Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have found important structural similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and a pangolin coronavirus, suggesting that a pangolin coronavirus could infect humans. While SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have evolved from a bat coronavirus, its exact evolutionary path is still a mystery. Uncovering its history is challenging as there are likely many undiscovered bat coronaviruses and, due to differences between bat coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2, it is thought that the virus may have passed to humans via at least one other species. In their study, published in Nature Communications, the scientists compared the structures of the spike proteins found on ...

A banking crisis is often seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy: The expectation of bank failure makes it happen. Picture people lining up to withdraw their money during the Great Depression or customers making a run on Britain's Northern Rock bank in 2007. But a new paper co-authored by an MIT professor suggests we have been missing the bigger picture about banking crises. Yes, there are sometimes panics about banks that create self-reinforcing problems. But many banking crises are quieter: Even without customers panicking, banks can suffer losses serious enough to create subsequent economy-wide downturns. "Panics are not needed for banking crises to have severe economic consequences," says Emil Verner, the MIT professor who helped lead the study. "But ...

Plastics made from crops such as maize or sugarcane instead of fossil fuels are generally considered sustainable. One reason is that plants bind CO2, which compensates for the carbon released into the atmosphere when plastics are disposed. However, there is a catch: With increasing demand for raw materials for bioplastic production, the areas under cultivation may not be sufficient. As a result, natural vegetation is often converted to agricultural land and forests are cut down. This in turn releases large amounts of CO2. The assumption that more bioplastics does not necessarily lead to more climate protection has now been confirmed by researchers at the University of Bonn ...

A study from the Center for Phage Technology, part of Texas A&M's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Texas A&M AgriLife Research, shows how the "hidden" genes in bacteriophages -- types of viruses that infect and destroy bacteria -- may be key to the development of a new class of antibiotics for human health. The study has been published in Nature Communications and Current Science Daily, as well as featured in a recent Nature Research Microbiology Community blog post. The need for new antibiotics Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose ...

Primeval forests are of great importance for biodiversity and global carbon and water cycling. The three-dimensional structure of forests plays an important role here because it influences processes of gas and energy exchange with the atmosphere, whilst also providing habitats for numerous species. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has investigated the variety of different complex structures that can be found in the world's forests, as well as the factors that explain this diversity. The results have been published in Nature Communications. The researchers investigated the structure of primeval ...

A vegan diet is more effective for weight loss than a Mediterranean diet, according to a groundbreaking new study that compared the diets head to head. The randomized crossover trial, which was END ...

Rain falls lightly on the ocean's surface. Marine mammals chirp and squeal as they swim along. The pounding of surf along a distant shoreline heaves and thumps with metronomic regularity. These are the sounds that most of us associate with the marine environment. But the soundtrack of the healthy ocean no longer reflects the acoustic environment of today's ocean, plagued with human-created noise. A global team of researchers set out to understand how human-made noise affects wildlife, from invertebrates to whales, in the oceans, and found overwhelming evidence that marine fauna, and their ecosystems, are negatively ...

In the framework of the Chlorella microalgae cultivation process, the researchers from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) obtained microalgae biomass with a high content of carotenoid pigments, which is suitable for the food industry. The research results were published Nov. 2020 in the scientific journal "Agronomy Research". The deterioration of the ecological status of urban areas and the industrialization of the food industry requires the additional enrichment of the diet with biologically valuable food substances. Such pigments as carotenoids, from which vitamin A is synthesized in the body, are ...

Astronomers have for the first time used distant galaxies as 'scintillating pins' to locate and identify a piece of the Milky Way's missing matter. For decades, scientists have been puzzled as to why they couldn't account for all the matter in the universe as predicted by theory. While most of the universe's mass is thought to be mysterious dark matter and dark energy, 5 percent is 'normal matter' that makes up stars, planets, asteroids, peanut butter and butterflies. This is known as baryonic matter. However, direct measurement has only accounted for about half ...

Using AI and computer automation, Technion researchers have developed a "conjecture generator" that creates mathematical conjectures, which are considered to be the starting point for developing mathematical theorems. They have already used it to generate a number of previously unknown formulas. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, was carried out by undergraduates from different faculties under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Ido Kaminer of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion. The project deals with one of the most fundamental elements of mathematics - mathematical constants. ...

When treating cancer, researchers are always searching for ways to remove cancer cells while minimizing damage to the rest of the body. One possible approach is to find processes unique to cancer cells, and which would allow specific targeting. If such a process can be disrupted, only those cells would be affected. A process (or absence thereof) can be unique to some types of cancer, and not be present in others. In such a case, we would want a simple way to recognize whether a particular tumor possesses the unique trait or not. The implication of this question is whether the tumor would respond to ...

Researchers from the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have proposed a new method to process magnetoencephalography (MEG) data, which helps find cortical activation areas with higher precision. The method can be used in both basic research and clinical practice to diagnose a wide range of neurological disorders and to prepare patients for brain surgery. The paper describing the algorithm was published in the journal NeuroImage. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a method based on measuring very weak magnetic fields (several orders of magnitude weaker than the Earth's magnetic field) induced by the brain's electrical activity. When using MEG, researchers face the complicated task ...

Professionalisation in any field requires long-term experience and training. In the past decades, studies have demonstrated that the professionalisation of athletes and artists create differences in the behaviour of the brain while carrying out activities related to their area of expertise. To detect the effects of media professionalisation in the brain, a research team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Instituto Ràdio Televisió Espanyola and the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville conducted a study published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience in which audiovisual contents were presented to a group of media ...

Machines, thanks to novel algorithms and advances in computer technology, can now learn complex models and even generate high-quality synthetic data such as photo-realistic images or even resumes of imaginary humans. A study recently published in the international journal PLOS Genetics uses machine learning to mine existing biobanks and generate chunks of human genomes which do not belong to real humans but have the characteristics of real genomes. "Existing genomic databases are an invaluable resource for biomedical research, but they are either not publicly accessible or shielded behind long and exhausting application procedures due to valid ethical concerns. This creates a major scientific barrier for researchers. Machine-generated genomes, or artificial ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new technique developed by Brown University researchers reveals the forces involved at the cellular level during biological tissue formation and growth processes. The technique could be useful in better understanding how these processes work, and in studying how they may respond to environmental toxins or drug therapies. As described in the journal Biomaterials, the technique makes use of cell-sized spheres made from a highly compliant polymer material, which can be placed in laboratory cultures of tissue-forming cells. As the tissue-formation process unfolds, microscope imaging of the spheres, which are stained with fluorescent dye, reveals the extent to which they are deformed by the pressure of surrounding cells. A ...

Bird species that live in their natural habitats can help zoos learn how to manage those in captivity, according to a new review. Birds are the most diverse group housed by zoos around the world, but zoo-based research tends not to focus on birds. A new article published in the journal Birds, by Dr Paul Rose of the University of Exeter, suggests zoos can improve management of birds by looking at how species live in their natural habitats. Likewise, birds living under the care of humans can also help guide and develop conservation action for those living in the wild. "Research into wild birds is extremely useful for furthering how birds are managed in zoos," said ...

Scientists have made a significant breakthrough in the quest to understand the intricate processes that occur in the brain during seizures that are the key symptom of epilepsy. A team of scientists from the University of Exeter has studied the mechanisms behind distinctive patterns of electrical activity of neuron groups in the brain that accompany the onset of seizures. In healthy brains, networks of neurons move through states of similar behavior - known as synchronization - and dissimilar behavior, called desynchronization. These processes are also associated with both memory and attention. However, in a brain with a neurological disorder, such as epilepsy, ...

Neuroscientists at McMaster University have found a link between children who are at risk for developmental coordination disorder (DCD), a common condition that can cause clumsiness, and difficulties with time perception such as interpreting changes in rhythmic beats. Accurate time perception is crucial for basic skills such as walking and processing speech and music. "Many developmental disorders, including dyslexia or reading difficulties, autism and attention deficits have been linked to deficits in auditory time perception," says Laurel Trainor, senior author of the study and founding director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. Previous research has shown the brain ...

(Boston)--A new study recommends healthy children with symptoms of sleep disordered breathing, such as snoring or temporary cessation of breathing, should consider undergoing a sleep study (polysomnography) and should discuss the potential benefits of this with their pediatrician or otolaryngologist to possibly manage the child's symptoms medically and before surgery. Sleep disordered breathing is common in children and ranges from mild snoring to severe sleep apnea. Doing a sleep study provides more information on the severity of the condition. Often doctors suggest adenotonsillectomy ...

Utilization of renewable solar energy is crucial for addressing the global energy and environmental concerns and achieving sustainable development in our society. In this regard, photocatalytic water splitting has attracted significant interest as a cost-effective means to convert sustainable solar energy into valuable chemicals. However, efficiency is sensitive to reaction conditions and experimental setup, it is difficult to compare the results obtained by different research groups or provide a reliable guide for large-scale implementation. Due to the ...

What is common between a technology for storing energy in a solar cell and that for water purification? They both rely on the use of porous materials, or more specifically, "nanoporous" materials that can trap gas molecules within narrow spaces on their surface, called "pores", which are only nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) in size! In chemistry parlance, the phenomenon is known as "adsorption" and has played an important role in the synthesis of porous materials of different compositions, pore sizes, and even pore geometries. Traditionally, activated carbon (AC, or a porous form of carbon) has been a popular adsorbent for practical applications owing to its higher capacity of adsorption than that of other porous materials. Lately, however, porous boron ...

Treating severe COVID-19 patients with the anticancer drug bevacizumab may reduce mortality and speed up recovery, according to a small clinical study in Italy and China that was led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden between February and April 2020. On average, blood oxygen levels, body temperature and inflammatory markers significantly improved in patients treated with a single dose of bevacizumab in addition to standard care. The research is published in Nature Communications. "To reduce COVID-19 mortality, we aim to develop an effective therapeutic paradigm for treating patients with severe COVID-19," says corresponding author Yihai ...

A research team led by Prof. HE Shunping from the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered through genome sequencing that the non-teleost ray-finned fishes--bichir, paddlefish, bowfin and alligator gar--exhibit mosaic genomic features of lobe- and ray-finned fishes. The study was published in Cell. The water-to-land transition during the Devonian is one of the most prominent events in vertebrate evolution. During this transition, various organs underwent adaptive changes, particularly those related to locomotion and respiration systems. Rich fossil evidence suggests that many traits and functions related to this terrestrial evolution were present long before the ancestor of lobe- and ray-finned fishes ...

Although silicon anodes could greatly boost the capacity of Li-ion batteries, their performance rapidly degrades with use. Polymeric coatings can help solve this problem, but very few studies have explored the underlying mechanisms. In a recent study, scientists from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology investigate how a poly(borosiloxane) coating greatly stabilizes the capacity of silicon anodes, paving the way for better and more durable Li-ion batteries for electric cars and renewable energy harvesting. Since their conception, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been constantly improved and adapted so that they can become suitable for vastly different applications, from mobile devices ...

Researchers from the Department of Infection and Immunity of the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) brought forward the potential of high doses of a specific adjuvant molecule, namely CpG oligonucleotide, in successfully modulating the immune system's allergic response to the main cat allergen Fel d 1, thereby inducing a tolerance-promoting reaction and reverting the main hallmarks of cat allergy. The researchers analysed the molecular mechanisms underlying this tolerance and proposed a pre-clinical allergen-specific immunotherapy approach to improve the treatment and control of this common type of allergy. The full study results ...