Culture
Scientists have compiled the first comprehensive review of plant natural products that play a role in antibacterial activity, to serve as a guide in the search for new drugs to combat antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
Chemical Reviews published the work by researchers at Emory University, which includes 459 plant natural products that met rigorous criteria for demonstrating antibacterial activity. The review is also deposited on the Shared Platform for Antibiotic Research and Knowledge (SPARK), sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have become accustomed to wearing cotton face masks in public places. However, viruses and bacteria that stick to the mask could be transferred elsewhere when the wearer removes or touches it. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a special type of cotton face mask that kills up to 99.9999% of bacteria and viruses within 60 minutes of daylight exposure.
The famous seed vault in Spitsbergen and national gene banks retain hundreds of thousands of seed samples to preserve old varieties of crop plants and the genetic diversity associated with them. Are these seed banks gold mines or seed cemeteries?
Massive explosions of energy happening thousands of light-years from Earth may have left traces in our planet's biology and geology, according to new research by University of Colorado Boulder geoscientist Robert Brakenridge.
The study, published this month in the International Journal of Astrobiology, probes the impacts of supernovas, some of the most violent events in the known universe. In the span of just a few months, a single one of these eruptions can release as much energy as the sun will during its entire lifetime. They're also bright--really bright.
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Both of Andrew Kiselica's grandfathers developed dementia when he was in graduate school. As Kiselica was going through neuropsychology training in graduate school, he saw his mother's father become unable to walk or speak due to severe dementia. The University of Missouri researcher said that personal experience has motivated his work to identify and prevent neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
East Hanover, NJ. November 11, 2020. Kessler Foundation researchers have linked balance dysfunction in individuals with traumatic brain injury with diminished sensory acuity. This study used a psychophysical approach to develop a new metric called the perturbation perception threshold (PPT) for objectively quantifying impaired sensory acuity after traumatic brain injury.
Most people closing in on a high school or college degree, and even those casting their career fates without a diploma, at some point take an interest assessment to help determine how their interests relate to different jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, The Occupational Information Network's (O*NET) My Next Move website, which hosts the Interest Profiler, averages over 1 million site visits per month.
HOUSTON - (Nov. 11, 2020) - It's a long-standing assumption that the presence of water influences how proteins fold. A new study is challenging the details.
A paper in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters shows proteins that presumably evolved to avoid water as they fold may actually behave in ways scientists did not anticipate.
That discovery could change how scientists think about hydrophobic (water-avoiding) and hydrophilic (water-attracting) interactions in solutions, according to a Rice University engineer.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, old and young individuals did not differ in taking precautions, but over time, older people quickly adopted preventive behaviors and they engaged in more preventive behaviors. Older people engaged in fewer risky behaviors relative to younger people on month after the beginning of the pandemic and this age difference persisted over time; both young and older people started engaging in more potentially risky behaviors.
Certain parts of our body, such as the skin or liver, can repair themselves after a damage. Known as cell regeneration, this phenomenon describes how cells that are still functional start to proliferate to compensate for the loss. For the past 30 years, scientists have been investigating the regenerative potential of beta cells, pancreatic cells in charge of the production of insulin. Beta-cell population is indeed partially destroyed when diabetes occurs, and regenerating these cells represents an outstanding clinical challenge.
A new study from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology shows that the behavioral responses to COVID-19 differed by age. The research, led by Jung Ki Kim, research associate professor at the USC Leonard Davis School, examined how age affected the practice of preventive and risky behaviors in response to COVID-19 and how these behaviors changed over the first three months of the pandemic.
The article was co-authored by University Professor Eileen Crimmins, holder of the AARP Chair in Gerontology, and appeared online in the journal PLOS One on November 10, 2020.
Arguably, almost all truly intriguing systems are ones that are far away from equilibrium -- such as stars, planetary atmospheres, and even digital circuits. But, until now, systems far from thermal equilibrium couldn't be analyzed with conventional thermodynamics and statistical physics.
On 29 October 2020, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced the "successful recovery" of the US gray wolf population, with US Secretary of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt stating that the species had "exceeded all conservation goals for recovery." These claims have been rebutted by numerous experts, who argue that the delisting decision is premature.
Yale researchers have discovered a protein that helps protect hosts from infection with the tick-borne spirochete that causes Lyme Disease, a finding that may help diagnose and treat this infection, they report Nov. 11 in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
Management scholars generally agree that being proactive at work yields positive outcomes. Studies show proactive -- as compared to reactive -- people tend to perform at higher levels.