Tech
Amsterdam, NL, February 3, 2020 - Individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) because of family history or genetic predisposition who engaged in six months of aerobic exercise training improved their brain glucose metabolism and higher-order thinking abilities (e.g., planning and mental flexibility) called executive function; these improvements occurred in conjunction with increased cardiorespiratory fitness.
A novel salt-tolerant bacterium cultured from the Red Sea effectively removes nitrogen from salty wastewater, suggests research from Pascal Saikaly's team at KAUST. The bacterium could be used to treat sewage coming from toilets that use seawater for flushing in place of freshwater.
Less than one percent of Earth's water is fresh and also accessible for human use. The world's population is expected to grow to about ten billion by 2050 and will continue to place increasing pressure on this already rare resource.
Maybe words such as ethyl butanoate and octalactone sound unfamiliar to most people who drink wine. However, these substances are some of the ones that give this popular drink its own scent. A recent piece of research published by the University of Cordoba and the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University in Romania identified a total of 17 key compounds in the aroma of red wine, made from a red grape variety harvested in the wine region in northeast Romania.
A new deep learning model developed by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland can identify sleep stages as accurately as an experienced physician. This opens up new avenues for the diagnostics and treatment of sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnoea.
A new study from Harvard University and the Field Museum of Natural History sheds light on how and when changes in the spine happened in mammal evolution. The research reveals how a combination of developmental changes and adaptive pressures in the spines of synapsids, the extinct forerunners of mammals, laid the groundwork for the diversity of backbones seen in mammals today.
When choosing between multiple alternatives, people usually focus their attention on the two most promising options. The quicker we do that, the faster we make the decision. Psychologists from the University of Basel have reported these findings in the scientific journal Nature Human Behaviour.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Japan's Tohoku University has found that a gene regulator, called BACH1, facilitates the spread of pancreatic cancer to other parts of the body. The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Cancer Research, say drugs that control BACH1 could improve disease prognosis.
Scientists from the University of Bristol and Université Paris-Saclay have discovered a new class of material - non-sticky gels.
Until now gels have been made of particles that stick to one another to form a network.
The research team, whose findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have now shown that networks and from and persist without the particles sticking to one another if the particles behave as liquid crystals.
Researchers from Sechenov University and their colleagues summarised the results of various studies devoted to the process that can be described as bacterial cannibalism. Why some microorganisms start to kill their relatives of the same species and whether we can use this phenomenon to combat infectious diseases is explained in the article published in Antibiotics.
According to the hypothesis, axionic dark matter, provoking structural rearrangement in compact stars with a strong magnetic field, can protect them from a catastrophic loss of magnetic energy, but at the same time allows such objects to rotate abnormally fast.
Despite being considered as one of the best studied spiders in the Palearctic, the orb-weaver spiders (family Araneidae) remain poorly known in the central parts of the ecozone. To bridge the knowledge gaps, an international research team of researchers took to the Caucasus, Middle East and Central Asia to study two of those genera: Araniella and Neoscona.
The research - which was undertaken at the University of York - also suggests there was no single point of origin for the world's oldest pottery.
Academics extracted and analysed ancient fats and lipids that had been preserved in pieces of ancient pottery - found at a number of sites on the Amur River in Russia - whose dates ranged between 16,000 and 12,000 years ago.
When an infected tsetse fly bites humans or other mammals to feed on their blood, microscopic parasites (African trypanosomes) in the fly's saliva are transferred. The unfortunate recipient of the bite, once infected, often faces severe health consequences, even death.
A Northwestern University research team has revealed a new approach to conducting chemical reactions -- one that doesn't require direct contact with a catalyst.
University of Groningen physicists have visualized hydrogen at the titanium/titanium hydride interface using a transmission electron microscope. Using a new technique, they succeeded in visualizing both the metal and the hydrogen atoms in a single image, allowing them to test different theoretical models that describe the interface structure. The results were published on 31 January in the journal Science Advances.