Culture

This targeted control of phages provides entirely new biotechnological and therapeutic approaches, e.g. for phage therapies. The results produced in the context of an ERC grant have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Recently, a research group led by CHU Yannan and HUANG Chaoqun from the Institute of Health & Medical Technology of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) developed an effective method for on-site detection of methamphetamine (MA) in the presence of nicotine by a homemade ion mobility spectrometry. Relevant results were published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

Lack of water, floods, or crop losses: As a result of climate change, pronounced periods of drought and rainfall are occurring more frequently and more intensively all around the world, causing human suffering and major economic damage. The more precise seasonal forecasts for the coming months are, the more effectively these consequences can be mitigated. A research team from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has now been able to improve global forecasts using statistical methods so that they can be used on the regional level.

The annual number of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) in England is likely to have fallen dramatically, from 2,770 in 2013 to 854 in 2018, showing elimination of HIV transmission by 2030 to be within reach - suggests work by researchers from the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge and Public Health England (PHE), published in The Lancet HIV.

Plants use numerous mechanisms for their pollination. Now botanists have discovered a particularly sophisticated system among pipevines that is based purely on deception.

It eventually became a Nobel prize-winning revolution when researchers first engineered CRISPR as a gene editing technology for bacterial, plant, animal and human cells. The potential of the technology is great and span from curing genetically disposed diseases to applications in agricultural and industrial biotechnology, but there are challenges.

One such challenge consists of selecting a so-called gRNA molecule which should be designed to guide the Cas9 protein to the right location in the DNA where it will make a cut in relation to the gene editing.

Using a new 3D printing process, University of Nottingham researchers have discovered how to tailor-make artificial body parts and other medical devices with built-in functionality that offers better shape and durability, while cutting the risk of bacterial infection at the same time.

RUDN and Shahid Beheshti University(SBU) chemist proposed an eco-friendly method for the synthesis of pyrrole and pyrazole derivatives with a wide range of applications in medicine: from antidepressants to anticancer. Moreover, the synthesized compounds possess interesting fluorescence features, and the bioactive scaffolds might attract great interest in the fields of clinical diagnostics and biomedical research in the future. The results are published in the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry.

With the start of the United Nations' Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which runs through 2030, a tremendous amount of money and effort will be put into re-growing forests, making over-exploited farmland productive, and reviving damaged marine environments. This is a good, and vital, initiative. Without quick action to clean up the fallout of humanity's scorched-earth economic systems, goals on hunger, biodiversity and climate will be unattainable.

Inaccessible workplaces, normative departmental cultures and 'ableist' academic systems have all contributed to the continued underrepresentation and exclusion of disabled researchers in the Geosciences, according to an article published today (Thursday 8 June) in Nature Geosciences.

The article argues that changes to both working spaces and attitudes are urgently needed if institutions are to attract, safeguard and retain people with disabilities.

DURHAM, N.C. - Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated that a class of interwoven composite materials called semi-interpenetrating polymer networks (sIPNs) can be produced by living cells. The approach could make these versatile materials more biologically compatible for biomedical applications such as time-delayed drug delivery systems.

The research appears online on June 8 in the journal Nature Communications.

Humans expect that AI is Benevolent and trustworthy. A new study reveals that at the same time humans are unwilling to cooperate and compromise with machines. They even exploit them.

Picture yourself driving on a narrow road in the near future when suddenly another car emerges from a bend ahead. It is a self-driving car with no passengers inside. Will you push forth and assert your right of way, or give way to let it pass? At present, most of us behave kindly in such situations involving oth-er humans. Will we show that same kindness towards autonomous vehicles?

As COVID-19 restrictions ease nationwide and more people host indoor gatherings, investing in a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifier might not be a bad idea, says a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researcher.

Several published studies evaluating aerosols and submicron particles similar in size to the SARS-CoV-2 virion have shown that portable HEPA purifiers are able to significantly reduce airborne COVID-19 particles, says Ahmad Sedaghat, MD, PhD, director of the UC Division of Rhinology, Allergy and Anterior Skull Base Surgery.

New Orleans, LA - Research conducted at LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence reports that Elovanoids, bioactive chemical messengers made from omega-3 very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids discovered by the Bazan lab in 2017, may block the virus that causes COVID-19 from entering cells and protect the air cells (alveoli) of the lung. Their findings are published online in Scientific Reports, available here.

Fraud is going uninvestigated by police who are "hiding behind the veil" of the Action Fraud national crime reporting agency.

In his paper published this week in Policing, Professor Mark Button, director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth argues that, Action Fraud, which has been widely derided, has become a useful veil from which the police can hide their inadequate response.