Culture
MISSOULA - The edge. Every athlete, from the professional to the weekend warrior, strives to obtain that ever-elusive element that leads to victory - sometimes sparing no expense to get there.
A lighter bike, a better training regimen, the newest shoes.
A recently released study from the University of Montana, however, has discovered that common "edge," sports nutrition products, are no more effective at promoting recovery in female athletes as regular, carbohydrate-rich, often less-expensive potato-based foods.
After comparing how infections from SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID-19) and two other human coronaviruses develop in cynomolgus macaques, researchers report that SARS-CoV-2 gives the animals a mild COVID-19-like disease. The results - based on a combination of experimental and historical infection data - suggest these animals are a promising model for testing COVID-19 therapeutics. Treatments for COVID-19 are urgently needed, as are animal models to test them. Which animal(s) can be used most precisely to model the efficacy of control measures in humans remains a question.
A recently developed system for switching on the activity of genes could improve treatments for a broad range of neurological diseases. Esteban Engel, a researcher in viral neuroengineering in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and his team have developed new gene promoters - which act like switches to turn on gene expression - that promise to broaden the ability to deliver large genes and keep them active for long periods of time.
The research was published online this week in the journal Molecular Therapy: Methods & Clinical Development.
In this Special Issue of Science, five Reviews highlight new insights into the impacts of drought on social, ecological and agricultural systems worldwide. Political fragmentation in how community water systems are managed in the United States contributes to disparities in water security in American communities and households, says Megan Mullin in one Review. Even though, by global standards, most Americans have reliable access to safe drinking water, access to clean water is still unequal within the country, particularly in the nation's rural and impoverished communities.
A single error in cell division related to the formation of a chromosome bridge can trigger a cascade of mutational events, rapidly generating many of the defining features of cancer genomes, a new study suggests. The findings provide a potential mechanistic explanation for the extreme genomic complexity and chromosomal rearrangements found in certain tumor types. It's been assumed that cancer genomes acquire their complexity gradually, accumulating small-scale changes over time through unavoidable errors during DNA replication.
Health and nutrition experts recommend that children do not consume drinks with added sugars or nonnutritive sweeteners, yet drinks containing both represent a major portion of beverages consumed by children. One reason may be that the labels of drinks marketed to kids do not help parents and other consumers differentiate among fruit juice and sugar-laden, artificially flavored drinks, finds research from NYU School of Global Public Health.
SINGAPORE, 16 April 2020 - A newly-discovered small protein in mitochondria is essential for energy production, report Duke-NUS researchers and their colleagues in the journal Nature Communications. Zebrafish lacking the small protein, which the scientists named BRAWNIN, have similar features to rare mitochondrial diseases in humans, suggesting further studies of the protein could help explain these conditions and identify possible therapies.
A support programme that aims to boost retention in the Armed Forces has received a positive research evaluation from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), with military personnel reporting increased confidence in their employment prospects and increased goodwill towards the Armed Forces.
A pilot of the Spouse Employment Support (SES) programme was delivered from 2015-2017 by the Ministry of Defence to try and address some of the issues facing military spouses.
"It's not rocket science" may be a tired cliché, but that doesn't mean designing rockets is any less complicated.
Time, cost and safety prohibit testing the stability of a test rocket using a physical build "trial and error" approach. But even computational simulations are extremely time consuming. A single analysis of an entire SpaceX Merlin rocket engine, for example, could take weeks, even months, for a supercomputer to provide satisfactory predictions.
April 16, 2020 - Nyon, Switzerland - The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Capture the Fracture® Working Group in collaboration with the Fragility Fracture Network Secondary Fragility Fracture Special Interest Group and National Osteoporosis Foundation has adapted existing metrics from the UK-based Fracture Liaison Service Database Audit to develop a patient-level Key Performance Indicator (KPI) set for Fracture Liaison Services (FLSs)1.
While incentive-based programs have had many success stories in helping to regulate air quality, control pollution, and protect wildlife and fisheries, they may not be the answer to controlling invasive pests.
Recently, research groups led by Prof. LIU Jian and Prof. WU Zhongshuai from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed Fe1-xS-decorated mesoporous carbon spheres as the nanoreactor, which can be applied as lithium-sulfur battery cathode.
The nanoreactor showed excellent polysulfide catalytic activity and cyclic stability. The study was published in Advanced Energy Materials on Apr. 16.
Recently, a group led by Prof. WU Heng'an and Prof. WANG Fengchao from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in collaboration with Prof. Joel De Coninck from University of Mons provided a theoretical insight into capillary forces at the contact line and validated Young's equation based on a mechanical interpretation. The research results were published online in Physical Review Letters.
There remains a dearth of women in economics, with far fewer females securing tenure-track jobs and publishing academic research than men. Past research points to several barriers contributing to this "leaky pipeline" including: access to mentoring, social networks, and implicit biases.
Many groups, including the American Economic Association (AEA), are working to change this through workshops and other endeavors. But do these efforts really have an impact?
Saliva could be used instead of blood to monitor diabetes in a method proposed in research involving the University of Strathclyde.
The test has been developed as an alternative to the current prevalent practice of monitoring
blood glucose, which can be invasive, painful and costly.
Lab tests of the saliva process had an accuracy rate of 95.2%. The research shows promising results for monitoring diabetes, which affects an estimated 425 million people worldwide - around half of them undiagnosed.