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Researchers from Osaka University have found that protein phosphatase 1 binds to RIF1 at double-strand DNA breaks to promote repair by the non-homologous end joining pathway instead of the homologous recombination pathway. Given the key role of double-strand break repair in cancers such as hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, the insight gained from this study could help develop novel therapeutic options in the future.

What The Study Did: Researchers used a large data resource of U.S. COVID-19 cases and control patients who tested negative from multiple health systems across the country to evaluate COVID-19 severity and risk factors over time and assess the use of machine learning to predict clinical severity.

A new wearable device turns the touch of a finger into a source of power for small electronics and sensors. Engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a thin, flexible strip that can be worn on a fingertip and generate small amounts of electricity when a person's finger sweats or presses on it. What's special about this sweat-fueled device is that it generates power even while the wearer is asleep or sitting still.

Substantially more people in the U.S. with opioid use disorder are receiving evidence-based treatment for the disease, but there are still considerable gaps in care along racial lines, according to the largest analysis to date of opioid use disorder among Medicaid recipients.

No longer science fiction, farm robots are already here--and they have created two possible extremes for the future of agriculture and its impacts on the environment, argues agricultural economist Thomas Daum in a Science & Society article published July 13 in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

In Biophysics Reviews, researchers provide an update on how electrical impulses in the heart travel from cell to cell. The connections between cells forming the low resistance pathway and facilitating the current flow are called gap junctions. Each consists of many channels, which are formed when specific proteins from one cell dock and fuse to the proteins from another cell. The scientists delve into the properties of gap junctions and their constituent proteins.

In a paper publishing July 13 in the journal Joule, researchers have developed a new device that harvests energy from the sweat on--of all places--your fingertips. To date, the device is the most efficient on-body energy harvester ever invented, producing 300 millijoules (mJ) of energy per square centimeter without any mechanical energy input during a 10-hour sleep and an additional 30 mJ of energy with a single press of a finger.

Crenarchaeol is a large, closed-loop lipid that is present in the membranes of ammonium-oxidizing archaea. In comparison to other archaeal membrane lipids, crenarchaeol is very complex and, so far, attempts to confirm its structure by synthesizing the entire molecule have been unsuccessful. Organic chemists from the University of Groningen have taken up this challenge and discovered that the proposed structure for the molecule was largely, but not entirely, correct.

Rescuing a member of their own social group, but not a stranger, triggers motivational and social reward centres in rats' brains, suggests a report published today in eLife.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed a computational method based on large-scale molecular dynamics simulations to predict the cell-membrane permeability of cyclic peptides using a supercomputer. Their protocol has exhibited promising accuracy and may become a useful tool for the design and discovery of cyclic peptide drugs, which could help us reach new therapeutic targets inside cells beyond the capabilities of conventional small-molecule drugs or antibody-based drugs.

Informing people about how well the new COVID-19 vaccines work could boost uptake among doubters substantially, according to new research.

Research led by Newcastle University's Dr Hannah Kreczak is the first to identify the processes that underpin the trajectories of microplastics below the ocean surface. Publishing their findings in the journal Limnology and Oceanography the authors analysed how biofouling - the accumulation of algae on the surface of microplastics, impacts the vertical movement of buoyant particles.

New research published in EPJ E shows how control over self-propelled microswimmers could be achieved using exotic materials named 'nematic liquid crystals' - whose viscosity and elasticity can vary depending on the direction of an applied force.

The absorption of energy from laser light by free electrons in a liquid has been demonstrated for the first time. Until now, this process was observed only in the gas phase. The findings, led by Graz University of Technology, open new doors for ultra-fast electron microscopy.

Topological semimetals are one of the major discoveries in condensed-matter physics in recent years. The magnetic Weyl semimetal, in which the Weyl nodes can be generated and modulated by magnetization, provides an ideal platform for the investigation of the magnetic field-tunable link between Weyl physics and magnetism.

Researchers from Pompeu Fabra University and the University of Leicester have discovered at the site of Çatalhöyük (Anatolia, Turkey) a wide variety of hitherto unknown wild resources. The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, has used an innovative approach, based on the analysis of microscopic plant remains extracted from grinding implements from different domestic contexts.

A clinic to help transgender young people and their families receive quicker support has boosted mental health, family functioning and quality of life, according to a new study.

Scientists have published a global study on the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing deforestation. The study, published 29 June 2021 in Environmental Research Letters, explored the success of country-level protected areas at reducing forest loss, and used machine learning to uncover some of the factors that contribute to differences in effectiveness.

Over the past years, graphene oxide membranes have been mainly studied for water desalination and dye separation. However, membranes have a wide range of applications such as the food industry. A research group led by Aaron Morelos-Gomez of Shinshu University's Global Aqua Innovation Center investigated the application of graphene oxide membranes for milk which typically creates dense foulant layers on polymeric membranes.

As a minimally invasive method for cancer therapy at precise locations, NIR-induced photothermal therapy (PTT) has drawn extensively attention. The therapeutic mechanism is the use of photothermal agents (PTAs) in the treatment of tumors,and its therapeutic effect happens only at the tumor site where both light-absorbent and localized laser radiation coexist.