Using a combination of telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO's VLT), astronomers have revealed a system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythm around their central star. The researchers believe the system could provide important clues about how planets, including those in the Solar System, form and evolve. The first time the team observed TOI-178, a star some 200 light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, they thought they had spotted two planets going around it in the same orbit. However, a closer look revealed something entirely ...

CHICAGO (January 25, 2021; 9 am CST): A new study finds that older cancer patients are less likely to have optimal results following their cancer operation if they live in an area highly affected by social challenges, especially if they are racial-ethnic minorities. The study was selected for the 2020 Southern Surgical Association Program and published as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print. Study investigators from The Ohio State University (OSU) used a novel risk stratification tool called the social vulnerability index (SVI), a composite measure of 15 social and economic factors. ...

The key factor in preventing non-communicable diseases is lifestyle management at the individual level with a focus on such innovations, which can help increase the awareness of risk factors management in society, claim an international team of researchers, among them - scientists from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania in a recent study. According to them, the management of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases requires many strategies from several perspectives and on different levels. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, are medical conditions that are ...

What happened to the promised applications of graphene and related materials? Thanks to initiatives like the European Union's Graphene Flagship and heavy investments by leading industries, graphene manufacturing is mature enough to produce prototypes and some real-life niche applications. Now, researchers at Graphene Flagship partner The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) in Karlsruhe, Germany, have published two papers that roadmap the expected future mass introduction of graphene and related materials in the market. Back in 2004, graphene was made by peeling off atomically thin layers from a graphite block. Now, thanks to the advances pioneered by the Graphene Flagship, among ...

A team from the Computer Vision Center (CVC) and the University of Barcelona has published the results of a study that evaluates the accuracy and bias in gender and skin colour of automatic face recognition algorithms tested with real world data. Although the top solutions exceed the 99.9% of accuracy, researchers have detected some groups that show higher false positive or false negative rates. Face recognition has been routinely used by both private and governmental organizations worldwide. Automatic face recognition can be used for legitimate and beneficial purposes (e.g. to improve security) but at the same time its power and ubiquity increases a potential negative ...

Small-scale optical devices capable of using photons for high-speed information processing can be fabricated with unprecedented ease and precision using an additive manufacturing process developed at KAUST. Fiber optics are conventionally produced by drawing thin filaments out of molten silica glass down to microscale dimensions. By infusing these fibers with long narrow hollow channels, a new class of optical devices termed "photonic crystal fibers" were introduced. The periodic arrangement of air holes in these photonic crystal fibers act like near-perfect mirrors, allowing trapping and long propagation of light in their central core. "Photonic crystal fibers allow you to confine light in very tight spaces, increasing the optical ...

Skeletal muscle is the largest tissue in the human body and is responsible not only for locomotion but for energy metabolism and heat production. Age-related muscle atrophy reduces motor function and contributes to the need for nursing care. In addition, muscle atrophy associated with various chronic diseases is known to be a risk factor for life expectancy. Myoblasts, the progenitor cells of muscle, play an important role in maintaining muscle homeostasis. However, it has been reported that the differentiation ability of myoblasts decreases with age and disease, and this is thought to be one of the causes of muscle atrophy. In order to prevent or treat muscle atrophy, a research team led by Assistant Professor Tomohide Takaya of Shinshu University, Faculty of Agriculture studied ...

Laser beams can be used to precisely measure an object's position or velocity. Normally, however, a clear, unobstructed view of this object is required - and this prerequisite is not always satisfied. In biomedicine, for example, structures are examined, which are embedded in an irregular, complicated environment. There, the laser beam is deflected, scattered and refracted, often making it impossible to obtain useful data from the measurement. However, Utrecht University (Netherlands) and TU Wien (Vienna, Austria) have now been able to show that meaningful results can be obtained even in such complicated environments. Indeed, there is a way to specifically modify ...

Depression, especially in urban areas, is on the rise, now more than ever. Mental health outcomes are influenced by, among other things, the type of environment where one lives. Former studies show that urban greenspace has a positive benefit on people experiencing mental ill health, but most of these studies used self-reported measures, which makes it difficult to compare the results and generalise conclusions on the effects of urban greenspace on mental health. An interdisciplinary research team of UFZ, iDiv and Leipzig University tried to improve this issue by involving an objective indicator: prescriptions of antidepressants. To find out whether a specific type of 'everyday' green space - street trees dotting the neighbourhood sidewalks ...

A lot is known about galaxies. We know, for instance, that the stars within them are shaped from a blend of old star dust and molecules suspended in gas. What remains a mystery, however, is the process that leads to these simple elements being pulled together to form a new star. But now an international team of scientists, including astrophysicists from the University of Bath in the UK and the National Astronomical Observatory (OAN) in Madrid, Spain have taken a significant step towards understanding how a galaxy's gaseous content becomes organised into a new generation of stars. Their findings have important implications for our understanding of how stars formed during the early days of the universe, when galaxy collisions were frequent and dramatic, and star and galaxy formation ...

Children of mothers experiencing depressive symptoms are more at risk, as adolescents, of experiencing suicidal thoughts and attempting suicide. New research suggests that this link may be explained by loneliness, potentially opening new ways for youth suicide prevention. The study - by the universities of Exeter, Montréal, Laval and McGill - used data from more than 1,600 families from the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, a representative sample of new-borns in Quebec followed from birth to 20 years of age. Mothers were asked about depressive symptoms (such as sadness and losing interest ...

As the world becomes aware of the imminent environmental crisis, scientists have begun a search for sustainable energy sources. Rechargeable batteries like lithium-ion batteries are seeing a popularity surge, concurrent with production of "greener" technologies such as electric propulsion ships (which are being developed to meet the environmental regulations by the International Maritime Organization) and other electric vehicles. But, lithium is rare and difficult to distribute, putting its sustainability in doubt while also risking sharp increases in cost. Researchers have thus turned ...

To predict when earthquakes are likely to occur, seismologists often use statistics to monitor how clusters of seismic activity evolve over time. However, this approach often fails to anticipate the time and magnitude of large-scale earthquakes, leading to dangerous oversights in current early-warning systems. For decades, studies outside the seismology field have proposed that these major, potentially devastating seismic events are connected to a range of non-seismic phenomena - which can be observed days or even weeks before these large earthquakes occur. So far, however, this idea hasn't caught on in the wider scientific community. In this special issue, EPJ Special Topics proposes the Global Earthquake Forecasting System (GEFS): the first collaborative initiative ...

Scientists have shown where bird species would exist in the absence of human activity under research that could provide a new approach to setting conservation priorities. A study by Durham University, UK, in collaboration with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), investigated how human activities such as agriculture, deforestation, and the drainage of wetlands have shaped where bird species are found in Great Britain today. Researchers used data on the geographical distributions of bird species alongside simulation models to predict where bird species would exist today if the effects of human activities on the landscape were removed. In this scenario there were winners ...

Public health researchers, led by UNSW Sydney, have estimated the number of cancer cases requiring surgery globally each year, predicting the number will rise from 9.1 million to 13.8 million from 2018 to 2040 - an increase of 52 per cent or 4.7 million cases. Their research shows the greatest relative increase will occur in 34 low-income countries, where the number of cases requiring surgery is expected to more than double by 2040 (314,355 cases to 650,164, or 107 per cent). The modelling study, published in The Lancet Oncology on Friday, analysed global demand for cancer surgery and estimated surgical and anaesthesia ...

Research team at Seoul National University (Prof. Tae-Woo Lee) and University of Pennsylvania (Prof. Andrew M. Rappe) developed perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) with an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 23.4%. The research results were published in Nature Photonics, which is the world-renowned international academic journal, on January 4th (Title: Comprehensive defect suppression in perovskite nanocrystals for high-efficiency light-emitting diodes). Metal halide perovskites have very narrow spectral emission, excellent color purity, low material cost, and wide and easy color-tunability. ...

The Nagoya University Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM) research team of Designated Associate Professor Tsuyoshi Hirota, Postdoctoral Fellow Simon Miller, Professor Kenichiro Itami and graduate student Tsuyoshi Oshima (Research Fellowship for Young Scientists, JSPS), in collaboration with the group of Professor Ben Feringa and Postdoctoral Fellow Dušan Kolarski of Groningen University in the Netherlands, have achieved a world first: fully reversible manipulation of the period of the circadian clock using light, by exchanging part of a compound with a light-activated switch. Waking in the ...

Greater sports participation among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children is linked with better academic performance, according to new research from the University of South Australia. Conducted in partnership with the University of Sydney and the University of Technology Sydney, the world-first study found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who played organised sports every year over four years, had numeracy skills which were advanced by seven months, compared to children who did less sport. The study used data from four successive waves of Australia's Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, following 303 students (with a baseline age of five to six years old) to assess cumulative sports participation against ...

A world-first discovery by researchers at Monash University and The University of Queensland could lead to faster and more effective treatments for chronic health complications, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, with 'fluorescent' in vivo biosensors. The research team, led by Dr Simon Corrie from Monash University's Department of Chemical Engineering and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, took an antibody that binds EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) proteins and engineered it to monitor the concentration of EGFR proteins in serum solutions over time. Co-authors of the paper, published in ACS Sensors, are Dr Christian Fercher, Dr Martina ...

They are among the largest predators ever to walk the Earth, but experts have discovered that some baby tyrannosaurs were only the size of a Border Collie dog when they took their first steps. The first-known fossils of tyrannosaur embryos have shed light on the early development of the colossal animals, which could grow to 40 feet in length and weigh eight tonnes. A team of palaeontologists, led by a University of Edinburgh researcher, made the discovery by examining the fossilised remains of a tiny jaw bone and claw unearthed in Canada and the US. Producing 3D scans of the delicate fragments revealed that they belonged to baby tyrannosaurs ...

Scientists from UNSW Sydney have developed a ceramic-based ink that may allow surgeons in the future to 3D-print bone parts complete with living cells that could be used to repair damaged bone tissue. Using a 3D-printer that deploys a special ink made up of calcium phosphate, the scientists developed a new technique, known as ceramic omnidirectional bioprinting in cell-suspensions (COBICS), enabling them to print bone-like structures that harden in a matter of minutes when placed in water. While the idea of 3D-printing bone-mimicking structures is not new, this is the first time such material can be created at room temperature - complete with living cells ...

The carbon footprint of plastic production for initial use is greater than the global warming impact of the entire process used for medical device reprocessing Use of reprocessed devices is environmentally superior to use of original products in 13 of 16 categories evaluatedReprocessing found to advance "circular economy," a key strategy for reaching the UN Sustainability GoalsLCA offers evidence showing that in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and honor the Paris Climate Agreement, EU Member States must opt-in to EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR)'s reprocessing/remanufacturing provisions [Berlin / Washington, ...

Large-scale production of vegetables and fruit in Spain with intensive plastic consumption in its greenhouse industry is believed to have leaked microplastic contaminants since the 1970s into the surrounding Mediterranean seagrass beds. This is shown in a new study where researchers have succeeded in tracing plastic pollution since the 1930s and 1940s by analyzing seagrass sediments. About half of Sweden's cucumbers and a fifth of the tomatoes in Sweden are currently imported from Spain according to the Swedish Board of Agriculture. A special area in Spain where large-scale vegetable cultivation ...

Overview: A research team at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology developed a nanosecond pulse laser-assisted photoporation method using titanium-oxide nanotubes (TNTs) for highly efficient and low-cost intracellular delivery. The proof of concept for the possibility of intracellular delivery after irradiation with nanosecond pulse laser on TNTs was validated. TNTs were formed on titanium sheets using the electrochemical anodization technique at different voltages and times. HeLa - human cervical cancer cells were cultured in the nanotubes and submerged in a solution of biomolecules. After cells were exposed to nanosecond pulse laser, we successfully delivered ...

There isn't much in Kamchatka, a remote peninsula in northeastern Russia just across the Bering Sea from Alaska, besides an impressive population of brown bears and the most explosive volcano in the world. Kamchatka's Shiveluch volcano has had more than 40 violent eruptions over the last 10,000 years. The last gigantic blast occurred in 1964, creating a new crater and covering an area of nearly 100 square kilometers with pyroclastic flows. But Shiveluch is actually currently erupting, as it has been for over 20 years. So why would anyone risk venturing too close? Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, including Michael Krawczynski, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences and graduate student ...