104 articles from FRIDAY 20.1.2023

U.S. should expand rules for risky virus research to more pathogens, panel says

U.S. health officials should expand oversight of federally funded research that tweaks deadly viruses to include some less risky types of pathogens, an expert panel has concluded. Its draft report , released today, also recommends funding agencies share more information about decisions to approve such work. The recommendations are welcome news for scientists,...

Teaching evaluations reflect—and may perpetuate—academia’s gender biases

Universities routinely use student teaching evaluations to help make decisions about which faculty members get tenure and promotions. But factors unrelated to teaching performance, such as gender, race, and even attractiveness, can skew these evaluations, potentially exacerbating existing inequities in academia. Now, a new study suggests an additional source of bias:...

Vulnerability of red sea urchins to climate change depends on location

A new study of red sea urchins, a commercially valuable species, investigated how different populations respond to changes in their environments. The results show that red sea urchin populations in Northern and Southern California are adapted to their local conditions but differ in their vulnerability to the environmental changes expected to occur in the future due to global climate change and...

Regulating immunological memory may help immune system fight disease

Scientists have long sought to better understand the human body's immune responses that occur during various diseases, including cancer and inflammatory diseases. Scientists have now analyzed how immunological memory -- the memory the body's immune system retains after an infection or vaccination that helps protect against reinfection -- gets generated and maintained, as well as the role...

What Time You Eat Doesn’t Matter For Weight Loss, Study Finds

Recent diet trends have promised that clocks are as important for weight loss as scales. One such diet is known as intermittent fasting, which entails a schedule of alternating fasting and eating. A popular intermittent fasting schedule is time-restricted eating. By restricting eating to a limited number of hours a day, some proponents of this diet argue people can harness their bodies’...

Morris Nitsun obituary

My friend Dr Morris Nitsun, who has died aged 79, was a consultant psychologist, psychotherapist and group analyst who worked in the NHS for 50 years. He was also a gifted artist.Born in Worcester, a small, remote town in the Western Cape, South Africa, Morris was the youngest of three children of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants. His father, Joseph Nitsun, was a businessman who had lost family in the...

A U.S. judge lectures the government on how academic research works

A sentencing hearing is a forum to mete out justice for someone convicted of a crime. But this week, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Julie Robinson used the sentencing of Franklin Tao , a chemical engineer formerly at the University of Kansas (KU), Lawrence, to also talk at length about what motivates academic researchers—and how the U.S. government appeared to...

A mixture of crops provides ecological benefits for agricultural landscapes, find researchers

There are often too few flowering plants in agricultural landscapes, which is one reason for the decline of pollinating insects. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now investigated how a mixture of crops of fava beans (broad beans) and wheat affects the number of pollinating insects. They found that areas of mixed crops compared with areas of single crops are visited equally often by...

Vulnerability of red sea urchins to climate change depends on location

A new study of red sea urchins, a commercially valuable species, investigated how different populations respond to changes in their environments. The results show that red sea urchin populations in Northern and Southern California are adapted to their local conditions but differ in their vulnerability to the environmental changes expected to occur in the future due to global climate change and...

Unprecedented levels of high-severity fire burn in Sierra Nevada

High-severity wildfire is increasing in Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade forests and has been burning at unprecedented rates compared to the years before Euro-American settlement, according to a study from the Safford Lab at the University of California, Davis and its collaborators. Those rates have especially shot up over the past decade.

Researchers develop new, more accurate computational tool for long-read RNA sequencing

On the journey from gene to protein, a nascent RNA molecule can be cut and joined, or spliced, in different ways before being translated into a protein. This process, known as alternative splicing, allows a single gene to encode several different proteins. Alternative splicing occurs in many biological processes, like when stem cells mature into tissue-specific cells. In the context of disease,...

Economist examines US debt limit impact

It's not exactly comforting that the United States is running up against its debt limit, as officials announced this week, nor is there immediate cause for concern for the average taxpayer, says University of Michigan economist Daniil Manaenkov.

Statistical physics theorem also valid in the quantum world, study finds

Physicists at the University of Bonn have experimentally proven that an important theorem of statistical physics applies to so-called "Bose-Einstein condensates." Their results now make it possible to measure certain properties of the quantum "superparticles" and deduce system characteristics that would otherwise be difficult to observe. The study has now been published in Physical Review Letters.

Protecting and regenerating tropical mangroves

Mangroves were once seen as inhospitable malarial swamps and were among the fastest disappearing habitats in the world. Now, with input from Bangor University, one community project in Kenya is working to restore mangroves in a project which benefits local communities.

From Halo to The Simpsons, would fictional mad scientists pass ethical review?

Cave Johnson is almost ready to start a new study in his secret underground facility. The founder of the Michigan-based technology company Aperture Science, he’s invented a portal gun that allows people to teleport to various locations. Now, he and his colleagues want to see whether they can make portals appear on previously unfit surfaces with a new “conversion gel” containing moon...

Ripples in fabric of universe may reveal start of time

Scientists have advanced in discovering how to use ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves to peer back to the beginning of everything we know. The researchers say they can better understand the state of the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang by learning how these ripples in the fabric of the universe flow through planets and the gas between the galaxies.

A journey to the birthplace of lager beer

Without barley, hops and yeast, there is no beer. Brewing specialist Dr. Martin Zarnkow and beverage microbiologist Dr. Mathias Hutzler believe that a very special yeast variety might be found in Georgia. So they embarked on a "yeast hunt" and investigated microbiology and brewing traditions in the Caucasus region.

Mixture of crops provide ecological benefits for agricultural landscapes

There are often too few flowering plants in agricultural landscapes, which is one reason for the decline of pollinating insects. Researchers ave now investigated how a mixture of crops of faba beans (broad beans) and wheat affects the number of pollinating insects. They found that areas of mixed crops compared with areas of single crops are visited equally often by foraging bees.

Forests face fierce threats from multiple industries, not just agricultural expansion

Intact forests are important climate regulators and harbors of biodiversity, but they are rapidly disappearing. Agriculture is commonly considered to be the major culprit behind forest loss, but the authors of a new article show that agriculture isn't solely to blame. For forest loss associated with the 2014 world economy, over 60% was related to final consumption of non-agricultural products,...

Collision risk and habitat loss: Wind turbines in forests impair threatened bat species

In order to meet climate protection goals, renewable energies are booming -- often wind power. More than 30,000 turbines have already been installed on the German mainland so far, and the industry is currently scrambling to locate increasingly rare suitable sites. Thus, forests are coming into focus as potential sites. A scientific team has now demonstrated that wind turbines in forests impair...

Physical effect also valid in the quantum world

Physicists have experimentally proven that an important theorem of statistical physics applies to so-called 'Bose-Einstein condensates.' Their results now make it possible to measure certain properties of the quantum 'superparticles' and deduce system characteristics that would otherwise be difficult to observe.

How Huntington's disease affects different neurons

Neuroscientists find two distinct cell populations in the striatum are affected differently by Huntington's disease. They believe neurodegeneration of one of these populations leads to motor impairments, while damage to the other population, located in a structure called the striosome, may account for the mood disorders that are often see in the early stages of the disease.