The spinal column consists of 24 vertebrae that provide axial support to the torso and protection to the spinal cord that runs through its central cavity. The vertebrae are connected by means of intervertebral discs. These discs are highly hydrated, flexible and highly mechanically resistant. They allow the column its flexibility and act as shock absorbers during daily activities such as walking, running and in impact situations, such as jumping. These unique features are made possible by the discs' tissue composition and structure. At its centre, there is a gel-like ...

At the time of writing, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is seriously threatening human lives and health throughout the world. Before effective vaccines and specific drugs are developed, non-pharmacological interventions and numerical model predictions are essential. To this end, a group led by Professor Jianping Huang from Lanzhou University, China, developed the Global Prediction System of the COVID-19 Pandemic (GPCP). Jianping Huang is a Professor in the College of Atmospheric Sciences and a Director of the Collaborative Innovation Center for Western Ecological Safety, Lanzhou University, China. He has for a long time been dedicated to studying ...

The Vlasov-Poisson equations describe many important physical phenomena such as the distribution of gravitating particles in the interstellar space, high-temperature plasma kinetics, and the Landau damping effect. A joint team of scientists from the Mathematical Institute of RUDN University and the Mathematical Institute of the University of Munich suggested a new method to obtain stationary solutions for a system of Vlasov-Poisson equations in a three-dimensional case. The obtained solutions describe the phenomena of stellar dynamics. The results of the study were published in the ...

Global greenhouse gas emissions over the last century have made southern China a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses, by driving growth of forest habitat favoured by bats. A new study published today in the journal Science of the Total Environment provides the first evidence of a mechanism by which climate change could have played a direct role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. The study has revealed large-scale changes in the type of vegetation in the southern Chinese Yunnan province, and adjacent regions in Myanmar and Laos, over the last century. Climatic changes ...

Neanderthals' gut microbiota already included some beneficial micro-organisms that are also found in our own intestine. An international research group led by the University of Bologna achieved this result by extracting and analysing ancient DNA from 50,000-year-old faecal sediments sampled at the archaeological site of El Salt, near Alicante (Spain). Published in Communication Biology, their paper puts forward the hypothesis of the existence of ancestral components of human microbiota that have been living in the human gastrointestinal tract since before the separation between the Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals that occurred more than 700,000 years ago. "These results allow us to understand which components of the human gut microbiota ...

New research has identified a nanostructure that improves the anode in lithium-ion batteries Instead of using graphite for the anode, the researchers turned to silicon: a material that stores more charge but is susceptible to fracturing The team made the silicon anode by depositing silicon atoms on top of metallic nanoparticles The resulting nanostructure formed arches, increasing the strength and structural integrity of the anode Electrochemical tests showed the lithium-ion batteries with the improved silicon anodes had a higher charge capacity and longer lifespan New research conducted by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology ...

USC researchers have developed a new method to counter emergent mutations of the coronavirus and hasten vaccine development to stop the pathogen responsible for killing thousands of people and ruining the economy. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the research team at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering developed a method to speed the analysis of vaccines and zero in on the best potential preventive medical therapy. The method is easily adaptable to analyze potential mutations of the virus, ensuring the best possible vaccines are quickly identified -- solutions that give ...

The early prognosis of high-risk older adults for amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), using noninvasive and sensitive neuromarkers, is key for early prevention of Alzheimer's disease. A recent study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, by researchers at the University of Kentucky establishes what they believe is a new way to predict the risk years before a clinical diagnosis. Their work shows that direct measures of brain signatures during mental activity are more sensitive and accurate predictors of memory decline than current standard behavioral testing. "Many studies have measured electrophysiological rhythms during resting and sleep ...

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and NTT Corporation (NTT) develop a novel CMOS-based transceiver for wireless communications at the 300 GHz band, enabling future beyond-5G applications. Their design addresses the challenges of operating CMOS technology at its practical limit and represents the first wideband CMOS phased-array system to operate at such elevated frequencies. Communication at higher frequencies is a perpetually sought-after goal in electronics because of the greater data rates that would be possible and to take advantage of underutilized ...

A new study in Frontiers in Marine Science provides a first-of-its-kind evaluation of which regions of southern European seas are in the most need of fishing restrictions. These areas have persistently shown high numbers of undersized fish and crustaceans, which are typically discarded because they are below the allowable size limit for collection. These findings may offer a strategy for prioritizing conservation efforts and ensuring more sustainable fishery management in the future. "Natural fish populations need time to reproduce and recover from fishing impacts -- this is the only way to achieve a balance between natural resources and human exploitation," says lead author Dr Giacomo Milisenda, of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn di Napoli in ...

Multidisciplinary team of international experts suggests participants should receive a "substantial" amount, be paid ethically Healthy people volunteering to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, in order to help scientists better understand how to tackle the virus, should receive payment - if it is determined that these studies are otherwise ethical to proceed. Those are the findings of a new peer-reviewed study published in the American Journal of Bioethics, which has assessed the ethics of paying participants to take part in so-called 'Human Infection Challenge Studies' (HICS). Over ...

SSRgenotyper is a newly developed, free bioinformatic tool that allows researchers to digitally genotype sequenced populations using simple sequence repeats (SSRs), a task that previously required time-consuming lab-based methods. Reporting in a recent issue of Applications in Plant Sciences, the tool's developers designed the program to seamlessly integrate with other applications currently used for the detection and analysis of SSRs. Simple sequence repeats are short chains of repeating nucleotides that are prone to mutation. The variability of these DNA sequences makes them ideal for genetic analyses to distinguish between individuals and are often the marker of choice for paternity and forensic testing. In research fields, SSRS have ...

American actor Robin Williams had a neurodegenerative brain disease called dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB): a distressing disease, with symptoms in common with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). But unlike these two conditions, DLB also entails prominent mood and cognitive swings, sleep disorders, and vivid, sometimes terrifying, visual hallucinations. It is now thought that Robin Williams, whose diagnosis was only ascertained post-mortem, was likely driven to suicide, in 2014, by the terrifying hallucinatory experiences he suffered for years - and about which he never told anyone, not even his wife. Susan Schneider Williams recounted the tragic story in an editorial published in the journal ...

As a new presidential administration takes steps to examine options to control the spread of COVID-19 through increased testing, epidemiologists at The University of Texas at Austin and other institutions have a new analysis that shows the value of having all people in the U.S. tested on a regular, rotating basis to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus and the loss of life from COVID-19. The team's model is outlined in a paper published online today in The Lancet Public Health. With the introduction of accurate and inexpensive rapid tests, researchers say there is an optimal testing schedule that minimizes costs as well ...

Weekly COVID-19 testing, with two-week isolation of positive cases, is the most cost-effective strategy to mitigate spread of the virus in the USA when transmission is high in affected areas until vaccines are widely available. When transmission rates are low to moderate, monthly testing and a one-week isolation period is the most cost-effective approach. Monthly population testing is more cost-effective than the current strategy of testing only people showing symptoms and their close contacts. Weekly COVID-19 testing, coupled with a two-week isolation period for positive cases, may be the most cost-effective strategy to tackle the ...

A biologist from RUDN University confirmed that selenium nanoparticles and garlic extract can effectively reduce the negative impact of stress on the health of grass carp in the breeding industry. The results of his study were published in the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society. Grass carp or Ctenopharyngodon Idella is a valuable commercial fish type. In order to increase productivity, fish farms tend to breed more and more fish in small reservoirs. This extreme population density causes stress in carps that negatively affects their health, namely, reduces immunity, slows down growth, suppresses digestion, and interferes with intestinal functions. To mitigate ...

Cancer is a significant cause of death worldwide and many efforts have been devoted to the development of methods for early detection. Telomerase are considered as a tumor biomarker for early diagnosis because the telomerase of more than 80% immortalized cells are reactivated and provides the sustained proliferative capacity of these cells, but the telomerase activity are not detectable in normal somatic cells. Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex that is thought to add telomeric repeats onto the ends of chromosomes during the replicative phase (S ...

DETROIT - Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers have reported that zinc supplements for men and women attempting to conceive either naturally or through assisted reproduction during the COVID-19 pandemic may prevent mitochondrial damage in young egg and sperm cells, as well as enhance immunity against the virus. In "Potential Role of Zinc in the COVID-19 Disease Process and its Probable Impact on Reproduction," published in Reproductive Sciences, Husam Abu-Soud, Ph.D., associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the C.S. Mott Center for Growth and Development, ...

Sexual assault and sexual harassment are significant problems in the U.S. military and military service academies in the United States. In 2018, 15.8% of female and 2.4% of male cadets and midshipmen across the military service academies reported unwanted sexual contact in the past year. This unwanted behavior can contribute to a variety of negative mental and behavioral health outcomes. While the military service academies have implemented multiple sexual assault prevention programs and social marketing campaigns to improve awareness of and response to sexual assault, prevention initiatives have been hindered by an absence of evidence ...

Gun violence among children is lower in states with more gun laws, according to a Rutgers-led study. The study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, examined youth gun and weapon carrying data from 2005 and 2017 across several states. Researchers found the rates of youths carrying guns was higher in states and lower in states with more gun laws. According to researchers, this phenomenon could be associated with large urban areas and more significant safety concerns within these areas. Louisiana and Arkansas reported the highest percentages of youth reporting gun carrying behavior in 2017 and 2013 respectively, with 12.7 percent and 12.5 percent respectively. These two states had 13 gun laws in place while the lowest rates of gun carrying among ...

If you're about to buy something online and its only customer review is negative, you'd probably reconsider the purchase, right? It turns out a product's first review can have an outsized effect on the item's future -- it can even cause the product to fail. Shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike feel the effects of customer reviews. Researchers at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business looked at the influence of the first review after noticing the exact same products getting positive reviews on one retailer's website but negative reviews on others, said Sungsik Park, Ph.D., who studied the phenomenon ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Considering the greater good by social distancing during a pandemic turns out to have an attractive personal benefit: A new study has found that staying away from others also reduces an individual person's chances of contracting COVID-19. Researchers presented study participants with virtual behavior scenarios of various public settings - a grocery store, a crowded beach, a crosswalk - and asked them to place themselves or fictional people in those contexts based on their social distancing preferences. Four months later, the participants were asked if they had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection or otherwise believed they had been sick with a case of COVID-19. Statistical analyses ...

Scientists like the John A. Moran Eye Center's Paul S. Bernstein, MD, PhD, know a special class of lipids, or fatty acids, found in the retina of the eye and in just a few other parts of the body play an important role in maintaining vision. But it's been difficult to study whether giving these lipids, called very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLC-PUFAs), to patients as a supplement could prevent blinding eye diseases like age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and some inherited retinal diseases. Made in the body by the ELOVL4 enzyme but rarely consumed as part of a normal diet, VLC-PUFAs weren't commercially available ...

In nuclear physics so-called magic number are such nuclear proton and/or neutron numbers, for which the nucleus is more stable compared to neighboring isotopes on the nuclear chart. Researchers in both experimental and theoretical nuclear physics from University of Jyväskylä, Finland, took part of international research team, which studied the nuclear charge radii of potassium isotopes. Isotopes were studied by using the collinear resonance ionization spectroscopy technique. The results indicated that the potassium isotope with a neutron number of 32 does not conform with criteria of magic neutron number. The results were published in Nature Physics journal on January 2021. Far from the stable ...

Lead halide perovskites, with high refractive index and excellent optoelectronic property, have been used in both constructing high-quality optical resonators/lasers and fabricating high-efficiency light-emitting devices for advanced displays. Lenticular printing provides an illusion of depth and shows varying images upon view angles, which is considered as a promising approach towards future stereoscopic displays. To realize lenticular-printing-based display, it is required to modulate the outcoupling direction of emission light rather than that of incident light. Ideally, the lenticular-lens-like structures would be integrated into the active layer of light-emitting devices. Therefore, the hybrid perovskite becomes a promising candidate for ...