Culture
Odense, Denmark - As a sixth mass extinction sends shock waves through whole categories of species, modern zoos and aquariums stand as leading sources of conservation funding and safe havens for populations deemed threatened in the wild.
Collectively, members of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) attract 10% of the planet population and contribute with more than $350 million annually to conservation programs in the wild, making them the world's third largest funder after World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and The Nature Conservancy.
Researchers have provided new insight on the role of cyclic AMP (cAMP) in regulating the immune response.
Their study, published today in eLife, reveals that cAMP shifts the type of immune system t-helper (Th) cells created in response to a threat by repressing gene transcription by key proteins. The findings may help scientists develop new ways of manipulating the immune system to treat diseases.
With an advanced X-ray combination technique, scientists have traced nanocarriers for tuberculosis drugs within cells with very high precision. The method combines two sophisticated scanning X-ray measurements and can locate minute amounts of various metals in biological samples at very high resolution, as a team around DESY scientist Karolina Stachnik reports in the journal Scientific Reports. To illustrate its versatility, the researchers have also used the combination method to map the calcium content in human bone, an analysis that can benefit osteoporosis research.
A representative survey of undergraduate and graduate students at North Carolina State University finds that almost 10% of students experienced homelessness in the previous year, and more than 14% of students dealt with food insecurity in the previous 30 days. The study highlights the housing and food security challenges facing higher education students and institutions across the country.
Researchers from the Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine (ISRM) at the medical faculty of Heinrich Heine University-Duesseldorf under the directorship of Prof. Dr. James Adjaye have developed a protocol for the reproducible isolation and characterization of kidney stem cells, urine derived renal progenitor cells (UdRPCs) from donors of distinct ages, gender and ethnicity. The study is published online: Nature Press, Scientific Reports.
The death cap mushroom is highly toxic. However, some of its toxins can also be healing: amanitins are potential components for antibody-based cancer treatments. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, German scientists have now introduced a new synthetic route for α-amanitin. Their method seems suitable for production on a larger scale, finally making enough of the toxin available for further research.
Weighing in on a debate that has raged for decades, Penn State researchers, after conducting a series of ultra-detailed comparisons, have declared that shipping pallets made of wood are slightly more environmentally friendly and sustainable than those made of plastic.
URBANA, Ill. - Alexander County sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, at the southernmost tip of Illinois. The sparsely populated jurisdiction is perhaps best known for devastating floods resulting from repeated failures of the Len Small levee in 1993, 2011, and 2016. Homes and businesses have been severely damaged, residents stranded, and rich agricultural land irreversibly degraded by sand deposition and erosion.
In the past decade nanomedicine has contributed to better detection and treatment of cancer. Nanoparticles are several 100 times smaller than the smallest grain of sand and can therefore easily travel in the blood stream to reach the tumor. However, they are still too big to be removed by the kidneys. Since several doses of nanoparticles are necessary to treat a tumor, over time the nanoparticles can accumulate in the kidney and cause irreversible damage. In a study published in the scientific journal Biomaterials, materials scientists at the University of Freiburg led by Prof.
WASHINGTON--A "beating heart" of frozen nitrogen controls Pluto's winds and may give rise to features on its surface, according to a new study.
Pluto's famous heart-shaped structure, named Tombaugh Regio, quickly became famous after NASA's New Horizons mission captured footage of the dwarf planet in 2015 and revealed it isn't the barren world scientists thought it was.
Plant cells tend to grow longer instead of wider due to the alignment of the many layers of cellulose that make up their cell walls, according to a new study that may have implications for biofuels research. The study, which appears online Feb. 4 in the Journal of Experimental Botany, reveals that the protein CSI1 and the alternating angle of the cell wall's layers, creating a herringbone pattern, are critical for cell growth.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Feb. 4, 2020) -- Significantly reducing dietary levels of the amino acid methionine could slow onset and progression of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis in high-risk individuals, according to findings published today in Cell Metabolism.
New Haven, Conn. -- In a pair of related studies, a team of Yale researchers has found a way to reverse type-2 diabetes and liver fibrosis in mice, and has shown that the underlying processes are conserved in humans.
The studies appear in the Feb. 4 edition of Cell Reports and in the Jan. 17 edition of Nature Communications.
Infectious disease researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and other institutions in Hong Kong, mainland China and France have concluded there is a high probability that the deadly Wuhan coronavirus spread beyond Wuhan and other quarantined cities before Chinese officials were able to put a quarantine in place. At least 128 cities in China outside of the quarantine zone, including cities with no reported cases to date, had a greater than even risk of exposure, according to a paper currently in press with Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the U.S.
Washington, DC-- A new approach to analyzing seismic data reveals deep vertical zones of low seismic velocity in the plumbing system underlying Alaska's Cleveland volcano, one of the most-active of the more than 70 Aleutian volcanoes. The findings are published in Scientific Reports by Helen Janiszewski, recently of Carnegie, now at the University of Hawai?i at Mānoa, and Carnegie's Lara Wagner and Diana Roman.