Culture

A tree grows strong from years of generating its own food. Now imagine if products could be strengthened with the same living materials that provide nutrients to strengthen trees. This is the work of USC Viterbi School of Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Qiming Wang whose research lab is one of the first to infuse 3-D printer ink with living material. The material has potential for greater strength, to be flexible and self-heal.

In our body, unnecessary cells are removed by regulated cell death. Understanding of the mechanism underlying regulated cell death is critical for the development of therapies for many diseases. Professor Nakano's research group has demonstrated that Mind bomb-2 (MIB2), a ubiquitin ligase, binds to and directly ubiquitinates the cell death suppressor protein cFLIP (Cellular FLICE-inhibitory protein). cFLIP is encoded by CFLAR gene; alternative splicing results in two forms, the long form (cFLIPL) and the short form (cFLIPs). cFLIPL plays a dominant role in suppression of cell death.

January 27, 2021 - For many of us, as we get older the skin on our face begins to sag and we seem to lose volume around our eyes, cheeks and chin. Is gravity taking its toll in our later years or do we lose fat over the course of several years that many of us associate with youth, vibrancy and energy?

Speaking is something that comes across as an effortless process, almost working by itself. Our brain, however, has a lot of work to do when we construct a sentence. "In addition, languages differ in myriad ways and this also means that there are differences in how we plan what we want to say in different languages," says Balthasar Bickel, senior author of the study and a professor at the University of Zurich.

Stopping the spread of COVID-19 is difficult enough. It's even more complicated and confusing when information and resources provided by governments are largely inaccessible to a variety of disabled populations. A newly-published global survey of national health authority websites in nearly 200 countries has directly quantified COVID-19 information accessibility.

The disproportionately high Covid-19 infection rates observed in Black Americans could be linked to their daily commuting patterns, according to a new study published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The research found that increased exposure to other ethnic groups, for example as a result of an individual's job or use of public transport, can result in the emergence of an "infection gap" in the population, such as the abnormally high incidence of Covid-19 recorded in Black Americans.

Black children have significantly higher rates of shellfish and fish allergies than white children, confirming that race plays an important role in how children are affected by food allergies, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found. Results of the study were published in the February issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

A recent study of drugged driving, by a team of University of Cincinnati researchers, shows that a sizable percentage of individuals reported the use of marijuana and other illicit drugs while operating behind the wheel.

"We need to focus our efforts on drugged driving, in addition to drunk driving, because drugged driving causes such a high level of fatalities, says Andrew Yockey, a doctoral student in UC's College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services and researcher at the UC Center for Prevention Science.

As the climate warms and Arctic sea ice retreats, research vessels and commercial ships are sailing into the Arctic Ocean more and more, but the accuracy and sensitivity of regional weather and marine forecasts for these hazardous waters still lag well behind those of their lower-latitude counterparts, with significant differences between regional models. Direct measurements of atmospheric conditions, such as cloud cover and solar radiation, can help to evaluate and improve these models.

New York - The results of the Peoples' Climate Vote, the world's biggest ever survey of public opinion on climate change are published today. Covering 50 countries with over half of the world's population, the survey includes over half a million people under the age of 18, a key constituency on climate change that is typically unable to vote yet in regular elections. 

The United States Department of Agriculture identifies a group of "big eight" foods that causes 90% of food allergies. Among these foods are wheat and peanuts.

ATLANTA - JANUARY 26, 2021 - A new study shows 4 in 10 cancer deaths are attributable to cigarette smoking in parts of the South region and Appalachia. For this study, appearing in Cancer Causes & Control, Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the American Cancer Society examined the proportion of cancer deaths from 2013 to 2017 attributed to cigarette smoking in 152 metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas (MMSAs).

For mice, the earliest social memories can form at three days old and last into adulthood, scientists report on January 26 in the journal Cell Reports. They show that mouse pups prefer their mothers to unfamiliar mouse mothers as newborns and remember them after up to 100 days apart--although they prefer unfamiliar mouse mothers as adults.

Representatives from a network of women deans, chairs and distinguished faculty in biomedical engineering are calling upon the National Institutes of Health and other funding agencies to address disparities in allocating support to Black researchers. The group made the call to action in the Jan. 26, 2021, issue of the journal Cell.