Feed aggregator

The death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was caused by the impact of a huge asteroid on the Earth. However, paleontologists have continued to debate whether they were already in decline or not before the impact.In a new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of scientists, which includes the University of Bristol, show that they were already in decline for as much as ten million years before the final death blow.

In Physics of Fluids, researchers have developed a method to turn biodegradable plastic knives, spoons, and forks into a foam that can be used as insulation in walls or in flotation devices. The investigators placed the cutlery into a chamber filled with carbon dioxide. As pressure increased, the gas dissolved into the plastic. When they suddenly released the pressure in the chamber, the carbon dioxide expanded within the plastic, creating foaming.

Researchers working on the Faraday Institution project on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries (ReLiB) at the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham have solved a critical challenge in the recovery of materials used in electric vehicle batteries at the end of their life, enabling their re-use in the manufacture of new batteries.

Australian theoretical physics study just out has identified a 'smoking gun' in long search for the topological magnetic monopole referred to as the Berry curvature. This breakthrough in search for topological effects in non-equilibrium systems opens paths towards low-energy topological electronics viable for large-scale, room-temperature operation.

In a new study, researchers from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea have investigated the transformation dynamics induced by an electric field in mixed-phase lanthanum-doped bismuth ferrite (BLFO) epitaxial thin films. They observed a connection between the presence of S/Stilt phases in BLFO film and their high piezoelectricity. These findings can help us design faster and more efficient piezoelectric materials.

The groundbreaking technology may revolutionize the treatment of cancer and a wide range of diseases and medical conditions.

Researchers took a close look at bobtail and bottletail squids to establish their evolutionary relationships and the timing of the divergence of different species.

A layer of hierarchically three-dimensional porous graphene greatly suppresses a problem holding back the development of lithium-sulfur batteries.

Researchers have identified a new treatment candidate that appears to not only halt neurodegenerative symptoms in mouse models of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, but also reverse the effects of the disorders.

Due to plasmon resonance, the electric field near a metal nanoparticle can be enhanced by tens and hundreds of times. This means that such nanostructures function as optical nanoantennas that enhance the light-matter interaction.

Researchers from University of Tsukuba have developed an artificial intelligence system that identified signs of mental distress in workers using only sociodemographic, lifestyle, and sleep data. The predictions made by the system were comparable to those made by a team of psychiatrists. Such systems may be helpful for identifying signs of depression in individuals who may be hesitant to report subjective feelings of distress as a result of mental health stigma.

Prolonged exposure to antibiotics leads to the gain of bacteria's ability to defeat the drugs designed to fight them. Thus, if such antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause the infection, the only chance to use a specialized virus called phage infecting specific bacteria species. It is a powerful weapon against deadly diseases. At the same time, the effective treatment depends on factors that would not be suspected for years to impact the successful therapy.

Receiving a simple thank you, spending time with peers and further developing their expertise, are all factors that make veterinarians feel good at work, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Adelaide.

Toyohashi University of Technology used a next-generation sequencer to develop a highly efficient method to analyze soil nematodes by using the 18S ribosomal RNA gene regions as DNA barcodes. They successfully used this method to reveal characteristics of nematode communities. The target will be expanded to cover all soil-dwelling organisms in agricultural soils to allow investigations into a soil's environment and bio-diversity. This is expected to contribute to advanced agriculture.

A team of scientists from Osaka University, Osaka Prefecture University, and Nagoya University created three-dimensional maps of the force fields around quantum dots caused by laser light. Using atomic force microscopy with frequency modulation, they were able to achieve spatial resolution of less than one nanometer for the first time. This work may greatly advance the fields of nanotechnology and photocatalysis.

The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) has released the updated 2021 AAFP Feline Senior Care Guidelines to be published in the July issue of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. This update provides emerging advances in feline medicine with respect to the aging cat. The Task Force of experts provides a thorough current review in feline medicine that emphasizes the individual senior patient.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown in preclinical studies conducted in mice and human cells that a type of immunotherapy based on natural killer cells could be effective against solid tumors, starting with melanoma, a type of skin cancer that can be deadly if not caught early.

"The question has always been how do we predict what's going to happen once an infectious disease emerges," said Kathleen Alexander, the William E. Lavery Professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. "By using systems that are tractable, we can begin to learn a lot more about how disease dynamics are shaped by host behavior and environmental drivers, including urbanizing landscapes."

Neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade is a promising treatment for melanoma and other cancer types, and has recently been shown to provide a modest survival benefit for patients with recurrent glioblastoma. To improve the treatment efficacy, researchers are looking for vulnerabilities in surgically removed glioblastoma tissues, but this has been difficult due to the vast differences within the tumor and between patients. To address this challenge, ISB researchers and their collaborators developed a new way to study tumors.

Chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and other symptom-based conditions are growing in prevalence. Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist Kurt Kroenke, M.D., writes in the Journal of General Internal Medicine how collaborative care can and should play a major role targeting the treatment of symptoms and functional decline, both too frequently marginalized in medically oriented care delivery.