Brain
A study, led by the University of Liverpool and King's College London, has identified the reasons why UK serving and ex-serving military personnel drink, in research based on military personnel self-reporting a stress or emotional problem.
Graphene is a paradox. It is the thinnest material known to science, yet also one of the strongest. Now, research from University of Toronto Engineering shows that graphene is also highly resistant to fatigue -- able to withstand more than a billion cycles of high stress before it breaks.
Graphene resembles a sheet of interlocking hexagonal rings, similar to the pattern you might see in bathroom flooring tiles. At each corner is a single carbon atom bonded to its three nearest neighbours. While the sheet could extend laterally over any area, it is only one atom thick.
Scientists have developed new way to break down plant-based plastics into their original building blocks, potentially allowing products to be recycled repeatedly without a loss in the quality of the plastic.
What if solar cells worked at night? That's no joke, according to Jeremy Munday, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis. In fact, a specially designed photovoltaic cell could generate up to 50 watts of power per square meter under ideal conditions at night, about a quarter of what a conventional solar panel can generate in daytime, according to a concept paper by Munday and graduate student Tristan Deppe. The article was published in, and featured on the cover of, the January 2020 issue of ACS Photonics.
Flow rates and time of year must be taken into account to better understand the potential risks posed by emerging organic contaminants in rivers and streams, according to Penn State researchers who studied contaminant concentrations and flow characteristics at six locations near drinking water intakes in the Susquehanna River basin.
The lens of the human eye comprises a highly concentrated protein solution, which lends the lens its great refractive power. Protective proteins prevent these proteins from clumping together throughout a lifetime. A team of scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now uncovered the precise structure of the alpha-A-crystallin protein and, in the process, discovered an important additional function.
Despite an ever-rising number of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths on U.S. roads each year, there's no widespread public pressure to improve road safety -- a situation influenced by how news articles about auto-pedestrian/bicyclist crashes are written, said Tara Goddard, Texas A&M assistant professor of urban planning.
UCLA researchers are part of an international team that reported the use of a stem cell gene therapy to treat nine people with the rare, inherited blood disease known as X-linked chronic granulomatous disease, or X-CGD. Six of those patients are now in remission and have stopped other treatments. Before now, people with X-CGD – which causes recurrent infections, prolonged hospitalizations for treatment, and a shortened lifespan – had to rely on bone marrow donations for a chance at remission.
Evaluating the effectiveness of therapies for neurodegenerative diseases is often difficult because each patient's progression is different. A new study shows artificial intelligence (AI) analysis of blood samples can predict and explain disease progression, which could one day help doctors choose more appropriate and effective treatments for patients.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have mapped how different nerve cells in the brain area striatum process information to plan and execute our movements at just the right time and with the right vigour. The results, presented in the journal Cell Reports, show that different cell types in the striatum receive signals from completely different parts of the cerebral cortex and thus respond to different types of information.
When, in 2014, Brazilian researchers stumbled across a never-before-seen red-eyed leafhopper feeding inside the rosettes of bromeliads, growing in the restingas of southeastern Brazil, they were certain it was a one-of-a-kind discovery.
Hamilton, ON (January 28, 2020) - Children who spend time in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at birth have a higher risk of mental health issues later, regardless of their birth weight, say McMaster University researchers.
The study examined the mental health of NICU graduates in childhood (four to 11 years) and adolescence (12 to 17 years), using data from parent and youth psychiatric interviews.
The type of salamander called axolotl, with its frilly gills and widely spaced eyes, looks like an alien and has other-worldly powers of regeneration. Lose a limb, part of the heart or even a large portion of its brain? No problem: They grow back.
"It regenerates almost anything after almost any injury that doesn't kill it," said Parker Flowers, postdoctoral associate in the lab of Craig Crews, the John C. Malone Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and professor of chemistry and pharmacology.
WASHINGTON -- A new approach that uses artificial intelligence to analyze retinal images could one day help doctors select the best treatment for patients with vision loss from diabetic macular edema. This diabetes complication is a major cause of vision loss among working-age adults.
January 28, 2020 -- City design combining more public transport and rail networks with smaller, low speed blocks are the best to reduce road transport injuries, according to a new global study co-authored by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are published in The Lancet Planetary Health.