Brain
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Machine learning is a computational tool used by many biologists to analyze huge amounts of data, helping them to identify potential new drugs. MIT researchers have now incorporated a new feature into these types of machine-learning algorithms, improving their prediction-making ability.
Using this new approach, which allows computer models to account for uncertainty in the data they're analyzing, the MIT team identified several promising compounds that target a protein required by the bacteria that cause tuberculosis.
Regular cannabis exposure in rats during pregnancy may cause their offspring to have long-term cognitive deficiencies, asocial behavior, and anxiety later in adulthood.
That's according to a new study by neuroscientists in Washington State University's Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience unit that provides a rare look at the effects of using cannabis during pregnancy.
Some of the world's largest specimens of rare calcium carbonate crystals known as glendonites are found in Denmark.
The crystals were formed between 56 and 54 million of years ago, during a period known to have had some of the highest temperatures in Earth's geologic history. Their presence has long stirred wonder among researchers the world over.
Caterpillars are small bugs with two rows of tiny legs that all move in a coordinated manner, causing the caterpillar to almost glide across a leaf. Mycoplasma pneumoniae, the bacterium behind many cases of pneumonia in human communities, moves in a similar fashion around our body's cells.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Hungry giant predators, treacherous mud and a tired, probably cranky toddler - more than 10,000 years ago, that was the stuff of every parent's nightmare.
Evidence of that type of frightening trek was recently uncovered, and at nearly a mile it is the longest known trackway of early-human footprints ever found.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) -- nanometer sized messengers that travel between cells to deliver cues and cargo -- are promising tools for the next generation of therapies for everything from autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases to cancer and tissue injury. EVs derived from stem cells have already been shown to help heart cells recover after a heart attack, but exactly how they help and whether the beneficial effect is specific to EVs derived from stem cells has remained a mystery.
What The Study Did: Researchers examined the association between use of e-cigarettes and self-reported wheezing among adolescents ages 12 to 17.
Authors: Alayna P. Tackett, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.20671)
From microscopes to data transfer via optical fibres all the way to modern quantum technologies, light plays an important role in science and industry. Particularly methods for changing the colour - and hence the frequency and wavelength - of light are of great importance in modern applications. Those methods require the use of nonlinear crystals. In such crystals, two photons of a particular frequency can, for instance, be turned into one photon having twice that frequency - say, two red ones into a single blue one.
Steam-assisted oil extraction methods for heavy deposits have long been the focus of attention at Kazan Federal University. In particular, much attention is paid to in-situ combustion catalysts.
One of the latest research projects is dedicated to iron-containing catalysts including mixed Fe(II, III) oxides. The compounds are studied by Mossbauer spectroscopy.
In 2015, the New Horizons space probe discovered spectacular snowcapped mountains on Pluto, which are strikingly similar to mountains on Earth. Such a landscape had never before been observed elsewhere in the Solar System. However, as atmospheric temperatures on our planet decrease at altitude, on Pluto they heat up at altitude as a result of solar radiation. So where does this ice come from? An international team led by CNRS scientists* conducted this exploration.
When residential fires happen at night while families are sleeping, deaths are more likely to occur. Smoke alarms are important for preventing these deaths, yet research has shown that many pre-teenage children don't wake up to traditional high-frequency tone alarms.
Both a mother's and father's mental health are associated with increased risk that their baby will be born premature, a new study has found.
The research, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and published in EClinicalMedicine, found men with persistent mental health problems through adolescence and young adulthood were more likely to have a baby born premature. Women with anxiety and depression during pregnancy were more likely to have a preterm birth.
In 1805, Thomas Young took the mechanical equilibrium at the solid/liquid/gas three-phase contact line into consideration (the balance of forces acting on the contact line formed by the intersection of the liquid-gas interface and the solid surface), and introduced the macroscopic concept of "contact angle" and Young's equation. Based on the assumptions of isotropic, homogeneous, and smooth surface, Young's equation gives the relationship between the intrinsic contact angle of the solid surface and the interfacial free energy at the solid/liquid/gas three-phase contact line.
The hospitalization rate for acute cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in a large southern California health system was 1.62 times higher in the two days immediately after the 2016 presidential election when compared with the same two days in the week prior to the 2016 election, according to new research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Kaiser Permanente. The results were similar across sex, age, and race and ethnicity groups, and the findings suggest that sociopolitical stress may trigger CVD events.
The lithium batteries that power our electronic devices and electric vehicles have a number of drawbacks. The electrolyte - the medium that enables electrons and positive charges to move between the electrodes - is a flammable liquid. What's more, the lithium they're made of is a limited resource that is the focus of major geopolitical issues. Specialists in crystallography at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have developed a non-flammable, solid electrolyte that operates at room temperature. It transports sodium - which is found everywhere on earth - instead of lithium.