Tech
Millirobots that can adapt to unstructured environments, operate in confined spaces, and interact with a diverse range of objects would be desirable for exploration and biomedical applications. However, the development of millirobots has faced difficulty due to their complicated fabrication techniques.
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are widely used in portable electronic devices, electric vehicles, and grid-scale energy storage systems. Safety of Li-ion batteries, however, has been called into question repeatedly over the past several years due to a conventional organic electrolyte causing fire and explosion in many cases. Ceramic solid-state electrolyte (SSE) thin films promise a viable solution to addressing the safety issue by blocking the lithium dendrite that causes short circuit and thermal runaway, meanwhile offering high energy density for next-generation Li-ion batteries.
Researchers have developed a chip that is powered wirelessly and can be surgically implanted to read neural signals and stimulate the brain with both light and electrical current. The technology has been demonstrated successfully in rats and is designed for use as a research tool.
A team of dentists from RUDN University confirmed that a change in the dominant side of chewing is a reason for the early deterioration of dental implants. Such a change makes it more difficult for a patient to get accustomed to an implant and can lead to bone tissue abnormalities. The discovery can help dentists plan the recovery process after implantation surgeries. The results of the study were published in the European Journal of Dentistry.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and other institutions have applied powerful proteogenomics approaches to better understand the biological complexity of breast cancer. With this approach, the researchers were able to propose more precise diagnostics for known treatment targets, identify new tumor susceptibilities for translation into treatments for aggressive tumors and implicate new mechanisms involved in breast cancer treatment resistance. The study appears in the journal Cell.
In the United States alone, over 14 million adults suffer from alcohol use disorder. For those that seek treatment, 90% will experience at least one relapse within the first four years.
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a disorder that affects the adrenal gland's ability to release hormones that regulate the body's response to stress and illness. CAH is treatable, but can be potentially life-threatening during illness or if not managed. The disorder is difficult to identify, and much still needs to be understood about the condition.
It hasn't been more than a year and a half since the international researchers' network SPI-Birds started officially. Together they collect, secure and use long-term breeding population data of 1.5 million individually recognisable birds... and counting. Big questions in ecology and evolution can be answered using this data. Today, the publication of SPI-Birds' first scientific paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology coincides with receiving the Dutch Data Incentive Prize for the Medical and Life Sciences.
A recent research study conducted by City, University of London's Professor Christoph Bruecker and his team has revealed how micro-structured finlets on owl feathers enable silent flight and may show the way forward in reducing aircraft noise in future.
Professor Bruecker is City's Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Nature-Inspired Sensing and Flow Control for Sustainable Transport and Sir Richard Olver BAE Systems Chair for Aeronautical Engineering.
Natural language processing (NLP) has taken great strides recently--but how much does AI understand of what it reads? Less than we thought, according to researchers at USC's Department of Computer Science. In a recent paper Assistant Professor Xiang Ren and PhD student Yuchen Lin found that despite advances, AI still doesn't have the common sense needed to generate plausible sentences.
Fast facts:
Virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies have grown in popularity as they can immerse users in novel situations and environments by simulating the necessary stimuli.
However, when using VR or AR technologies such as head-worn displays, users frequently report symptoms of nausea, disorientation, and sleepiness.
This is more commonly referred to as cybersickness, a form of motion sickness that has been caused by the use of technology.
Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) have demonstrated that the CRISPR/Cas9 system is very effective in treating metastatic cancers, a significant step on the way to finding a cure for cancer. The researchers developed a novel lipid nanoparticle-based delivery system that specifically targets cancer cells and destroys them by genetic manipulation. The system, called CRISPR-LNPs, carries a genetic messenger (messenger RNA), which encodes for the CRISPR enzyme Cas9 that acts as molecular scissors that cut the cells' DNA.
Aging is a process that affects not only living beings. Many materials, like plastics and glasses, also age - ie they change slowly over time as their particles try to pack better - and there are already computer models to describe this. Biological materials, such as living tissue, can show similar behaviour to glasses except that the particles are actual cells or bacteria which have their own propulsion. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now used computer simulations to explore the aging behaviour of these "living" glassy systems.
During the smoky summer of 2018, two wildfires in Utah County burned a combined 121,000 acres, sending smoke pouring into the valleys of the Wasatch Front. Atmospheric scientists are always working to better forecast how smoke moves from fires, just as they work to forecast hurricanes and snowstorms.
Key Points
High-protein total diet replacement products are widely available to consumers; however, their efficacy has not been adequately studied.
AJCN study compared the impact of a high-protein total diet replacement to that of a typical North American diet on key components of energy metabolism.
The high-protein total diet replacement compared to the North American diet resulted in higher energy expenditure, increased fat oxidation and negative fat balance, likely implying body fat loss.