Earth

ANN ARBOR--It's 5 p.m. as you leave the parking garage at work, but you realize you have no idea which way to turn to travel home. You know where you are and what street your house is on--it's just that you can't remember how to get there.

This is what happens to patients with damage to a part of their brain called the retrosplenial cortex, a key region involved in the organ's inner compass. Despite its importance for navigation, the neurons and circuits it uses to help get people from the office to home remain understudied.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Foodborne illness hits about one in six people in the United States every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 48 million people in the U.S. get sick due to one or more of 31 recognized pathogens, including E. coli O157:H7, a particularly harsh strain of E. coli.

Baby diapers, contact lenses and gelatin dessert. While seemingly unrelated, these items have one thing in common -- they're made of highly absorbent substances called hydrogels that have versatile applications. Recently, a type of biodegradable hydrogel, dubbed microporous annealed particle (MAP) hydrogel, has gained much attention for its potential to deliver stem cells for body tissue repair. But it is currently unclear how these jelly-like materials affect the growth of their precious cellular cargo, thereby limiting its use in regenerative medicine.

It happens outside your window every time it rains: The soil gets wet and may form sticky mud. Then it dries. Later it might rain again. Each wetting and rewetting affects the structure and stability of the soil. These changes are taken into account when, for example, architects and engineers design, site, and construct buildings. But more broadly, the science of how particles stick together and then pull apart touches fields as diverse as natural hazards, crop fertilization, cement production, and pharmaceutical design.

WASHINGTON, February 4, 2020 -- Motor-related brain activity, particularly its accurate detection, quantification and classification capabilities, is of great interest to researchers. They are searching for a better way to help patients with cognitive or motor impairments or to improve neurorehabilitation for patients with nervous system injuries.

What The Study Did: Nearly 40 years of registry data for 7.3 million people living in Denmark were used to examine whether people diagnosed with neurological disorders, including  dementia, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson disease and multiple sclerosis, die by suicide more often than others.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

A team of chemical engineers has developed a new way to produce medicines and chemicals on demand and preserve them using portable "biofactories" embedded in water-based gels called hydrogels. The approach could help people in remote villages or on military missions, where the absence of pharmacies, doctor's offices or even basic refrigeration makes it hard to access critical medicines, daily use chemicals and other small-molecule compounds.

Philadelphia, February 4, 2020 - Researchers shed new light on the genetic relationship between three mood disorders associated with depression--major depression and bipolar disorder types 1 and 2, in a new study in the journal Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 4: Treatment of human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines HSC3 and HSC4 with Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin, induced CLDN4 nuclear translocation to enhance epithelial-mesenchymal transition, stemness, cell proliferation, and invasive ability.

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers at The University of Tokyo have used computational methods and analysis of recent experimental data to demonstrate that water molecules take two distinct structures in the liquid state. The team investigated the scattering of X-ray photons through water samples and showed a bimodal distribution hidden under the first diffraction peak that resulted from tetrahedral and non-tetrahedral arrangements of water molecules.

If you feed the birds in your backyard, you may be doing more than just making sure they have a source of food: you may be helping baby birds give parasites the boot.

New research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology from UConn assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Sarah Knutie shows that feeding bluebirds can have a significant impact on parasitic nest flies feeding on baby bluebirds.

Parasitic flies can be found in the nests of many bird species, and some can have significant impacts on nestling survival.

Even though they are inanimate objects, sand dunes can 'communicate' with each other. A team from the University of Cambridge has found that as they move, sand dunes interact with and repel their downstream neighbours.

The threat of antimicrobial resistance to medication is a global health issue. Recent years have seen a surge in our awareness of resistance genes; and as a result of the prevalence of these genes, antibiotics are becoming less effective at treating microbial infections, such as TB and gonorrhoea.

Although much work has been done analysing the human gut microbiome and its associated genes, little is currently known about these genes in the mouth.

Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have identified a new species of thalattosaur, a marine reptile that lived more than 200 million years ago.

The new species, Gunakadeit joseeae, is the most complete thalattosaur ever found in North America and has given paleontologists new insights about the thalattosaurs' family tree, according to a paper published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Scientists found the fossil in Southeast Alaska in 2011.

Under severe environmental stresses such as high temperature, dryness and high salination, cells survive by responding appropriately through elaborate mechanisms, according to new cell biology research from the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at The Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo.