Culture
Genome duplications play a major role in the development of forms and structures of plant organisms and their changes across long periods of evolution. Heidelberg University biologists under the direction of Prof. Dr Marcus Koch made this discovery in their research of the Brassicaceae family. To determine the scope of the different variations over 30 million years, they analysed all 4,000 species of this plant family and investigated at the genus level their morphological diversity with respect to all their characteristic traits.
New research released from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus proposes that Alzheimer's disease may be driven by the overactivation of fructose made in the brain.
The study was published in the Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience and outlined the hypothesis that Alzheimer's disease is driven largely by Western culture that has resulted in excessive fructose metabolism in the brain.
The natural world is astonishingly complex. After centuries of study, scientists still have much to learn about how all the species in an ecosystem coexist, for example. New research on microbial communities published in Nature Communications helps light the way to answering this fundamental question in ecology.
In a new study published in the esteemed journal JAMA researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital have examined the association between a positive SARS-CoV-2 test during pregnancy and complications in mothers and their newborn babies. Almost two out of three pregnant women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were asymptomatic and the researchers found no higher prevalence of complications during delivery or of ill-health in the neonates. However, preeclampsia was more common in infected women.
LOWELL, Mass. - In the wake of outrage across the nation and racial justice protests spurred by the deaths and injuries of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and other Black Americans, more than half of Americans believe policing in the country is not fair, according to a new national poll released today by the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Viral and bacterial pathogens wield pathogenic or virulent proteins that interact with high-value targets inside human cells, attacking what is known as the host interactome. The host interactome is the network map of all the protein-protein interactions inside cells.
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 August 28 and September 21; all are free to access:
University of Alberta scientists have uncovered the formation mechanism behind a class of mineral deposits that have been hotly contested until now. The findings shed new light on how iron deposits, among others, form--and this new understanding can aid geologists in the hunt for more ore.
DARIEN, IL - Weighted blankets are a safe and effective intervention in the treatment of insomnia, according to Swedish researchers who found that insomnia patients with psychiatric disorders experienced reduced insomnia severity, improved sleep and less daytime sleepiness when sleeping with a weighted chain blanket.
For an issue once expected to occur mostly in patients with severe COVID-19, heart conditions following SARS-CoV-2 infection are much more prevalent, writes Eric Topol in a Perspective. This became especially visible following cardiac involvement in young healthy athletes who had experienced mild COVID-19. "It is vital to determine what drives this pathogenesis," says Topol.
While cannabis use during pregnancy is on the rise, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found evidence that the resulting children are more likely to have psychopathology in middle childhood.
The team's analysis are the first steps in studying the effects of cannabis on children as attitudes surrounding its use change rapidly -- recreational adult cannabis use is now legal in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Patterns of usage, too, are changing; one of the fastest-growing subsets of cannabis users may come as a surprise: the pregnant.
Holocaust survivors have exhibited a wide range of emotional reactions to, and ways of dealing with, the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are dealing well with the current crisis while some experience considerable difficulties. The way they cope with the current crisis is largely derived from how they deal with their traumatic memories of the Holocaust.
Aerospace engineering graduate student Pranay Thangeda relies on the bus system in Champaign-Urbana to get to class and other meetings. He wanted to understand why, despite arriving at the bus stop well ahead of the schedule, he was sometimes late. He developed a tool that considers transportation variables weighed against how great a margin of error bus riders are willing to accept. The basic concept can also apply to getting a lunar rover where it needs to be, and with a high degree of reliability.
Instagram users who post self-harm content online are choosing ambiguous hashtags in an attempt to circumvent the social media platform's ban on harmful content, a researcher at the University of Otago, Wellington, has found.
PhD student Jacobo Picardo reviewed research published during the past 10 years about suicide and self-harm content posted on Instagram. Only 10 studies had been published up to the beginning of 2020. Seven of the studies described samples of publicly available Instagram content, while three surveyed or interviewed Instagram users.
New research from UBC Okanagan shows that salvage logging on land damaged by wildfires has negative impacts on a variety of animals.
While post-fire salvage logging is used to mitigate economic losses following wildfire, Karen Hodges, a biology professor in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, says the compounded effects of wildfire and post-fire salvage logging are more severe than what wildlife experience from fire alone.