Tech
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 2, 2020 -- Photovoltaics used in solar panels are sensitive to environmental factors and often suffer degradation over time. International Electrotechnical Commission standards for accelerated degradation do not include field tests. While some testing facilities have made data available, much of the data needed to make business decisions for PV is not available publicly.
During the years 1976 through 1980, 15% of U.S. adults were obese. Today, about 40% of adults are obese. Another 33% are overweight.
Coinciding with this increase in weight are ever-rising rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and health complications caused by obesity, such as hypertension. Even Alzheimer's disease may be partly attributable to obesity and physical inactivity.
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a quantum chemistry simulation benchmark to evaluate the performance of quantum devices and guide the development of applications for future quantum computers.
Their findings were published in npj Quantum Information.
Some of the effects of air pollution on health are well documented -lung cancer, stroke, respiratory diseases, and a long etcetera- but for others there is less scientific evidence. Such is the case of bone health: there are only a few studies and results are inconclusive. Now, a study in India led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by "la Caixa", has found an association between exposure to air pollution and poor bone health.
The research was supported by a Russian Science Foundation's grant under the title "Synthesis and research of a new class of nanocomposite ceramics with degenerate dielectric permeability for opto-plasmonic applications."
A metalens described in the article is a thin composite metal-dielectric film placed on a dielectric substrate; the width is several dozen nanometers.
Knockin (KI) animals carrying exogenous sequences integrated at specific genomic loci are invaluable tools for biomedical research. To understand the role of lethal genes in post-embryonic functions, it is usual to use KI animals carrying two loxP insertions at interested genomic loci to generate conditional gene knockout (CKO) animals. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a vertebrate animal model excellent for in vivo imaging of biological events.
A new expert review confirms that diet significantly influences mental health and wellbeing, but cautions that the evidence for many diets is comparatively weak. This, the most up to date overview of the new field of Nutritional Psychiatry, is produced, by the Nutrition Network of the ECNP and is published in the peer-reviewed journal European Neuropsychopharmacology (see download details below).
Lead author, Professor Suzanne Dickson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) said:
In a newly published series appearing in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, researchers describe the current state of the science, the challenges, and science-based best practices for modeling the influence of water chemistry on the toxicity of metals, which is a critical step in calculating protective metal concentrations in water for the protection of aquatic life.
A recently published study indicates that oral infections seem to have no association with the risk of stem cell transplantation patients dying of or getting a serious infection within six months of the procedure.
A study collaboratively conducted by the University of Helsinki, the Helsinki University Hospital, the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel investigated whether oral infections are associated with the mortality rate and infectious complications post-stem cell transplantation.
A first-of-its-kind study on molecular interactions by biomedical engineers in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering will make it easier and more efficient for scientists to develop new medicines and other therapies for diseases such as cancer, HIV and autoimmune diseases.
Increasing abundance of plastic waste has alarmed the society, but the environmental fate of microplastics has been difficult to trace. A research group led by the University of Jyväskylä used carbon isotope labelling to follow the fate of polyethylene in the food chain. For the surprise of the researchers, plastic carbon was transformed even to beneficial fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6, by the microbes originating from humic lakes. The research was published in Scientific Reports -series at the end of December 2019.
Think of a train coming down the tracks to a switch point where it could go either to the right or the left -- and it always goes to the right.
Photosynthetic organisms have a similar switch point. After sunlight is absorbed, energy transfers rapidly to a protein called the reaction center. From this point, the electrons could move either to an A-branch (or "right-track") set of molecules, or to a B-branch ("left-track") set of identical molecules.
(Boston)--Immune checkpoints are surface proteins that cancer cells use to evade immune response. These surface proteins are critical for cancer cell growth and drugs targeting these proteins have revolutionized the management of patients with a wide array of cancers. Finding a mechanism to degrade these immune checkpoints may allow the immune system to kill cancer cells.
Brain imaging of pathological tau-protein "tangles" reliably predicts the location of future brain atrophy in Alzheimer's patients a year or more in advance, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. In contrast, the location of amyloid "plaques," which have been the focus of Alzheimer's research and drug development for decades, was found to be of little utility in predicting how damage would unfold as the disease progressed.
A new machine learning platform can identify patients with colorectal cancer and helps predict their disease severity and survival, according to a study involving samples from thousands of subjects. The noninvasive method adds to recent advances in technologies that analyze circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and could help spot colorectal cancers in at-risk patients at earlier stages. Like many other malignancies, colorectal cancers are most treatable if they are detected before they have metastasized to other tissues.