Tsukuba, Japan - Sleep is very important for athletes, and sleep loss can affect physical performance and cognitive ability. But now, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have identified the prevalence of sleep disorders in visually impaired athletes, as well as specific risk factors associated with lower sleep quality. In a study published last November in Sleep Medicine, researchers from the University of Tsukuba conducted a survey of 99 visually impaired athletes in Japan and analyzed data from 81 respondents. They found that approximately one-third of the respondents had sleep disorders. Further, higher levels of stress regarding interpersonal relationships ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Statistical modeling developed by Oregon State University researchers has confirmed that changes to melanoma patients' gut microbiome led them to respond to a type of treatment capable of providing long-term benefit. Findings were published in Science. The modeling technique invented by Andrey Morgun of the OSU College of Pharmacy and Natalia Shulzenko of Oregon State's Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine is known as transkingdom network analysis. The human gut microbiome is a community of more than 10 trillion microbial cells from about 1,000 different bacterial species, and transkingdom network analysis integrates ...

Water is a necessity for all life but its availability can be limited. In geographical areas experiencing dry seasons, animals congregate near the few freshwater sources, often reaching large densities. At these sites many animals from different species come to the same spots to drink, potentially operating as key locations for pathogen transmission within and between species. An international team of scientists lead by the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) suggests that viruses can use restricted freshwater sources as a vector to be spread among animals. The key prediction of this idea is that animal viruses remain stable and infectious in water. The team ...

The effects of microplastics on our health and the environment are being rigorously studied all across the world. Researchers are identifying microplastic sources and their potential routes to the environment by examining rainwater, wastewater, and soil. Microplastics have been found in nearly all organisms and habitats everywhere in the world. However, factors contributing to the influx and accumulation of microplastics in water ecosystems aren't fully understood yet. The focus of microplastics research has, for a long time, been on the age of microplastics found in sediments, and on the ...

The researchers analysed cells, mouse models, and human patient samples using biochemical, mathematical, and biophysical methods. They identified a protein present in the mesh-like membrane structure (the basement membrane) associated with tumour and vessel softness, and good survival of cancer patients. The researchers tested if removing this protein from the basement membrane would enhance the spread of cancer, which it did, and if supply of this protein would reduce cancer spread, which it did. They proceeded to show that the levels of this protein (netrin-4) already present in basement membrane of organs may determine cancer spread even before cancer develops, ...

Cells of organisms are organized in subcellular compartments that consist of many individual molecules. How these single proteins are organized on the molecular level remains unclear, because suitable analytical methods are still missing. Researchers at the University of Münster together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (Munich, Germany) have established a new technique that enables quantifying molecular densities and nanoscale organizations of individual proteins inside cells. The first application of this approach reveals a complex of three adhesion proteins that appears to be crucial for the ability of cells to adhere to the surrounding tissue. The research results have been published in the journal Nature ...

Using an advanced technique, scientists from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research have demonstrated that a chemical reaction powered by light takes place ten thousand times faster at the air-water interface--what we usually call the water surface--than in the bulk of the water, even when the light has equivalent energy. This finding could help our understanding of the many important chemical and biological processes that take place at the water surface. Water is the most important liquid in nature, and research has shown that there is in fact something special about the interface. For reasons that were not well understood, it appears that some chemical reactions take place readily when the molecules are partly in the water, but not when they are fully ...

The risk of both mortality and rehospitalisation after an elective revascularisation procedure for coronary artery disease is similar for people with and without Alzheimer's disease (AD), but people with AD had worse outcomes after an emergency procedure, according to a new study from the University of Eastern Finland. Previous studies have investigated the effectiveness of revascularisation in persons with cognitive disorders, but only in terms of short-term outcomes and in acute care settings, and they also have not accounted for electivity. Similar to previous ...

New analysis published in The Lancet Psychiatry has shown a lack of strong evidence to support current guidance on psychological therapies for treating anorexia nervosa over expert treatment as usual. The findings highlight a need for further research and support a call for individual trial data to be made available so the benefits of treatments in specific patient populations can be better understood. Conducted by an international team of clinical experts and researchers, the analysis included 13 randomised controlled trials and a total of 1049 patients. The studies compared psychological therapies to treatment as usual in adults receiving outpatient treatment for anorexia. The trials measured eating disorder ...

Drilling a 270,000-year old core from a Tasmanian lake has provided the first Australian record of a major global event where the Earth's magnetic field 'switched '- and the opportunity to establish a precedent for developing new paleomagnetic dating tools for Australian archaeology and paleosciences. "This is the first study of this kind in Australia since pioneering studies in the 1980s," said author Dr Agathe Lisé-Provonost, a McKenzie Fellow from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. "Just two lakes in north-east Australia previously provided such "full-vector" record, where both the past directions and the past intensity of the Earth magnetic field are obtained from the same cores." Published in the journal Quaternary Geochronology, Chronostratigraphy ...

Milan, 15 February 2021 - Excitons are quasiparticles which can transport energy through solid substances. This makes them important for the development of future materials and devices - but more research is needed to understand their fundamental behaviour and how to manipulate it. Researchers at Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies IFN-CNR and a theory group from the Tsukuba University (Japan) and the Max Plank Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of matter (Hamburg, Germany), have discovered that an exciton can simultaneously adopt two radically different characters when it isstimulated ...

The researchers of TPU together with their colleagues from Russian and foreign scientific centers have found a way to estimate the temperature of a chemical reaction activated by pseudo-particles - plasmons. Two organic molecules served as ultra-small sensors or thermometers. According to scientists, the experiments are of great fundamental importance: beyond the mere fact of evaluating the temperature with the use of molecules, it was possible to demonstrate that properties of plasmon serving as an activator of chemical reactions depend not only on thermal ...

Certain plasma microRNAs could serve as diagnostic biomarkers in mild traumatic brain injury, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. The biomarkers were discovered in an animal model and they were successfully used also to diagnose mild traumatic brain injury in a subgroup of patients. The study was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. Mild traumatic brain injury is difficult to detect by contemporary conventional imaging methods. In fact, most patients do not exhibit visible structural damage to the brain, which could ...

The tiniest microchips yet can be made from graphene and other 2D-materials, using a form of 'nano-origami', physicists at the University of Sussex have found. This is the first time any researchers have done this, and it is covered in a paper published in the ACS Nano journal. By creating kinks in the structure of graphene, researchers at the University of Sussex have made the nanomaterial behave like a transistor, and have shown that when a strip of graphene is crinkled in this way, it can behave like a microchip, which is around 100 times smaller than conventional microchips. Prof ...

A cloud simulation that captures the development and evolution of clouds based on atmospheric physical processes is more accurate than other models. "Our model describes atmospheric conditions and thermodynamic processes as well as the fluid dynamics that govern the motion of air in the atmosphere," says Torsten Hädrich, a KAUST Ph.D. student in the international research team. "This allows us to simulate cloud phenomena more realistically than previous methods." The model can take known atmospheric information at any time, such as temperature, humidity and wind, and simulate cloud formation, which is used for "nowcasting" of imminent cloud phenomena. "For example, our model is able to simulate the formation of cumulonimbus clouds by considering ...

Scientists at Cardiff University have discovered a unique way to target a common virus that affects one in 200 newborn babies in the UK but for which there is only limited treatments available. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a master at "hiding" from the body's immune system so antibodies and T-cells cannot attack it as they do in other viruses, like the current coronavirus. The researchers have now discovered a new type of antibody in the lab which - instead of killing the virus directly - marks infected cells so the immune system can "see" them. Once the immune system can see the infected cells it is able to kill the virus. The team have submitted a patent for the unique immunotherapeutic and hope it can help to treat HCMV, which can leave newborn babies severely disabled or ...

It does not happen often. But on rare occasions, physicians make mistakes and may make a wrong diagnosis. Patients may have many diseases all at once, where it can be difficult to distinguish the symptoms of one illness from the other, or there may be a lack of symptoms. Errors in diagnosis may lead to incorrect treatment or a lack of treatment. Therefore, everyone in the healthcare system tries to minimise errors as much as possible. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have developed an algorithm that can help with just that. 'Our new algorithm can find the patients who have such an unusual disease trajectory that they may indeed not suffer from the disease ...

Scientists have discovered that pollution concentration varies between seasons. A new study, conducted in the North China Plain, determined where volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are distributed within the vertical layers of the atmosphere, and found notable changes from winter to summer. "The concentration of VOCs in the vertical direction was much higher in winter than that in summer and their emission sources showed different contributions in both seasons," said Guiqian Tang, associate professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the corresponding author of a study just published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences . The researchers conducted a field campaign from June 8 to July 3, 2019. They focused ...

Researchers have used the zebrafish (Danio rerio) to identify the role of a gene involved in cardiac rhythm, which could help explain the fundamentals of what it takes to make a human heartbeat. The University of Melbourne study also found that mutation of the gene, Tmem161b, causes potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmia. 2.5 per cent of Australians are living with cardiac arrhythmia ( END ...

Almost half of people testing positive for coronavirus have reported symptoms of depression, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Researchers from Bangladesh, the United States and Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in the UK carried out a cross-sectional survey of more than 1,000 Bangladeshi adult coronavirus patients over the course of one month. A total of 48% of respondents were categorised as having moderate to severe depression, with a higher prevalence in those with persistent symptoms, low family income ...

Brain tumours are the most common solid tumours in childhood and the largest cause of death from cancer in this age group Being able to classify a brain tumour's type, without the use of biopsy, is hard to do; however diffusion weighted imaging, an advanced imaging technique, when combined with machine learning, can help a UK-based multi-centre study, including WMG, University of Warwick has found. Being able to characterise the tumour(s) faster and more accurately means they can be treated more efficiently Diffusion weighted imaging and machine learning can successfully classify the diagnosis and characteristics of common types of paediatric brain tumours a UK-based multi-centre study, including WMG at the University of Warwick ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University, Boston University and Kraton Corporation have demonstrated a family of self-sterilizing polymers that are effective at inactivating coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19. The work opens the door to a suite of applications that could help to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and other diseases. "Our work here provides conclusive evidence that these materials, anionic polymers, can inactivate human coronaviruses quickly and efficiently," says Richard Spontak, co-author of a paper on the work accepted for publication in Advanced Science. Spontak is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and ...

A team of soil scientists developed a new approach to the automatic generation and updating of soil maps. Having applied machine learning technologies to a set of rules traditionally used by experts in manual mapping, the team obtained a highly accurate model that provides easy-to-interpret results. The study was published in ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. Many software solutions for digital soil mapping are based on statistical models. The accuracy of such programs is limited because statistical models depend on the quality and quantity of field data and can ignore local irregularities in soil properties. It is difficult to obtain accurate and useful information from ...

TAMPA, Fla. - One of the most challenging issues in cancer therapy is the development of drug resistance and subsequent disease progression. In a new article featured on this month's cover of Cancer Research, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, in collaboration with Oxford University, report results from their study using mathematical modeling to show that cell turnover impacts drug resistance and is an important factor that governs the success of adaptive therapy. Cancer treatment options have increased substantially over the past few decades; however, many patients eventually develop drug resistance. Physicians strive to overcome resistance by either trying to target cancer cells through an alternative approach or targeting the resistance mechanism itself, but success with ...

Oncotarget recently published "Targeting an engineered cytokine with interleukin-2 and interleukin-15 activity to the neovasculature of solid tumors" by Mortensen, et al. which reported that there is a growing interest in the antibody-based delivery of cytokines to the tumor environment as a means to boost the anti-cancer activity of tumor-resident T cells and NK cells. Here, the authors described the expression and characterization of fusion proteins, featuring the L19 antibody and an engineered cytokine with interleukin-2 and interleukin-15 ...