Culture
DALLAS, Sept. 15, 2020 -- Health care professionals should become more familiar with medications that cause irregular heart rhythms called arrhythmias, according to "Drug- Induced Arrhythmias," a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation.
NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2020 - The last several years have brought mounting evidence that the molecules inside our cells can self-organize into liquid droplets that merge and separate like oil in water in order to facilitate various cellular activities. Now, a team of biologists at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC) have identified unique roles for the amino acids arginine and lysine in contributing to liquid phase properties and their regulation. Their findings are available today online in Nature Communications.
Scientists have long believed that ocean viruses always quickly kill algae, but Rutgers-led research shows they live in harmony with algae and viruses provide a "coup de grace" only when blooms of algae are already stressed and dying.
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, Fondazione Santa Lucia IRCCS, and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome have shown that pharmacological (drug) correction of the content of extracellular vesicles released within dystrophic muscles can restore their ability to regenerate muscle and prevent muscle scarring (fibrosis).
An international team of astronomers detected phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus. They studied the origin of phosphine, but no inorganic processes, including supply from volcanos and atmospheric photochemistry can explain the detected amount of phosphine. The phosphine is believed to originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, but the team does not completely reject the possibility of biological origin. This discovery is crucial to examine the validity of phosphine as a biomarker.
Anxiety and depression are often linked and assumed to be closely related, but now research has shown for the first time that depression and anxiety have different biochemical associations with inflammation and lipid (fat) metabolism. This indicates that different, more targeted treatments may be possible to treat anxiety and depression. This work is presented at the ECNP Congress.
Environmental hazards affect populations worldwide and can drive migration under specific conditions. Changes in temperature levels, increased rainfall variability, and rapid-onset disasters, such as tropical storms, are important factors as shown by a new study led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Environmental migration is most pronounced in middle-income and agricultural countries but weaker in low-income countries, where populations often lack resources needed for migration.
In a period defined by an impeachment inquiry, a pandemic, nationwide protests over racial injustice, and a contentious presidential campaign, Americans' knowledge of their First Amendment rights and their ability to name all three branches of the federal government have markedly increased, according to the 2020 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.
Among the highlights of the annual survey, released before Constitution Day (Sept. 17):
Americans are much more aware of all five rights protected by the First Amendment when asked unprompted to name them;
Efforts to stem the impact of COVID-19 in low to middle income countries could be creating a health time bomb in their slum communities by deepening existing inequalities, according to an international team of health researchers led by the University of Warwick.
Measures to control the coronavirus, such as quarantining and restricting travel, are exacerbating existing economic hardship and limited access to quality healthcare in these communities, creating a 'perfect storm' of factors that harm health in the short and long term.
WASHINGTON (Sept. 14, 2020) -- In a new report commissioned by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), Georgetown global health experts say the success of any effort to redress pandemic preparedness failures demonstrated by COVID-19 requires a re-centering of governance that would include greater accountability, transparency, equity, participation and the rule of law.
Scientists have developed a new genetic tool that can help them better understand and ultimately work to save coral reefs.
"Surprisingly, we still don't know how many coral species live on the Great Barrier Reef, how to identify them, or which species live where. And those are the first steps in saving an ecosystem like that," said Dr Peter Cowman from the ARC Centre of Excellence at James Cook University (Coral CoE at JCU).
Independent group leaders Eleanor Scerri and Denise Kuehnert of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) have teamed up with other colleagues from the institute and beyond to comment in Nature Ecology & Evolution on the future of field-based sciences in a COVID-19 world. The piece outlines the epidemiological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic, details its effects on field-based sciences and identifies how working practices can be remodelled to overcome the challenges brought on by the virus.
Sticky webs of DNA released from immune cells known as neutrophils may cause much of the tissue damage associated with severe COVID-19 infections, according to two new studies published September 14 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM).
Night-time imagery from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite showed Hurricane Paulette's large eye approaching the island of Bermuda. A Hurricane Warning is in effect for Bermuda.
Bermuda is a British territory in the western Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately 643 miles (1,035 km) east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
NASA's Night-Time View of Elida's Intensification
ABERDEEN PROVIDING GROUND, Md. -- A team of Army researchers uncovered how the human brain processes bright and contrasting light, which they say is a key to improving robotic sensing and enabling autonomous agents to team with humans.
To enable developments in autonomy, a top Army priority, machine sensing must be resilient across changing environments, researchers said.