Culture
March 27, 2020-- In a new study, researchers found that half of the patients they treated for mild COVID-19 infection still had coronavirus for up to eight days after symptoms disappeared. The research letter was published online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
A new technique allows researchers to test how the deformation of tiny train track-like cell proteins affects their function. The findings could help clarify the roles of deformed "microtubules" in traumatic brain injuries and in neurological diseases like Parkinson's.
Microtubules are tube-like proteins that act like train tracks for other cellular proteins to move along as they transport molecular cargo. In certain diseases, they become deformed, affecting this transport process. But scientists hadn't developed an experimental set-up that allows them to properly study this.
An international collaboration led by veterinary scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), Japan, has found that size of a dog heart affects both vortex flow and pressure difference in the heart, which both are promising as an index of diastolic function. Their findings mean that size correction of vorticity and pressure difference allows us to use these indexes in the field of pediatric and veterinary medicine.
Their findings were published in Scientific Reports on January 24th, 2020.
Aichi, Japan -- How much we value an item is often related to what other people have. You might want the newest fashion, but not once everybody has it. Or, winning a free lunch at your favorite restaurant might not seem as great if the other person won a million dollars. Now, researchers in Japan have discovered a region of the brain that controls these kinds of behaviors in monkeys.
Astronomers obtained the first resolved image of disturbed gaseous clouds in a galaxy 11 billion light-years away by using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The team found that the disruption is caused by young powerful jets ejected from a supermassive black hole residing at the center of the host galaxy. This result will cast light on the mystery of the evolutionary process of galaxies in the early Universe.
Researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) have launched a new database to advance the international research efforts studying COVID-19.
The publicly-available, free-to-use resource (https://covid.crg.eu) can be used by researchers from around the world to study how different variations of the virus grow, mutate and make proteins.
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Army Research Office have demonstrated a new model of how competing pieces of information spread in online social networks and the Internet of Things (IoT). The findings could be used to disseminate accurate information more quickly, displacing false information about anything from computer security to public health.
There may be a small answer to one of the biggest problems on the planet.
German researchers report in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology that they have identified and characterized a strain of bacteria capable of degrading some of the chemical building blocks of polyurethane.
The discovery of a new species of dromaeosaurid -- a family of generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that lived during the Cretaceous Period -- is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The fossil furthers our understanding of dinosaur evolution during the Late Cretaceous (70-68 million years ago).
Neanderthals slurping seashells by the seashore? This scene may startle those accustomed to imagining Homo neanderthalensis as a people of cold climes who hunted large herbivores.
The first significant evidence of marine resource use among Europe's Neanderthals is detailed in a new report, demonstrating a level of marine adaptation previously only seen in their contemporary modern humans living in southern Africa. The results further close the behavioral gap once thought to separate modern humans from their closest evolutionary cousins. For modern humans, coastal adaptations are widely recognized as having roots in southern Africa and dating as far back as ~160 thousand years ago (kya). Whether Neanderthals shared a similar interest in the sea's cuisine is debated.
Addressing a fundamental limitation in CRISPR-Cas genome editing, researchers have developed new engineered Cas9 variants that nearly eliminate the need for a protospacer adjacent motif known as PAM. This motif is otherwise required for DNA-targeting CRISPR enzymes. According to the report, the novel Cas9 enzymes open up virtually the entire genome for targeting, with unprecedented accuracy.
The journal Science has published a study led by the ICREA researcher João Zilhão, from the University of Barcelona, which presents the results of the excavation in Cueva de Figueira Brava, Portugal, which was used as shelter by Neanderthal populations about between 86 and 106 thousand years ago. The study reveals fishing and shellfish-gathering contributed significantly to the subsistence economy of the inhabitants of Figueira Brava. The relevance of this discovery lies in the fact that so far, there were not many signs of these practices as common among Neanderthals.
Over 80,000 years ago, Neanderthals were already feeding themselves regularly on mussels, fish and other marine life. The first robust evidence of this has been found by an international research team with the participation of the University of Göttingen during an excavation in the cave of Figueira Brava in Portugal.
A new feathered dinosaur that lived in New Mexico 67 million years ago is one of the last known surviving raptor species, according to a new publication in the journal Scientific Reports.
Dineobellator notohesperus adds to scientists' understanding of the paleo-biodiversity of the American Southwest, offering a clearer picture of what life was like in this region near the end of the reign of the dinosaurs.