Culture
A new study by Simon Fraser University historical ecologists finds that Indigenous-managed forests--cared for as "forest gardens"--contain more biologically and functionally diverse species than surrounding conifer-dominated forests and create important habitat for animals and pollinators. The findings are published today in Ecology and Society.
In 2005, an ultramarathon runner ran continuously 560 kilometers (350 miles) in 80 hours, without sleeping or stopping. This distance was roughly 324,000 times the runner's body length. Yet this extreme feat pales in comparison to the relative distances that fruit flies can travel in a single flight, according to new research from Caltech.
SINGAPORE, 22 April 2021 - A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore discovered a new mitochondrial peptide called MOCCI that plays an important role in regulating inflammation of blood vessel and immunity. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, revealed how one gene encoded two molecules that provide two-pronged protection following viral infection.
Substantial proportions of pregnant and postpartum women scored high for symptoms of anxiety, depression, loneliness and post-traumatic stress in relation to COVID-19 in a survey carried out in May and June 2020, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Karestan Koenen and Archana Basu of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, US, and colleagues.
Time seems to pass more slowly in the UK COVID-19 lockdown - especially for people who are depressed, shielding or dissatisfied with social interactions
Kobe University Hospital's Dr. NISHIMORI Makoto and Project Assistant Professor KIUCHI Kunihiko et al. (of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine) have developed an AI that uses multiple kinds of test data to predict the location of surplus pathways in the heart called 'accessory pathways', which cause the heart to beat irregularly. In this study, the researchers were able to improve diagnosis accuracy by having the AI learn from two completely different types of test results- electrocardiography (ECG) data and X-ray images.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers found a rotating baby galaxy 1/100th the size of the Milky Way at a time when the Universe was only seven percent of its present age. Thanks to assistance by the gravitational lens effect, the team was able to explore for the first time the nature of small and dark "normal galaxies" in the early Universe, representative of the main population of the first galaxies, which greatly advances our understanding of the initial phase of galaxy evolution.
When it comes to friendships and rivalries, male dolphins know who the good team players are. New findings, published in Nature Communications by University of Bristol researchers, reveal that male dolphins form a social concept of team membership based on cooperative investment in the team.
The week of Thanksgiving last year, a postcard arrived in mailboxes in Christiansburg. A link to a survey was on the back. On the front, there was a picture that was, by then, very familiar to the residents of a town that made history in 2019 as the first place in the U.S. to have a residential drone delivery service: a yellow-winged drone with a small cardboard box tucked underneath it.
Diseases continue to be a major threat to coral reef health. For example, a relatively recent outbreak termed stony coral tissue loss disease is an apparently infectious waterborne disease known to affect at least 20 stony coral species. First discovered in 2014 in Miami-Dade County, the disease has since spread throughout the majority of the Florida's Coral Reef and into multiple countries and territories in the Caribbean. Some reefs of the northern section of Florida's Coral Reef are experiencing as much as a 60 percent loss of living coral tissue area.
Stimulus-responsive supramolecular structures have emerged as an alternative to conventional ones, owing to their applications in sensing, drug delivery, and switchable memory systems. Now, scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology explore the hydrostatic-pressure response of "foldamers"--artificial molecules that mimic protein folding--and report a shift in their preferred conformation with changing pressure, demonstrating hydrostatic pressure-enabled dynamic control. The finding opens doors to future development of pressure-sensitive foldamers and artificial materials.
Animals use their sense of smell to navigate the world--to find food, sniff out mates and smell danger. But when a hungry animal smells food and a member of the opposite sex at the same time, what makes dinner the more attractive option? Exactly what is it about the odor of food that says, "Choose me?"
Research by investigators at Harvard Medical School illuminates the neurobiology that underlies food attraction and how hungry mice choose to pay attention to one object in their environment over another.
STUDY SHOWS VACCINES MAY PROTECT AGAINST NEW COVID-19 STRAINS ... AND MAYBE THE COMMON COLD
A new study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers provides evidence that CD4+ T lymphocytes -- immune system cells also known as helper T cells -- produced by people who have received either of the two messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for COVID-19 caused by the original SARS-CoV-2 strain also will recognize the mutant variants of the coronavirus that are rapidly becoming the dominant types worldwide.
Surrey, B.C. Canada and Rochester, Minn., U.S. (April 22, 2021) - Neuroscience researchers at Mayo Clinic Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, U.S., the Health and Technology District and Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada have published the latest results of their ongoing multi-year hockey concussion study examining changes in subconcussive cognitive brain function in male youth ice hockey players.
Living away from community and country, Aboriginal families of children with severe burns also face critical financial stress to cover the associated costs of health care and treatment, a new study shows.
An Australian study, led by Flinders researchers Dr Courtney Ryder and Associate Professor Tamara Mackean, found feelings of crisis were common in Aboriginal families with children suffering severe burns, with one family reporting skipping meals and others selling assets to reduce costs while in hospital.