Culture
LAWRENCE -- To be fair, the newly described Waray Dwarf Burrowing Snake (Levitonius mirus) is pretty great at hiding.
In its native habitat, Samar and Leyte islands in the Philippines, the snake spends most of its time burrowing underground, usually surfacing only after heavy rains in much the same way earthworms tend to wash up on suburban sidewalks after a downpour.
MINNEAPOLIS - Just like with drug costs, the amount of money people pay out-of-pocket for diagnostic tests and office visits for neurologic conditions has risen over 15 years, according to a new study published in the December 23, 2020, online issue of issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study, funded by the American Academy of Neurology, found that people enrolled in high-deductible health plans were more likely to have high out-of-pocket costs than people in other types of plans.
MINNEAPOLIS - A new study has found that while the prevalence of neurologic conditions like dementia, stroke, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis (MS) is consistent across the U.S., the distribution of neurologists is not, and people in more rural areas may be less likely to receive specialty care for certain neurologic conditions. The study, funded by the American Academy of Neurology, is published in the December 23, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
How the immune system adapts to pregnancies has puzzled scientists for decades. Now, findings from an international group of researchers, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, reveal important changes that occur in the thymus to prevent miscarriages and gestational diabetes. The results are published in the journal Nature.
Charismatic, iconic and Instagram-friendly, the weedy seadragon is a favourite with divers and snorkellers. The first genomic study of east coast Australian seadragon populations can now reveal "weedies" from NSW, Victoria and Tasmania are significantly different.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, also reveals that Victorian weedy seadragons may form a subspecies which has implications for conservation management. The researchers recommend that, as a precautionary approach, these distinct populations be managed separately by each state.
An international research team led by the University of British Columbia (UBC) has uncovered for the first time the importance of a small gland tucked behind the sternum that works to prevent miscarriage and diabetes in pregnant women.
The organ in question is the thymus, identified in a study published today in the journal Nature as playing a significant role in both metabolic control and immunity in pregnancy.
Female sex hormones instruct the thymus, a central organ of the immune system, to produce specialized cells called "Tregs" to deal with physiological changes to arise during pregnancy, the study revealed. The researchers also found that RANK, a receptor expressed in a part of the thymus called the epithelium, is the key molecule behind this mechanism. The study is an international research effort including scientists from IMBA, the University of British Columbia, the Karolinska Institutet and the Medical University of Vienna.
PHILADELPHIA -- (Dec. 23, 2020) -- Wistar Institute scientists have discovered a new class of compounds that uniquely combine direct antibiotic killing of pan drug-resistant bacterial pathogens with a simultaneous rapid immune response for combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR). These finding were published today in Nature.
As COVID cases rise, physically distancing yourself from other people has never been more important. Now a new UCLA study reveals how your brain navigates places and monitors someone else in the same location.
Published Dec. 23 in Nature, the findings suggest that our brains generate a common code to mark where other people are in relation to ourselves.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- The history of the Caribbean's original islanders comes into sharper focus in a new Nature study that combines decades of archaeological work with advancements in genetic technology.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researcher Ryan Corey recently heard from a friend who teaches at a school where some of the students have hearing loss. The friend wanted to know if he had any ideas to help her communicate with these students while wearing a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. Corey, who also has hearing loss, did not know what to tell her. So, he headed to the Illinois Augmented Listening Laboratory to look for solutions.
The perfect transmission of sound through a barrier is difficult to achieve, if not impossible based on our existing knowledge. This is also true with other energy forms such as light and heat.
Almost four decades of research have led scientists at Japan's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) to propose that a family of transporter proteins has played an important role in species evolution. One protein in particular, called ABCA1, was likely crucial for vertebrate evolution by helping regulate when signals involved in cell proliferation, differentiation and migration enter a cell. This process was necessary for vertebrates to develop into more complex organisms with sophisticated body structures.
A researcher from MIPT has proposed a new explanation for the Arctic's rapid warming. In his recent paper in Geosciences, he suggests that the warming could have been triggered by a series of great earthquakes.
Global warming is one of the pressing issues faced by civilization. It is widely believed to be caused by human activity, which increases the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, this view does not explain why temperatures sometimes rise fairly abruptly.
Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University proposed a method to create a sorbent for imidacloprid insecticide removal from water. The sorbent belongs to metal-organic frameworks, a class of non-conventional materials. The TPU chemists grew such a framework right on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used to produce regular plastic bottles. The method is quite simple and allows converting used materials into a useful product. The research findings are published in Applied Materials Today academic journal (IF: 8,352; Q1).