Culture
Periods of lockdown during the COVID-19 situation likely to exacerbate problems with mood regulation, say experts at the University of Oxford.
By studying a cohort of 190 children, a research team has discovered important clues that could help explain why some children with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections get mild cases while others get more severe disease and require hospitalization. The results identify important features in the immune response to RSV and could inform the development of a historically elusive vaccine for the disease. RSV is a common disease in children and represents the most frequent cause of hospitalization in newborns in developed countries, although it most often causes only mild symptoms.
A nationwide intervention to replace regular household salt with potassium-enriched salt substitutes in China could prevent nearly half a million cardiovascular deaths per year, according to a new modelling study published in the British Medical Journal.
The study found that overall, the blood pressure lowering effects of salt substitution could prevent around 460,000 cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths each year, including 208,000 due to stroke and 175,000 due to heart disease.
New research demonstrates unsustainable levels of soil erosion in the UK.
The study examined more than 1,500 existing records and found 16% relating to arable (crop-growing) land showed erosion above "tolerable" levels - meaning rates of soil loss are significantly greater than new soil formation.
This may not reflect the national picture, as the study has highlighted that existing studies are frequently biased towards places which have eroded in the past.
From two seeds grew a thousand plants.
University of Guelph researchers used advanced cloning techniques to give the threatened Hill's thistle a fighting chance.
This cutting-edge propagation method could rejuvenate the population of other threatened and endangered plant species, said lead researcher Prof. Praveen Saxena, Department of Plant Agriculture.
Researchers from the Department of Pharmacology, Paediatrics and Radiology at the University of Seville, in collaboration with Dr. Rodriguez from the International University of Catalonia, have confirmed that Orujo Olive OIL (POCTA), when introduced into the diet, produces a significant reduction in obesity and vascular and inflammatory complications in obese mice.
The common view of heredity is that all information passed down from one generation to the next is stored in an organism's DNA. But Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, disagrees.
In two new papers, Jose argues that DNA is just the ingredient list, not the set of instructions used to build and maintain a living organism. The instructions, he says, are much more complicated, and they're stored in the molecules that regulate a cell's DNA and other functioning systems.
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. -- The Army has a new type of multi-polymer filament for commonly-used desktop 3-D printers. This advance may save money and facilitate fast printing of critical parts at the point of need.
The research is also the cover story of the April edition of Advanced Engineering Materials, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Yehuda Shoenfeld is the world's leading expert in the research, treatment and prevention of autoimmune diseases. Professor Shoenfeld noted that the hyperferritinemic syndrome was thoroughly studied a while ago: 'We have already published the data on this clinical condition. In 50% of cases, patients with exceptionally high ferritin levels die. In fact, what we are witnessing at present with the new coronavirus infection is reminiscent of the situation with the hyperferritinemic syndrome.'
Researchers from Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the U.S. have revealed the structure of the protein responsible for vitamin B12 import into the cells of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. The research findings were published in Nature.
Vitamin B12, also known as cobalamin, is vital to the proliferation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB. But while that vitamin can be synthesized internally, it is much easier for the pathogen to import B12 from the environment, and cobalamin consumption by the bacterium is directly associated with TB progression.
Reef fish species uniquely respond to climate change, with some more vulnerable than others.
Five Great Barrier Reef fish species each activated different genetic responses to a marine heatwave in the Australian summer of 2015-16. This finding could help further understanding of climate change impacts on wild fish distributions.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers at MIT; the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard; and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; along with colleagues from around the world have identified specific types of cells that appear to be targets of the coronavirus that is causing the Covid-19 pandemic.
BROOKLYN, New York, Wednesday, April 22, 2020 – A newly discovered connection between control theory and network dynamical systems could help estimate the size of a network even when a small portion is accessible.
Understanding the spread of coronavirus may be the most alarming and recent example of a problem that could benefit from a fuller knowledge of network dynamical systems, but scientists and mathematicians have been grappling for years with ways to draw accurate inferences about these complex systems by working with partial data from available measurements.
New calculations by HSE University researchers show that technological growth passed its peak in the early 21st century and will soon obtain new acceleration, although it will be followed by a new slowdown in the second half of the century. The researchers believe these progress rate fluctuations are largely due to a global demographic transition--the ageing of the planet's population, which many developed countries have already faced.
The Gerontological Society of America's highly cited, peer-reviewed journals are now publishing scientific articles on COVID-19. The following were published between March 31 and April 20; all are free to access:
COVID-19 through the lens of gerontology: Editorial in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences by David G. Le Couteur, MBBS, PhD, Rozalyn M. Anderson, PhD, and Anne B. Newman, MD, MPH