Amphibians hold a significant place in evolution, representing the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. They are crucial for understanding the brain and spinal cord of tetrapods—animals with four limbs, including humans. A group of scientists led by a team at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now shows how harmless viruses can be used to illuminate the development of the frog nervous system. The results have now been published in Developmental Cell. Virus. When you hear the word, you probably shudder. But not all viruses are bad or cause disease. Some are even used for therapeutic ...

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications and VAST Data are giving supercomputing system Delta and the newly launched DeltaAI a boost in their storage and application performance. NCSA launched Harbor, a service that provides very fast storage for global home and software directories across all NCSA open-science resources. Its deployment has led to a 400% increase in application launch performance for the Delta system, among many other gains. Over the last two years, we’ve seen a significant increase in ...

Researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking advancement in liver failure care: the CATCH-LIFE-MELD score (Chinese Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure Consortium (CATCH-LIFE)-MELD score). This innovative tool, developed by an international team led by Xia Yu and colleagues, enhances the accuracy of predicting short-term survival outcomes for patients suffering from acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). The study, published in eGastroenterology, promises to revolutionize patient management and treatment planning for this life-threatening condition. “ACLF presents unique challenges due to its rapid progression and high mortality rates,” said Dr. Yu Shi, senior researcher at Zhejiang University ...

A recent special issue of the journal Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters has brought together some of China's top scientists to provide a picture of the latest progress in understanding and controlling air pollution. Fine particulate matter, referred to as PM2.5, and ground-level ozone (O3) are the main pollutants degrading the air quality of China’s cities and wider urban regions. Both have serious human health effects, such as heart disease, asthma, and lung damage. The World Health Organization (WHO) provides clear guidelines regarding acceptable concentrations ...

SAN FRANCISCO—November 26, 2024—Subtle signs of Alzheimer’s disease can emerge decades before a diagnosis—often in the form of irregular behaviors that reflect very early stages of brain dysfunction. But until now, identifying and measuring these slight behavioral changes in a scientific way hasn’t been feasible, not even when studying Alzheimer’s in mice.   In a study published in Cell Reports, a team of scientists at Gladstone Institutes used a new video-based machine learning tool to pinpoint ...

UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland is enrolling patients in an innovative clinical trial that seeks to cure sickle cell disease. The trial is the first in the U.S. to apply non-viral CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology in humans to directly correct the genetic mutation that causes the disease. The research involves taking the patient’s blood stem cells to correct the mutation and returning those edited cells to the patient through a bone marrow transplant. It’s hoped the corrected blood stem cells will then multiply and create a new blood system, one free of sickle cell.   “This ...

Gene editing could create hypoallergenic cats, according to a sequence analysis of the protein that triggers allergies to cats. Some 15% of people are allergic to cats, and symptoms can be severe. Martin D. Chapman and colleagues investigated CH1 and CH2, genes that code for the allergen, Fel d 1. Cats produce Fel d 1 in their sebaceous, salivary, perianal, and lachrymal glands. The function of Fel d 1 is unknown but comparisons of Fel d 1 sequences and homologs from 276 domestic or exotic cats—including cougars, cheetahs, lions, tigers, and jaguars, among others—suggests that CH1 and CH2 have been under active selection, and ...

The demand for electronics has led to a significant increase in e-waste. In 2022, approximately 62 million tons of e-waste were generated, marking an 82% increase from 2010. Projections indicate that this figure could rise to 82 million tons by 2030. E-waste contains valuable materials such as metals, semiconductors, and rare elements that can be reused. However, in 2022, only 22.3% of e-waste was properly collected and recycled, while the remaining materials, estimated to be worth almost $62 billion, were discarded in landfills. Although efforts to improve e-waste recycling continue, the process remains labor-intensive, and a significant portion of e-waste ...

Cooling systems are an integral part of many modern technologies, as heat tends to wear down materials and decrease performance in several ways. In many cases, however, cooling can be an inconvenient and energy-intensive process. Accordingly, scientists have been seeking innovative and efficient methods to cool substances down.   Solid-state optical cooling is a prominent example that leverages a very unique phenomenon called anti-Stokes (AS) emission. Usually, when materials absorb photons from incoming light, their electrons transition into an “excited” state. Under ideal conditions, as electrons return to their original ...

Thermoelectric materials, which convert heat into electricity, are valuable tools for capturing waste heat and turning it into usable electricity. These materials are especially useful in industries and vehicles where engines produce a lot of waste heat, improving energy efficiency by converting it into additional power. They also exhibit potential for portable power generation, in remote sensors and satellites where traditional power sources may be impractical. Traditional thermoelectric devices, known as parallel thermoelectric devices, generate a voltage in the same direction as the heat ...

Recent research led by Kerstin Ozkan and published in PeerJ Life and Environment has uncovered the complex and contrasting effects of human-generated noise on Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana) parental behavior, raising critical questions about how anthropogenic noise affects wildlife in both urban and non-urban settings. The study, titled “Divergent effects of short-term and continuous anthropogenic noise exposure on Western Bluebird parental care behavior,” explores how different types of noise exposure alter the bird's ...

Imagine gradually losing the ability to express yourself — not because you've forgotten the words, but because they simply won't come out. This is the reality for individuals living with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a rare form of dementia that usually begins in middle age and increasingly impairs language abilities over time. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine are working to illuminate the struggles of those living with this condition and pioneer accessible treatment models. They recently published new studies that measure PPA’s significant impact ...

Let’s say it’s a home game for the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry shows he’s still got it, sinking back-to-back three-pointers minutes into the first quarter. The fans at Chase Center take notice, and so do the betting markets, where the odds move in the Warriors’ favor. Yet it’s a long game. The away team comes back, and with just 10 seconds to go, the Warriors are down by two and have just missed a shot. A victory is unlikely, and the betting odds should have shifted to reflect that near-certainty. ...

CHICAGO – In patients with long COVID, lower pulmonary gas exchange may be associated with impaired cognitive function, according to a study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). According to the National Center for Health Statistics, approximately 17.6% of adults in the U.S. have experienced a post-COVID condition commonly referred to as long COVID. People with long COVID may exhibit a wide variety of symptoms, including difficulty concentrating (“brain fog”), change in sense of smell or taste, fatigue, joint or muscle pain, dyspnea (shortness of breath), digestive ...

CHICAGO – A new study of high school football players found that concussions affect an often-overlooked but important brain signal. The findings are being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Reports have emerged in recent years warning about the potential harms of youth contact sports on developing brains. Contact sports, including high school football, carry a risk of concussion. Symptoms of concussion commonly include cognitive disturbances, such as difficulty with balancing, ...

Laboratory experiments with cancer cells reveal two ways in which tumors evade drugs designed to starve and kill them, a new study shows. While chemotherapies successfully treat cancers and extend patients’ lives, they are known not to work for everyone for long, as cancer cells rewire the process by which they convert fuel into energy (metabolism) to outmaneuver the drugs’ effects. Many of these drugs are so-called antimetabolics, disrupting cell processes needed for tumor growth and survival. Three such drugs used in the study — raltitrexed, N-(phosphonacetyl)-l-aspartate (PALA), and brequinar ...

Climate change is the single biggest threat to the global environment and socio-economic development – demanding an urgent transformation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to a new study.  The UN SDGs were created to end poverty, build social-economic-health protection and enhance education and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and providing environmental protection.   Following last week’s COP29 environmental summit in Baku, University of Birmingham experts say that, as climate action is linked to sustainable development, systematic integration of climate resilience into every ...

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 10.00AM (UK TIME) ON 26 NOVEMBER 2024     New study reveals genetic drivers of early onset type 2 diabetes in South Asians    Peer reviewed | Observational study | People  A genetic predisposition to having lower insulin production and less healthy fat distribution are major causes of early-onset type 2 diabetes in British Asian people. According to new research from Queen Mary University of London, these genetic factors also lead to quicker development of health complications, earlier need for insulin treatment, and a weaker response ...

RICHLAND, Wash. —Tip the first tile in a line of dominoes and you’ll set off a chain reaction, one tile falling after another. Cross a tipping point in the climate system and, similarly, you might spark a cascading set of consequences like hastened warming, rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather.  It turns out there’s more to weigh than catastrophic environmental change as tipping points draw near, though. Another point to consider, a new study reveals, is the cost of undoing the damage.  The cost of reversing the effects of climate change—restoring melted polar sea ice, for ...

While Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been a constant feature of the planet for centuries, University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered equally large spots at the planet's north and south poles that appear and disappear seemingly at random. The Earth-size ovals, which are visible only at ultraviolet wavelengths, are embedded in layers of stratospheric haze that cap the planet's poles. The dark ovals, when seen, are almost always located just below the bright auroral zones at each ...

Researchers at the University of Cologne and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona have discovered that cancer grows uniformly throughout its mass, rather than at the outer edges. The work, published today in the journal eLIFE, challenges decades-old assumptions about how the disease grows and spreads. “We challenge the idea that a tumour is a ‘two-speed’ entity with rapidly dividing cells on the surface and slower activity in the core. Instead, we show they are uniformly growing masses, where every region is equally active and has the potential ...

The Arctic is warming two to four times faster than the global average. A recent study by researchers in Japan found that dust from snow- and ice-free areas of the Arctic may be an important contributor to climate change in the region. The findings were published in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. According to one view, higher temperatures in the Arctic are thought to lead to the region's clouds containing more liquid droplets and fewer ice crystals. Clouds become thicker, longer lasting, ...

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg are the first to prove that painful stimuli are sent to the brain of shore crabs providing more evidence for pain in crustaceans. EEG style measurements show clear neural reactions in the crustacean's brain during mechanical or chemical stimulation. In the search for a better welfare of animals that we humans kill for food, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have chosen to focus on decapod crustaceans. This includes shellfish delicacies such as prawns, lobsters, crabs and crayfish that we both catch wild and farm. Currently, ...

Social stress is bad for your brain. It’s a prime suspect in the accumulation of oxidative stress in the brain, which is believed to contribute to mental health and neurodegenerative disorders — but the mechanisms that turn social stress into oxidative stress, and how social status affects this, are poorly understood. By studying a highly social, very hierarchical fish species, cichlids, scientists have now found that social stress raises oxidative stress in the brains of low-status fish.  “We found that low rank was generally linked to higher levels of oxidative stress in the brain,” said Dr Peter Dijkstra of ...

Due to the growing reality of global warming and climate change, there is increasing uncertainty around meteorological conditions used in energy assessments of buildings. Existing methods for generating meteorological data do not adequately handle the interdependence of meteorological elements, such as solar radiation, air temperature, and absolute humidity, which are important for calculating energy usage and efficiency. To address this challenge, a research team at Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology—comprising Associate ...