Culture
When Michigan State University's Gemma Reguera first proposed her new research project to the National Science Foundation, one grant reviewer responded that the idea was not "environmentally relevant."
As other reviewers and the program manager didn't share this sentiment, NSF funded the proposal. And, now, Reguera's team has shown that microbes are capable of an incredible feat that could help reclaim a valuable natural resource and soak up toxic pollutants.
A unifying explanation of the cause of autism and the reason for its rising prevalence has eluded scientists for decades, but a theoretical model published in the journal Medical Hypotheses describes the cause as a combination of socially valued traits, common in autism, and any number of co-occurring disabilities.
Scientists from Russia, Austria, and the USA have discovered virus-like particles in the bacterial symbionts of Bryozoa - a phylum of colonial aquatic invertebrates - filter-feeders dominating in many bottom ecosystems. The research project was planned and supervised by scientists from St Petersburg University. Some of the virus-like particles resemble red blood cells, while others have a sea-urchin-like appearance.
Like Peter Pan, some cells never grow up. In cancer, undifferentiated stem cells may help tumors such as glioblastoma become more aggressive than other forms of the disease. Certain groups of genes are supposed to help cells along the path to maturity, leaving their youthful "stemness" behind. This requires sweeping changes in the microRNAome -- the world of small non-coding material, known as microRNAs, that control where and when genes are turned on and off. Many microRNAs are tumor-suppressive; in cancer, the microRNAome is distorted and disrupted.
While rare, botulism can cause paralysis and is potentially fatal. It is caused by nerve-damaging toxins produced by Clostridium botulinum -- the most potent toxins known. These toxins are often found in contaminated food (home canning being a major culprit). Infants can also develop botulism from ingesting C. botulinum spores in honey, soil, or dust; the bacterium then colonizes their intestines and produces the toxin.
Non-violent offenders serving time for drug use or possession should be freed immediately and their convictions erased, according to research published in the peer-reviewed The American Journal of Bioethics.
More than 60 international experts including bioethicists, psychologists and drug experts have joined forces to call for an end to the war on drugs which they argue feeds racism.
Jan. 8, 2021 - A new study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society examines the recovery of lung function and overall wellness in individuals who had varying degrees of COVID-19 severity. Little is known about lung health following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and whether later respiratory problems, fatigue and ill health are associated with the disease's initial severity.
Researchers from Oklahoma State University, University of Missouri, Iowa State University, and University of Georgia published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that investigates the question of how salespeople should balance advocacy for the seller with advocacy for the customer.
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Salesperson Dual Agency in Price Negotiations" and is authored by Justin Lawrence, Lisa Scheer, Andrew Crecelius, and Son Lam.
Ribosomes are the complexes of ribonucleoproteins at the heart of protein synthesis in cells. However in the absence of conclusive evidence, how these complexes operate has been open to debate. Now Hirotatsu Imai and Noriyuki Kodera at Kanazawa University, alongside Toshio Uchiumi at Niigata University in Japan, show visualizations of the structural dynamics and factor pooling that take place at ribosome stalk proteins as they build new proteins.
A new computational analysis suggests that a vaccine or medication that could shorten the infectious period of COVID-19 may potentially prevent millions of cases and save billions of dollars. The study was led by Bruce Lee along with colleagues in the Public Health Informatics, Computational, and Operations Research (PHICOR) team headquartered at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and the Lundquist Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and publishes in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
Using stem cells to regenerate parts of the skull, scientists corrected skull shape and reversed learning and memory deficits in young mice with craniosynostosis, a condition estimated to affect 1 in every 2,500 infants born in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The only current therapy is complex surgery within the first year of life, but skull defects often return afterward.
Humans feeding leftover lean meat to wolves during harsh winters may have had a role in the early domestication of dogs, towards the end of the last ice age (14,000 to 29,000 years ago), according to a study published in Scientific Reports.
Policymakers around the world tend to reference new and highly cited COVID-19 research papers in their policy documents regarding the pandemic, Yian Yin and colleagues conclude after analyzing publications of both types from the first half of 2020. "Overall, this result shows that the coronavirus research used by policymakers aligns with what scientists heavily engage themselves," they write in a Policy Forum. Although government agencies produced more COVID-19 documents compared to think tanks and intergovernmental organizations such as the World Health Organization, Yin et al.
Social contact can transfer the feeling of pain or fear in several animal species, including humans, but the exact neural mechanisms for this transmission are still being studied. Now, Monique Smith and colleagues demonstrate that the social transmission of pain and pain relief in mice is mediated by neural projections from the brain's anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to the nucleus accumbens. The transfer of fear, however, is mediated by the ACC's projections into a different area of the brain called the basolateral amygdala.
Richard Tyser and colleagues have mapped the origins of the embryonic mouse heart at single-cell resolution, helping to define the cell types that make up the heart in the earliest days of development. Their techniques allowed them to identify for a first time a pool of progenitor cells that contributes to the formation of heart muscle cells as well as the early epicardium, the outermost layer of the heart.