299 articles from WEDNESDAY 6.5.2020
Climate change could reawaken Indian Ocean El Nino
Global warming is approaching a tipping point that during this century could reawaken an ancient climate pattern similar to El Niño in the Indian Ocean, new research led by scientists from The University of Texas at Austin has found.
Look beyond rainforests to protect trees, scientists say
Temperate and tropical dry forests—not just rainforests—are home to thousands of unique tree species, a new study reveals.
Staghorn coral restoration projects show promise in Florida Keys
A new analysis of reef restoration projects in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary suggests they could play a key role in helping staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) recover from being endangered. Matthew Ware of Florida State University in Tallahassee and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 6, 2020.
Arctic Edmontosaurus lives again: A new look at the 'caribou of the Cretaceous'
A new study by an international team from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Hokkaido University and Okayama University of Science in Japan further explores the proliferation of the most commonly occurring duck-billed dinosaur of the ancient Arctic as the genus Edmontosaurus. The findings also reinforce that the hadrosaurs—known as the "caribou of the Cretaceous"—had a huge...
Focused ultrasound opening brain to previously impossible treatments
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Focused ultrasound, the researchers hope, could revolutionize treatment for conditions from Alzheimer's to epilepsy to brain tumors -- and even help repair the devastating damage caused by stroke.
Cholesterol lowering drugs linked to improved gut bacteria composition in obese people
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Obese Europeans who are treated with cholesterol lowering drugs have not only lower values of blood LDL cholesterol and markers of inflammation but in addition a more healthy gut bacteria profile than those obese who are not prescribed statins.
Safely relaxing social distancing comes down to numbers
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Your house number could be the key to the safe relaxation of COVID-19-related restrictions if governments follow a new exit strategy, which proposes the use of an 'odds-and-evens' approach to allowing people to head back to work and enjoy other activities after weeks of lockdown.
Filtering out toxic chromium from water
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Chemists have developed sponges to capture various target substances, like gold, mercury and lead, dissolved in solution. The sponges are actually porous crystals called metal organic frameworks, and now one exists for capturing toxic hexavalent chromium from water.
First-in-kind study reveals genetic markers of type 2 diabetes in East Asians
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
This research shows how different populations of people share most of the genetic susceptibilities to developing type 2 diabetes but do have some different genetic variations that can make them more or less susceptible to developing the condition.
Obesity is linked to gut microbiota disturbance, but not among statin-treated individuals
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Scientists set out to investigate a potential role of the gut microbiota in the development of cardio-metabolic diseases. They ended up identifying the common cholesterol-lowering drug statins as a potential microbiota-modulating therapeutic.
Regularly attending religious services associated with lower risk of deaths of despair, study finds
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
People who attended religious services at least once a week were significantly less likely to die from 'deaths of despair,' including deaths related to suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol poisoning, according to new research.
Fossil reveals evidence of 200-million-year-old 'squid' attack
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Researchers say a fossil found on the Jurassic coast of southern England in the 19th century demonstrates the world's oldest known example of a squid-like creature attacking its prey.
Wetter climate is likely to intensify global warming
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
New study indicates the increase in rainfall forecast by global climate models is likely to hasten the release of carbon dioxide from tropical soils, further intensifying global warming by adding to human emissions of this greenhouse gas into Earth's atmosphere.
Bat 'super immunity' may explain how bats carry coronaviruses, study finds
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Researchers have uncovered how bats can carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus without getting sick -- research that could shed light on how coronaviruses make the jump to humans and other animals.
SMART researchers uncover new anti-phage defence mechanisms in bacteria
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Researchers have discovered a previously unknown anti-phage defense mechanism in some bacteria that uses unique new ways to protect itself against phages. The discovery explains why some bacteria are resistant to phage therapy, and can pave the way to overcome existing challenges in fighting bacteria using phage therapy.
Dual personalities visualized for shape-shifting molecule
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the structure of a key genetic molecule, called RNA, and revealing for the first time how these changes impact RNA's function. The research team developed a bioinformatics technique to resolve separate structures of RNA rather than viewing them as a 'blur' that averaged multiple structures. This underpinned their discovery that the structure of...
Sewage poses potential COVID-19 transmission risk, experts warn
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Environmental biologists have warned that the potential spread of COVID-19 via sewage 'must not be neglected' in the battle to protect human health.
Unique 3D-images reveal the architecture of nerve fibers
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Researchers have used synchrotron light to study what happens to the nerves in diabetes. The technique shows the 3D-structure of nerve fibers in very high resolution.
New imaging method gives insights into how bacteria move and exchange genetic information
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:36
Scientists have made a pivotal breakthrough in advancing our understanding of how bacteria move and perform genetic exchange -- that could potentially lead to the development of new antimicrobial drugs.
Tiny devices promise new horizon for security screening and medical imaging
- ScienceDaily
- 20/5/6 19:35
Miniature devices that could be developed into safe, high-resolution imaging technology, with uses such as helping doctors identify potentially deadly cancers and treat them early, have been created.
An AI algorithm inspired by how kids learn is harder to confuse
Information firehose: The standard practice for teaching a machine-learning algorithm is to give it all the details at once. Say you’re building an image classification system to recognize different species of animals. You show it examples of each species and label them accordingly: “German shepherd” and “poodle” for dogs, for example.
But when a parent is teaching a child, the...
Perseverance Mars rover scientists train in the Nevada desert
Billions of years ago, the Martian surface could have supported microbial life as we know it. But did such life ever actually exist there? NASA and its Mars 2020 mission hope to find out with the Perseverance rover, which launches to the Red Planet this summer.
Researchers study Gulf of Mexico in international collaboration
When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig suffered a blowout in 2010 and began spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists got to work understanding the effects of that disaster.
New freeze-resistant trichinella species discovered in wolverines
A new freeze-resistant Trichinella species has been discovered in wolverines by Agricultural Research Service scientists and their colleagues. Trichinella are parasites that cause the disease trichinosis (formally referred to as trichinellosis), which people can get by eating raw or undercooked meat from infected animals.
Old democracies cope better with severe crisis than newer ones
In established democracies with a long experience of democracy, the risk of democratic breakdown, in the face of a crisis like the current corona-crisis, is low. The outlook is very different for new democracies, especially those with weak civil society and weak political parties, according to research from the University of Gothenburg.