Culture
WASHINGTON, October 20, 2020 -- Contagion processes, such as opinion formation or disease spread, can reach a tipping point, where the contagion either rapidly spreads or dies out. When modeling these processes, it is difficult to capture this complex transition, making the conditions that affect the tipping point a challenge to uncover.
HAMILTON, ON, Oct. 20, 2020 -- When COVID-19 attacks, the immune system produces a cytokine, or protein, called Interleukin-6 (IL-6), whose concentrations can offer vital information about a patient's level and stage of infection.
But measuring the critical marker has been extremely challenging, given its nearly undetectable presence in the biological stew that makes up human blood. Existing technology has not been accurate or sensitive enough to measure concentrations of IL-6 well enough to be reliable, especially in low concentrations.
Cannabinoids have a strong influence on how our brains work and how we behave. Many people are only aware of the recreational aspect of cannabinoids. But in fact these molecules naturally exist in our brains where they participate in various intrinsic processes.
Altered cannabinoid signalling, for instance due to chronic use of marijuana, results in a range of impairments. Similarly, mice lacking cannabinoid receptors exhibit reduced activity levels, as well as deficits in learning and memory.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A blend of racial prejudice, poor coping and partisan media viewing were found in Americans who stigmatized people of Asian descent during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study.
But it was prejudice against Asian Americans that was most strongly linked to beliefs that Asians were responsible for the pandemic and most at risk for spreading it, results showed.
Programmes to reduce dementia risk by targeting smoking, high blood pressure and hearing loss are likely to be cost-effective and cost saving by reducing dementia rates by 8.5%, finds a new study by UCL and LSE researchers.
The modelling study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, found that the benefits would outweigh the costs of such programmes, and could save £1.86 billion each year in England.
Games and the very act of playing have been around since before the cradle of human civilization. However, games have constantly evolved over time, with various rulesets and modes of play falling in and out of favor throughout history. In turn, this implies that people at different times enjoyed different aspects of each game, which may constitute a vivid reflection of the cultural tendencies of each era. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of games is tied to human psychology, and finding objective evidence in topics related to the realm of the human mind is a difficult task.
Which political parties have the most ambitious climate and energy policies? The answer, according to a new study, is surprising. In Germany, France, Spain and Italy, parties across the political spectrum, from the Greens to the Liberals, show a similar level of ambition on this score. However, researchers have also identified a major impediment to the energy transition: none of the investigated parties has a convincing idea for a technology mix that would ensure grid stability despite weather-related fluctuations in wind and solar energy.
The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to cause human infection and mortality worldwide. Currently, there are no specific viral protein-targeted therapeutics available. Viral nucleocapsid protein is a potential antiviral drug target, serving multiple critical functions during the viral life cycle. However, the structural information of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein remains unclear.
The study by the Department of Political Science at Aarhus BSS shows that the growing trust crisis observed in many Western democracies in recent decades cannot merely be attributed to news criteria from the media and prioritisation of personal-interest stories. Citizens play a significant role in the rapid spread of these types of articles at the expense of positive stories.
The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is known to infect cells via the receptor ACE2. An international research team under German-Finnish coordination has now identified neuropilin-1 as a factor that can facilitate SARS-CoV-2 entry into the cells' interior. Neuropilin-1 is localized in the respiratory and olfactory epithelia, which could be a strategically important localization to contribute to SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and spreading.
In a major breakthrough an international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has potentially identified what makes SARS-CoV-2 highly infectious and able to spread rapidly in human cells. The findings, published in Science today [20 October] describe how the virus's ability to infect human cells can be reduced by inhibitors that block a newly discovered interaction between virus and host, demonstrating a potential anti-viral treatment.
Helping to explain what makes SARS-CoV-2 so capable of infecting human cells, researchers in two independent studies discovered that the virus's spike protein recognizes and binds a protein on the human cell surface called neuropilin-1. This facilitates its ability to enter and infect cells, they suggest. Demonstrating a potential anti-viral treatment, the findings of both studies also describe how the virus's ability to infect human cells through neuropilin-1 can be reduced by inhibitors.
During the first wave of COVID-19, which paralyzed the world in spring, it was initially thought that effective hand washing and 2-metre social distancing would help prevent the highly contagious virus. Scientists, however, have now come to the conclusion that proper indoor ventilation is even more effective. It was also found that SARS-CoV-2 is rather moderately infectious and a person would need to remain in a poorly ventilated room for a considerable amount of time to receive an infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2.
Cuscuta spp., also known as dodder, is a parasitic vine which grafts to the host plant using special suckers to obtain water, minerals and carbohydrates. The parasite also attacks and damages crops such as oilseed rape, sweetcorn, soy, flax or clover. Although the infection generally goes undetected by the host, some species of tomato actively defend themselves by forming wooden tissue which prevents the suckers from penetrating the plant.
If you think that the Sahara is covered only by golden dunes and scorched rocks, you aren't alone. Perhaps it's time to shelve that notion. In an area of West Africa 30 times larger than Denmark, an international team, led by University of Copenhagen and NASA researchers, has counted over 1.8 billion trees and shrubs. The 1.3 million km2 area covers the western-most portion of the Sahara Desert, the Sahel and what are known as sub-humid zones of West Africa.