Eurekalert

The inhibition of pathological protein-protein interactions is a promising approach for treating a large number of diseases, including many forms of cancer. A team of researchers has now developed a bicyclic peptide that binds to beta-catenin--a protein associated with certain types of tumor. The secret of their success is the cyclic nature and the hairpin shape of the peptide, which mimics a natural protein structure, they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Magnonic devices have the potential to revolutionize the electronics industry. Qi Wang, Andrii Chumak from University of Vienna and Philipp Pirro from TU Kaiserslautern have largely accelerated the design of more versatile magnonic devices via a feedback-based computational algorithm. Their "inverse-design" of magnonic devices has now been published in Nature Communications.

With rapid advancements in network connectivity technology, such as 5G and 6G, intelligent vehicles with AI-enabled technology and an internet-of-vehicles could soon replace ad-hoc smart vehicular networks. However, the successful integration of smart vehicles with society requires adequate computing frameworks. Now, a global team of computer scientists takes stock of computing paradigms for vehicular environments, highlighting strengths, challenges, and future directions for research in this field.

A low-cost, rapid diagnostic test for COVID-19 developed by Penn Medicine provides COVID-19 results within four minutes with 90 percent accuracy. A paper published this week in Matter details the fast and inexpensive diagnostic test, called RAPID 1.0. Compared to existing methods for COVID-19 detection, RAPID is inexpensive and highly scalable, allowing the production of millions of units per week.

In a new study, researchers with the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Center at the Biodesign Institute and their colleagues investigate tangles in the brain -- pathologies not only characteristic of Alzheimer's but other neurodegenerative conditions as well.The research homes in on a particular protein known as Rbbp7, whose dysregulation appears linked to the eventual formation of tau protein tangles and the rampant cell death associated with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

A research group at the University of Cordoba completed a study on the internalization of the Salmonella Thompson bacterium in strawberry plants of the 'San Andreas' variety

Researchers from the £12 million Developing Human Connectome Project have used the dramatic advances in medical imaging the project has provided to visualise and study white matter pathways, the wiring that connects developing brain networks, in the human brain as it develops in the womb.

Researchers led by Professor Xiang Zhang of the University of Hong Kong have developed an atomic-scale ion transistor based on electrically gated graphene channels of around 3 angstrom width which demonstrated highly selective ion transport. They also found that ions move a hundred times faster in such a tiny channel than they do in bulk water. This breakthrough leads to highly switchable ultrafast ion transport that can find important applications in electrochemical and biomedical applications.

Acetone, a volatile solvent used for everything from removing nail polish and cleaning textiles to manufacturing plastics, could get a sustainability boost from a new strain of bacteria engineered by a research team based in Japan.

Researchers discovered that a large amount of enterobacteria in the gut microbiota is related to long-term mortality risk in Finnish adult population.

Atoms are the basic building blocks for all materials. To tailor functional properties, it is essential to accurately determine their atomic structures. KAIST researchers observed the 3D atomic structure of a nanoparticle at the atom level via neural network-assisted atomic electron tomography.

A research group at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) presented an analysis of the proton mass radius in Physical Review D on May 11. The proton mass radius is determined to be 0.67 ± 0.03 femtometers, which is obviously smaller than the charge radius of the proton.

Scientists of Max Born Institute together with colleagues from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and further research institutions now investigated in detail how laser-based creation and annihilation of skyrmions can be controlled to promote application of the process in devices. To image the magnetic skyrmions, the team of researchers used holography-based x-ray microscopy, which can make the tiny magnetization swirls with a diameter of 100 nanometer and less visible.

Lysophosphatidylethanolamine (LPE) is a type of lysophospholipid that are reportedly present in the brain. The latest studies in animal models have reported elevated levels of LPE in the brain after traumatic brain injury and cerebral ischemia. Fluctuations in LPE concentration have also been reported in the plasma of patients with major depression and Alzheimer's disease. Although these reports suggest the involvement of LPE in brain function, the role in the brain has remained unclear.

In previously unstudied gopher tortoise aggregations, researchers found that overall, 42.9 percent had circulating antibodies to an infectious bacterium that causes upper respiratory tract disease. Physical examination showed that 19.8 percent had clinical signs consistent with upper respiratory tract disease and 13.2 percent had some form of physical abnormality. None of the tortoises tested positive for Ranavirus or Herpesvirus, which represents important baseline data, since these viruses are thought to be emerging pathogens of other tortoise and turtle species.

Mobile apps like Flora Incognita that allow automated identification of wild plants cannot only identify plant species, but also uncover large-scale ecological patterns. This opens up new perspectives for rapid detection of biodiversity changes.

St Petersburg University's geophysicists have developed an algorithm of joint interpretation of two approaches to exploration of the Earth's subsurface. The developed algorithm ensures more accuracy in engineering investigations.

Parks played an important role for people seeking respite from the toll of social isolation during the pandemic, and according to new research from Drexel University, they did so without increasing the spread of COVID-19. The study looked at how people used 22 parks in Philadelphia and New York during the height of the pandemic and it found no strong correlation between park use and the number of confirmed cases in surrounding neighborhoods.

Everyone has at some point been charmed by the sound of a person's voice: but can we believe our ears? What can a voice really reveal about our character? Now an international research team led by the University of Göttingen has shown that people seem to express at least some aspects of their personality with their voice. The results were published in the Journal of Research in Personality.

Kindergartners from low-income families spent more than six hours a day in front of screens during two early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a small Ohio study suggests.That is nearly double the screen time found before the pandemic in similar children, according to other research.