Culture
LAWRENCE -- A new paper in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical from researchers at the University of Kansas reveals a possible early indicator of Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome, or FXTAS. The disease afflicts some older people who carry a "premutation" of the gene known as FMR1, which can lead to impairments in movement and cognition -- while other people who carry the premutation are unaffected.
ITHACA, N.Y. - When it comes to the future of solar energy cells, say farewell to silicon and hello to calcium titanium oxide - the compound mineral better known as perovskite.
Cornell University engineers have found that photovoltaic wafers in solar panels with all-perovskite structures outperform photovoltaic cells made from state-of-the-art crystalline silicon, as well as perovskite-silicon tandem cells, which are stacked pancake-style cells that absorb light better.
Maunakea, Hawaii - Astronomers using two Maunakea Observatories - Subaru Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory - combined with the power of machine learning, have discovered a nearby galaxy that has broken the record for having the lowest level of oxygen ever seen. The researchers measured its oxygen abundance at only 1.6 percent that of the Sun, suggesting the galaxy, named HSC J1631+4426, only recently started making stars.
The study will be published in the August 3, 2020 issue of The Astrophysical Journal and is available in preprint format on arXiv.org.
Children who suffer trauma from abuse or violence early in life show biological signs of aging faster than children who have never experienced adversity, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The study examined three different signs of biological aging--early puberty, cellular aging and changes in brain structure--and found that trauma exposure was associated with all three.
Without timely reversal, opioid overdose causes respiratory depression that may deteriorate into apnea, leading to brain injury and even death. Naloxone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose, can quickly restore normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped as a result of overdose with heroin or prescription opioid pain medications.
Dog brains, just as human brains, process speech hierarchically: intonations at lower, word meanings at higher stages, according to a new study by Hungarian researchers at the Department of Ethology, Faculty of Science, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) using functional MRI on awake dogs. The study, which reveals exciting speech processing similarities between us and a speechless species, will be published in Scientific Reports.
NEW YORK, NY (Aug. 3, 2020) -- One of the immune system's oldest branches, called complement, may be influencing the severity of COVID disease, according to a new study from researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Among other findings linking complement to COVID, the researchers found that people with age-related macular degeneration -- a disorder caused by overactive complement -- are at greater risk of developing severe complications and dying from COVID.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - In a reversal of trends, American baby boomers scored lower on a test of cognitive functioning than did members of previous generations, according to a new nationwide study.
Findings showed that average cognition scores of adults aged 50 and older increased from generation to generation, beginning with the greatest generation (born 1890-1923) and peaking among war babies (born 1942-1947).
Scores began to decline in the early baby boomers (born 1948-1953) and decreased further in the mid baby boomers (born 1954-1959).
The loss of a sense of smell is known to be one of the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease (PD) and can even appear years before the characteristic tremors and loss of motor function are seen. Some scientists believe that olfactory dysfunction may not just be a sign of broader neural damage, but rather may have a more direct linkage to the generation of the disorder itself.
Tsukuba, Japan - Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder that is characterized by excess deposition of connective tissue in the skin, lungs, kidneys and vessels, resulting in lung, heart and kidney dysfunction. In a new study, researchers from the University of Tsukuba revealed that patients with long stretches of repeat DNA sequences, also called microsatellite repeat polymorphism, in the gene for Friend leukemia integration 1 transcription factor (FLI1) are more likely to develop systemic sclerosis.
Demand for integrated energy storage devices is growing rapidly as people rely more and more on portable and wireless electronics, and the global need grows for clean energy sources such as solar and wind energies.
This is creating an exponential need for advanced energy storage technologies - reliable and maintenance-free batteries and supercapacitors (SC) with high power density capability as storage devices. Supercapacitors are prominent candidates to meet this need due to their environmentally friendly and long cyclability characteristics.
"Staphylococcus aureus" - also known as "golden staph" - has the ability to develop in highly variable environmental conditions (on the skin, in the nose, on sterile surfaces, and so forth). Its great adaptability depends especially on a protein (an RNA helicase) involved in the degradation of RNA messengers that have become useless.
A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have discovered the parameters that determine the efficiency of a class of low-cost catalysts called spinel oxides - a discovery that breaks a bottleneck in the extraction of hydrogen from water through electrolysis, the process of splitting water with electricity.
Tsukuba, Japan - Bacteria have the ability to adapt to their environment to survive the host's immune defense. One such survival strategy includes the formation of a biofilm that prevents the immune system or antibiotics from reaching the bacteria. In a new study, researchers from the University of Tsukuba revealed that modulations to biofilm structure as a result of temperature changes are regulated by the production of a novel extracellular protein called BsaA in the bacterium C. perfringens produces.
The virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, presents at least six strains. Despite its mutations, the virus shows little variability, and this is good news for the researchers working on a viable vaccine.