Tech
The cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii is known to cause infected rodents to lose their fear of feline predators, which makes the mice easier to catch. Predators then spread the parasites through their feces. But this so-called fatal feline attraction theory is flawed, suggests a study publishing January 14 in the journal Cell Reports. Rather than exhibiting a loss of feline-specific fear, infected rodents actually show a decrease in general anxiety and reduced aversion to a wide range of threats.
The sex life of hermaphroditic animals is determined by one fundamental question: Who assumes the female role and produces the costly eggs? Hamlets avoid this dilemma by engaging in reciprocal egg trading. Scientists have now used microeconomic models to analyze the circumstances required for this complex system of trading to work. Their results have been published in The American Naturalist.
Lithium nitride is a well-known positive pre-lithiation additive that can be used to compensate for the irreversible lithium loss that occurs on the negative side during the first charge, thereby increasing the specific energy of the energy storage device. However, in the electrode manufacturing process, lithium nitride would react with the most commonly used solvent, such as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), acetonitrile (ACN) and N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAC). The side reactions make it difficult to manufacture the lithium nitride containing electrode in scale.
Those nice new clothes you got for Christmas or in the new year sales might just last longer, thanks to advice from scientists researching the impact washing machines have on clothes and the environment.
Academics from the University of Leeds and specialists from Procter & Gamble, makers of Ariel, Daz, Bold, Fairy and Lenor, have wrung out new insight into how laundering clothing affects fading, colour runs and microfibre release.
The recent progress on two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals ferroelectrics may revolutionize the applications of ferroelectric (FE) materials in nanoelectronics. Their atomic-thickness renders high-density integration; their clean van der Waals interfaces allow for lattice mismatch, facilitating the epitaxial growth on various substrates including silicon; meanwhile many 2D materials are also high-mobility low-bandgap semiconductors.
In school buildings with indoor air quality related problems, such as moisture damage, temperature problems or poor ventilation, pupils experience slightly more symptoms than in buildings in which conditions are stated to be good based on expert evaluation.
Superfluids were first discovered as a special quantum state of liquid helium, later dubbed as "Superfluid helium" once chilled past -269 degree celsius, starts to manifest properties that do not occur in other fluids. Penetration through a solid with nano-pores is one of the three fascinating macroscopic phenomena that are well known in superfluids such as liquid helium. It is zero viscosity that endows the liquid helium superfluid with zero flow resistance or frictionless flow, leading to the amazing property.
Engineered ingestible molecular traps created from mesoporous silica particles (MSPs) introduced to the gut can have an effect on food efficiency and metabolic risk factors. The results from studies on mice, published in Nanomedicine, demonstrate the potential to reduce the energy uptake into the body and could lead to new treatments for obesity and diabetes.
A promising route to develop new treatments for skin cancer has been identified by University of Bath scientists, who have found a molecule that suppresses melanoma tumour growth.
Although the research is at an early stage, the team hope that their work could help develop new ways to combat melanoma and potentially other cancers too.
Black chemicals from oil pollute. Green ones from biomass don't. Or is it really so simple? Not necessarily, as demonstrated in two newly published articles about LCA in Nature Sustainability and GCB Bioenergy.
A rapid diagnosis centre has cut waiting times for patients with non-specific symptoms who may have cancer from 84 days to 6, and costs less than current usual care if used at more than 80% of capacity, a new study by Swansea University researchers and NHS colleagues has shown.
Published in the British Journal of General Practice, the study is the first complete analysis of the cost-effectiveness of rapid diagnosis centres (RDCs).
Cancer-promoting genes MYC and TWIST1 co-opt immune system cells to enable cancer cells to spread, but blocking a key step in this process can help prevent the disease from developing.
These findings, published today in eLife, may help clinicians to identify cancer patients at risk of metastasis, a process where cancer cells spread to other parts of the body. They may also inform the development of new strategies to prevent or treat metastasis.
New Rochelle, NY, January 14, 2020--A new coliphage - a bacteriophage that infects and can destroy Escherichia coli -- is presented and characterized in PHAGE: Therapy, Applications, and Research, a new peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers launching in early 2020. Click here to read the full-text article free on the PHAGE website through February 14, 2020.
WASHINGTON, January 14, 2020 -- Most robotic gripping mechanisms to date have relied on humanlike fingers or appendages, which sometimes struggle to provide the fine touch, flexibility or cost-effectiveness needed in some circumstances to hold onto objects. Recent work looks to provide a path forward for gripping robots from an unlikely source -- the doughnut-shaped sea anemone.
A nanopore is a tiny hole in a thin membrane with a diameter of around a billionth of a meter, or about the width of a single DNA molecule. The potential applications of these nanopores are so diverse - from medicine to information technology (IT) - that they could have a major impact on our daily lives. Now a team of researchers at the University of Ottawa is democratizing entry into the field of nanopore research by offering up a unique tool to accelerate the development of new applications and discoveries.