The polysaccharide β-1,2-glucan consists of repeating units of glucose linked together by β-1,2-glycosidic bonds. Cyclic β-1,2-glucans (CβGs) occur in different bacterial species and have a role in bacterial infections and symbiotic relationships. CβG biosynthesis is catalyzed by cyclic β-1,2-glucan synthase (CGS), an enzyme that catalyzes the cyclization (closed ring formation) of linear β-1,2-glucan (LβG). Since the method for large-scale enzymatic synthesis of linear β-1,2-glucan has already been established, combining it with this enzyme is technically feasible for efficient ...

Scientists have discovered the gene that enables marine algae to make a unique type of chlorophyll. They successfully implanted this gene in a land plant, paving the way for better crop yields on less land. Finding the gene solves a long-standing mystery amongst scientists about the molecular pathways that allow the algae to manufacture this chlorophyll and survive. “Marine algae produce half of all the oxygen we breathe, even more than plants on land. And they feed huge food webs, fish that get eaten by mammals and humans,” said UC Riverside ...

Patients kept asking a question that Nathan Lo, MD, PhD, infectious disease specialist, had a hard time answering: How often should I get my booster shot for COVID-19? “It’s a question that we have all asked. My patients have asked; friends and family members have asked,” Lo said. “We point to the national vaccine recommendations, although increasingly this question has become challenging to answer. I didn’t quite have the estimates on hand that I might hope to share with patients.” To build that evidence, Lo and his team at Stanford ...

XPANCEO, a deep tech company developing the first smart contact lenses with XR vision, health monitoring, and content surfing features, in collaboration with the Nobel laureate Konstantin S. Novoselov (National University of Singapore, University of Manchester) and professor Luis Martin-Moreno (Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragon), has announced in Nature Communications a groundbreaking discovery of new properties of rhenium diselenide and rhenium disulfide, enabling novel mode of light-matter interaction with huge potential for integrated photonics, healthcare, and AR. Rhenium disulfide ...

More than 70% of American Indian young adults aged 20-39 and 50% of American Indian teens have cholesterol levels or elevated fat in the blood that put them at risk for cardiovascular disease, suggests a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. In some cases, these levels — specifically high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, often thought of as “bad cholesterol,” — were linked to plaque buildup and cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke.   The findings, ...

New research published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology reveals the effects of wearing cosmetic foundation during aerobic exercise on the skin and its pores. The study included 43 healthy college students (20 males and 23 females). Foundation cream was applied to participants on half of the face in two different areas (forehead and upper cheek). The other half of the face served as control. Moisture increased after exercise in both the non-makeup and makeup zones; however, there was a greater increase in moisture in the makeup zones. This may be a result of makeup preventing ...

An increasing number of space objects, debris, and satellites in Low Earth Orbit poses a significant threat of collisions during space operations. The situation is currently monitored by radar and radio-telescopes that track space objects, but much of space debris is composed of very small metallic objects that are difficult to detect. In a study published in IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, investigators demonstrate the benefits of using deep learning—a form of artificial intelligence—for small space object detection by ...

Research in animals has shown that the diabetes drug dulaglutide, which is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist may reduce symptoms of depression. A new study published in Brain and Behavior reveals the mechanisms that are likely involved. By conducting a range of tests in mice treated with and without dulaglutide, investigators confirmed the effects of dulaglutide on depressive-like behaviors, and they identified 64 different metabolites and four major pathways in the brain associated with these effects. Markers of depression and the antidepressant effects of dulaglutide were linked to lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism, energy metabolism, ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) programs have recently acquired widespread popularity in dermatology for assessing, diagnosing, and treating skin conditions. As reported in the International Journal of Dermatology, investigators recently analyzed all published studies from the last 10 years to evaluate current AI programs in use for dermatologic purposes, uncovering significant shortcomings when applied to skin of color (SOC). The researchers identified various challenges when this technology is applied to SOC, ...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aims to broaden healthcare access, but its effect on maternal and newborn health among women with gestational diabetes—or diabetes that develops during pregnancy—across diverse demographics is unclear. In a study published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, researchers compared the impact of the implementation of the ACA on maternal and newborn health in Maryland (with ACA implementation) and Georgia (without ACA implementation) among 52,479 women. The investigators found that after ACA implementation, Maryland showed improved newborn outcomes compared ...

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries have increased in recent decades among children. Because re-injuries after ACL reconstruction are higher in children compared with adults, anterolateral augmentation procedures may reduce re-injury rates after ACL reconstruction in youth. A comprehensive review published in the Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics marks the first attempt to present the outcomes and surgical methods of anterolateral augmentation procedures for skeletally immature patients. “We found many different surgical techniques ...

A specific gene may play a key role in new treatments that prevent muscle in the body from breaking down in serious muscle diseases, muscular dystrophies. This is shown in a new study at Umeå University, Sweden. Protein expressed by the gene naturally prevents the muscles around the eye from being affected when other muscles in the body are broken down during muscular dystrophies. In the study, the so-called genetic scissors were used and the gene is expressed in all muscles. The effects were that muscular dystrophin was alleviated throughout the body. "You could say that the eye muscles function as both an eye-opener for understanding the disease and as a door ...

WASHINGTON (March 6, 2024)--Despite progress toward cleaner air in the US, a new study suggests that communities of color across the nation are shouldering a growing burden of diseases linked to air pollution. A paper published today by researchers at the George Washington University suggests that racial and ethnic disparities in cases of pollutant-linked diseases like asthma increased during the last decade.   “Redlining and systemic racism have resulted in the least white areas of the US being located near factories, congested roadways or shipping routes with heavily ...

If you recently had trouble figuring out if an image of a person is real or generated through artificial intelligence (AI), you're not alone.  A new study from University of Waterloo researchers found that people had more difficulty than was expected distinguishing who is a real person and who is artificially generated.  The Waterloo study saw 260 participants provided with 20 unlabeled pictures: 10 of which were of real people obtained from Google searches, and the other 10 generated by Stable Diffusion or DALL-E, two commonly used AI programs that generate ...

In a groundbreaking study published in Engineering, a collaborative team of researchers from Shanghai University and international experts have unveiled a cutting-edge approach to optimizing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) inspection routes and schedules for engineering projects. The research, led by Lu Zhen, Zhiyuan Yang, Gilbert Laporte, Wen Yi, and Tianyi Fan, introduces an innovative mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model combined with a variable neighborhood search (VNS) algorithm, constructing a new approach in the field of engineering management. The rapid development and adoption of UAV technology have opened new horizons for various industries, particularly ...

Basic Human–Robot Interaction by Dr David O Johnson offers practical guidance and insights for conducting experiments in Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) and publishing the results in scientific journals. It includes a detailed explanation of how to conduct an HRI experiment and what to do and what not to do to get an article accepted for publication. It is tailored to those seeking to deepen their understanding of HRI methodologies, statistical measurements, and research design. The book begins with an overview of HRI, unravelling the basics of how robots function, with a specific focus on the verbal and non-verbal aspects of influencing their interactions ...

Raman spectral preprocessing Raman spectroscopy detects the molecular bond information of the chemical components of the sample in situ in a non-destructive and label-free manner (Terms >>>). It is an emerging metabolic-related spectromics technology in biological and clinical medical research and is expected to promote the evolution of precision medicine. At present, Raman spectroscopy is applied in biomedical detections of body fluids, exosomes, cells/microbes, and tissues, among which Raman ...

This article was directed and written by Dr. Lucía Pérez Sánchez, Ldi. Misael A. Ortiz de la O, Dr. Marco Antonio Álvarez Pérez and Dr. Janeth Serrano Bello (Laboratorio de Bioingeniería de Tejidos, División de Estudios de Posgrado e Investigación, Facultad de Odontología, UNAM) Dra. Monserrat Llaguno Munive (Laboratorio de Física Médica, Subdirección de Investigación Básica, Instituto Nacional de Cancerología) and Dr. Osmar A. Chanes Cuevas (Laboratorio de Investigación ...

Holography technology can restore the complete light field information of the recorded object, which has important applications in fields like biological microscopic imaging and optical micromanipulation. One important frontier of holography is the reconstruction of realistic 3D scenes. However, the development and application of holographic technology have been hindered by the huge amount of data of the 3D scenes and the laser coherence, which leads to the slow capturing speed of the real 3D scenes ...

Under real-world haze conditions, the captured images not only suffer from the haze but also are affected by the noise, which significantly deteriorates the visibility of images. However, most of existing haze removal methods mainly focus on the haze degradation and fail to consider the noise interference. To address the above issue, a research team led by Hailing XIONG and Yun LIU published their new research on 15 Feb 2024 in Frontiers of Computer Science co-published by Higher Education Press and Springer Nature. The team proposed a novel unified variational model consisting of multiple effective constraints that simultaneously ...

SAN DIEGO–—Elephants are the natural carriers of a virus called Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus (EEHV) that can, for yet unknown reasons, cause profound clinical signs in some young elephants and be rapidly fatal. For nearly two decades, zoos and university partners have been working to study the virus and develop early detection protocols and treatment options. Veterinarians and clinical pathology researchers at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA) and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, have recently made an important discovery, now published in the March 2024 Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine. They found that population-based reference ...

Sports coaches could strengthen athletes’ mental health and protect them from mental illness – by adopting an ‘authentic leadership’ style, a new study reveals. Researchers found when athletes perceived that their coach engaged in behaviours such as openly sharing information, showing understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, acting in an ethical manner, and listening to alternative perspectives, they felt happier and dealt with problems more easily. Publishing their findings today (6 March) in Psychology of Sport and Exercise, experts from the University of Birmingham reveal ...

Every year, more than one million deaths globally occur because of exposure to short-term (hours to days) fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in air pollution, according to a new report, with Eastern Asia reporting more than 50% of deaths attributable to short-term PM2.5 globally. To date most studies have focused on the health impacts of living in cities where pollution levels are consistently high, ignoring the frequent “spikes” in pollution that can impact smaller urban areas that occur for instance landscape fires, dust, and other intermittent ...

Living in leafy areas near gardens, parks, and green spaces, may boost bone density and lower the risk of osteoporosis, finds research published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.   Lower levels of air pollution in green spaces is a significant contributory factor to the associations found, conclude the researchers. Osteoporosis weakens bones, making them fragile and prone to fracture. It can lead to chronic pain, diminished mobility, and poorer quality of life. Already a major health issue worldwide, its global prevalence is set to rise with the rapid ageing of the population and changes in ...

Every additional step up to around 10,000 steps per day reduces the risk of death and cardiovascular disease (CVD), regardless of how much remaining time is spent sedentary, reports a large population-based study published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.   Some previous studies have shown that greater daily step counts are associated with lower levels of death and CVD, while others have linked high levels of sedentary behaviour with increased risks of CVD and death. However, none of these studies investigated whether high levels of physical activity may offset or lessen the higher risk of death and CVD ...