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Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and James Cook University (JCU) have identified an “exquisite” natural mechanism that helps plants limit their water loss with little effect on carbon dioxide (CO2) intake—an essential process for photosynthesis, plant growth and crop yield.
In a first-of-its-kind gathering at the New York Academy of Sciences, researchers from some of the world’s leading universities and institutions convened to discuss at the 13th annual Key Symposium the various applications of bioelectronic medicine, the cutting-edge field that uses technology to treat disease and injury. While still in early stages of development, bioelectronic medicine has already been proven in studies and clinical trials to successfully treat conditions including paralysis and rheumatoid arthritis.
This panel, moderated by Miles O’Brien from PBS’ NewsHour, discusses what life will be like when we can fully modulate the nervous system and the impact that would have on disease, drugs, the healthcare industry, personal freedom, and privacy. The panel includes Polina Anikeeva, PhD, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chad Bouton from The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research at Northwell Health, Peder S. Olofsson, MD, PhD, from the Karolinska Institutet, and Doug Weber, PhD, from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration.
To learn more about this year’s event, visit feinsteininstitute.org/key-symposium
Our new book Intuitive Rationality describes how to marry intuition and other heuristics with logic to create amazing predictions. Intuality AI’s predictive analytics platform has produced remarkable accurate forecasts in different sectors, like financial markets, elections, health and sports.
“Pamela” is an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) developed as an entrepreneurial idea at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) for sampling a variety of surface water particles, from microplastic to plankton to salmon lice. The USV is a joint effort by an interdisciplinary team—Andrea Faltynkova, a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Biology, and Artur Zolich, a postdoc at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics.
Faltynkova studies microplastics in the ocean. Microplastics are bits of plastic smaller than 5 mm, which is roughly the size of the end of a pencil. While researchers know that microplastics can have negative effects on marine or freshwater organisms, there’s less known about how they affect human health. But studying microplastics is a challenge because of the nature of the substance itself, she says.
“Microplastics are so heterogeneous. It’s a very large, diverse group of particles. Not only that but they are very unevenly distributed. Microplastic is not like other dissolved pollutants that can be detected even in small quantities of water or soil. If you go and you take a liter from the sea, and there’s no plastic in it, can you conclude that there is no plastic in the sea?” she asked.
MPXV was first discovered during a nonfatal outbreak at an animal facility in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1958. The facility received a continual supply of Asian monkeys (mostly M. fascicularis) and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), which were used for polio vaccine research. The first outbreak occurred 2 months after the monkeys had been received and the second outbreak occurred 4 months after the initial outbreak. The outbreaks occurred in M. fascicularis that had arrived from Singapore. Upon arrival, monkeys were treated with antibiotics and appeared in satisfactory health.
Monkeypox virus (MPXV) was discovered in 1958 during an outbreak in an animal facility in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since its discovery, MPXV has revealed a propensity to infect and induce disease in a large number of animals within the mammalia class from pan-geographical locations. This finding has impeded the elucidation of the natural host, although the strongest candidates are African squirrels and/or other rodents. Experimentally, MPXV can infect animals via a variety of multiple different inoculation routes; however, the natural route of transmission is unknown and is likely to be somewhat species specific. In this review we have attempted to compile and discuss all published articles that describe experimental or natural infections with MPXV, dating from the initial discovery of the virus through to the year 2012. We further discuss the comparative disease courses and pathologies of the host species.
Keywords: aerosol, animals, infection, intrabronchial, intradermal, intramuscular, intranasal, intratracheal, intravenous, outbreak, primates, subcutaneous.
Orthopoxviruses (OPVs) have host specificities ranging from narrow (e.g., ectromelia and variola [VARV]) to broad (e.g., cowpox and vaccinia [VACV]). Monkeypox virus (MPXV) has a broad host-range and is capable of infecting many species from across the globe. In nature, the major environs of MPXV are restricted to the Congo Basin (CB) and West Africa (WA). The MPXV virion is a brick-shaped enveloped virus of 200–250 nm, characterized by surface tubules and a dumbbell-shaped core. Humans and highly susceptible nonhuman primates (NHPs) infected with MPXV have near identical clinical manifestations compared to humans infected with VARV. For humans, the only obvious difference in clinical signs is the absence of lymphadenopathy in smallpox patients [1,2].
In order to cover the different areas and to manage the large volume of research that has been conducted on the serotonin system, we conducted an ‘umbrella’ review. Umbrella reviews survey existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses relevant to a research question and represent one of the highest levels of evidence synthesis available [23]. Although they are traditionally restricted to systematic reviews and meta-analyses, we aimed to identify the best evidence available. Therefore, we also included some large studies that combined data from individual studies but did not employ conventional systematic review methods, and one large genetic study. The latter used nationwide databases to capture more individuals than entire meta-analyses, so is likely to provide even more reliable evidence than syntheses of individual studies.
We first conducted a scoping review to identify areas of research consistently held to provide support for the serotonin hypothesis of depression. Six areas were identified, addressing the following questions: Serotonin and the serotonin metabolite 5-HIAA–whether there are lower levels of serotonin and 5-HIAA in body fluids in depression; Receptors — whether serotonin receptor levels are altered in people with depression; The serotonin transporter (SERT) — whether there are higher levels of the serotonin transporter in people with depression (which would lower synaptic levels of serotonin); Depletion studies — whether tryptophan depletion (which lowers available serotonin) can induce depression; SERT gene – whether there are higher levels of the serotonin transporter gene in people with depression; Whether there is an interaction between the SERT gene and stress in depression.
We searched for systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and large database studies in these six areas in PubMed, EMBASE and PsycINFO using the Healthcare Databases Advanced Search tool provided by Health Education England and NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). Searches were conducted until December 2020.
However, the research which was published in PLoS Medicine found that noise levels in the house had no effect on the results of working memory and attention tests.
Road traffic noise is a common issue in cities, but its effects on children’s health are still not fully known. According to recent research done at 38 schools in Barcelona, road noise has a negative impact on how well working memory and attention are developed in young children. The results of this investigation, which was conducted under the direction of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a facility supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, were released in the journal PLoS Medicine.
2,680 kids between the ages of 7 and 10 participated in the study, which was part of the BREATHE initiative and directed by researchers Maria Foraster and Jordi Sunyer. The researchers focused on attention and working memory, two skills that grow quickly throughout preadolescence and are crucial for learning and academic success, in order to gauge the potential effects of traffic noise on cognitive development.
Researchers find multiple important biomarkers in people with Hikikomori (pathological social withdrawal), and they demonstrate their potential for predicting the severity of the disorder.
Key blood biomarkers for the pathological social withdrawal disorder called Hikikomori have been discovered by researchers at Kyushu University. The team’s research enabled them to distinguish between healthy people and hikikomori sufferers, as well as to gauge the severity of the disease.
Hikikomori is a condition in which people isolate themselves from society and family for a time longer than six months, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare of Japan. Hikikomori, also called “pathological social withdrawal,” is said to affect over a million individuals in Japan as of 2022. Although it has traditionally been thought of as a syndrome specific to the Japanese culture, evidence over the past few decades has shown that it is increasingly becoming a global phenomenon. Some fear that the COVID-19.
With the 2020 Covid lockdowns still fresh in our minds, the recent outbreak of monkeypox in the United States has many people on edge. But what is monkeypox? How significant is this outbreak? Will it get worse? How can you prepare? These are alarming questions that people across the world are asking right now, and here we hope to answer at least a few of them.
Monkeypox is a member of the orthopoxvirus genus, the same genus that also houses the variola virus that causes smallpox. While the name suggests the virus originated in monkeys, this is misleading. It is more likely that rodents and small mammals are the origin of this zoonotic disease, with the source of a 2003 outbreak coming from prairie dogs.
While monkeypox was first discovered in 1958, there are indications it has experienced changes in the last few years that allow it to be more transmissible between humans. The recent global monkeypox outbreak was first detected in May 2022, and has since reached over 6,000 confirmed cases in the United States, and over 21,000 cases worldwide, resulting in the World Health Organization recently declaring a global health emergency.
Thirty seconds of sunlight could boost the battery life of future smartwatches and other wearables by tens of minutes, thanks to a renewable and rechargeable battery prototype developed by the University of Surrey.
Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) has demonstrated how its new photo-rechargeable system, which merges zinc-ion batteries with perovskite solar cells, could allow wearables to spring back to life without the need to plug in.
Jinxin Bi, a Ph.D. candidate at ATI and the first author of the paper, says that “this technology provides a promising strategy for efficient use of clean energy and enables wearable electronics to be operated continuously without plug-in charging. Our prototype could represent a step forward to how we interact with wearables and other internet-of-things devices, such as remote real-time health monitors.”
