Tech
The new method works without extremely high temperatures, is therefore more energy-efficient and has a significantly higher recovery rate (approx. 96 per cent of the starting material) than established processes. These findings will be published on 17 February 2021 in the scientific journal Nature.
Mechanical recycling vs. chemical recycling
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have created a four-legged soft robot that doesn't need any electronics to work. The robot only needs a constant source of pressurized air for all its functions, including its controls and locomotion systems.
The team, led by Michael T. Tolley, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, details its findings in the Feb. 17, 2021 issue of the journal Science Robotics.
More people than expected ended their own lives in 2020 in Japan, overturning a decadelong slow decline in the nation's annual number of suicides, according to a new analysis by public health experts at the University of Tokyo. The increase in suicides was especially pronounced among women younger than 30, potentially due to the COVID-19 pandemic's disproportionate effect on part-time and travel industry employees.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology used to protect the security and privacy of online transactions and is usually associated with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. However, it is a mechanism that can be applied to all kinds of digital exchanges.
Research has found fidaxomicin, an antibiotic usually used to treat bowel infections, prevents growth of resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTb) in the lab.
Published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, the research found that fidaxomicin was more effective than existing tuberculosis (TB) medication at preventing growth of the bacterium that causes TB.
Since Wilhelm Röntgen discovered them in 1895, X-rays have become a staple of medical imaging. In fact, barely a month after Röntgen's famous paper was published, doctors in Connecticut took the first ever radiograph of a boy's broken wrist.
Prolonged anesthesia, also known as medically induced coma, is a life-saving procedure carried out across the globe on millions of patients in intensive medical care units every year.
But following prolonged anesthesia--which takes the brain to a state of deep unconsciousness beyond short-term anesthesia for surgical procedures--it is common for family members to report that after hospital discharge their loved ones were not quite the same.
The international research collaboration involving the research team led by evolutionary biologist Professor Axel Meyer at the University of Konstanz and researchers from China and Singapore was able to identify factors that led to the success of the seahorse from a developmental biology perspective: its quickness to adapt by, for example, repeatedly evolving spines in the skin and its fast genetic rates of evolution. The results will be published on 17 February 2021 in Nature Communications.
Robotic clothing that is entirely soft and could help people to move more easily is a step closer to reality thanks to the development of a new flexible and lightweight power system for soft robotics.
The discovery by a team at the University of Bristol could pave the way for wearable assist devices for people with disabilities and people suffering from age-related muscle degeneration. The study is published today [17 February] in Science Robotics.
Escherichia coli bacteria are constitutive members of the human gut microbiota. However, some strains produce a genotoxin called colibactin, which is implicated in the development of colorectal cancer. While it has been shown that colibactin leaves very specific changes in the DNA of host cells that can be detected in colorectal cancer cells, such cancers take many years to develop, leaving the actual process by which a normal cell becomes cancerous obscure. The group of Thomas F.
Scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health developed a method using a DNA biomarker to easily screen pregnant women for harmful prenatal environmental contaminants like air pollution linked to childhood illness and developmental disorders. This approach has the potential to prevent childhood developmental disorders and chronic illness through the early identification of children at risk.
Québec City, February 17, 2021 - Platelets may play a key role in the development of lupus, according to a study published today by researchers at Université Laval and CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Centre. Extracellular DNA circulating in the blood of patients with lupus causes the inflammatory reaction associated with the disease. The researchers have shown that this DNA comes in part from the platelets, better known for their role in coagulating blood.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- In a new study, Penn State researchers demonstrated that facilitating researcher-policymaker interactions in rapid response processes can influence both how legislators think about policy issues and how they draft legislation.
Researchers have developed a new tool for addressing disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) - a blood disorder that proves fatal in many patients. The technology has not yet entered clinical trials, but in vivo studies using rat models and in vitro models using blood from DIC patients highlight the tech's potential.
The brain's neural activity is irregular, changing from one moment to the next. To date, this apparent "noise" has been thought to be due to random natural variations or measurement error. However, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have shown that this neural variability may provide a unique window into brain function. In a new Perspective article out now in the journal Neuron, the authors argue that researchers need to focus more on neural variability to fully understand how behavior emerges from the brain.