Culture
Ultraviolet light from giant stellar flares can destroy a planet's habitability. New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will help astrobiologists understand how much radiation planets experience during super flares and whether life could exist on worlds beyond our solar system.
Super flares are bursts of energy that are 10 to 1,000 times larger than the biggest flares from the Earth's sun. These flares can bathe a planet in an amount of ultraviolet light huge enough to doom the chances of life surviving there.
"We found that - over the longer term - the links between plant traits and ecosystem functions were indeed very weak, as we could only explain about 12 per cent of the variance in ecosystem functioning," said the paper's lead author, Dr Fons van der Plas from the Institute of Biology at Leipzig University. Together with colleagues from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and other research institutions in Germany and abroad, he found different patterns than in previous studies - which had focused on short-term links between plant traits and ecosystem functions.
Ganoderma lucidum, known as Yeongji mushroom in Korea, is called a modern-day elixir plant and has long been used medicinally in China, Japan and Korea. Ganoderic acid, an active ingredient found in the mushroom, is known for its excellence in enhancing the immune function of cells. Due to the hard texture of the mushroom, it has been ingested in powder or liquid form, but it has been noted that the active ingredient becomes destroyed when the mushroom is dried for an extended period of time or the extraction is performed at high heat (80 °C or higher).
Trust in public institutions is linked to fewer COVID-19 deaths, but trust and belonging to groups is associated with more deaths, according to a wide-ranging, McGill-led study of 30-day COVID-19 mortality rates in 84 countries. Greater economic inequality is also associated with COVID-19 mortality.
New Haven, Conn. -- A growing body of research suggests the planet Venus may have had an Earth-like environment billions of years ago, with water and a thin atmosphere.
Yet testing such theories is difficult without geological samples to examine. The solution, according to Yale astronomers Samuel Cabot and Gregory Laughlin, may be closer than anyone realized.
Cabot and Laughlin say pieces of Venus -- perhaps billions of them -- are likely to have crashed on the moon. A new study explaining the theory has been accepted by the Planetary Science Journal.
A team of psychologists at the Universities of Sussex and Portsmouth have purr-fected the art of building a bond with cats.
DALLAS - Oct. 7, 2020 - Endocannabinoids, signaling molecules produced in the body that share features with chemicals found in marijuana, can shut down genes needed for some pathogenic intestinal bacteria to colonize, multiply, and cause disease, new research led by UT Southwestern scientists shows.
The findings, published online today in Cell, could help explain why the cannabis plant - the most potent part of which is marijuana - can lessen the symptoms of various bowel conditions and may eventually lead to new ways to fight gastrointestinal infections.
Irvine, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 - Electrical engineers, computer scientists and biomedical engineers at the University of California, Irvine have created a new lab-on-a-chip that can help study tumor heterogeneity to reduce resistance to cancer therapies.
In a paper published today in Advanced Biosystems, the researchers describe how they combined artificial intelligence, microfluidics and nanoparticle inkjet printing in a device that enables the examination and differentiation of cancers and healthy tissues at the single-cell level.
A recent report published in Science Translational Medicine by MUSC Hollings Cancer Center investigator Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., sheds light on immune cell biomarkers that may reveal which patients are most at risk for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a life-threatening condition that can arise after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for treatment of liquid cancers such as leukemia.
The team's findings have been published in Nature: Scientific Reports: "Transition delay using biomimetic fish scale arrays", and in the Journal of Experimental Biology: "Streak formation in flow over biomimetic fish scale arrays".
Reducing drag means faster aircraft speeds and less fuel consumption - an important area of study for aerodynamicists such as Professor Bruecker, City's Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Nature-Inspired Sensing and Flow Control for Sustainable Transport, and City's Sir Richard Oliver BAE Systems Chair for Aeronautical Engineering.
CATONSVILLE, MD, October 7, 2020 - New research has shed light on how various political campaign activities influence voters. It found that a candidate's mass media advertising is more likely to influence independent voters, while the campaign's "ground game," targeting voters through grassroots outreach, is more effective at reaching a candidate's base.
A new species of an ancient marine reptile evolved to strike terror into the hearts of the normally safe, fast-swimming fish has been identified by a team of University of Alberta researchers, shedding light on what it took to survive in highly competitive ecosystems.
Irvine, CA - Oct. 7, 2020 - N-acetylglucosamine, a simple sugar found in human breast milk and sold as an over-the-counter dietary supplement in the United States, promotes myelin repair in mouse models and correlates with myelination levels in multiple sclerosis patients according to a new University of California, Irvine-led study.
The Gerontological Society of America's highly cited, peer-reviewed journals are continuing to publish scientific articles on COVID-19. The following were published between September 24 and October 7; all are free to access:
URBANA, Ill. - Broiler chicken producers the world over are all too familiar with coccidiosis, a parasite-borne intestinal disease that stalls growth and winnows flocks. Various approaches, developed over decades, have been used to control coccidiosis, but the disease remains widespread.
Recent research from the University of Illinois supports the use of immunomodulatory and antioxidant feed additives to reduce the effects of coccidiosis.