Many of the amino acids that make up proteins are encoded by genetic material in more than one way. An information theorist explains how principles of nature may account for this variance.
Two meteor showers, the Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids, are both expected to peak during the evenings of July 30 and 31.
They will have to compete with a bright moon that’s 95% full, but the Alpha Capricornids may still produce some scintillating fireballs that could outshine the moon.
The Delta Aquariids, also called the Southern Delta Aquariids, will favor skywatchers in the Southern Hemisphere, although they will still be visible in the Northern Hemisphere (especially across the southern US) but lower on the horizon, according to EarthSky.
Just by observing the natural behavior of someone we know well, our brain activity can start to sync up with theirs, according to new research published in NeuroImage. The findings shed light on the fascinating interplay between social behavior and brain activity.
Successful social interaction depends on our ability to exchange information with others and continuously update our understanding of their inner states and actions. The authors of the new study sought to better understand the role of a phenomenon called interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) – the alignment of brain activities between people who are interacting.
Previous studies have supported the idea that INS can predict the success of social interactions. However, most research on INS has focused on structured social tasks, trying to establish a relationship between INS and social behavior. What has been less clear is how INS originates or what triggers it.
Alchemy had its golden age in the 17th century, when it counted Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle among its adherents.
This groundbreaking study, which was published as the cover article in the journal Science, not only sheds light on our evolutionary history but also paves the way for a future where physicians could more accurately assess a patient’s likelihood of suffering from ailments like back pain or arthritis later in life.
“Our research is a powerful demonstration of the impact of AI in medicine, particularly when it comes to analyzing and quantifying imaging data, as well as integrating this information with health records and genetics rapidly and at large scale,” said Vagheesh Narasimhan, an assistant professor of integrative biology as well as statistics and data science, who led the multidisciplinary team of researchers, to provide the genetic map of skeletal proportions.
Raman spectroscopy—a chemical analysis method that shines monochromatic light onto a sample and records the scattered light that emerges—has caused frustration among biomedical researchers for more than half a century. Due to the heat generated by the light, live proteins are nearly destroyed during the optical measurements, leading to diminishing and non-reproducible results. As of recently, however, those frustrations may now be a thing of the past.
A group of researchers with the Institute for Quantum Sciences and Engineering at Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) have developed a new technique that allows low-concentration and low-dose screenings of protein-to-ligand interactions in physiologically relevant conditions.
Titled thermostable-Raman-interaction-profiling (TRIP), this new approach is a paradigm-shifting answer to a long-standing problem that provides label-free, highly reproducible Raman spectroscopy measurements. The researchers published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A new neuroimaging study has found that individuals who consumed their first alcoholic drink before the age of 18 had weaker connections in the brain’s cognitive control network compared those who consumed their first alcoholic drink after the age of 18. This suggests that starting to drink alcohol at a young age might make this brain network less effective. The study was published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
Although the adverse effects of alcohol consumption and related long-term health risks are well known, it is estimated that 30% of youth in the United States use alcohol by the eighth grade. 62% of adolescents report drinking their first alcoholic drink by the time they graduate from high school, around 18 years of age.
Studies have found that individuals who start using alcohol earlier are more likely to develop alcohol-related problems later in life. Individuals who drink their first alcoholic drink earlier are also more likely to get drunk for the first time at an earlier age. They are also more likely to participate in binge drinking i.e., to consume more than 5 standard drinks for men or more than 4 for women on a single occasion.
Jean Housen/Wikimedia Commons.
Researchers have uncovered valuable information about how these ancient societies were organized by analyzing ancient human DNA from a site in Gurgy ‘les Noisats,’ France, dating back to 7,000 years.
A cutting-edge practice by two Vanderbilt researchers that enhances light in nanoscale structures could help in the detection of diseases like cancer.
The work by Justus Ndukaife, assistant professor of electrical engineering, and Sen Yang, a recent Ph.D. graduate from Ndukaife’s lab in Interdisciplinary Materials Science under Ndukaife, was published in Light: Science & Applications.
In their paper, they show how an engineered nanostructured surface—quasi-BIC dielectric metasurface—can be used to trap micro and sub-micron particles within seconds, which they say helps in the transport of analytes to biosensing surfaces. The metasurface can also serve as a sensor to detect the aggregated particles or molecules, and can be used to enhance fluorescence or Raman signals from the molecules, thereby boosting detection sensitivity, according to the researchers.
