Culture
A team of scientists led by the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer Center has identified the binding site where drug compounds could activate a key braking mechanism against the runaway growth of many types of cancer.
The discovery marks a critical step toward developing a potential new class of anti-cancer drugs that enhance the activity of a prevalent family of tumor suppressor proteins, the authors say.
The findings, which appear in the leading life sciences journal Cell, are less a story of what than how.
What The Study Did: Rates and methods of detection of thyroid cancer diagnosed in male rescue/recovery workers at the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 terrorist attacks were compared with demographically similar individuals from Olmsted County, Minnesota, to see if increased rates of thyroid cancer among those workers were associated with the identification of asymptomatic cancers detected during heightened nonthyroid-related medical surveillance.
What The Study Did: Data from a study of environmental influences on child health and development were used to investigate the extent to which frequency of screen viewing and social activities such as parent-child play and reading through 18-months of age were associated with the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ASD-like symptoms among 2,100 children at age 2.
Authors: David S. Bennett, Ph.D., of the Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, is the corresponding author.
An immunological test known as a "tetramer assay" can detect and quantify the T cells in a blood sample that are able to recognize a specific antigen, such as a viral protein. Making the molecular probes needed for this type of assay, however, has always been a difficult and time-consuming process.
Genetic research throughout Europe shows evidence of drastic population changes near the end of the Neolithic period, as shown by the arrival of ancestry related to pastoralists from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. But the timing of this change and the arrival and mixture process of these peoples, particularly in Central Europe, is little understood. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers analyze 96 ancient genomes, providing new insights into the ancestry of modern Europeans.
Scientists sequence almost one hundred ancient genomes from Switzerland
Scientists have discovered an earlier origin to the human language pathway in the brain, pushing back its evolutionary origin by at least 20 million years.
Previously, a precursor of the language pathway was thought by many scientists to have emerged more recently, about 5 million years ago, with a common ancestor of both apes and humans.
Engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have received federal funding for a rapid COVID-19 test using a newly developed technology.
Srikanth Singamaneni, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, and his team have developed a rapid, highly sensitive and accurate biosensor based on an ultrabright fluorescent nanoprobe, which has the potential to be broadly deployed.
A galactic visitor entered our solar system last year - interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. When astronomers pointed the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) toward the comet on 15 and 16 December 2019, for the first time they directly observed the chemicals stored inside an object from a planetary system other than our own. This research is published online on 20 April 2020 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) have published research in Nature Biomedical Engineering that will drastically improve brain-computer interfaces and their ability to remain stabilized during use, greatly reducing or potentially eliminating the need to recalibrate these devices during or between experiments.
Overreliance on promises of new technology to solve climate change is enabling delay, say researchers from Lancaster University.
Their research published in Nature Climate Change calls for an end to a longstanding cycle of technological promises and reframed climate change targets.
Contemporary technological proposals for responding to climate change include nuclear fusion power, giant carbon sucking machines, ice-restoration using millions of wind-powered pumps, and spraying particulates in the stratosphere.
Ten years ago, a powerful explosion destroyed an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. Over a span of 87 days, the Deepwater Horizon well released an estimated 168 million gallons of oil and 45 million gallons of natural gas into the ocean, making it the largest accidental marine oil spill in history.
Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) quickly mobilized to study the unprecedented oil spill, investigating its effects on the seafloor and deep-sea corals and tracking dispersants used to clean up the spill.
Come harvest time, the cotton fields look like popcorn is literally growing on plants, with fluffy white bolls bursting out of the green pods in every direction. There are 100 million families around the world whose livelihoods depend on cotton production, and the crop's annual economic impact of $500 billion worldwide underscores its value and importance in the fabric of our lives.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, Acting President: Yoon Seok-jin) announced that a research team, led by Dr. Oh Hyung-Suk and Dr. Lee Woong-hee, at the Clean Energy Research Center at KIST, developed a technology to reduce the use of precious metal catalysts at electrodes where oxygen is produced. The use of precious metal catalysts is one of the problems hindering the practical application of artificial photosynthesis technology.
To look at how life evolved, scientists usually turn to the fossil record, but this record is often incomplete. Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), alongside an international team of collaborators, have used another tool - the chromosomes of living animals - to uncover clues about our past. The study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals early events in the evolution of vertebrates, including how jawed vertebrates arose through hybridization between two species of primitive fish.
After a yearlong study of people with opioid dependence, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report evidence that adding $8 an hour to their paychecks may help those in recovery stay drug free longer, as well as encourage them to get and hold regular jobs.
The researchers say poverty is an independent risk factor for drug abuse that treatment plans largely ignore.