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61 articles from ScienceDaily

Flipping the script on novel cancer therapy leads to insights into lupus

In the last decade, scientists discovered that blocking a key regulator of the immune system helped unleash the body's natural defenses against several forms of cancer, opening up a new era of cancer immunotherapy. Now scientists have essentially flipped this script and found that when impaired a molecularly similar regulator can cause the damaging immune system attacks on skin and organs that are...

Paleontology: Experiments in evolution

A new find from Patagonia sheds light on the evolution of large predatory dinosaurs. Features of the 8-m long specimen from the Middle Jurassic suggest that it records a phase of rapid diversification and evolutionary experimentation.

First mathematical proof for key law of turbulence in fluid mechanics

Turbulence is one of the least understood phenomena of the physical world. Long considered too hard to understand and predict mathematically, turbulence is the reason the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe how fluids flow, are so hard to solve that there is a million-dollar reward for anyone who can prove them mathematically. But now, mathematicians have broken through the barrier and...

Focus on food security and sustainability

The number of malnourished people is increasing worldwide. More than two billion people suffer from a lack of micronutrients. Infant mortality rates are unacceptably high. Against this background, there is a need for the global pooling of research efforts, more research funding and an international body for food security and agriculture that prepares policy decisions.

State of shock: 200-year-old law about gas mixtures called into question

According to a new study led by a team from The University of New Mexico, centuries-old laws about the behavior of gas mixtures do not apply in the presence of shock waves. This finding could have potential impact on everything that involves mixtures of gases exposed to a shock wave, for example, during combustion in an engine.

Teams of microbes are at work in our bodies. Here's how to figure out what they're doing

An algorithm akin to the annoyingly helpful one that attempts to auto-complete text messages and emails is now being harnessed for a better cause. A group of researchers are using its pattern-recognition ability to identify microbial communities in the body by sifting through volumes of genetic code. Their method could speed the development of medical treatments for microbiota-linked ailments like...

New human autoinflammatory disease

Scientists from Australia and the US have discovered and identified the genetic cause of a previously unknown human autoinflammatory disease. The researchers determined that the autoinflammatory disease, which they termed CRIA (cleavage-resistant RIPK1-induced autoinflammatory) syndrome, is caused by a mutation in a critical cell death component called RIPK1. The discovery suggests that compounds...

Cheers! Maxwell's electromagnetism extended to smaller scales

More than one hundred and fifty years have passed since the publication of James Clerk Maxwell's "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" (1865). What would our lives be without this publication? It is difficult to imagine, as this treatise revolutionized our fundamental understanding of electric fields, magnetic fields, and light. The twenty original equations (nowadays elegantly reduced...

Immune outposts inside kidney tumors predict post-surgery outcomes

Patients with well-supported immune cells in their tumors are more likely to control their cancers' growth for a longer time, an observation that could guide treatment decisions after surgery for kidney cancer. In addition, the findings could help researchers expand the dramatic but sparse benefits of cancer immunotherapy to more people.

Heat energy leaps through empty space, thanks to quantum weirdness

A surprising new study shows that heat energy can leap across a few hundred nanometers of a complete vacuum, thanks to a quantum mechanical phenomenon called the Casimir interaction. Though this interaction is only significant on very short length scales, it could have profound implications for the design of computer chips and other nanoscale electronic components where heat dissipation is key,...