrointestinal tract. Using single cell RNA sequencing, they studied the cellular composition of the esophagus, stomach and upper part of the small intestine. They provide detailed gene expression analyses for all epithelial cells in these organs. Furthermore, they identified a rare cell type that is most likely responsible for the secretion of high volumes of water in humans. This cell type provides a link to gastrointestinal defects in patients with cystic fibrosis. The paper was published in Cell Reports on the 9th ...

What The Study Did: Researchers compared traffic volume and motor vehicle crash injuries before, during and after COVID-19-related state-of-emergency and stay-at-home orders in Ohio from January to July last year with the same period in 2019. Authors: Motao Zhu, Ph.D., of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2020.25770) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article ...

Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego and San Diego State University have discovered a key feature that allows cancer cells to break from typical cell behavior and migrate away from the stiffer tissue in a tumor, shedding light on the process of metastasis and offering possible new targets for cancer therapies. It has been well documented that cells typically migrate away from softer tissue to stiffer regions within the extracellular matrix-- a process called durotaxis. Metastatic cancer cells are the rare exception to this rule, moving away from the stiffer tumor tissue to softer tissue, and spreading ...

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 -- Spinal cord injuries can be life-changing and alter many important neurological functions. Unfortunately, clinicians have relatively few tools to help patients regain lost functions. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from UCLA have developed materials that can interface with an injured spinal cord and provide a scaffolding to facilitate healing. To do this, scaffolding materials need to mimic the natural spinal cord tissue, so they can be readily populated by native cells in the spinal cord, essentially filling in gaps left by injury. "In this study, we demonstrate that incorporating a regular network of pores throughout these materials, where pores are sized similarly to normal cells, increases infiltration of cells from spinal cord tissue ...

Astronauts face many challenges to their health, due to the exceptional conditions of spaceflight. Among these are a variety of infectious microbes that can attack their suppressed immune systems. Now, in the first study of its kind, Cheryl Nickerson, lead author Jennifer Barrila and their colleagues describe the infection of human cells by the intestinal pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium during spaceflight. They show how the microgravity environment of spaceflight changes the molecular profile of human intestinal cells and how these expression patterns are further changed in response to infection. In another first, the researchers were also able to detect ...

PORTOLA VALLEY, CA, March 9, 2021 -- Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the U.S., today announced the publication of new data finding that five herbal medicines had potent activity compared to commonly-used antibiotics in test tubes against Babesia duncani, a malaria-like parasite found on the West Coast of the U.S. that causes the disease babesiosis. Published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, the laboratory study was funded in part by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation. Collaborating researchers were from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, California Center for Functional Medicine, and FOCUS Health Group, Naturopathic. "This research is particularly important ...

A study published in the journal eLife made all the possible mutations in the amyloid beta peptide and tested how they influence its aggregation into plaques, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The comprehensive mutation map, which is the first of its kind, has the potential to help clinical geneticists predict whether the mutations found in amyloid beta can make an individual more prone to developing Alzheimer's disease later in life. The complete atlas of mutations will also help researchers better understand the biological mechanisms that control the onset of the disease. "The genetic sequencing of individuals is increasingly common. As a result, we are ...

While it's an unfair reality that women who develop gestational diabetes are ten times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life, only a third of these women realise that they're at high risk, according to new research by the University of South Australia. Conducted in partnership with the University College Dublin, the research examined the views of 429 Australian women with a history of gestational diabetes to establish their perceived risks of developing type 2 diabetes, potential barriers to losing weight, and useful strategies for supporting a healthy weight. Lead researcher, UniSA's Kristy ...

Tsukuba, Japan - Producing high-value pharmaceutical proteins in plants--sometimes called "molecular pharming"--offers advantages over some other manufacturing methods, notably the low cost and ease of scaling up production to meet demand. But expressing large quantities of "foreign" proteins in plants can also sometimes lead to problems, such as dehydration and premature cell death in the leaves. Now a team led by Professor Kenji Miura of the University of Tsukuba has discovered that spraying leaves with high concentrations of the antioxidant ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can increase protein production three-fold or even more. They recently published their findings in Plant Physiology. The team worked with a close relative of tobacco, ...

The fossil in question is that of an oviraptorosaur, a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period, the third and final time period of the Mesozoic Era (commonly known as the 'Age of Dinosaurs') that extended from 145 to 66 million years ago. The new specimen was recovered from uppermost Cretaceous-aged rocks, some 70 million years old, in Ganzhou City in southern China's Jiangxi Province. "Dinosaurs preserved on their nests are rare, and so are fossil embryos. This is the first time a non-avian dinosaur has been found, sitting on a nest of eggs that preserve embryos, in a single ...

For the first time, two researchers--one from the University of Copenhagen and the other from Columbia University--have accurately dated the arrival of the first herbivorous dinosaurs in East Greenland. Their results demonstrate that it took the dinosaurs 15 million years to migrate from the southern hemisphere, as a consequence of being slowed down by extreme climatic conditions. Their long walk was only possible because as CO2 levels dropped suddenly, the Earth's climate became less extreme. A snail could have crawled its way faster. 10,000 km over 15 million years--that's how long it took the first herbivorous dinosaurs to make their way from Brazil and Argentina all the way to East Greenland. This, according to a new study by Professor ...

Chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) are an important spice and vegetable that supports food culture around the world, whose intensity of its pungent taste is determined by the content of capsicumoids. However, the content of capsicumoids varies depending on the variety and is known to fluctuate greatly depending on the cultivation environment. This can be a big problem in the production, processing and distribution of peppers where sweet varieties can be spicy and highly spicy varieties are just only mildly spicy. It is thought that changes in the expression of multiple genes involved in capsaicinoid biosynthesis are involved in such changes in pungent taste ...