206 articles from FRIDAY 7.5.2021

Head to toe: study reveals brain activity behind missed penalty kicks

A new study is the first to examine the brain activity behind successful and missed penalty kicks under real-world conditions. Successful kicks involved activation of "useful" areas of the brain, such as the motor cortex which is involved in movement. For missed kicks, areas involved in long-term thinking were more active, suggesting players were overthinking the consequences of the shot....

How bullying and obesity can affect girls' and boys' mental health

Depressive symptoms are more common in teenage girls than in their male peers. However, boys' mental health appears to be affected more if they suffer from obesity. Irrespective of gender, bullying is a considerably greater risk factor than overweight for developing depressive symptoms. These conclusions are drawn by researchers at Uppsala University who monitored adolescents for six years in a...

How viruses and bacteria can reach drinking water wells

Induced bank filtration is a key and well-established approach to provide drinking water supply to populated areas located along rivers or lakes and with limited access to groundwater resources. It is employed in several countries worldwide, with notable examples in Europe, the United States, and parts of Africa. Contamination of surface waters poses a serious threat to attaining drinking water...

How we retrieve our knowledge about the world

In order to find our way in the world, we classify it into concepts, such as "telephone". Until now, it was unclear how the brain retrieves these when we only encounter the word and don't perceive the objects directly. Scientists at the German MPI CBS have now developed a model of how the brain processes abstract knowledge. They found that depending on which features one concentrates on, the...

In the spotlight: Successful synthesis of perovskite visible-light-absorbing semiconductor material

Narrow-gap semiconductors with the ability to use visible light have garnered significant interest thanks to their versatility. Now, scientists in Japan have developed and characterized a new semiconductor material for application in process components stimulated by light. The findings have, for the first time, suggested a new way to reduce the band gap in cheaper and non-toxic tin-based oxide...

Learning on the fly

Informatics experts at the University of Sussex have developed a new computational model that demonstrates a long sought after link between insect and mammalian learning.

Migratory songbirds climb to extreme altitudes during daytime

Great reed warblers normally migrate by night during its month-long migration from northern Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa. However, researchers have now discovered that during the few occasions when it continues to fly during daytime, it flies at extremely high altitudes (up to 6300 meters). One possible explanation for this unexpected and consistent behaviour could be that the birds want to avoid...

Navigating the COVID-19 crisis to prevent pressure injuries: Learning health system helped one hospital adapt and update care in real time

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems scrambled to modify patient care processes - particularly when it came to strategies aimed at reducing the risk of hospital-related complications. A look at how one hospital applied its learning health system (LHS) framework to respond to a COVID-19-related increase in hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) is presented in the May/June...

New antibody rationally designed for better tumor inhibition

Recently, Prof. XIE Can from the High Magnetic Field Laboratory of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), in a collaboration with Prof. YAN Xiyun's lab from the Institute of Biophysics, reported the structural basis of mAb AA98's inhibition on CD146-mediated endothelial cells (EC) activation and designed higher affinity monoclonal antibody HA98 for cancer treatment.

New innovation successfully treats neonatal hypothermia

Neonatal hypothermia -- which occurs when an infant's core body temperature falls below the normal range needed to maintain health -- contributes to approximately one million deaths each year, and countless cases of stunted growth, almost exclusively in low- and middle-income countries. To address this common but preventable condition, researchers from Boston Children's Hospital, engineers at...

New study determines cystic fibrosis therapy is safe and effective for young children

Children ages two to five who have the most common form of cystic fibrosis have not had any modulator treatments available to them until recently. A new study authored by researchers at Children's Hospital Colorado and published May 6, 2021, in Lancet Respiratory Medicine shows that the CFTR modulator - lumacaftor/ivacaftor - can be safe and well-tolerated for this age range for up to 120 weeks,...

New study explores functionality in aquatic ecosystems

The functions of water-dominated ecosystems can be considerably influenced and changed by hydrological fluctuation. The varying states of redox-active substances are of crucial importance here. Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have discovered this, in cooperation with partners from the Universities of Tübingen and Bristol and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research,...

New weather warning gauge

Australia, the driest inhabited continent, is prone to natural disasters and wild swings in weather conditions - from floods to droughts, heatwaves and bushfires. Now two new Flinders University studies of long-term hydro-climatic patterns provide fresh insights into the causes of the island continent's strong climate variability which affect extreme wet or dry weather and other conditions vital...

Novel matrix-based slow-release urea improves crop production

A research team led by Prof. WU Yuejin from the Institute of Intelligent Machines of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science developed a novel matrix-based slow-release urea (MSU) recently to improve nitrogen use efficiency in rice production, and they assessed the performances of it.

Overcoming tab overload

A research team at Carnegie Mellon University recently completed the first in-depth study of browser tabs in more than a decade. They found that many people struggle with tab overload, an underlying reason being that while tabs serve a variety of functions, they often do so poorly.

Possible origin of neuroblastoma in the adrenal glands discovered

Since the tumour cells of neuroblastoma resemble certain cells in the adrenal glands, a joint research group investigated the cellular origin of these cells and sympathetic neurons during the embryonic development of human adrenal glands. They discovered a previously unknown cell type that might potentially be the origin of the tumour cells.