Новости за 18.03.2022

Engineers have developed a promising electrochemical system to convert emissions from chemical and power plants into useful products while addressing climate change.

First manufactured more than 50 years ago, ketamine is a fast-acting dissociative anesthetic often used in veterinary and emergency medicine. Ketamine also has a history of being an illicit party drug. Now, ketamine is getting a closer look.

Animal and cell studies show that as retinal cells die in degenerative eye diseases, they make other cells hyperactive, creating noise that further obscures vision. Tests to prove this in humans are hard to conduct, however. Antabuse, an approved drug used to wean people off alcohol, should tamp down this hyperactivity and conclusively show whether hyperactivity plays a role in humans, potentially driving work to find better drugs to help those with progressive vision loss.

Researchers show that the earliest jaws in the fossil record were caught in a trade-off between maximizing their strength and their speed.

Researchers have developed a way to make lightweight fibers, for possible use in the bodies of cars, out of an ultracheap feedstock: the waste material from the refining of petroleum.

Researchers have uncovered new information about how the area of the brain responsible for memory is triggered when the eyes come to rest on a face versus another object or image.

A researcher has found, through extensive data analysis, that the youngest patients with brain tumors -- those ages birth to 3 months -- have about half the five-year survival rate as children ages 1 to 19.

An international research team has found a simple method for growing lung tissue in the lab. These organoids could be used in diagnosis, drug development, and fundamental research. Laboratory studies of lung tissue usually require the removal of large amounts of human or animal tissue. Now scientists have generated tiny quantities of lung tissue, so-called organoids, from just a few body cells in the lab. The tissue forms a three-dimensional structure as it develops, complete with the tiny hairs on the surface typical of lung tissue. Читать дальше...

Researchers have discovered a small group of brain cells in the claustrum that controls stress-induced anxiety behaviors. Manipulating the activity of these cells also altered anxiety-related behaviors, which suggested that these claustrum cells are key to the pathogenesis of stress-related mental disorders. Furthermore, this group of cells may be considered a new target for the treatment of stress-related conditions.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common and best known of the tauopathies, a set of neurodegenerative brain diseases caused by toxic tangles of the protein tau. A study has now shown that targeting astrocytes -- an inflammatory cell in the brain -- reduces tau-related brain damage and inflammation in mice.

As Oregon embarks on a voter-approved initiative to permit psychoactive mushrooms in clinical use, a new systematic evidence review reveals a lack of scientific research describing the interactions between widely used psychiatric medications and psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA.

Three expeditions led an international research to the Cordillera de Kutukú, an isolated mountain range in Ecuador, to find just one specimen of the previously unknown species. The find in the Amazonian side of the Andes underlines the valuable biological role of this mountainous region.

A new study shows that using cannabis products to treat pain, anxiety and depression failed to improve these symptoms while doubling the risk of developing the addictive symptoms of cannabis use disorder. People seeking cannabis to treat symptoms of anxiety and depression were at greatest risk of CUD. Contrary to evidence-based medicine, people with medical marijuana cards choose their own products and dosing, suggesting the need for better controls over dispensing, use, and professional follow-up of these patients.

The 2021 wildfire season broke records globally, leaving land charred from California to Siberia. The risk of fire is growing, and a recent report warned that wildfires are on track to increase 50% by 2050. These fires destroy homes, plant life, and animals as they burn, but the risk doesn't stop there. Researchers detail how the brown carbon released by burning biomass in the northern hemisphere is accelerating warming in the Arctic and warn that this could lead to even more wildfires in the future.

Researchers have developed a metasurface attachment that can turn just about any camera or imaging system, even off-the-shelf systems, into polarization cameras. The attachment uses a metasurface of subwavelength nanopillars to direct light based on its polarization and compiles an image that captures polarization at every pixel.

An international team of researchers suggests that all electrochemical energy storage mechanisms exist on a spectrum between physical and chemical retention of ions.

How do you bring together two molecules that positively repel each other? A research team has developed a simple and versatile solution: Introduce an electron with a jolt of electricity, and resistance between the two is reduced and a bond formed. This fundamentally new type of catalysis will offer chemists and biologists a tool for promoting and controlling molecular recognition and self-assembly, enabling them to build complex structures.

Researchers have used mercury (Hg) stable isotopes to verify the Hg sources in the sediment and fish along the west coast of Korea.

Simulating a half century of movement and degradation of plastic waste in the ocean, a new study estimates that nearly two-thirds of ocean plastics are outside the reach of current monitoring methods. Furthermore, the study suggests that the estimated 25.3 million metric tons of total ocean plastics may represent only 5% of all mismanaged plastic waste to date, with the rest still on land.

An international group of researchers analyzed the genes that are expressed in neurons and astrocytes based on data from 800 individuals and compared what happens in Alzheimer's patients and in people without diagnosed dementia. The study highlights the need to analyze molecular markers, such as genetic sequences or brain proteins, to obtain more accurate assays, diagnoses and therapies. The results also show changes in astrocytes in an attempt to adapt to the toxic environment derived from the disease, worsening its progression.

An analysis of data from more than 3,000 mother-child pairs from six European countries indicates that prenatal exposure to bisphenol A may have negative effects on respiratory health in school-age girls.

Researchers have found that the meaning of what a person is imagining can be determined from the pattern of their electrical brain activity, even if what they are imagining is different from what they are looking at, and that real-time feedback makes this distinction even clearer. Communication devices based on this technology could be invaluable for severely paralyzed patients, such as those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, who are otherwise unable to express their thoughts.

Researchers have for the first time been able to create an RNA molecule that replicates, diversifies and develops complexity, following Darwinian evolution. This has provided empirical evidence that simple biological molecules can lead to the emergence of complex lifelike systems.

Nearly 100,000 highly diverse whole genome sequences are now available through the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program. About 50 percent of the data is from individuals who identify with racial or ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in research. This data will enable researchers to address yet unanswerable questions about health and disease, leading to new breakthroughs and advancing discoveries to reduce persistent health disparities.

Among local and state public health officials who resigned or were fired during the first 11 months of the pandemic, more than one-third reported incidents of harassment, a new study finds.