Protein discovery could help solve prostate cancer drug resistance
Researchers have identified a receptor protein known as CHRM1 as a key player in prostate cancer cells’ resistance to docetaxel, a commonly used chemotherapy drug to treat advanced cancer that has spread beyond the prostate. The discovery opens the door…
Ice age could help predict oceans’ response to global warming
A team of scientists led by a Tulane University oceanographer has found that deposits deep under the ocean floor reveal a way to measure the ocean oxygen level and its connections with carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere during the…
Endless biotechnological innovation requires a creative approach
Scientists working on biological design should focus on the idiosyncrasies of biological systems over optimisation, according to new research. In a study, published today in Science Advances, researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Ghent have shown how exploring the…
How does materialism in social media trigger stress and unhappiness?
The researchers headed by Dr. Phillip Ozimek from the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, recruited 1,230 people for their online survey. In order to participate, respondents had to use at least one social media channel at least…
Bacterial meningitis injures one in three children for life
One in three children who suffer from bacterial meningitis live with permanent neurological disabilities due to the infection. This is according to a new epidemiological study led by Karolinska Institutet and published in leading medical journal JAMA Network Open. For…
Wobbling particles in the sky
Tiny particles such as ice crystals or ash particles tend to oscillate as they settle through the atmosphere. In their experiments, the scientists were able to track non-spherical particles of size smaller than 1 millimeter with unprecedented accuracy. Their observations…
DNA origami folded into tiny motor
Scientists have created the world’s first working nanoscale electromotor, according to research published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The science team designed a turbine engineered from DNA that is powered by hydrodynamic flow inside a nanopore, a nanometer-sized hole in…
Towards the quantum of sound
The quantum ground state of an acoustic wave of a certain frequency can be reached by completely cooling the system. In this way, the number of quantum particles, the so-called acoustic phonons, which cause disturbance to quantum measurements, can be…
Knowing what dogs like to watch could help veterinarians assess their vision
Ever wonder what kind of TV shows your dog might choose if they could work the remote control? New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine provides some answers, but the study was more interested in solving…
HIV antibodies protect animals in proof-of-concept study
Three different HIV antibodies each independently protected monkeys from acquiring simian-HIV (SHIV) in a placebo-controlled proof-of-concept study intended to inform development of a preventive HIV vaccine for people. The antibodies — a human broadly neutralizing antibody and two antibodies isolated…
The heat is on: Scientists discover southern Africa’s temps will rise past the rhinos’ tolerance
Southern Africa contains the vast majority of the world’s remaining populations of both black and white rhinoceroses (80% and 92%, respectively). The region’s climate is changing rapidly as a result global warming. Traditional conservation efforts aimed at protecting rhinos have…
Method improves detection of potential therapeutic tumor targets in human biopsies
Many cancers, including some types of breast cancer, are driven by alterations in the activity of cellular enzymes called kinases. Therapies that directly inhibit these cancer-promoting activities have proven to be effective for patients in which individual driving kinases can…
The surface knows what lies beneath: Physicists show how to detect higher-order topological insulators
Just like a book can’t be judged by its cover, a material can’t always be judged by its surface. But, for an elusive conjectured class of materials, physicists have now shown that the surface previously thought to be “featureless” holds…
Physicists identify overlooked uncertainty in real-world experiments
The equations that describe physical systems often assume that measurable features of the system — temperature or chemical potential, for example — can be known exactly. But the real world is messier than that, and uncertainty is unavoidable. Temperatures fluctuate,…
Chasing the light: Study finds new clues about warming in the Arctic
The Arctic, Earth’s icy crown, is experiencing a climate crisis like no other. It’s heating up at a furious pace — four times faster than the rest of our planet. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are pulling back the curtain…
For surgery patients, AI could help reduce alcohol-related risks
Using artificial intelligence to scan surgery patients’ medical records for signs of risky drinking might help spot those whose alcohol use raises their risk of problems during and after an operation, a new study suggests. The AI record scan tested…
Few older adults use direct-to-consumer health services; Many who do don’t tell their regular provider
Only a small percentage of older Americans have jumped on the rising trend of getting health care services and prescriptions directly from an online-only company, rather than seeing their usual health care providers in person or via telehealth, a new…
Bioinformatics: Researchers develop a new machine learning approach
To combat viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, synthetic biology offers new technological approaches whose performance is being validated in experiments. Researchers from the Würzburg Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research and the Helmholtz AI Cooperative applied data integration and artificial…
Innovative graphene-based implantable technology paves the way for high-precision therapeutic applications
A study published in Nature Nanotechnology presents an innovative graphene-based neurotechnology with the potential for a transformative impact in neuroscience and medical applications. This research, spearheaded by the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) together with the Universitat Autònoma…
Scientists identify how dietary restriction slows brain aging and increases lifespan
Restricting calories is known to improve health and increase lifespan, but much of how it does so remains a mystery, especially in regard to how it protects the brain. Buck scientists have uncovered a role for a gene called OXR1…
Beaches and dunes globally squeezed by roads and buildings
Beaches and dunes are becoming increasingly trapped between rising sea levels and infrastructure. Dutch researchers found that nowadays, when dropped on a random beach around the world, you only need to walk 390 meters on average to find the nearest…
Even the oldest eukaryote fossils show dazzling diversity and complexity
The sun has just set on a quiet mudflat in Australia’s Northern Territory; it’ll set again in another 19 hours. A young moon looms large over the desolate landscape. No animals scurry in the waning light. No leaves rustle in…
Catalytic combo converts CO2 to solid carbon nanofibers
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have developed a way to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon nanofibers, materials with a wide range of unique properties and many…
Blood test distinguishes neuroendocrine subtype of advanced prostate cancer
Like a criminal entering a witness protection program, cancer cells can shed their past and take on a new identity. Detecting such an identity-switch is particularly challenging when metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) advances from adenocarcinoma to neuroendocrine prostate cancer…
Acidity of Antarctic waters could double by century’s end, threatening biodiversity
The acidity of Antarctica’s coastal waters could double by the end of the century, threatening whales, penguins and hundreds of other species that inhabit the Southern Ocean, according to new research from the Univeristy of Colorado Boulder. Scientists projected that…
NASA’s Webb finds signs of possible aurorae on isolated brown dwarf
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in its upper atmosphere. This is an unexpected…
Getting a better look at tumors
The cycling of water across membrane transporters is an hallmark of the cell metabolism and is potentially of high diagnostic significance for the characterization of tumors and other diseases. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, an Italian research team has now…
Study shows liraglutide results in increased insulin sensitivity independent of weight loss
A new study published in the journal Diabetes demonstrates that a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonist, a member of a class of medication used to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity, can lead to a rapid improvement in insulin sensitivity….
The (wrong) reason we keep secrets
In and out of the workplace, people often keep adverse information about themselves secret because they worry that others will judge them harshly. But those fears are overblown, according to new research from the McCombs School of Business. In fact,…
The snail or the egg?
Animals reproduce in one of two distinct ways: egg-laying or live birth. By studying an evolutionarily recent transition from egg-laying to live-bearing in a marine snail, collaborative research by the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), the University of…
Reprogrammed fat cells support tumor growth
Mutations of the tumor suppressor p53 not only have a growth-promoting effect on the cancer cells themselves, but also influence the cells in the tumor’s microenvironment. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Weizmann Institute in Israel…
Bacteria load their syringes | ScienceDaily
Many bacterial pathogens use small injection apparatuses to manipulate the cells of their hosts, such as humans, so that they can spread throughout the body. To do this, they need to fill their syringes with the relevant injection agent. A…
First dive survey of Lake Tahoe’s lakebed finds high amounts of plastic and other litter
Plastic litter is a growing problem around the world, and new research shows that the bottom of Lake Tahoe is no exception. In one of the first studies to utilize scuba divers to collect litter from a lakebed, 673 plastic…
Is oxygen the cosmic key to alien technology?
In the quest to understand the potential for life beyond Earth, researchers are widening their search to encompass not only biological markers, but also technological ones. While astrobiologists have long recognized the importance of oxygen for life as we know…
GPCR structure: Research reveals molecular origins of function for a key drug target
Through an international collaboration, scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital leveraged data science, pharmacology and structural information to conduct an atomic-level investigation into how each amino acid in the receptor that binds adrenaline contributes to receptor activity in the…
Polymers that can kill bacteria
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a rapidly growing threat to public health. Each year, they account for more than 2.8 million infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Without new antibiotics, even common injuries and infections harbor…
Big impacts from small changes in cell
Tiny things matter — for instance, one amino acid can completely alter the architecture of the cell. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Warwick investigated the structure and mechanics of the main component of the cytoskeleton of the cell:…
Sniffing women’s tears reduces aggressive behavior in men, researchers report
New research, publishing December 21 in the open access journal in PLOS Biology, shows that tears from women contain chemicals that block aggression in men. The study led by Shani Agron at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, finds that…
Two types of CBT are equally effective in the treatment of fibromyalgia
There does not appear to be any profound differences between so-called exposure-based CBT and traditional CBT in the treatment of fibromyalgia, according to a study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. Both forms of treatment produced a significant reduction in…
New reptile on the block: A new iguana species discovered in China
A new iguana joins Asia’s rich reptile fauna, officially described as new to science in the open-access journal ZooKeys. “From 2009 to 2022, we conducted a series of field surveys in South China and collected a number of specimens of…
Supernova encore: Second lensed supernova in a distant galaxy
In November 2023, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed a massive cluster of galaxies named MACS J0138.0-2155. Through an effect called gravitational lensing, first predicted by Albert Einstein, a distant galaxy named MRG-M0138 appears warped by the powerful gravity of…
A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets
Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere say that astronomers’ best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence, rather than the presence, of a chemical feature in their…
NASA’s Hubble watches ‘spoke season’ on Saturn
This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023, when the ringed planet was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s ultra-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring spokes. Saturn’s spokes are transient features…
How jellyfish regenerate functional tentacles in days
At about the size of a pinkie nail, the jellyfish species Cladonema can regenerate an amputated tentacle in two to three days — but how? Regenerating functional tissue across species, including salamanders and insects, relies on the ability to form…
Astronomers detect seismic ripples in ancient galactic disk
A new snapshot of an ancient, far-off galaxy could help scientists understand how it formed and the origins of our own Milky Way. At more than 12 billion years old, BRI 1335-0417 is the oldest and furthest known spiral galaxy…
Where you live matters: A first-of-its-kind study illustrates how racism is interrelated with poor health
A team of health equity researchers from several institutions has leveraged a complex web of data to test a hypothesis: That structural racism is associated with resources and structures at the neighborhood level that are closely associated with poor health….
Organic compounds in asteroids formed in colder regions of space
Analysis of organic compounds — calledpolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) — extracted from the Ryugu asteroid and Murchison meteorite has foundthat certainPAHs likely formed in the cold areas of space between stars rather than in hot regions near stars as was…
Researchers map how measles virus spreads in human brain
Mayo Clinic researchers mapped how the measles virus mutated and spread in the brain of a person who succumbed to a rare, lethal brain disease. New cases of this disease, which is a complication of the measles virus, may occur…
Light color is less important for the internal clock than originally thought
Light in the evening is thought to be bad for sleep. However, does the color of the light play a role? Researchers from the University of Basel and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) compared the influence of different light…
Researchers study a million galaxies to find out how the universe began
A team of researchers has analyzed more than one million galaxies to explore the origin of the present-day cosmic structures, reports a recent study published in Physical Review D as an Editors’ Suggestion. Until today, precise observations and analyses of…
Hubble sights a galaxy with ‘forbidden’ light
A whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core known as an active galactic nucleus…
Reindeer sleep while chewing their cud
Researchers report December 22 in the journal Current Biology that the more time reindeer spend ruminating, the less time they spend in non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep. EEG recordings revealed that reindeer’s brainwaves during rumination resemble the brain waves present…
Strong connections found between vaccine hesitancy and support for vaccinating pets
Texas A&M University School of Public Health research on attitudes toward pet vaccination and how they may be linked with human vaccine hesitancy was the subject of a new study recently published in the journal Vaccine. Simon Haeder, Ph.D., associate…
How technology and economics can help save endangered species
A lot has changed in the world since the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted 50 years ago in December 1973. Two researchers at The Ohio State University were among a group of experts invited by the journal Science to…
New 1.5-billion-pixel image shows Running Chicken Nebula in unprecedented detail
While many holiday traditions involve feasts of turkey, soba noodles, latkes or Pan de Pascua, this year, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is bringing you a holiday chicken. The so-called Running Chicken Nebula, home to young stars in the making,…
Night sweats reveal the severity of sleep apnea
A collaborative effort between the University of Córdoba and IMIBIC uses, for the first time, changes in sweat metabolism to diagnose the severity of sleep apnea In Greek, apnea (ἄπνοια) denotes the “absence of breathing.” Hence, obstructive sleep apnea is…
Childhood trauma increases risk of chronic pain in adulthood, research to-date highlights
Physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect, either alone or combined with other types of childhood trauma, increases the risk of chronic pain and related disability in adulthood, according to new research. These new findings underscore the urgency of addressing…
Ringing in the holidays with ringed planet Uranus
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently trained its sights on unusual and enigmatic Uranus, an ice giant that spins on its side. Webb captured this dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, and other atmospheric features — including a seasonal polar…
Mysterious fruit shown to be the oldest known fossils of the Frankincense and Myrrh family
Early in the 1970s, a paleontologist working on the outskirts of an Indian village found small, bead-like fossils embedded in the gray chert dotting the surrounding fields. The site was notorious for turning up plant fossils that were difficult to…
AI’s memory-forming mechanism found to be strikingly similar to that of the brain
An interdisciplinary team consisting of researchers from the Center for Cognition and Sociality and the Data Science Group within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) revealed a striking similarity between the memory processing of artificial intelligence (AI) models and the…
Scientists measure the distance to stars by their music
For most of us, the countless bright spots in the nighttime sky all seem to be stars. But in fact, some of those spots are actually planets, or distant suns, or even entire galaxies located billions of light years away….