Earth

When it comes to making eggs, female flies and female humans are surprisingly similar. And that could be a boon for women seeking better birth control methods, a UConn researcher reports in the July 5 issue of PNAS.

(Edmonton, AB) Firefighters at the centre of the battle against the massive Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016 have persistent lung damage, according to new findings published by a University of Alberta occupational health research team.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - During development, brain cells may find different ways to connect with each other based on sex, according to researchers at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, several reports have indicated that SARS-CoV-2 spillover events have occurred from humans to animals, as evidenced by the transmission of the virus between keepers and tigers and lions in the Bronx Zoo in New York. However, to date, the full range of animal species that are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection remains unclear. Typically, such information could be obtained by experimentally infecting a large variety of animal species with SARS-CoV-2 to see if they are susceptible.

FINDINGS

A chemical modification that occurs in some RNA molecules as they carry genetic instructions from DNA to cells' protein-making machinery may offer protection against non-alcoholic fatty liver, a condition that results from a build-up of fat in the liver and can lead to advanced liver disease, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. – What’s a hungry marine microbe to do when the pickings are slim? It must capture nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus, or iron – to survive, yet in vast expanses of the ocean, nutrients are extremely scarce. And the stakes are high: Marine microbial communities drive many of the elemental cycles that sustain all life on Earth.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - As children made fewer visits to health facilities and engaged in social distancing and other COVID-19 mitigation measures, a smaller number of them also received prescription drugs, a new study suggests.

Overall, medications prescribed for children dropped by more than a quarter during the first eight months of the pandemic compared to the previous year, with the steepest declines in infection-related medicines like antibiotics and cough-and-cold drugs.

The development of an ultrathin magnet that operates at room temperature could lead to new applications in computing and electronics - such as high-density, compact spintronic memory devices - and new tools for the study of quantum physics.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When COVID-19 hit, affluent Columbus residents responded by taking significantly fewer trips to large grocery and big-box stores, apparently ordering more online and stocking up when they did go out to shop.

With fewer options available to them, low-income people had to double down on what they had always done: regular trips to the local dollar stores and small groceries to get their family's food.

That's the conclusion of a new study that analyzed traffic to Columbus grocery sellers before, during and after the COVID-19 lockdown.

Prof. LI Chuanfeng, Prof. XU Jinshi and their colleagues from Prof. GUO Guangcan's group, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), realized the high-contrast readout and coherent manipulation of a single silicon carbide divacancy color center electron spin at room temperature for the first time in the world, in cooperation with Prof. Adam Gali, from the Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary. This work was published in National Science Review on July 5, 2021.

Oncotarget published "Ex vivo analysis of DNA repair targeting in extreme rare cutaneous apocrine sweat gland carcinoma" which reported a rare metastatic case with a PALB2 aberration identified previously as a familial susceptibility gene for breast cancer in the Finnish population.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Most of the tests that doctors use to diagnose cancer -- such as mammography, colonoscopy, and CT scans -- are based on imaging. More recently, researchers have also developed molecular diagnostics that can detect specific cancer-associated molecules that circulate in bodily fluids like blood or urine.

Berkeley Lab Pushes Its Energy-Saving Windows into the Market

By Julie Chao

Windows make up 7% of the envelope area of a home but can account for 47% of the envelope heat loss. High-performance windows thus represent a significant opportunity for consumers to be more comfortable and save money - and help reduce energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions while doing so.

Researchers at UC San Francisco are zeroing in on how the immune system may play a role in miscarriage, which affects about a quarter of pregnancies.

Working in mice, the researchers have found that a recently discovered subset of cells in the immune system may prevent the mother's immune system from attacking the placenta and fetus. If the research is confirmed in further animal studies, and the cells play a similar role in people, they could point the way toward new therapies for pregnancies that are threatened by defects in immune tolerance.

Great leaps in science and technology have been propelled by recent advances in seeing fast evolving physical phenomena, as they happen. Femtosecond lasers from the infrared to the X-ray region have enabled us to 'watch', in real time, atoms dance in molecules and solids on femtosecond and picosecond timescales. Watching such fascinating motions not just in real time but at the spatial locations where they happen, is a bigger challenge.