174 articles from TUESDAY 28.6.2022
Is the pediatric hepatitis outbreak real? A top WHO physician weighs in
It has been 3 months since the United Kingdom reported severe, unexplained hepatitis was sending young children to hospitals in unusual numbers. The initial handful of cases reported in Scotland on 31 March were soon joined by dozens and then hundreds, primarily from Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom. As of 22 June, the global total, from 33 countries, has swollen to...
Does warfare make societies more complex? Controversial study says yes
War is hell. It breaks apart families, destroys natural resources, and drives humans to commit unspeakable acts of violence. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, war may also prod the evolution of certain kinds of complex societies. The twin developments of agriculture and military technology—especially cavalries and iron weapons—have predicted the rise of empires....
Early human ancestors one million years older than earlier thought
Fossils from South African cave are 3.4 to 3.6m years old and walked the Earth at same time as east African relativesThe fossils of our earliest ancestors found in South Africa are a million years older than previously thought, meaning they walked the Earth around the same time as their east African relatives like the famous “Lucy”, according to new research.The Sterkfontein caves at the...
Extreme temperatures in major Latin American cities could be linked to nearly 1 million deaths
In mid-January, the southern tip of South America suffered its
worst heat wave
in years. In Argentina, temperatures in more than 50 cities rose above 40°C, more than 10°C warmer than the typical average temperature in cities such as Buenos Aires. The scorching heat sparked wildfires, worsened a drought, hurt agriculture, and temporarily collapsed Buenos Aires’s...
Whale entanglements drop, but remain major threat, feds say
The number of whales entangled in fishing gear has declined recently, but the entanglements remain a critical threat to rare species, the federal government said in a report released Tuesday.
Who trusts gene-edited foods? New study gauges public acceptance
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:02
Researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,000 U.S. residents to gauge public acceptance of gene-edited foods. Social factors like food beliefs and trust in institutions played a big role in the participants' willingness to eat or actively avoid products made with gene-editing technologies.
Mantle cell lymphoma treatment varies according to setting
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
There is considerable variation in the management of mantle cell lymphoma across different clinical settings, and some strategies do not always conform with what might be expected, according to a recent analysis.
Robot overcomes uncertainty to retrieve buried objects
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
FuseBot is a new robotic system that fuses visual information and radio-frequency signals to efficiently find hidden items buried under a pile of objects, whether or not the targeted item has an RFID tag.
No more binge eating: Signal pathway in the brain that controls food intake discovered
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
Researchers have developed a novel approach to treating eating disorders. The scientists showed that a group of nerve cells in the hypothalamus (so-called AgRP, agouti-related peptide neurons) control the release of endogenous lysophospholipids, which in turn control the excitability of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex, which stimulates food intake.
New study investigates the microbiomes of dogs around the world
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
In a new study, researchers have sampled the fecal microbiomes across diverse geographical populations of dogs to better understand what they look like around the world.
Chemical risk assessment not up to par, researchers say
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
The current system of chemical risk assessment is inadequate and underestimates levels of flame retardants and other pollutants needed to cause harmful health effects, according to a recent analysis.
Is there a right-handed version of our left-handed universe?
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
To solve a long-standing puzzle about how long a neutron can 'live' outside an atomic nucleus, physicists entertained a wild but testable theory positing the existence of a right-handed version of our left-handed universe. They designed a mind-bending experiment to try to detect a particle that has been speculated but not spotted. If found, the theorized 'mirror neutron' -- a dark-matter twin to...
Double duty: Early research reveals how a single drug delivers twice the impact in fragile X
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
A new study shows how two major pathways -- AKT and NMD (nonsense-mediated mRNA decay) -- interact in the context of fragile X syndrome. Researchers also found that Afuresertib, a drug currently being tested in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for several types of cancer, inhibits both pathways in neural stem cells that mimic the disease, leading the cells to act more like typical, non-disease cells....
Dynamic cells linked to brain tumor growth and recurrence
- ScienceDaily
- 22/6/28 23:01
Researchers have discovered that aggressive tumors contain highly active cells that move throughout tissue in complicated patterns. What's more, the accumulations of these elongated, spindle-like cells found throughout the tumor, coined 'oncostreams,' serve as the basis for cancerous cells' behavior, determining how tumors grow and invade normal tissue.
U.K. set to abandon Europe’s top science funding program, go it alone
A few months ago, Teresa Thurston, a cellular microbiologist at Imperial College London, could not have imagined losing her €1.5 million European research grant. But the United Kingdom’s role in the European Union’s €95 billion Horizon Europe funding program is now crumbling thanks to lingering Brexit disputes, forcing many U.K. grant winners like Thurston to give up grants they...
Pitching with too much passion? 'More enthusiastic' pitches turn off investors, study finds
A new study offers entrepreneurs some savvy sales advice: When pitching to investors for funding, a high-octane product pitch with great enthusiasm can be a double-edged sword.
Understanding how microbiota thrive in their human hosts
A research team lead by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany, has now made substantial progress in understanding how gut bacteria succeed in their human hosts on a molecular level. They investigated how bacteria produce inositol lipids, substances vital for many cellular processes in humans and other eukaryotes but hitherto rarely observed in bacteria. The...
Republicans and Democrats see their own party's falsehoods as more acceptable
Society recognizes that many politicians lie. In five new studies, researchers have examined how conservative and liberal Americans responded to media reports of politicians' falsehoods. Even accounting for partisan biases in how much people dismissed the reports as fake news and assumed the lies were unintentional, the studies consistently identified partisan evaluations in how much these...
Physicists confront the neutron lifetime puzzle
To solve a long-standing puzzle about how long a neutron can "live" outside an atomic nucleus, physicists entertained a wild but testable theory positing the existence of a right-handed version of our left-handed universe. They designed a mind-bending experiment at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to try to detect a particle that has been speculated but not spotted. If...