Culture
The structure of a transport complex used by bacteria to import aspartate has been mapped in unique detail by University of Groningen scientists. The proteins were imaged using cryo-electron microscopy. The results reveal that the transporter works very efficiently. This is especially interesting as a similar transporter is vital for signal transduction between human brain cells. The study results were published in Nature Communications on 21 February.
Researchers at McGill University have discovered that a protein found in the membrane of our sensory neurons are involved in our capacity to feel mechanical pain, laying the foundation for the development of powerful new analgesic drugs.
The study, published in Cell, is the first to show that TACAN, a highly conserved protein among vertebrates whose function remained unclear, is in fact involved in detecting mechanical pain by converting mechanical pressures into electric signals.
As ocean warming causes fish stocks to migrate toward cooler waters to maintain their preferred thermal environment, many of the nations that rely on commercial fish species as an integral part of their economy could suffer.
If the immune system attacks its own body, it can often have devastating consequences: autoantibodies bind to the body's structures, triggering functional disorders. The receptors for glutamate, a neurotransmitter, can also become the target of autoantibodies. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine in Göttingen have been investigating the circumstances under which autoantibodies for a particular glutamate receptor - known as the NMDA receptor - are formed, and their effects in the brain.
The success of life on earth is based on the amazing ability of living cells to divide themselves into two daughter cells. During such a division process, the outer cell membrane has to undergo a series of morphological transformations that ultimately lead to membrane fission.
NEW YORK- "For those who have faced exploitation and discrimination at the hands of physicians, the medical profession, and medical institutions, trust is a tall order and, in many cases, would be naïve," writes Laura Specker Sullivan in "Trust, Risk, and Race in American Medicine." Specker Sullivan calls on medical providers to take action, writing that caring and competence are not always enough to earn patient trust.
In an article coming from the project, recently published in the Teoría y Derecho magazine, the efficiency of the Spanish system of economic compensation for victims of sexual violence is analysed through the two procedures aimed at this purpose: on one hand, the payment of compensations established in judgement of conviction and on the other hand, grants given to the victims directly from the State, and they note solutions to improve the situation.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Admission to the hospital and being seen by a neurologist are factors associated with better quality care for people with a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also known as mini-stroke, according to new research led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Regenstrief Institute, Purdue University, and Indiana University. The study looked at patients treated in the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VHA).
Older adults often face new disabilities after a hospital stay for a serious illness. Among the problems they may need to adjust to are difficulties with bathing and dressing, shopping and preparing meals, and getting around inside and outside the home. These new disabilities can lead to being hospitalized again, being placed in a nursing home, and more permanent declines in well-being. The longer a serious disability lasts, the worse it can be for an older adult.
Previous studies have revealed the influence of unhealthy food environments on the population's eating behaviour. Yet the socioeconomic differences in these environments and their influence on diet had never been studied previously. The doctor in the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Medicine and Nursing Leyre Gravina said "we have for the first time qualitatively compared the perception of the food environment in three neighbourhoods with differing socioeconomic contexts --Deusto (high socioeconomic level), Uribarri (medium), and San Francisco (low)--, using photovoice methodology.
On 26 November 2018, the NASA InSight lander successfully set down on Mars in the Elysium Planitia region. Seventy Martian days later, the mission's seismometer SEIS began recording the planet's vibrations. A team of researchers and engineers at ETH Zurich, led by ETH Professor Domenico Giardini, had delivered the SEIS control electronics and is responsible for the Marsquake Service. The latter is in charge for the daily interpretation of the data transmitted from Mars, in collaboration with the Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich.
A new supplemental issue of the journal The Gerontologist from The Gerontological Society of America shares 10 research priorities to better support the needs of family caregivers.
The contents of the journal supplement are the result of the Research Priorities in Caregiving Summit, an expert gathering hosted in March 2018 by the Family Caregiving Institute (FCI) at the University of California, Davis. Attendees included representatives from service agencies, funding organizations, and academia.
Following the recent withdrawal of standardized assessments, children with intellectual disabilities at special schools in the UK are again being treated differently to children at mainstream schools, says a new study from researchers at The Open University.
Published in Disability & Society, the peer-reviewed research shows there is currently no national progress levels for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities - meaning teachers have no standardized way of tracking the development of students in both academic and non-academic learning areas.
PISCATAWAY, NJ - The marketing of alcoholic beverages is one cause of underage drinking, public health experts conclude. Because of this, countries should abandon what are often piecemeal and voluntary codes to restrict alcohol marketing and construct government-enforced laws designed to limit alcohol-marketing exposure and message appeal to youth.
Exposure to alcohol advertising changes teens' attitudes about alcohol and can cause them to start drinking, finds a new analysis led by NYU School of Global Public Health and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The study, which appears in a special supplement of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, uses a framework developed to show causality between tobacco advertising and youth smoking and applies it to alcohol advertising.