Tech
In most living animals, egg cells are vastly larger than sperm cells. In humans, for example, a single egg is 10 million times the volume of a sperm cell.
In a new study, Northwestern University researchers found that competition and natural selection drove this curious size discrepancy.
Snow cover in the Alps has been melting almost three days earlier per decade since the 1960s. This trend is temperature-related and cannot be compensated by heavier snowfall. By the end of the century, snow cover at 2,500 meters could disappear a month earlier than today, as simulations by environmental scientists at the University of Basel demonstrate.
Tokyo, Japan - Leukemias are debilitating cancers of the hematopoietic or blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. Now, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) describe an ingenious strategy against chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) wherein an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) comprising a cytotoxic drug payload linked to an antibody that selectively targets specific cell lines effectively blocks malignant cell proliferation at source.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has sped up the process of detecting flooded buildings immediately after a large-scale flood, allowing emergency personnel to direct their efforts efficiently. Now, a research group from Tohoku University has created a machine learning (ML) model that uses news media photos to identify flooded buildings accurately within 24 hours of the disaster.
Their research was published in the journal Remote Sensing on April 5, 2021.
Collaborative research of the University of Jyvaskyla and Natural Research Institute Finland presents new evidence of the effects of enriched rearing on well-being of aquaculture fishes. The research demonstrates that stone enrichments that have been previously conditioned in lake water significantly improve survival of fish compared to clean stones. Also a higher number of stones has a similar positive effect. The results have practical implications for prevention of aquaculture diseases. The study was published in Antibiotics in March 2021.
Using a new single-cell technique, WEHI researchers have uncovered a way to understand the programming behind how stem cells make particular cell types.
The research uncovered 30 new genes that program stem cells to make the dendritic cells that kick-start the immune response.
By uncovering this process, the researchers hope they will be able to find new immunotherapy treatments for cancer, and plan to expand this technique in other areas such as discovering new drug targets in tumour initiation.
At a glance
COVID-19 has been associated with increases in opioid overdose deaths, which may be in part because the pandemic limited access to buprenorphine, a treatment used for opioid dependency, according to a new study led by Princeton University researchers.
Besides enabling more potent smartphones and higher download speeds while riding the subway, cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and wireless communications are on the verge of revolutionizing well-established industrial fields. A remarkable example is "smart agriculture," which has seen a tremendous increase in the use of drones for various tasks, especially in Japan.
LAWRENCE -- How did the first humans migrate to populate North America? It's one of the great scientific puzzles of our day, especially because forbidding glaciers covered most of Canada, Alaska and Pacific Northwest during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). These glaciers limited human movements between northern ice-free areas, like the Beringia Land Bridge, and southern ice-free areas, like the continental United States.
LIBREVILLE, Gabon (April 15 2021) - A team of scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and working closely with experts from the Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux du Gabon (ANPN) compared methodologies to count African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis), which were recently acknowledged by IUCN as a separate, Critically Endangered species from African savannah elephants. The study is part of a larger initiative in partnership with Vulcan Inc. to provide the first nationwide census in Gabon for more than 30 years.
The processing of information inside the brain is one of the body's most complex processes. Disruption of this processing often leads to severe neurological disorders. The study of signal transmission inside the brain is therefore key to understanding a myriad of diseases. From a methodological point of view, however, it creates major challenges for researchers.
Researchers from King's College London have created 3D replicas of full-sized healthy adult hearts from Computed Tomography (CT) images and analyzed how cardiac shape relates to function.
Published today in PLOS Computational Biology, the study also includes 1000 new synthetic hearts that have been made open access allowing researchers to download and use them to test new algorithms, test in-silico therapies, run more statistical analyses or generate specific shapes from the average models.
As the world's energy demands grow, so too does growing concern over the environmental impact of power production. The need for a safe, clean, and reliable energy source has never been clearer. Fusion power could fulfil such a need. A review paper published in EPJ H examines the 6-decade history of neutral particle analysis (NPA), developed in Ioffe Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia, a vital diagnostic tool used in magnetic plasma confinement devices such as tokamaks that will house the nuclear fusion process and generate the clean energy of the future.
The complex patterns of genetic ancestry uncovered from genomic data in health care systems can provide valuable insights into both genetic and environmental factors underlying many common and rare diseases--insights that are far more targeted and specific than those derived from traditional ethnic or racial labels like Hispanic or Black, according to a team of Mount Sinai researchers.
LOS ANGELES (April 15, 2021) -- Researchers have discovered a new way to transform the tissues surrounding prostate tumors to help the body's immune cells fight the cancer. The discovery, made in human and mouse cells and in laboratory mice, could lead to improvements in immunotherapy treatments for prostate cancer, the second most common cancer in men in the US.