Tech
New Haven, Conn. --Yale researchers have shown that developmental abnormalities, including those that lead to pregnancy loss and autism, are controlled by the genetics of the fetus and placenta -- and not the mother's intrauterine environment.
The findings are reported in the April 28 online edition of the journal Placenta.
One out of every 33 children is diagnosed with a birth defect each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This translates into one baby born every 4 ½ minutes -- or 120,000 per year.
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina--A comprehensive review by University of North Carolina researchers and colleagues highlights the optimal ways that focused, high-dose radiation can be delivered to various types of tumors while sparing normal tissue and mitigating long-term side effects. The review was reported as a special issue in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics on May 1, 2021.
The Bornean subspecies of Rajah scops owl (Otus brookii brookii), documented in the wild for the first time since 1892, may be its own unique species and deserving of a conservation designation. Published April 28 in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center ecologist Andy Boyce reported the rediscovery and photographed this elusive subspecies in the mountainous forests of Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia.
MADISON -- From radio to television to the internet, telecommunications transmissions are simply information carried on light waves and converted to electrical signals.
Silicon-based fiber optics are currently the best structures for high-speed, long distance transmissions, but graphene -- an all-carbon, ultra-thin and adaptable material -- could improve performance even more.
When it comes to batteries, lithium-ion are the best we have as far as energy density and convenience.
For now.
The Washington University in St. Louis lab of Peng Bai, assistant professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, has developed a stable sodium ion battery that is highly efficient, will be less expensive to make and is significantly smaller than a traditional lithium ion battery due to the elimination of a once-necessary feature.
Hydraulic fracturing to extract trapped fossil fuels can trigger earthquakes. Most are so small or far from homes and infrastructure that they may go unnoticed; others can rattle windows, sway light fixtures and jolt people from sleep; some have damaged buildings.
Throughout the history of the West, human actions have often rushed the desert -- and their actions backfired. In the 1920s, the Colorado River Compact notoriously overallocated water still used today by several western states because water measurements were taken during a wet period.
More currently, operators of the massive Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert are spending around $45 million on desert tortoise mitigation after initial numbers of the endangered animals were undercounted before its construction.
The importance of pollinators to ensure successful harvests and thus global food security is widely acknowledged. However, the specific pollinators for even major crops - such as cocoa - haven't yet been identified and there remain many questions about sustainability, conservation and plantation management to enhance their populations and, thereby, pollination services.
Today, the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is critically endangered, with fewer than 100 individuals surviving in Indonesia on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. To ensure survival of the threatened species, accurate censusing is necessary to determine the genetic diversity of remaining populations for conservation and management plans.
Boulder, Colo., USA: A new focus article in the May issue of Geology summarizes research on plastic waste in marine and sedimentary environments. Authors I.A. Kane of the Univ. of Manchester and A. Fildani of the Deep Time Institute write that "Environmental pollution caused by uncontrolled human activity is occurring on a vast and unprecedented scale around the globe. Of the diverse forms of anthropogenic pollution, the release of plastic into nature, and particularly the oceans, is one of the most recent and visible effects."
New Edith Cowan University (ECU) research has found that by eating just one cup of nitrate-rich vegetables each day people can significantly reduce their risk of heart disease.
The study investigated whether people who regularly ate higher quantities of nitrate-rich vegetables, such as leafy greens and beetroot, had lower blood pressure, and it also examined whether these same people were less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease many years later.
Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death globally, taking around 17.9 million lives each year.
Over the coming decades, our economy and society will need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions as called for in the Paris Agreement. But even a future low-carbon economy will emit some greenhouse gases, such as in the manufacture of cement, steel, in livestock and crop farming, and in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. To meet climate targets, these emissions need to be offset. Doing so requires "negative emissions" technologies, by means of which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and permanently stored in underground repositories.
Small changes in the structure of DNA have been implicated in breast cancer and other diseases, but they've been extremely difficult to detect -- until now.
Using what they describe as a "chemical nose," UC Riverside chemists are able to "smell" when bits of DNA are folded in unusual ways. Their work designing and demonstrating this system has been published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
Customised medicines could one day be manufactured to patients' individual needs, with University of East Anglia (UEA) researchers investigating technology to 3D 'print' pills.
The team, including Dr Andy Gleadall and Prof Richard Bibb at Loughborough University, identified a new additive manufacturing method to allow the 3D printing of medicine in highly porous structures, which can be used to regulate the rate of drug release from the medicine to the body when taken orally.
Boston, MA (May 2, 2021) - A new study, presented today at the AATS 101st Annual Meeting, shows an association between decreased survival at five years and leaving an atrial communication at biventricular repair of unbalanced AVSD after adjusting for other known risk factors. During repair of atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD), surgeons may leave an atrial level shunt when they have concerns about postoperative pulmonary hypertension, a hypoplastic right ventricle (RV), hypoplastic left ventricle (LV), or as part of their routine practice.