When light hits certain molecules, it dislodges electrons and creates areas of positive and negative charge. An X-ray free-electron laser study has directly observed how this charge transfer affects a molecule's structure for the first time.
Tiny molecules called nanobodies, which can be designed to mimic antibody structures and functions, may be the key to blocking a tick-borne bacterial infection that remains out of reach of almost all antibiotics, new research suggests.
A multi-institutional team of researchers, led by UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, has identified both the genetic abnormalities that drive pre-cancer cells into becoming an invasive type of head and neck cancer and patients who are least likely to respond to immunotherapy.
Researchers argue that advanced tech, especially CRISPR, demands more robust and thoughtful public engagement if it is to be harnessed to benefit the public without crossing ethical lines.
Black Americans experience an increase in poor mental health days during weeks when two or more incidents of anti-Black violence occur and when national interest surrounding the events is higher, according to a new study.
Scientists developed a new mathematical model for predicting how COVID-19 spreads, accounting for individuals’ varying biological susceptibility and levels of social activity, which naturally change over time.
Narratives are a powerful tool that can help explain complex issues, but they can also serve as sources of misinformation, which presents a challenge as public health agencies work to educate people about COVID-19 vaccine.
Using laboratory-grown roundworms as well as human and mouse eye tissue, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have identified a new potential mechanism for age-related macular degeneration—the leading cause of blindness among older adults.
In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Florida State University researchers managed to visualize the vortex tubes in a quantum fluid, findings that could help researchers better understand turbulence in quantum fluids and beyond.
A dysfunctional immune system significantly contributes to the development of cancer. Several therapeutic strategies to activate the immune system to target cancer cells have been approved to treat different types of cancer, including melanoma.
Nine of the hottest years in human history have occurred in the past decade. Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question, which poses a new question: Should humans, whose fossil fueled society is driving climate change, use technology to put the brakes on global warming?
Michigan State University community ecologist Phoebe Zarnetske is co-lead of the Climate Intervention Biology Working Group, a team of internationally recognized experts in climate science and ecology that is bringing science to bear on the question and consequences of geoengineering a cooler Earth.
Should humans use technology to put the brakes on global warming? Stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) is a climate intervention that has been studied as a way to help cool the Earth. But what would be the consequences to natural systems of SAI? This question is being examined by a large scientific research team.
Eczema, or atopic dermatitis (AD), is sometimes called "the itch that rashes." Often, the itch begins before the rash appears, and, in many cases, the itchiness of the skin condition never really goes away.
A new, nondestructive optical technique will unlock more knowledge about nacre, and in the process could lead to a new understanding of climate history.
An international team of scientists have observed a sunlight-fueled atomic “pump” working in the cells of a marine bacterium. The imaging was done with an advanced technique called time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography.
Where does snow come from? This may seem like a simple question to ponder as half the planet emerges from a season of watching whimsical flakes fall from the sky--and shoveling them from driveways. But a new study on how water becomes ice in slightly supercooled Arctic clouds may make you rethink the simplicity of the fluffy stuff. It describes definitive, real-world evidence for "freezing fragmentation" of drizzle as a major source of ice in slightly supercooled clouds. The findings have important implications for forecasting weather and climate.
Patricia Bernal, a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Department of Microbiology of the University of Seville's Faculty of Biology, is working with the bacterium Pseudomonas putida, a biological control agent found in the soil and in plant roots and which, as such, has the ability to protect plants from pathogen attacks (organisms that cause diseases) also known as phytopathogens.
Scientists have found an energy band gap—an energy range where no electrons are allowed—opens at a point where two allowed energy bands intersect on the surface of an iron-based superconductor. This unusual electronic energy structure could be used for quantum information science and electronics.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a blueprint to achieve a better life for all and to ensure that no one is left behind. The partly overlapping and contradictory objectives of the SDGs can however make it difficult to assess overall progress. A group of researchers have proposed a new, tailor-made metric that measures development based on long-term human wellbeing.
Scientists found frozen plant fossils, preserved under a mile of ice on Greenland. The discovery helps confirm a new and troubling understanding that the Greenland Ice Sheet has melted entirely during recent warm periods in Earth’s history—like the one we are now creating with human-caused climate change.
New research by the National Institutes of Health found that unbalanced progesterone signals may cause some pregnant women to experience preterm labor or prolonged labor. The study in mice — published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — provides novel insights for developing treatments.
Researchers from the University of Rhode Island and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have teamed up to perfect a fast, accurate test combining the use of a solid-state nanopore and machine learning to verify the identity and purity of synthetic heparan sulfate
The mosquito protein AEG12 strongly inhibits the family of viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, West Nile, and Zika and weakly inhibits coronaviruses, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and their collaborators. They found that AEG12 works by destabilizing the viral envelope, breaking its protective covering.
A new SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, developed by giving a key protein’s gene a ride into the body while encased in a measles vaccine, has been shown to produce a strong immune response and prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and lung disease in multiple animal studies.
Exercise has long-been recommended as a cognitive-behavioral therapy for patients of depression, yet new evidence from the University of California of San Diego suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the nature of the relationship between physical activity and mental health.
COSMIC, a multipurpose X-ray instrument at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, has made headway in the scientific community since its launch less than 2 years ago, with groundbreaking contributions in fields ranging from batteries to biominerals.
Scientists developed a highly efficient, targeted method for delivering gene editing machinery to specific tissues and organs, demonstrating the treatment of high cholesterol by targeting genes in the liver of mice, reducing cholesterol for over 3 months (and potentially more) with one treatment
Blocking cell receptors for glucagon, the counter-hormone to insulin, cured mouse models of diabetes by converting glucagon-producing cells into insulin producers instead, a team led by UT Southwestern reports in a new study. The findings, published online in PNAS, could offer a new way to treat both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in people.
ROCKVILLE, MD – The Zika outbreak of 2015 and 2016 is having lasting impacts on children whose mothers became infected with the virus while they were pregnant.
Scientists at the University of Adelaide have challenged the common assumption that genetic diversity of a species is a key indicator of extinction risk.
In recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers Babak Sadigh, Luis Zepeda-Ruiz and Jon Belof report on a new mechanism of solidification in copper that provides an atomistic view of Ostwald’s step rule and alters the fundamental understanding of nucleation at high pressure. They found that not only does the crystallization process proceed via a non-equilibrium phase, but that this phase can be kinetically stabilized by the temperature.
DALLAS – Feb. 22, 2021 – Three decades-old antibiotics administered together can block a type of pain triggered by nerve damage in an animal model, UT Southwestern researchers report. The finding, published online today in PNAS, could offer an alternative to opioid-based painkillers, addictive prescription medications that are responsible for an epidemic of abuse in the U.S.
An experimental treatment can essentially reverse type 1 diabetes in certain types of laboratory mice, according to a series of studies led by University of Utah Health scientists. An injection of the therapeutic agent converts cells that normally control glucose production into ones that generate insulin.
Loss of biodiversity in the face of climate change is a growing worldwide concern. Another major factor driving the loss of biodiversity is the establishment of invasive species, which often displace native species.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered a way to convert the methane in natural gas into liquid methanol at room temperature.
Most countries introduced school closures during the spring of 2020 despite substantial uncertainty regarding the effectiveness in containing SARS-CoV-2.
A new study out of the University of Chicago has found that during the initial wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City, only 1 in 5 to 1 in 7 cases of the virus was symptomatic. The research team found that non-symptomatic cases substantially contribute to community transmission, making up at least 50% of the driving force of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
After a mysterious and sharp increase between 2012 and 2017 that could be traced to eastern China global emissions of a potent (and banned) substance notorious for depleting the Earth’s ozone layer – the protective barrier that absorbs the Sun’s harmful UV rays – have fallen rapidly in recent years and are now as low as never before since measurements began in this region in 2008, according to new atmospheric analyses published in "Nature" today.
Researchers report that large-scale commercial farms on deforested land in the southern Amazon result in higher temperature increases and less rainfall than small-scale farms.