Culture
The work of Leonardo Da Vinci is an invaluable heritage of the 15th century. From engineering to anatomy, the master paved the way for many scientific disciplines. But what else could the drawings of Da Vinci teach us? Could molecular studies reveal interesting data from the past?
Philadelphia, November 20, 2020--Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have resolved a severe lymphatic disorder in a girl with Noonan Syndrome that had led to upper gastrointestinal bleeding, fluid collection around the lungs, and numerous surgeries that had been unable to resolve her symptoms. By identifying a genetic mutation along a pathway related to lymphatic vessel development and function, the research team was able to target the pathway using an existing drug they had used in a previous case to remodel a patient's lymphatic system.
A new synthetic probe offers a safe and straightforward approach for visualizing chromosome tips in living cells. The probe was designed by scientists at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Science (iCeMS) and colleagues at Kyoto University, and could advance research into aging and a wide range of diseases, including cancers. The details were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
It will come as no surprise to anyone living in Phoenix, Arizona, that 2020 has been a record-breaking year for high temperatures. According to the National Weather Service, in 2020 the Phoenix area has surpassed all previous years for average high temperatures and excessive heat warnings.
With the combined oppressive heat and COVID-19 restrictions on travel and indoor activities like movies and restaurants, many people have turned to urban parks for outdoor recreation.
Bacteria living symbiotically within the Hawaiian bobtail squid can direct the host squid to change its normal gene-expression program to make a more inviting home, according to a new study published in PLoS Biology by researchers at the University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).
WASHINGTON, DC and SAN DIEGO, CA - Nov. 19, 2020 - More than 1.1 million Medicare patients could die over the next decade because they cannot afford to pay for their prescription medications, according to a new study released today by the West Health Policy Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan policy research group and Xcenda, the research arm of the drug distributor AmerisourceBergen.
Afro-Caribbean people with end stage kidney disease (ESKD) are more likely to be hospitalised with COVID-19 than other ethnicities, a study has found.
Research published today in Nephrology by King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust investigated the link between ethnicity and ESKD. They found patients of Afro-Caribbean ethnicity have a four-fold increased risk of being hospitalised with COVID-19 when compared to kidney transplant patients attending for routine care.
Feeding truffles to wallabies may sound like a madcap whim of the jet-setting elite, but it may give researchers clues to preserving remnant forest systems.
Dr Melissa Danks from Edith Cowan University in Western Australia led an investigation into how swamp wallabies spread truffle spores around the environment. Results demonstrate the importance of these animals to the survival of the forest.
"There are thousands of truffle species in Australia and they play a critical role in helping our trees and woody plants to survive," she said.
Research into Alzheimer's disease has long focused on understanding the role of two key proteins, beta amyloid and the tau protein. Found in tangles in patients' brain tissue, a pathological form of the tau protein contributes to propagating the disease in the brain.
In new research from their joint laboratory, Judith Steen, PhD, and Hanno Steen, PhD show for the first time that this pathological tau protein changes its forms over time, which could mean it will take multiple drugs to target it effectively.
New Haven, Conn. -- A drug once used to treat high blood pressure can help alcoholics with withdrawal symptoms reduce or eliminate their drinking, Yale University researchers report Nov. 19 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
In a double-blind study, researchers gave the drug prazosin or a placebo to 100 people entering outpatient treatment after being diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. All of the patients had experienced varying degrees of withdrawal symptoms prior to entering treatment.
Montréal and Québec City, November 19, 2020 - Using the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) facility, the research team of Professor François Légaré of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has pushed back the boundaries of high-energy pulse propagation in a nonlinear medium through the observation of high-energy multidimensional solitary states (MDSS). This breakthrough allows the direct generation of extremely short and intense, laser pulses that are highly-stable in time and space. The results of this work were published in Nature Photonics.
Implicit racial attitudes within a community can effectively explain racial disparities seen in rates of COVID-19 in the United States, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by George Cunningham and Lisa Wigfall of Texas A&M University, USA.
Inspired by muscle-powered acceleration in biological jumpers, scientists have designed an elastic-driven strong contractile hydrogel that works by storing and releasing elastic potential energy in a polymer network.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a molecule that protects mice from brain infections caused by Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), a mosquito-borne virus notorious for causing fast-spreading, deadly outbreaks in Mexico, Central America and northern South America. As the climate changes, the virus is likely to expand its range and threaten more countries in the Americas, including the U.S.
Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Russia, the US, and Sweden have described an unusual RNA polymerase that helps a poorly studied crAss-like bacteriophage transcribe its genes. They "caught" this enzyme by a tiny -- less than 3% of its size -- portion of the amino acid sequence that was similar to other RNA polymerases. The paper detailing the discovery has been published in the journal Nature.