Tech
Scientists have discovered in more detail than ever before how the human body's immune system reacts to malaria and sickle cell disease.
The researchers from the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Exeter and Imperial College, London have published their findings in Nature Communications.
Every year there are ~200 million cases of malaria, which causes ~400,000 deaths.
As it causes resistance against malaria, the sickle cell disease mutation has spread widely, especially in people from Africa.
In the future, droughts could be even more severe than those that struck parts of Germany in 2018. An analysis of climate data from the last millennium shows that several factors have to coincide to produce a megadrought: not only rising temperatures, but also the amount of solar radiation, as well as certain meteorological and ocean-circulation conditions in the North Atlantic, like those expected to arise in the future. A group of researchers led by the Alfred Wegener Institute have just released their findings in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
A new coating for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), developed by scientists at UNIST promises extended driving for future electric vehicles (EVs). The coating, described in a paper published in the journal Nature Energy, when applied to LIBs is shown to have improved cycling stability even after being charged and discharged more than 500 times. As a result, the development of EV batteries that can drive longer distances with a single battery charge has gained considerable momentum.
An international research collaboration has used an omnidirectional camera attached to humpback whale to reveal how these creatures rest underwater. These findings demonstrate how wide-angle lens cameras can be useful tools for illuminating the ecology of difficult-to-observe animals in detail.
Solar energy is a clean, renewable source of electricity that could potentially play a significant part in fulfilling the world's energy requirements, but there are still some challenges to fully capitalizing on this potential. Researchers looked into some of the issues that hamper the uptake of solar energy and proposed different policies to encourage the use of this technology.
Researchers from Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with their colleagues from the Czech Republic have found a method to synthesize cyclic carbonates from atmospheric CO2. Cyclic carbonates are organic compounds, used as electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries, green solvents as well as in pharmaceutical drugs manufacturing. The scientists managed to synthetize carbonates under sunlight and at room temperature, while conventional methods require synthesis under high pressure and temperatures. The research findings are published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A (IF:11,301; Q1).
Researchers at Aalto University and the Niilo Mäki Institute have used neuroimaging to pinpoint where the brain activates - or doesn't activate - among children identified as having a high risk of dyslexia. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) has rarely been used to study the reading disorder in children.
At the start of Neurodiversity Celebration Week, new research from Cranfield University demonstrates the importance of organisations becoming more inclusive employers when it comes to neurodiversity.
Low plasma levels of protein TGFB1 and polymorphisms in gene TGFB1 act as biomarkers for the prognosis of gastric adenocarcinoma, according to a study led by the University Complutense of Madrid (UCM).
In particular, these variants are 12% more frequent in patients with metastatic tumors, "which indicates their importance in the clinical progression of this disease", stated José Manuel Martín Villa, Professor of Immunology and researcher at the Department of Immunology, Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology of the UCM.
SAN ANTONIO -- March 18, 2021 -- Working with a team led by French astronomers, Southwest Research Institute scientists helped identify incredibly powerful winds in Jupiter's middle atmosphere for the first time. The team measured molecules exhumed by the 1994 impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 to trace winds in excess of 900 miles per hour near Jupiter's poles.
- It is as if China is two completely different countries, if we look at how they appear in two such different cases as Africa and the Arctic, says Christer Henrik Pursiainen. He is a professor at the Department of Technology and Security at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
According to Pursiainen, it is not just the temperature difference that separates Africa from the Arctic. It also provides a good opportunity to take a closer look at how China adapts to two completely different situations and how they use widely differing methods to gain influence.
Researchers are developing new autonomous technologies that can help people check that isolated elderly family members are okay.
We are living in a world where elderly parents are increasingly distant from their relatives, as many relocate for work opportunities.
There are now more than 4 million people aged 65 and older who are living alone in the UK.
The series of national lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic has made it even harder for people to check that those elderly loved ones are safe and well.
(Boston)-- Uncontrolled diabetes increases maternal and fetal risks during pregnancy. As a result, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that family planning should be discussed and effective contraception should be available to the more than three percent of (more than one million) reproductive-age women in the United States with diabetes. Yet a new study has found that women with diabetes are less likely to use contraception after their diabetes diagnosis.
MADISON, Wis. -- Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a way to use a cell's own recycling machinery to destroy disease-causing proteins, a technology that could produce entirely new kinds of drugs.
Some cancers, for instance, are associated with abnormal proteins or an excess of normally harmless proteins. By eliminating them, researchers believe they can treat the underlying cause of disease and restore a healthy balance in cells.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic changed the higher education experience for students across the United States, with more than 90 percent of institutions reporting a shift in education delivery with the arrival of COVID-19.
The rapid transition to remote study came with its own learning curve for students and faculty alike. But for many students with disabilities, the shift offered new educational modalities as well as challenges - and the hope that some changes will continue after the threat of the virus subsides.