Naltrexone, used either alone or together with disulfiram or acamprosate, is associated with a decreased risk of hospitalization due to alcohol use disorder (AUD) when compared with non-use of AUD drugs, a new register-based study shows. The same associations were noticed for hospitalization due to any cause. Disulfiram use and polytherapy with two or more drugs indicated for AUD was associated with a decreased risk of hospitalization due to alcohol-related somatic causes. None of the studied medications were associated with mortality or work disability (sickness absence or disability pension). The study was published in Addiction. Benzodiazepine use linked to harmful effects As benzodiazepine use is common among persons with AUD, the ...

Various glass materials have been essential to the development of modern civilization due to their advantageous properties. Specifically, glasses have a liquid-like disordered structure but solid-like mechanical properties. This leads to one of the central mysteries of glasses: "Why don't glasses flow like liquids?" This question is so important that it was selected by the journal Science in 2005 as one of 125 key, unanswered scientific questions, and one of 11 unsolved important physical issues. We can hardly observe the movements of atoms at a ~0.1 nanometer length scale and a ~1 ...

Overview: A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology and the Department of Chemistry at University of Calgary has investigated the effect of post-annealing for healing Li garnet solid electrolyte degraded by the growth of Li dendrites. The ionic conductivity of the annealed solid electrolyte was slightly lower than that of the electrolyte before annealing but was retained above 10?4 S cm?1 at room temperature. The electrochemical results obtained indicate the possibility of reusing the solid electrolyte degraded by the growth of Li dendrites in another all-solid-state Li battery. Details: A ...

Overview: The research team of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Toyohashi University of Technology and the Institute of Food Biotechnology and Genomics at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine have proposed a new drug to treat tuberculosis (TB), utilizing the state-of-the-art molecular simulations. This drug may inhibit the cell division of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) and suppress its growth. In addition, because this drug acts on the enzymes secreted by M. tuberculosis instead of acting on M. tuberculosis itself, M. tuberculosis ...

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Scientists would vouch for this statement because scientific pursuit has the habit of offering chance discoveries if we think about things differently. In the lab of Arati Ramesh at the NCBS, the team loves to spy on the structure and sequence of Ribonucleic acids (RNAs; molecules that decrypt an organism's genetic code into protein messages). During one such instance, graduate students in Arati's lab were peering at a family of nickel and cobalt (NiCo RNAs) sensing bacterial RNAs that have a clover leaf-like structure. ...

A Kobe University research group including graduate student ISHII Shinichi and Associate Professor KATAYAMA Yoshio (both of the Department of Hematology, Graduate School of Medicine) have discovered that fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF23) produced by erythroblasts (cells that are the precursors of red blood cells) promotes the movement (mobilization) of hematopoietic stem cells (*1) into the peripheral blood. Up until now, FGF23 has been known for the role it plays in the kidneys as a hormone which regulates phosphate concentrations throughout the body. It is hoped that this discovery will enable new strategies to be developed for harvesting hematopoietic ...

It is early in the morning. Ebi and his colleagues try not to twitch as they stare intently at a rectangular box filled with sugary treats. These aren't for them, but for the honey bees that they study. The tiny buzzers toggle between the sugar 'feeder' and the hive, which are a few metres apart. Interestingly, the bees that visit the feeder aren't secretive about this new found food source. They graciously advertise its location to their nest mates and over time more bees are seen buzzing to the feeder. This behavior has been observed and researched for decades; but still, the question of how bees communicate within the noisy quarters ...

Mass spectrometers (MS) have become essential tools in chemistry and biology laboratories. The ability to quickly identify the chemical components in a sample allows them to take part in a diverse array of experiments, including radiocarbon dating, protein analysis, and monitoring drug metabolism. MS instruments work by giving the analyte molecules an electric charge, and shooting them through a region of space with a uniform electric field, which curves their trajectory into a circle. The radius of the circle, which depends on the ratio of the molecule's mass to its charge, is detected and compared with known samples. Because the method can only measure this ratio, not the mass itself, excess charges can lead to inaccurate or ambiguous results. Now, a team of researchers lead ...

"Stripy zebra, spotty leopard, ...". Kids never become bored pinpointing animals based on their unique body patterns. While it is fascinating that living creatures develop distinct patterns on their skin, what may be even more mysterious is their striking similarity to the skin of frozen liquid metals. Pattern formation is a classic example of one of nature's wonders that scientists have pondered for centuries. Around 1952, the famous mathematician Alan Turing (father of modern computers) came up with a conceptual model to explain the pattern formation process of a two-substance system. Such patterns are also called Turing patterns thereafter. Pattern formation is also commonly adopted by manmade systems and this is especially true in the ...

Fungi are among the world's oldest and most tenacious organisms. They are now showing great promise to become one of the most useful materials for producing textiles, gadgets and other construction materials. The joint research venture undertaken by the University of the West of England, Bristol, the U.K. (UWE Bristol) and collaborators from Mogu S.r.l., Italy, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Torino, Italy and the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has demonstrated that fungi possess ...

The compulsory collection of DNA being undertaken in some parts of the world is not just unethical, but risks affecting people's willingness to donate biological samples and thus contribute to the advancement of medical knowledge and the development of new treatments, says a paper in the European Journal of Human Genetics, published online* today [18 January 2021]. Citing abuses being carried out in China, Thailand, and on the US/Mexico border, the authors1 call on scientific journals to reexamine all published papers based on databases that do not meet accepted standards of ethical approval, and demand an end to collaborations between academic institutions worldwide and those in countries carrying out unethical DNA collections. ...

As we enter the era of superintelligence and hyper-connected Fourth Industrial Revolution, the importance of high-density and high-performance memory is greater than ever. Currently, the most widely used NAND flash memory has issues of high power consumption, slow operation speed, and vulnerability to repetitive use since it relies on the charge trap effect to store information. To this, a POSTECH research team has recently demonstrated a ferroelectric memory that exceedingly surpasses the performance of the conventional flash memory in terms of operation speed, power consumption, and device reliability. A POSTECH research team - led by Professor Jang-Sik Lee, and Ph.D. candidates Min-Kyu Kim and Ik-Jyae Kim of the Department ...

Maxwell equations govern the evolution of electromagnetic fields with light being a particular solution of these equations in spaces devoid of electric charge. A new study published in EPJ C by Alexei Morozov and Nikita Tselousov, from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Institute of Transmission Problems, Russia, respectively, details peculiar solutions to the Maxwell equations--so-called Maxwell knots. The research could have applications in the fields of mathematical physics and string theory. "We usually think of light as the plane waves. It was a breakthrough when ...

Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa's powerful MeerKAT telescope. These galaxies are thought to be amongst the largest single objects in the Universe. The discovery has been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Whereas normal radio galaxies are fairly common, only a few hundred of these have radio jets exceeding 700 kilo-parsecs in size, or around 22 times the size of the Milky Way. These truly enormous systems are dubbed 'giant radio galaxies'. Despite the scarcity of giant radio galaxies, the authors found two of these cosmic beasts in a remarkably small patch of sky. Dr Jacinta Delhaize, a Research Fellow at the ...

Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) have found that interacting with other males is more "stressful" for low-ranking than for high-ranking male spotted hyenas. This restricts the time and energy low-ranking males can invest in courting the most desirable females and is therefore a key factor for their lower reproductive success than their high-ranking rivals. This mechanism seems to be more important in determining the number and quality of offspring than physical traits such as attractiveness and fighting ability. These insights were possible owing to a combination of extensive field and lab work - over 20 years of searching and identifying thousands ...

A research team led by Professor Chi-Ming CHE and Dr Jun YANG, from the Research Division for Chemistry and Department of Chemistry at the Faculty of Science of the University of Hong Kong, has resolved a long-standing fundamental problem in the field of metal-metal closed-shell interaction. This work has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Metal-Metal closed-shell interaction, also known as metallophilicity, has a huge impact in diverse fields of chemistry, such as supramolecular chemistry and organometallic chemistry. Early reports on metallophilicity could be traced back to the 1970s. Many leading theoretical chemists ...

According to current studies, the COVID-19 disease which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus comprises at least five different variants. These differ in how the immune system responds to the infection. Researchers from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the University of Bonn, together with other experts from Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, present these findings in the scientific journal "Genome Medicine". Their results may help to improve the treatment of the disease. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 can manifest in different ways: Many of those affected do not even seem to notice the presence of the virus in their bodies. In other ...

In order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the world must reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Carbon pricing is viewed by many governments and experts as the most important climate policy instrument. However, a new study shows that carbon pricing has been less effective as a driver of technological change than was previously anticipated. While the introduction of carbon pricing systems has led to emissions reductions in some countries, they have not significantly stimulated technological change. Bringing about the necessary transformation will require sector-specific promotion of climate-friendly technologies, for example ...

For this specific method of cryopreservation, oocytes are collected directly after an animal is castrated or deceased and immediately frozen at -196°C in liquid nitrogen. This technique allows the storage of oocytes of valuable animals for an unlimited time, so that they can be used to produce offspring with the help of assisted reproduction techniques. The aim is to further improve and apply these methods to save highly endangered species such as the Asiatic lion from extinction. The current research on African lions as a model species is an important step in this direction. The results are reported in the scientific journal Cryobiology. Lion oocytes are presumed to be very sensitive to chilling due to their high lipid content, resulting ...

Acetals are important chemical compounds that are used, for example, in the production of certain medical agents. A new method now makes their synthesis easier and more environmentally friendly. Chemists at the University of Bonn have developed and optimized the sustainable catalytic process. State-of-the-art computer simulations were also used. The reaction is based on a mechanism that frequently occurs in nature, but has rarely been used in chemical synthesis up to now. The results are published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The key step in the production of acetals is the bonding of two oxygen ...

Remdesivir is the first drug against Covid-19 to be conditionally approved in Europe and the United States. The drug is designed to suppress the rapid replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in human cells by blocking the viral copying machine, called RNA polymerase. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the University of Würzburg have now elucidated how remdesivir interferes with the viral polymerase during copying and why it does not inhibit it completely. "After complicated studies, we come to a simple conclusion," Max Planck Director Patrick ...

UPTON, NY--Marking a major achievement in the field of spintronics, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yale University have demonstrated the ability to control spin dynamics in magnetic materials by altering their thickness. The study, published today in Nature Materials, could lead to smaller, more energy-efficient electronic devices. "Instead of searching for different materials that share the right frequencies, we can now alter the thickness of a single material--iron, in this case--to find a magnetic medium that will enable the transfer of information across a device," said Brookhaven physicist and principal investigator Valentina ...

Scientists have discovered a molecule that can selectively kill cells of a hard-to-treat subtype of breast cancer, which could lead to a new therapy. The study, led by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in the current edition of Science Advances. Triple negative breast cancer is a subtype of breast cancer which is mainly treated with chemotherapy. Unfortunately, up to 70% of patients with this form of breast cancer develop resistance to treatment. The researchers tested different molecules to see if they could selectively kill the cells of this type of breast cancer while sparing normal ...

As hemp begins to reemerge as an important crop in the United States, scientists are beginning research into the diseases that might prevent the crop from flourishing. A study published in the December issue of Plant Health Progress is one of the first to study the potential disease and disorder limitations for hemp production in the southeastern United States. Lindsey Thiessen, a plant pathologist at North Carolina State University, worked with colleagues to evaluate hemp samples from North Carolina and observed 16 different diseases. They found Fusarium flower blight most consistently followed by Helminthosporium ...

A new study published in PNAS finds that aid provided by the United Nations (UN) in the aftermath of climate-related disasters is driven by humanitarian need rather than by strategic donor interests. The results underline the importance of climate-related hazards for understanding aid disbursements. The study 'Humanitarian need drives multilateral disaster aid' provides the first estimation of UN climate-related disaster aid worldwide. Although it cannot be entirely ruled out that powerful donor states' interests shape UN aid flows, the UN seems able to fend off donor states' strategic ...