Culture
Researchers from the University of Houston, in collaboration with others, have designed a "catch and kill" air filter that can trap the virus responsible for COVID-19, killing it instantly.
Microalgae could provide an alternative source of healthy omega-3 fatty acids for humans while also being more environmentally friendly to produce than popular fish species. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The study was recently published in the Journal of Applied Phycology and offers an initial indication of the environmental effects of producing microalgae in Germany.
Washington, DC - July 7, 2020 - According to findings published this week in mBio, Nissle, a strain of Escherichia coli, is harmless to intestinal tissue and may protect the gut from enterohemorrhagic E. coli, a pathogen that produces Shiga toxin.
E. coli has gotten a bad rap because a few pathogenic strains can cause severe, even life-threatening, symptoms. But for more than a century, the commensal strain Nissle has been used as a probiotic and, more recently, to treat intestinal disorders including ulcerative colitis.
A simple measuring tape could be the key to identifying which children could develop
neurological and developmental abnormalities from Zika virus exposure during gestation.
This is according to an invited commentary published July 7 in JAMA Network Open and
Archaeologists from Cardiff University and the University of Sheffield have combined the latest scientific methods to offer new insights into life during the Norman Conquest of England.
Until now, the story of the Conquest has primarily been told from evidence of the elite classes of the time. But little has been known about how it affected everyday people's lives.
What The Study Did: How the prescription of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to outpatients has changed in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic is examined in this study.
Authors: Daniel S. Budnitz, M.D., M.P.H., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Response Team in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2594)
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Deserts of the U.S. Southwest are extreme habitats for most plants, but, remarkably, microscopic green algae live there that are extraordinarily tolerant of dehydration. These tiny green algae (many just a few microns in size) live embedded in microbiotic soil crusts, which are characteristic of arid areas and are formed by communities of bacteria, lichens, microalgae, fungi, and even small mosses. After completely drying out, the algae can become active and start photosynthesizing again within seconds of receiving a drop of water.
Coconut oil production may be more damaging to the environment than palm oil, researchers say.
The issue of tropical forests being cut down for palm oil production is widely known, but the new study says coconut oil threatens more species per ton produced than palm or other vegetable oils.
The researchers use this example to highlight the difficulties of "conscientious consumption".
They say consumers lack objective guidance on the environmental impacts of crop production, undermining their ability to make informed decisions.
Cyanobacteria, commonly referred to as blue-green algae, are the first organisms on earth that learned to extract electrons from water and convert sunlight to usable energy through photosynthesis. Using cyanobacteria as a model organism, the details of photosynthesis--the key process that supports all forms of advanced lives on earth--have been studied for many decades. And all studies, despite their differences, reveal one thing: that it is an astonishingly precise process, consisting of numerous small reactions run by many proteins and their combinations.
250 years ago, over one-fifth of Londoners had contracted syphilis by their 35th birthday, historians have calculated.
The same study shows that Georgian Londoners were over twice as likely to be treated for the disease as people living in the much smaller city of Chester at the same time (c.1775), and about 25 times more likely than those living in parts of rural Cheshire and north-east Wales.
The study, offers the first robust estimate of the amount of syphilis infection in London's population in the later eighteenth century.
Proteins control many physiological functions that are essential for living things in vivo. There are over 20,000 types of proteins in humans, and each protein plays a different role by interacting with other proteins. Proximity-dependent biotin identification (BioID) technology is a technique for finding these interacting partner proteins. BioID can be used by expressing the BioID-fusion protein and adding biotin.
Native to the Americas, the tequila bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) lives in caves in some of the hottest desert areas in Mexico. Given that bats are highly mobile, and that migratory species tend to mix constantly with other bat populations, it is hard for conservationists to know whether they are protecting the best sites for the tequila bats to roost.
Human communication has evolved mechanisms that can be observed across all cultures and languages, including the use of communication history and the principle of least effort. These two factors enable us to use shared information about the past and present and to conserve energy, making communications as effective and efficient as possible.
Barcelona, 6 July 2020. Short, frequent walks in blue spaces--areas that prominently feature water, such as beaches, lakes, rivers or fountains--may have a positive effect on people's well-being and mood, according to a new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation.
Lithium is becoming common in our everyday lives. It is the key ingredient in the batteries of our mobile phones and electric vehicles, but have you ever wondered where it comes from?
A new study led by Prof. ZHAO Gang and Dr. Yerra Bharat Kumar from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) provides a fresh understanding of both how lithium is made, and how it is destroyed.
The study was published in Nature Astronomy on July 6.