Curated News: PNAS

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Electronic devices typically use the charge of electrons, but spin — their other degree of freedom — is starting to be exploited.

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Researchers from the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center Frankfurt have uncovered the factors that determine the enormous diversity of herbivorous insects.

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UCLA Health researchers have published the largest-ever study of families with at least two children with autism, uncovering new risk genes and providing new insights into how genetics influence whether someone develops autism spectrum disorder.

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A new study by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University suggests that a micronutrient in human breast milk provides significant benefit to the developing brains of newborns, a finding that further illuminates the link between nutrition and brain health and could help improve infant formulas used in circumstances when breastfeeding isn’t possible.

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Immune-checkpoint inhibitors have become the standard of care for patients with advanced melanoma to improve survival, but only some patients respond to this immunotherapy and have long-term benefits. The lack of a long-lasting response, researchers say, is related to failure of antitumor immunologic memory. Treatment options for advanced melanoma are limited for patients who do not respond to this type of therapy.

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New research in colorectal cancers directed by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center suggests that expression of transcription factors — proteins that help turn specific genes on or off by binding to nearby DNA — may play a central role in the degree of DNA methylation across the genome, contributing to the development of different subtypes of these cancers. Methylation is a process in which certain chemical groups attach to areas of DNA that guide genes’ on/off switches.

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A new study published in PNAS evaluates the effects of Saharan dust clouds on atmospheric methane. An international research team found that when mineral dust that mixes with sea-spray to form Mineral-Dust-Sea Spray Aerosol (MDSA), this MDSA is activated by sunlight to produce an abundance of chlorine atoms ultimately mitigating methane totals.

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In a new study published, authors invert a classical approach to modeling food webs.

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Researchers have created a unique microscopic toolkit of ‘green’ tuneable electrical components, paving the way for a new generation of bioelectronic devices and sensors.

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A new study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University revealed that the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be slowed by suppressing a specific protein in the brain that causes corrosion.

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For approximately 3,000 years, generations of green sea turtles have returned to the same seagrass meadows to eat.

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A team of researchers from the University of Maryland School of Maryland’s Institute of Human Virology published new findings that emphasize the crucial role of the urinary and genital tract microbiota in adverse pregnancy outcomes and genomic instability that originate in the womb during fetal development.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators at Merck & Co. developed a rapid and efficient method of making large quantities of metabolites directly from a drug or drug precursors via carbon-hydrogen oxidation catalysis.

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A team led by Dr. Miquel Coll at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC), in collaboration with researchers led by Dr. Eric Krukonis at the University of Detroit Mercy in the USA, has revealed the atomic structure of the ToxR protein bound to the DNA of two promoters of the genes that cause the virulence of this bacterium.

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Using a combination of high-powered X-rays, phase-retrieval algorithms and machine learning, Cornell researchers revealed the intricate nanotextures in thin-film materials, offering scientists a new, streamlined approach to analyzing potential candidates for quantum computing and microelectronics, among other applications.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, in collaboration with researchers at the National Institutes of Health, report that two new studies in mice with a humanized immune system and human cell lines have identified an enzyme that plays a critical role in the late stages of HIV replication.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say they have developed a nanoparticle — an extremely tiny biodegradable container — that has the potential to improve the delivery of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based vaccines for infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and vaccines for treating non-infectious diseases including cancer.

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Orangutans can make two separate sounds simultaneously, much like songbirds or human beatboxers, according to a study led by the University of Warwick.