Earth

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Artificial intelligence (AI) may offer a way to accurately determine that a person is not infected with COVID-19. An international retrospective study finds that infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, creates subtle electrical changes in the heart. An AI-enhanced EKG can detect these changes and potentially be used as a rapid, reliable COVID-19 screening test to rule out COVID-19 infection.

In the heart of their Antarctic habitat, krill populations are projected to decline about 30% this century due to widespread negative effects from human-driven climate change. However, these effects on this small but significant species will be largely indistinguishable from natural variability in the region's climate until late in the 21st century, finds new University of Colorado Boulder research.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Millions of people experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime and assessment is important in conducting therapy and assisting victims. A team of psychologists at Binghamton University, State University of New York have evaluated dozens of available measures used to assess intimate partner violence and have pinpointed the most effective ones.

Data collected for over two decades shows that rising Baltic Sea water temperature is one of the main factors in the increasingly earlier appearance and faster growth of Baltic herring larvae.

Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras) is commercially the most important fish species in Finland, and an important part of the Baltic marine ecosystem. Conditions during herring spawning may have cascading effects on the whole Baltic ecosystem.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow have discovered how mutated cells promote their chances to form cancer. Typically, the accumulation of harmful cells is prevented by active competition between multiple stem cells in intestinal glands, called crypts.

Researchers have identified two subgroups of adolescents who self-harm and have shown that it is possible to predict those individuals at greatest risk almost a decade before they begin self-harming.

The team, based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, found that while sleep problems and low self-esteem were common risk factors, there were two distinct profiles of young people who self-harm - one with emotional and behavioural difficulties and a second group without those difficulties, but with different risk factors.

Local rice varieties in Vietnam could be used to help breed improved crops with higher resilience to climate change, according to a new study published in Rice.

Earlham Institute researchers are part of an international collaboration with genebanks and rice breeders in Vietnam - championed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to help abolish world poverty and hunger - are aiming to identify varieties that can survive an increasingly unpredictable climate.

The influx of warmer water masses from the North Atlantic into the European marginal seas plays a significant role in the marked decrease in sea-ice growth, especially in winter. Sea-ice physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) together with researchers from the US and Russia, now present evidence for this in two new studies, which show that heat from the Atlantic has hindered ice growth in the Barents and Kara Seas for years.

The research - published ahead of World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on 17 June 2021 - examines recent and projected climate change impacts on water security across the world's drylands up to the year 2100.

It concludes that more efficient water management, technology and infrastructure, and better demand and supply management can offer more equitable access to water resources and help to achieve development goals.

In the heart there are two different subtypes of beta-adrenergic receptors - beta1 and beta2 - which are activated by the stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline. They both trigger the strongest stimulation of the heart rate and pumping capacity that we know of. The two subtypes are highly similar biochemically, but differ substantially in terms of their functional and therapeutic relevance.

Plants evolve specialised defence chemicals through the combined effects of genes, geography, demography and environmental conditions, a study published today in eLife reports.

The findings reveal a pattern in the types of defence chemicals plants produce across Europe, and describe some of the evolutionary processes that create them.

New Haven, Conn. --In a new study led by Yale Cancer Center, researchers show the nucleoside transporter ENT2 may offer an unexpected path to circumventing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enabling targeted treatment of brain tumors with a cell-penetrating anti-DNA autoantibody. The study was published today online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight.

This past year has been transformational in terms of not only a global pandemic but a sustained focus on racism and systemic injustice. There has been a widespread circulation of images and videos in the news and online. Just like adults, adolescents are exposed to these images with important consequences for their emotional health and coping. However, few studies have sought to understand the influence of racism experienced online.

Humans can do lots of things that plants can't do. We can walk around, we can talk, we can hear and see and touch. But plants have one major advantage over humans: They can make energy directly from the sun.

Proper chromosome segregation into two future daughter cells requires the mitotic spindle to elongate in anaphase. However, although some candidate proteins are implicated in this process, the molecular mechanism that drives spindle elongation in human cells has been unknown, until now! Researchers at the Croatian Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) have discovered the exact molecular mechanism of bridging microtubules sliding and its role in proper distribution of genetic material during cell division.