Tech
A cancer therapy may shrink the tumor of a patient, and the patient may feel better. But unseen on a CT scan or MR image, some of the cells are undergoing ominous changes. Fueled by new genetic changes due to cancer therapy itself, these rogue cells are becoming very large with twice or quadruple the number of chromosomes found in healthy cells. Some of the cells may grow to eight, 16 or even 32 times the correct number. Quickly, they will become aggressive and resistant to treatment. They will eventually cause cancer recurrence.
The fast and efficient generation of random numbers has long been an important challenge. For centuries, games of chance have relied on the roll of a die, the flip of a coin, or the shuffling of cards to bring some randomness into the proceedings. In the second half of the 20th century, computers started taking over that role, for applications in cryptography, statistics, and artificial intelligence, as well as for various simulations -- climatic, epidemiological, financial, and so forth.
RICHLAND, Wash. - Ongoing environmental changes are transforming forests worldwide, resulting in shorter and younger trees with broad impacts on global ecosystems, scientists say.
Ongoing environmental changes are transforming forests worldwide, resulting in shorter and younger trees with broad impacts on global ecosystems, scientists say.
In a global study published in the 29 May 2020 issue of Science magazine, researchers including experts at the University of Birmingham, showed how rising temperatures and carbon dioxide have been altering the world's forests.
The strongest permanent magnets today contain a mix of the elements neodymium and iron. However, neodymium on its own does not behave like any known magnet, confounding researchers for more than half a century. Physicists at Radboud University and Uppsala University have shown that neodymium behaves like a so-called 'self-induced spin glass,' meaning that it is composed of a rippled sea of many tiny whirling magnets circulating at different speeds and constantly evolving over time.
Heating and air conditioning in buildings make up almost half of the total energy consumption in the European Union. What is more, nearly 75% relies on fossil fuels, according to data from the European Commission. Hence, reducing this consumption and integrating renewable energy in heating and air conditioning processes in buildings is one of today's priorities for scientific research.
The study primarily includes industrial workers and employees in jobs with a lot of physical activity, such as nurses, cleaners and people in service professions who are required to stand a lot.
Moving more and sitting less has been the ongoing mantra, but this study comes to some different conclusions.
Like an orchestra playing in time without a conductor, the elements of a complex system can naturally synchronize with each other. This collective phenomenon, known as synchronization, occurs throughout nature, from neurons firing together in the brain to fireflies flashing in unison in the dark.
The Kuramoto model is used to study synchronization observed in complex systems. Complex systems are often mathematically represented by networks, where components in the system are represented as nodes, and the links between nodes show interactions between them.
Lobachevsky University scientists in collaboration with their colleagues from Russia, Italy, China and the United States have proposed the concept of a memristive neurohybrid chip to be used in compact biosensors and neuroprostheses. The concept is based on the existing and forward-looking solutions at the junction of neural cellular and microfluidic technologies that make it possible to grow a spatially ordered living neural network.
New '3D micro-optic' security features in banknotes enable the general public to detect counterfeits reliably within a fraction of a second, according to new research at the University of Birmingham.
During a typical cash transaction, people glance at banknotes for about a second, not giving them much time to check banknotes for authenticity.
An interdisciplinary research study of the University of Barcelona identified two potential candidates to treat Alzheimer's disease. These are two marine molecules, meridianine and lignarenone B, able to alter the activity of GSK3B activity, a protein associated with several neurodegenerative diseases.
Hydropower plants can support solar and wind power, rather unpredictable by nature, in a climate-friendly manner. A new study in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability has now mapped the potential for such "solar-wind-water" strategies for West Africa: an important region where the power sector is still under development, and where generation capacity and power grids will be greatly expanded in the coming years.
This is how it works. A device containing insulin-?producing cells and an electronic control unit is implanted in the body of a diabetic. As soon as the patient eats something and their blood sugar rises, they can use an app on their smartphone to trigger an electrical signal, or they can preconfigure the app do this automatically if the meal has been entered in advance. A short while afterwards, the cells release the necessary amount of insulin produced to regulate the patient's blood sugar level.
FINDINGS
A new study from researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center helps explain how disruptions in genes can lead to the resistance to one of the leading immunotherapies, PD-1 blockade, and how new drug combinations could help overcome resistance to the anti-PD-1 therapy in a mechanistically-based way.
For the last eight years, the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) Consortium (and its predecessor, the Exome Aggregation Consortium, or ExAC), has been working with geneticists around the world to compile and study more than 125,000 exomes and 15,000 whole genomes from populations around the world.
Now, in seven papers published in Nature, Nature Communications, and Nature Medicine, gnomAD Consortium scientists describe their first set of discoveries from the database, showing the power of this vast collection of data. Together the studies: