Culture
The immune response to infections is a delicate balance. We need just enough action to clear away the offending bacteria or viruses, but not so much that our own bodies suffer collateral damage.
Macrophages are immune cells at the front line, detecting pathogens and kicking off an inflammatory response when needed. Understanding how macrophages determine when to go all-out and when to keep calm is key to finding new ways to strike the right balance -- particularly in cases where inflammation goes too far, such as in sepsis, colitis and other autoimmune disorders.
A new species of small pterosaur - similar in size to a turkey - has been discovered, which is unlike any other pterosaur seen before due to its long slender toothless beak.
The fossilised piece of beak was a surprising find and was initially assumed to be part of the fin spine of a fish, but a team of palaeontologists from the universities of Portsmouth and Bath spotted the unusual texture of the bone - seen only in pterosaurs - and realised it was a piece of beak.
COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc globally, with over one million deaths to date. Yet what if an existing vaccine could make COVID-19 less deadly? A study just published put the theory to test, with promising results.
Southampton researchers have identified a blood profile that could help identify COVID-19 patients at greatest risk of deterioration and direct them towards trials of specific treatments that could modify their immune systems' responses.
A new study jointly led by Professor Tom Wilkinson and Dr Tristan Clark of the University of Southampton, has shown a blood test for five cytokines could help predict those at risk of life-threating overstimulation of immune defences by COVID-19, and potentially tailor their treatment to tackle this.
'Preventing a cytokine storm'
After months of technology-based communication enforced by COVID-19, many of us are missing a "live" human voice. But we're not the only ones -- a new study reveals that cows also prefer a face-to-face chat. The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, discovers that cows are actually more relaxed when spoken to directly by a live human, rather than when listening to a recorded voice via a loudspeaker.
Plans to release a virus to reduce numbers of invasive Common Carp in Australia are unlikely to work and should be dropped, researchers say.
Australian Government scientists have asked for approval to release Koi Herpesvirus (KHV) into the continent's largest freshwater supply to kill non-native carp.
The new study, by the University of Exeter and the University of East Anglia, demonstrates that Common Carp would evolve resistance to the virus and carp numbers would soon recover.
Russian propaganda is hitting its mark on social media -- generating strong partisan reactions that may help intensify political divisions -- but Facebook users are less apt to press the "like" button on content when they learn that it is part of a foreign propaganda campaign, according to a new RAND Corporation report.
Researchers say that Russia is using political memes to polarize Americans, particularly those at the extreme ends of the political spectrum who typically like and share content that aligns with their political views at higher rates than others.
Two new studies from the University of Melbourne will help the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built to uncover galaxies never before seen by humanity.
The papers are published in The Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and show that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch late next year, will reveal hidden galaxies.
Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 29 reported that Immunosuppressive chemoresistance is a major burden in lung cancer.
Recent data reveal that long noncoding RNAs present in the lung tumor microenvironment are implicated in chemoresistant-related immune deregulation, and metastasis but their exact pathogenic role is still unknown.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- During the pandemic, the amount of screen time for many people working and learning from home as well as binge-watching TV has sharply increased. New research finds that wearing blue-light glasses just before sleeping can lead to a better night's sleep and contribute to a better day's work to follow.
Dogs' personality changes over time, but these changes occur unevenly during the dogs' life, and each trait follows a distinct age trajectory, according to a study published in Scientific Reports by researchers from the ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. The authors also identified some aged dogs with potential age-related impairments, which had very low problem orientation and extremely high levels of activity.
While the ongoing Corona pandemic continues to threaten millions of lives around the world, the first half of 2020 saw an unprecedented decline in CO2 emissions - larger than during the financial crisis of 2008, the oil crisis of the 1979, or even World War II. An international team of researchers has found that in the first six months of this year, 8.8 percent less carbon dioxide was emitted than in the same period in 2019 - a total decrease of 1551 million tonnes.
Based on the new study published in Scientific Reports by researchers of the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, adult, intensively socialised wolves form individualized social bonds with their human handlers.
Bottom Line:
The histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor vorinostat (Zolinza) in combination with the mTOR inhibitor sirolimus (Rapamune) or everolimus (Afinitor) showed clinical efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma, according to results from a phase I clinical trial.
Journal in Which the Study was Published:
Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research
Author:
Filip Janku, MD, PhD, an associate professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Background:
What if you could instruct a swarm of robots to paint a picture? The concept may sound far-fetched, but a recent study in open-access journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI has shown that it is possible. The robots in question move about a canvas leaving color trails in their wake, and in a first for robot-created art, an artist can select areas of the canvas to be painted a certain color and the robot team will oblige in real time.