Culture
Plastics in the ocean can release chemicals that cause deformities in sea urchin larvae, new research shows.
Scientists soaked various plastic samples in seawater then removed the plastic and raised sea urchin embryos in the water.
The study, led by the University of Exeter, found that urchins developed a variety of abnormalities, including deformed skeletons and nervous systems.
These abnormalities were caused by chemicals embedded in the plastics leaching out into the water, rather than the plastics themselves.
A major review of palliative care services around the world has highlighted huge inconsistencies in provision, with patients in some countries receiving a fraction of the support provided elsewhere.
More than 11 million cases have been reviewed at the University of Leeds' Academic Unit of Palliative Care, which found length of care for people with life limiting and terminal conditions varies acutely across different countries - and within the countries themselves.
The researchers found:
Esports players are up to 21 per cent healthier weight than the general population, hardly smoke and drink less too, finds a new QUT (Queensland University of Technology) study.
Of course, there is no weather in our sense of the word in space - nevertheless, soil can also "weather" in the vacuum of space if it is constantly bombarded by high-energy particles, such as those emitted by the sun. The Martian moon Phobos is affected by a special situation: it is so close to Mars that not only the solar wind but also the irradiation by particles from Mars plays a decisive role there. A research team from TU Wien has now been able to measure this in laboratory experiments.
New research involving the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows how conservation polices can avoid having unintended consequences for local ecosystems and people.
The study investigates the closure of a marine area in the western Pacific Ocean to fishing and the possible impact on offshore fish supply chains and nearshore ecosystems. The landmark Palau National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS) came into force in January and protects 80 per cent of Palau's waters, making it one of the largest marine protected areas in the world.
Using post-mortem tissue samples, a team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have studied the mechanisms by which the novel coronavirus can reach the brains of patients with COVID-19, and how the immune system responds to the virus once it does. The results, which show that SARS-CoV-2 enters the brain via nerve cells in the olfactory mucosa, have been published in Nature Neuroscience*. For the first time, researchers have been able to produce electron microscope images of intact coronavirus particles inside the olfactory mucosa.
Molecular cages, in which guest molecules cling to the cages' outer surfaces rather than enter an internal cavity, could cut the environmental impact of separating mixtures of industrial chemicals, research from KAUST suggests.
The climate in inner East Asia may already have reached a tipping point, where recent years' transition to abnormally hot and dry summers can be irreversible. This is the finding of a new international study by researchers at University of Gothenburg now published in Science.
When Rebecca Acabchuk was studying mild traumatic brain injuries while working on her doctorate in physiology and neurobiology at UConn, she met a student athlete who had suffered multiple concussions.
"When I started doing research on concussions, people just started coming to me," Acabchuk says. "Families at my daughter's school, anytime somebody had a concussion, I would hear about it - I would hear these personal stories and all the struggles of people who had concussions and their symptoms just didn't resolve."
BOSTON - A combination cancer therapy that is effective against treatment-resistant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by inhibiting tumor growth and increasing survival has been identified by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
In recent decades, researchers have found that most mammals' guts are surprisingly complex environments - home to a variety of microbial ecosystems that can profoundly affect an animal's well-being. Scientists have now learned that the bear appears to be an exception, with its gut playing host to a microbial population that varies little across the intestinal tract.
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, together with their colleagues at the Barcelona Beta Research Centre in Spain, the University Medical Centre in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the University of Paris, have found new forms of tau protein that become abnormal in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease before cognitive problems develop. The scientists developed new tools to detect these subtle changes and confirmed their results in human samples.
New data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provides further evidence for tidal disruption in the galaxy NGC 1052-DF4. This result explains a previous finding that this galaxy is missing most of its dark matter. By studying the galaxy's light and globular cluster distribution, astronomers have concluded that the gravity forces of the neighbouring galaxy NGC 1035 stripped the dark matter from NGC 1052-DF4 and are now tearing the galaxy apart.
Analysis of social media messages between care home staff on the coronavirus front line reveal their growing concerns over how to manage in the face of the virus.
Thousands of Whatsapp messages between 250 care home workers during the first coronavirus wave show workers were often asking questions which went unanswered due to a lack of proper guidance.
Staff asked where to purchase PPE; whether guidelines existed for isolating residents returning from hospital and how they could access testing.
Scientists at Keele University and King's College London have found that 64% of people would be likely to have a COVID-19 vaccination when one became available.
The online survey of 1,500 UK adults also reported that 27% were unsure if they would have the vaccination, and just 9% - fewer than 1 in 10 - reported that they were unlikely to be vaccinated.
The online cross-sectional survey was conducted by a research team from Keele University and King's College London in collaboration with Public Health England, to understand the expected uptake of a future COVID-19 vaccine.