295 articles from WEDNESDAY 19.8.2020

Team creates better tool to aid COVID-19 diagnosis

A radiologist and an evolutionary anatomist have teamed up to show the same techniques used for research on reptile and bird lungs can be used to help confirm the diagnosis of COVID-19 in patients. Their paper demonstrates that 3D models are a strikingly clearer method for visually evaluating the distribution of COVID-19-related infection in the respiratory system.

Study sheds new light on certainty of opinions

Researchers for years have understood how attitudes held with certainty might predict behavior, but psychologists now suggest there may be a more general disposition at work that predicts the certainty of newly formed evaluations, just as they do for pre-existing opinions.

COVID-19 Could Threaten Firefighters As Wildfire Season Ramps Up

Jon Paul was leery entering his first wildfire camp of the year late last month to fight three lightning-caused fires scorching parts of a Northern California forest that hadn’t burned in 40 years. The 54-year-old engine captain from southern Oregon knew from experience that these crowded, grimy camps can be breeding grounds for norovirus and a respiratory illness that firefighters call...

Understanding the inner workings of the human heart

Researchers used artificial intelligence and genetic analyses to examine the structure of the inner surface of the heart using 25,000 MRI scans. They found that the complex network of muscle fibers lining the inside of the heart, called trabeculae, allows blood to flow more efficiently and can influence the risk of heart failure. The study answers very old questions in basic human physiology and...

First immune-evading cells created to treat type 1 diabetes

Scientists have made a major advance in the pursuit of a safe and effective treatment for type 1 diabetes, an illness that impacts an estimated 1.6 million Americans with a cost of $14.4 billion annually. Using stem cell technology, researchers generated the first human insulin-producing pancreatic cell clusters able to evade the immune system. These 'immune shielded' cell clusters controlled...

The secret of lymph: How lymph nodes help cancer cells spread

For decades, physicians have known that many kinds of cancer cells often spread first to lymph nodes before traveling to distant organs through the bloodstream. New research provides insight into why this occurs, opening up new targets for treatments that could inhibit the spread of cancer.

Pumice arrives delivering 'vitamin boost' to the reef

The giant pumice raft created by an underwater volcanic eruption last August in Tonga has begun arriving on the Australian eastern seaboard, delivering millions of reef-building organisms that researchers say could be a 'vitamin boost' for the Great Barrier Reef.

Unconventional monetary policy and bank risk taking

Unconventional monetary policy does not lead to greater risk-taking by banks, according to new research. This will be welcome news for central banks and policymakers as they ramp up efforts to limit the economic fallout of the pandemic.

Controlling the electron spin: Flip it quickly but carefully

Over the past two decades, a new area at the interface of semiconductor physics, electronics and quantum mechanics has been gaining popularity among theoretical physicists and experimenters. This new field is called spintronics, and one of its main tasks is to learn how to control the spin of charge carriers in well known semiconductor structures. Many theoretical efforts are always required...

World record: Plasma accelerator operates right around the clock

A team of researchers at DESY has reached an important milestone on the road to the particle accelerator of the future. For the first time, a so-called laser plasma accelerator has run for more than a day while continuously producing electron beams. The LUX beamline, jointly developed and operated by DESY and the University of Hamburg, achieved a run time of 30 hours. "This brings us a big step...