Culture
DURHAM, N.C. -- A study appearing next week in the journal Nature Communications offers some good news in the search for antiviral drugs for hard-to-treat diseases. Researchers have identified a potential new drug candidate against enterovirus 71, a common cause of hand, foot and mouth disease in infants and young children.
The compound of interest is a small molecule that binds to RNA, the virus's genetic material, and changes its 3-D shape in a way that stops the virus from multiplying without harming its human host.
Researchers around the world are a step closer to a better understanding of the intricacies of COVID-19 thanks to two new web resources developed by investigators at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of California San Diego.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The disruptive inventions that make people go "Wow!" tend to come from research in the heart of cities and not in the suburbs, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that, within metro areas, the majority of patents come from innovations created in suburbs - often in the office parks of big tech companies like Microsoft and IBM.
Children and adults exhibit distinct immune system responses to infection by the virus that causes COVID-19, a finding that helps explain why COVID-19 outcomes tend to be much worse in adults, researchers from Yale and Albert Einstein College of Medicine report Sept. 18 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
An international research team led by scientists from Estonian University of Life Sciences has for the first time sequenced and assembled the genome of the wels catfish (Silurus glanis). The maximum reported size of the wels catfish is 5 m and up to 300 kg, which makes it one of the largest freshwater fish species in the whole world. By deciphering the genetic code of the barbelled giant, scientists expect to better understand the secrets of the wels catfish's exceptionally rapid growth, enormous appetite and longevity.
The toughest organisms on Earth, called extremophiles, can survive extreme conditions like extreme dryness (desiccation), extreme cold, space vacuum, acid, or even high-level radiation. So far, the toughest of all seems to be the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans - able to survive doses of radiation a thousand times greater than those fatal to humans. But to this date, scientists remained puzzled by how radio-resistance could have evolved in several organisms on our planet, naturally protected from solar radiation by its magnetic field.
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – More than 18 percent of U.S. adults do not know whether they will have enough to eat from day to day, and the numbers are worse for Hispanics, Blacks, people with obesity, and women, a new report shows.
New bioarchaeology research from a University of Otago PhD candidate has shown how infectious diseases may have spread 4000 years ago, while highlighting the dangers of letting such diseases run rife.
Yaws - from the same bacteria species responsible for syphilis (Treponema pallidum) - is a childhood disease causing highly infectious skin lesions. It is spread via touch from person to person and, in advanced cases, can leave sufferers with severe bone disfigurement. While it is easily curable in its early stages, the bone disfigurements are irreversible.
Classifying olive oils into the categories of extra virgin (EVOO), virgin (VOO) and lampante (LOO) is still quite a challenge to deal with since the official method includes physical-chemical and sensory analyses by means of a panel of tasters. These tasters need to be specialized, and on many occasions are not available, in addition to being expensive and slow. All of this has created the necessity to develop new analytical methods using affordable, reliable tools that are transferable to the industry.
In the aurora borealis on Earth, electrically charged particles of the solar wind move along the Earth's magnetic field. At high latitudes, these strike nitrogen and oxygen atoms and molecules in the upper Earth's atmosphere and cause them to glow. These kinds of or similar aurora phenomena have also been discovered on other planets and their moons. As an international team reported today in the Nature Astronomy journal, the phenomenon has now been discovered at comet Chury.
Is the heat still bearable, or should I take my hand off the hotplate? Before the brain can react appropriately to pain, it must evaluate and integrate sensory, cognitive and emotional factors that modulate the perception and processing of the sensation itself. This task requires the exchange of information between different regions of the brain. New studies have confirmed that there is a link between the subjective experience of pain and the relative levels of neural activity in functional structures in various sectors of the brain.
Klebsiella pneumoniae is a nosocomial pathogen in outbreaks of hospital infections. It is one of the major factors for morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients especially those infected with colistin resistant pathogens. Many plant essential oils have antimicrobial activities and have been investigated as natural sources to combat multiple antibiotic resistances. Moreover; recent advances in phytonanotechnology have created exciting opportunities for the management of many infections.
The concept of sustainable nature tourism plays a key role in mediating conflicts between tourism and nature conservation, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows.
The study takes a geo-historical approach to analysing the environmental conflict surrounding the founding of Koli National Park in Finland, where the idea of sustainable nature tourism was used as a way out of the conflict. In Koli National Park, sustainable nature tourism has proven to be useful concept for conflict resolution.
Homicides near schools negatively impact on the educational attainment of children, a new study in the Journal of Labor Economics reports.
During this unique study, researchers from the University of Surrey and University of Birmingham investigated if exposure to homicides had an impact on the educational outcomes of children in schools close by.
Confuciusornis was a crow-like fossil bird that lived in the Cretaceous ~120 million years ago. It was one of the first birds to evolve a beak (Fig. 1). Early beak evolution remains understudied. Using an imaging technique called Laser-Stimulated Fluorescence, researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) address this by revealing just how different the beak and jaw of Confuciusornis were compared to birds we see today.