390 articles from THURSDAY 14.1.2021

Not as simple as thought: How bacteria form membrane vesicles

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba identified a novel mechanism by which bacteria form membrane vesicles, which bacteria employ to communicate with each other or to defend themselves against antibiotics. By studying mycolic acid-containing bacteria (MCB), which also includes tuberculosis-causing bacteria, the researchers demonstrated that environmental stimuli dictate the route by which...

Physical frailty syndrome: a cacophony of multisystem dysfunction

Aging experts synthesize converging evidence that the aging-related pathophysiology underpinning the clinical presentation of phenotypic frailty is a state of lower functioning due to severe dysregulation of the complex dynamics in our bodies that maintains health and resilience. When severity passes a threshold, the clinical syndrome and its phenotype are diagnosable. This paper summarizes...

Physical virology shows the dynamics of virus reproduction

The reproductive cycle of viruses requires self-assembly, maturation of virus particles and, after infection, the release of genetic material into a host cell. New physics-based technologies allow scientists to study the dynamics of this cycle and may eventually lead to new treatments.

Pillarene hybrid material shows enhanced tunable multicolor luminescence and sensing ability

Tunable luminescent materials are highly desirable owing to their broad application potential in various fields. Recently, a pillar[5]arene-based hybrid material with stimuli-responsive luminescent properties and ion sensing abilities has been elegantly constructed from a pyridine-modified conjugated pillar[5]arene and a planar chromophore oligo(phenylenevinylene) upon coordination of Cd (II)...

Population density and virus strains will affect how regions can resume normal life

As a new, apparently more transmissible version of the virus that causes COVID-19 has appeared in several countries, new research finds that the transmissibility of viral strains and the population density of a region will play big roles in how vaccination campaigns can help towns and cities return to more normal activities. The findings suggest that directing vaccines toward densely populated...

Posidonia marine seagrass can catch and remove plastics from the sea

Posidonia oceanica seagrass -an endemic marine phanerogam with an important ecological role in the marine environment- can take and remove plastic materials that have been left at the sea, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. The article's first author is the tenure-track 2 lecturer Anna Sànchez-Vidal, from the Research Group on Marine Geosciences of the Faculty of...

Quantum computers to study the functioning of the molecules of life

A breakthrough that has implications for molecular biology, pharmacology and nanotechnologies. The fields of application are many. Identifying the mechanisms behind neurodegenerative processes in some proteins, for example, can help limit their proliferation. Understanding how a protein takes on a certain shape can open the way to use the nanomachines that nature has designed to cut, edit or block...

Research breaks new ground in understanding how a molecular motor generates force

A team of biophysicists set out to tackle the long-standing question about the nature of force generation by myosin, the molecular motor responsible for muscle contraction. The key question they addressed - one of the most controversial topics in the field - was: how does myosin convert chemical energy, in the form of ATP, into mechanical work? The answer revealed new details into how myosin, the...

Researchers link cellular transport pathway to aggressive brain cancer

Researchers at McGill University have identified a new cellular pathway that limits the growth and spread of brain tumors by controlling the recycling of cell surface receptor proteins. The study, which will be published January 14 in the Journal of Cell Biology (JCB), suggests that the pathway, which involves a protein called Rab35, is defective in many patients with glioblastoma and that...

Retinal cell transplant clears experimental hurdle toward treating blindness

Retinal cells derived from adult human eye stem cells survived when transplanted into the eyes of monkeys, an important early step in the validation of this approach for treating blindness, according to a study by Liu, et al recently published in Stem Cell Reports. The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a layer of pigmented cells in the retina, is essential for sustaining normal vision. Blindness...

Scholars link diet, dentition, and linguistics

University of Miami anthropologist Caleb Everett and former student Sihan Chen used a novel data analysis of thousands of languages, in addition to studying a unique subset of celebrities, to reveal how a soft food diet--contrasted with the diet of hunter-gatherers--is restructuring dentition and changing how people speak. Their findings were published this week in Scientific Reports.

Scientists discover electric eels hunting in a group

Deep in the Brazilian Amazon River basin, scientists discovered a small, river-fed lake filled with more than 100 adult electric eels. Researchers witnessed the electric eels working together to herd small fish into tightly packed balls. Groups of up to 10 eels periodically split off to form cooperative hunting parties. Those smaller groups then surrounded the prey and launched simultaneous...