Culture
Cephalopods' exceptional ability to hide into any background has inspired researchers to replicate their fascinating ability to camouflage in the infrared (IR) and visible spectrum. Recent advances offered a number of physical mechanisms to reproduce the cloaking functionalities of cephalopods. However, most of works focused on either camouflaging in the visible or IR camouflage range only: not dual modes in a single device structure that can readily switch between the visible and IR mode according to a suitable situation.
Anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are disabling psychiatric conditions and the major contributors to global burden of nonfatal illness. The lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorders in adults under 60 years ranged from approximately 30-35%, whereas the lifetime prevalence of in the general population is estimated at 2-3% for full OCD but over 25% for OCD symptoms.
New class of living plant-based sensor interfaces wild-type plants with engineered optical nanosensors, able to detect arsenic levels as low as 0.2 parts per billion
Arsenic is a heavy metal highly toxic to humans and the ecosystem - inorganic arsenic in rice is estimated by some to lead to 50,000 premature deaths a year
A Machine Learning Solution for Designing Materials with Desired Optical Properties
Berkeley Lab researchers' method can also quickly calculate optical properties of most materials
By Julie Chao
Thanks to this work, as the journal Trends in Plant Science recently noted, it is now known that functional amyloids serve biological functions in representatives of almost all large groups of living organisms: bacteria, archaea, animals, fungi, and plants.
This fundamental finding could help improve the nutritional value of plant seeds and even reduce allergenicity of legume seeds in the future.
Researchers led by Josef Lazar of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) have demonstrated that molecules of fluorescent proteins act as antennas with optical properties (i.e. the ability to absorb and emit light) dependent on their spatial orientation. First discovered in jellyfish, fluorescent proteins are nowadays widely used in studies of molecular processes in living cells and organisms. The newly described properties of these molecules will find applications in basic biological research as well as in novel drug discovery.
Researchers determine how the SARS-CoV-2 virus hijacks and rapidly causes damage to human lung cells
(Boston)-- In a multi-group collaborative involving the National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories (NEIDL), the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM), and the Center for Network Systems Biology (CNSB), scientists have reported the first map of the molecular responses of human lung cells to infection by SARS-CoV-2.
Sophia Antipolis, 2 December 2020: Fourteen drinks a week is linked with a higher risk of health problems including stroke and embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation, according to research published in EP Europace, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1
"Our study suggests that atrial fibrillation patients should avoid heavy alcohol consumption to prevent stroke and other complications," said author Dr. Boyoung Joung of Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Autonomous systems are affecting virtually all aspects of society, so future designs must be guided by a broad range of societal stakeholders. That’s according to a new report led by scientists in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin.
December 2, 2020 -- The first U.S. Executive Order of the 2017 travel ban targeting individuals from Muslim majority countries may be associated with preterm births for women from those countries residing in the U.S., according to a new study conducted at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The research also showed that structurally xenophobic and racist policies in the U.S. may have a harmful effect on early life indicators of life-long health outcomes. The findings are published on line in the journal Social Science and Medicine.
Plants get bacterial infections, just as humans do. When food crops and trees are infected, their yield and quality can suffer. Although some compounds have been developed to protect plants, few of them work on a wide variety of crops, and bacteria are developing resistance. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have modified natural plant alkaloids into new compounds that kill bacteria responsible for diseases in rice, kiwi and citrus.
Declines in blue-collar jobs may have left some working-class men frustrated by unmet job expectations and more likely to suffer an early death by suicide or drug poisoning, according to a study led by sociologists at The University of Texas at Austin.
Second- and thirdhand tobacco smoke have received lots of attention, but much less is known about the compounds deposited on surfaces from cannabis smoke. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have discovered that ozone --a component of outdoor and indoor air -- can react with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis, on glass or cotton surfaces to produce new compounds, which they characterized for the first time.
Lacking vaccines, countries have relied on multiple non-pharmaceutical interventions to control COVID-19 transmission. Despite the urging of the World Health Organization (WHO) in March to "test, test, and test," policy makers disagree on on how much testing is optimal. A new study, by Ravindra Prasan Rannan-Eliya and coauthors from the Institute for Health Policy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, uses data from multiple online sources to quantify testing impact on COVID-19 transmissibility in 173 countries and territories (accounting for 99 percent of the world's cases) between March and June 2020.
The tree of life describes the evolution of life and seeks to define the relationships between species. Likewise, the tree of cell types aims to organize cells in the brain into groups and describe their relationships to each other.