27 articles from WEDNESDAY 25.12.2019

Saudi Arabia Wants Your Next Vacation

AL-UYAYNAH, Saudi Arabia -- In a makeshift camp under a starry sky, Ghazi Al-Anazi talked about his experience in the fledgling Saudi tourist business. A decade ago, barely in his 20s, he started taking British business associates of his brother to see the wind-carved hills of the Saudi desert.Now 31, he has a small fleet of SUVs, nearly a dozen employees and a self-taught ability to cater to the...

GSK puts faith in AI to make more successful drugs more quickly

Firm is recruiting artificial intelligence specialists and developing new genomics labGlaxoSmithKline is ramping up its use of artificial intelligence and recruiting 80 AI specialists by the end of 2020 as it turns to cutting-edge computing to develop medicines of the future.However, the UK’s largest drugmaker by revenue is struggling to hire enough AI researchers and engineers from areas such...

The Guardian view on the rise of Christian-nativist populists: a troubling sign of things to come | Editorial

Over the holiday period the Guardian’s leader column examines the challenges of the future by fathoming out the present. Today we look at the struggle for the soul of Christianity“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” These words, written by Saint Paul 2,000 years ago, are central to the Christian...

A better testing method for patients with Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that manifests through symptoms such as tremor, slow movements, limb rigidity and gait and balance problems. As such, nearly all diagnostic testing revolves around how a patient moves and requires the patient to walk for extensive distances and amounts of time. An international team of researchers based in Saudi Arabia and Sweden proposed a new...

Archaeologists found the burial of Scythian Amazon with a head dress on Don

The burial of the Amazon with a head dress made of precious metal dated back to the second half of the 4th c BC was found by the staff of the Don expedition of IA RAS during the examination of the cemetery Devitsa V of Voronezh Oblast. This is the first found in Middle Don river and well preserved ceremonial headdress of a rich Scythian women, earlier archaeologists found only fragments of such...

Brain-like functions emerging in a metallic nanowire network

An international joint research team led by NIMS succeeded in fabricating a neuromorphic network composed of numerous metallic nanowires. Using this network, the team was able to generate electrical characteristics similar to those associated with higher order brain functions unique to humans, such as memorization, learning, forgetting, becoming alert and returning to calm. The team then clarified...

How can groups apologize sincerely? It's going to cost them

A cross-institutional research collaboration led by Professor OHTSUBO Yohsuke of Kobe University's Graduate School of Humanities has been investigating how group apologies are perceived. Their results revealed that costly apologies are deemed to be more genuine. This was similar to previous findings by Professor Ohtsubo et al. when they looked into apologies from individuals, such as friends or...

In leap for quantum computing, silicon quantum bits establish a long-distance relationship

In an important step forward in the quest to build a quantum computer using silicon-based hardware, researchers at Princeton have succeeded in making possible the exchange of information between two qubits located relatively far apart -- about the length of a grain of rice, which is a considerable distance on a computer chip. Connecting two silicon qubits across this distance makes possible new...

Intermittent fasting: live 'fast,' live longer?

For many people, the New Year is a time to adopt new habits as a renewed commitment to personal health. Newly enthusiastic fitness buffs pack into gyms and grocery stores are filled with shoppers eager to try out new diets.

Researchers map malaria parasites proliferate in human blood cells

Malaria parasites transform healthy red blood cells into rigid versions of themselves that clump together, hindering the transportation of oxygen. The infectious disease affects more than 200 million people across the world and causes nearly half a million deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization's 2018 report on malaria. Until now, however, researchers did not have a strong...

Scientists reveal function of histone variant H2A.Z in DNA replication selection

The research published in Nature on Dec. 25th, 2019, led by Dr. LI Guohong and Dr. ZHU Mingzhao from the Institute of Biophysics, has demonstrated that the histone variant H2A.Z facilitates the licensing and activation of early DNA replication origins. This study describes a novel epigenetic regulation mechanism for DNA replication origin selection and offers a new way of understanding DNA...

A molecular map of the brain's decision-making area

Researchers have come one step closer toward understanding how the part of our brain that is central for decision-making and the development of addiction is organized on a molecular level. In mouse models and with methods used for mapping cell types and brain tissue, the researchers were able to visualize the organization of different opioid-islands in striatum. Their spatiomolecular map may...

Why isn't there a vaccine for staph?

A study may help explain why previous attempts to develop a staph vaccine have failed, while also suggesting a new approach to vaccine design that focuses on activating an untapped set of immune cells, as well as inoculating against staph in utero or within the first few days after birth.