The boundary between life and non-life is a remarkably narrow one. A central hallmark of life is the cellular membrane - a protective barrier of only a few nanometers thickness (one nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre) that is composed of proteins and two fluid layers of water-insoluble lipids. The function and integrity of this lipid bilayer is essential for the survival of the cell. If the cell membrane (or plasma membrane as it is also known) is compromised, the cell will die.
Philadelphia, February 6, 2020 - Over the next decade, older adults will grow to become 20 percent of the US population. A new paper in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier, found Healthy Teaching Kitchen programs are great vehicles for nutrition education specifically among older veterans.
Scientists from the University of La Serena, Newcastle University, UK, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile surveyed ranchers to find out what they thought were the drivers of conflict between people and guanacos (a wild camelid species closely related to the Llama).
Ranchers blamed the increased aridity for reducing the availability of pasture, which meant there was more competition for grazing between livestock and guanacos.
Moral or religious beliefs may lead some people to believe they are addicted to pornography even when their porn use is low or average, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
Strawberry-flavored mousse tastes 10% sweeter when served from a white container rather than a black one. Coffee tastes nearly twice as intense when it is drunk from a white mug rather than a clear glass one. Adding two-and-a-half ounces to the weight of a plastic yogurt container makes the yogurt seem about 25% more filling.
In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an unusual experiment suggested that it might be possible to influence American voters to adopt less polarized positions.
Posing as political researchers, a research team from McGill and Lund Universities approached 136 voters at the first Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton presidential debate in New York. Participants were asked to compare Trump and Clinton on various leadership traits (such as courage, vision, and analytic skills) by putting an X on a sliding scale.
Dog behavior is extraordinarily flexible – this is why we can keep them in our homes and take them to cafes with us at the weekend. Nevertheless, there are ways in which evolution has not equipped dogs for the challenges of living in our world, and puppies must learn how to cope.
These are some of the things we do they struggle to understand.
1. We leave them alone
PHILADELPHIA -- Every dollar spent on patients receiving support from Penn Medicine's community health worker (CHW) program resulted in an annual return on investment (ROI) of $2.47 for every dollar invested annually by Medicaid, according to a new study published online today in Health Affairs. The savings are generated by reducing hospitalizations.
ADELPHI, Md. (Feb. 5, 2020) - Scientists are closer to understanding exactly what happens inside batteries that make them prone to fire, thanks to a molecular eye of sorts.
Scientists at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory teamed with researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to study chemical reactions that occur when two key components of battery interface, forming a critical component in battery commonly known as the solid-electrolyte-interphase, or SEI.
Scientists have found a way to distinguish between two progressive neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's disease (PD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA), using a technology developed by a researcher at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The discovery was published today in Nature.
A prehistoric human skeleton found on the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico is at least 10,000 years old and most likely dates from the end of the most recent ice age, the late Pleistocene. An international research team led by geoscientists from Heidelberg University studied the remains of the approximately 30-year-old woman. The uranium-thorium dating technique was used to determine the age of the fossil record, which provides important clues on the early settlement history of the American continent.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- An international team of astronomers led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has found an unusual monster galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old.
Dubbed XMM-2599, the galaxy formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear.
What The Study Did: An economic evaluation of 3.3 million drug insurance claims looked at whether implementing reference pricing was associated with physicians and patients adjusting to using the least expensive alternative within a drug class.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
Authors: James C. Robinson, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, is the corresponding author.
An international team has completed the most comprehensive study of whole cancer genomes to date, significantly improving our fundamental understanding of cancer and signposting new directions for its diagnosis and treatment.
Published today in Nature, more than 700 researchers have analysed more than 2600 samples from 38 cancer types ranging from common cancers like colorectal and breast cancers, to rare cancer types including pancreatic and brain cancers.
To gain an infinite lifespan, cancer cells need to maintain the ends of their chromosomes, known as telomeres. They achieve this in various different ways. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center systematically investigated more than 2,500 tumor genomes of 36 types of cancer to find out how these mechanisms are manifest in changes in the DNA. Active lengthening of the telomeres is one of the hallmarks of all cancer cells and hence an important focus in developing targeted treatments. The study is part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG).