Culture
For the first time, researchers have provided physiological evidence that a pervasive neuromodulation system - a group of neurons that regulate the functioning of more specialized neurons - strongly influences sound processing in an important auditory region of the brain. The neuromodulator, acetylcholine, may even help the main auditory brain circuitry distinguish speech from noise.
DURHAM, N.C. - Mechanical engineers at Duke University have devised a method for spinning individual droplets of liquid to concentrate and separate nanoparticles for biomedical purposes. The technique is much more efficient than traditional centrifuge approaches, working its magic in under a minute instead of taking hours or days, and requires only a tiny fraction of the typical sample size. The invention could underline new approaches to applications ranging from precision bioassays to cancer diagnosis.
The results appear online on December 18 in the journal Science Advances.
December 18, 2020--(BRONX, NY)--People hospitalized with COVID-19 and neurological problems including stroke and confusion, have a higher risk of dying than other COVID-19 patients, according to a study published online today by researchers at Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the journal Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
A group of more than 300 leading scientists across the globe are calling for European governments to work together in managing the pandemic and make a clear commitment to COVID-19 case number targets.
The letter, co-authored by Dr Deepti Gurdasani from Queen Mary University of London and coordinated by Viola Priesemann from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, is published today in The Lancet.
There is light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic tunnel. Several vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 are now in clinical trials, with one — developed by Pfizer/BioNTech — already having been approved for emergency use in the United States. This has been the fastest development and rollout of any vaccine in history, starting with the first gene sequence released in January. (The previous record was held by the mumps vaccine, which took four years.)
Land ecosystems currently play a key role in mitigating climate change. The more carbon dioxide (CO2) plants and trees absorb during photosynthesis, the process they use to make food, the less CO2 remains trapped in the atmosphere where it can cause temperatures to rise. But scientists have identified an unsettling trend - as levels of CO2 in the atmosphere increase, 86 percent of land ecosystems globally are becoming progressively less efficient at absorbing it.
- A University of Sheffield-led research programme finds Local Authorities and the Voluntary and Community Sector are best placed to support the response to the Covid-19 crisis locally
Mobilising Volunteers Effectively found local initiatives are best placed to identify and mobilise volunteers
Thousands of members of the public have volunteered, helping their neighbours to stay fed, safe and connected
As Chile and Argentina witnessed the total solar eclipse on Dec. 14, 2020, unbeknownst to skywatchers, a little tiny speck was flying past the Sun -- a recently discovered comet.
This comet was first spotted in satellite data by Thai amateur astronomer Worachate Boonplod on the NASA-funded Sungrazer Project -- a citizen science project that invites anyone to search for and discover new comets in images from the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO.
While the pressures of climate change bring a sense of urgency to renewable energy development, a new study serves as a roadmap toward uniting the goals of a low-carbon future with that of ecological sustainability and conservation.
Coronaviruses like the one that causes COVID-19 are studded with protein "spikes" that bind with receptors on the cells of their victims - the first step in infection. Now scientists have made the first detailed images of those spikes in their natural state, while still attached to the virus and without using chemical fixatives that might distort their shape.
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients have a greater risk of dying if they are men or if they are obese or have complications from diabetes or hypertension, according to a new study conducted by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers. In a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the researchers evaluated nearly 67,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in 613 hospitals across the country to determine the link between certain common patient characteristics and the risk of dying from COVID-19.
While the SARS-CoV-2 virus has dominated the news this past year, researchers continue to study the health effects of the Zika virus, which has been reported in 86 countries globally.
The Zika virus is primarily transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito from the Aedes genus. However, it can also be passed through sexual contact, blood transfusions, organ transplants, and between mother and baby during pregnancy. The virus has been documented to cause a range of birth defects, including microcephaly and various neurological, musculoskeletal, and eye abnormalities.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A University of Arkansas biologist is part of a global team of researchers developing a strategy to detect and intercept diseases emerging from wildlife in Africa that could eventually infect humans.
Assistant professor Kristian Forbes, along with colleagues from Africa, Europe and North America, have proposed a four-part approach to detect and contain zoonotic diseases, those that begin in animals but spillover into humans, like COVID-19 and HIV.
Researchers from the National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester and the University of Pennsylvania have identified ultra-fast gas flows through the tiniest holes in one-atom-thin membranes, in a study published in Science Advances.
The work - alongside another study from Penn on the creation of such nano-porous membranes - holds promise for numerous application areas, from water and gas purification to monitoring of air quality and energy harvesting.
AMHERST, Mass. - In a new study of tidal marsh resilience to sea level rise, geologist and first author Brian Yellen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues observed that Hudson River Estuary marshes are growing upward at a rate two to three times faster than sea level rise, "suggesting that they should be resilient to accelerated sea level rise in the future," he says.