295 articles from TUESDAY 24.11.2020

Simple new testing method aims to improve time-release drugs

Engineers filled a glass tube bent like a tuning fork, kept vibrating by a circuit at its resonance frequency, with simulated stomach and intestine contents and passed an over-the-counter time-release drug granule through the tube. They observed a brief change in the frequency. When plotted, they could compare the peaks of resonance frequency against the time to learn the buoyant mass of the drug...

To push or to pull? How many-limbed marine organisms swim

When you think of swimming, you probably imagine pushing through the water—creating backwards thrust that pushes you forward. New research at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) suggests instead that many marine animals actually pull themselves through the water, a phenomenon dubbed "suction thrust."

Fluorescent molecule betrays the breakdown of polymer materials

Nylon, rubber, silicone, Teflon, PVC—these are all examples of man-made polymers—long chains of repeated molecular units that we call monomers. While polymers also exist in nature (think wool, silk, or even hair), the invention of synthetic polymers, the most famous of which is plastic, revolutionized the industry. Light, stretchy, flexible, yet strong and resistant, synthetic polymers are one...

Researchers go underwater to study how sponge species vanished

Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) embarked on an underwater journey to solve a mystery: Why did sponges of the Agelas oroides species, which used to be common in the shallow waters along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, disappear? Today, the species can be found in Israel mainly in deep habitats that exist at a depth of 100 meters (330 feet).

Can we harness a plant's ability to synthesize medicinal compounds?

Anthraquinones are a class of naturally occurring compounds prized for their medicinal properties, as well as for other applications, including ecologically friendly dyes. Despite wide interest, the mechanism by which plants produce them has remained shrouded in mystery until now. New work reveals a gene responsible for anthraquinone synthesis in plants. Their findings could help scientists...

Clean Air Act saved 1.5 billion birds, study shows

U.S. pollution regulations meant to protect humans from dirty air are also saving birds. So concludes a new continentwide study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study authors found that improved air quality under a federal program to reduce ozone pollution may have averted the loss of 1.5 billion birds during the past 40 years. That's nearly 20 percent of...

Novel chemical process a first step to making nuclear fuel with fire

Developing safe and sustainable fuels for nuclear energy is an integral part of Los Alamos National Laboratory's energy security mission. Uranium dioxide, a radioactive actinide oxide, is the most widely used nuclear fuel in today's nuclear power plants. A new "combustion synthesis" process recently established for lanthanide metals—non-radioactive and positioned one row above actinides on the...

CRISPRi screens reveal sources of metabolic robustness in E.coli

Metabolic robustness, the ability of a metabolic system to buffer changes in its environment, is not always a welcome feature for microbiologists: it interferes with metabolic engineering or prevents that antibiotics kill bacteria. Therefore it is important to understand the mechanisms that enable metabolic robustness. A massively parallel CRISPRi screen demonstrated that E. coli metabolism is...

Animal-free method predicts nanoparticle toxicity for safer industrial materials

Our lungs are exposed to a multitude of hazardous airborne particles on a daily basis. Nanoparticles, due to their small size, may reach the sensitive alveolar region of the human lung and trigger inflammation even after a single inhalation leading to severe diseases such as heart disease, brain damage and lung cancer for prolonged exposure. In manufacturing, toxic nanoparticles may be released...

Commonly used antibiotic shows promise for combating Zika infections

Researchers used a variety of advanced drug screening techniques to test out more than 10,000 compounds in search of a cure. To their surprise, they found that the widely used antibiotic methacycline was effective at preventing brain infections and reducing neurological problems associated with the virus in mice.

Clean Air Act saved 1.5 billion birds

US pollution regulations meant to protect humans from dirty air are also saving birds. So concludes a new continent-wide study. Study authors found that improved air quality under a federal program to reduce ozone pollution may have averted the loss of 1.5 billion birds during the past 40 years.

Memories of past events retain remarkable fidelity even as we age

Even though people tend to remember fewer details about past events as time goes by, the details they do remember are retained with remarkable fidelity, according to a new study. This finding holds true regardless of the age of the person or the amount of time that elapsed since the event took place.

CRISPRi screens reveal sources of metabolic robustness in E. coli

Metabolic robustness, the ability of a metabolic system to buffer changes in its environment, is not always a welcome feature for microbiologists: it interferes with metabolic engineering or prevents that antibiotics kill bacteria. Therefore it is important to understand the mechanisms that enable metabolic robustness. A massively parallel CRISPRi screen demonstrated that E. colimetabolism is very...

Researchers go underwater to study how sponge species vanished

Researchers embarked on an underwater journey to solve a mystery: Why did sponges of the Agelas oroides species, which used to be common in the shallow waters along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, disappear? The researchers believe that the main reason for the disappearance of the sponges was the rise in seawater temperatures during the summer months, which in the past 60 years have risen by...

How an infectious tumor in Tasmanian devils evolved as it spread

A transmissible cancer in the Tasmanian devil has evolved over the past two decades, with some lineages spreading and replacing others, according to a new study in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Young Mi Kwon, Kevin Gori, and Elizabeth Murchison of the University of Cambridge (UK) and colleagues. The evolutionary dynamics of the cancer help explain how this Australian marsupial has become...

The Zoom-fatigued person’s guide to connecting virtually on Thanksgiving

Lisa Long is immunosuppressed and suffers from chronic pain. That means that since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the US in March, she and her family, which includes her two daughters, 11 and 14, have been isolating at home outside St. Louis, save for the occasional doctor’s visit. Visiting family is out of the question for Thanksgiving. But Long will get to be with her nieces and...

Strengthening the climate change scenario framework

Over the past decade, the climate change research community developed a scenario framework that combines alternative futures of climate and society to facilitate integrated research and consistent assessment to inform policy. An international team of researchers assessed how well this framework is working and what challenges it faces.