Curated News: Nature (journal)

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A team from Brookhaven Lab and Columbia University has paired up photovoltaic polymers that produce two units of electricity per unit of light instead of the usual one on a single molecular polymer chain. Having the two charges on the same molecule means the light-absorbing, energy-producing materials work efficiently when dissolved in liquids, which opens the way for a wide range of industrial scale manufacturing processes, including “printing” solar-energy-producing material like ink.

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A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has identified an enzyme that produces a class of inflammatory lipid molecules in the brain. Abnormally high levels of these molecules appear to cause a rare inherited neurodegenerative disorder.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified how a promising drug in clinical trials for the treatment of obesity and related metabolic disorders improves the metabolism of sugar by generating a new signal between fat cells and the liver.

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Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new precision approach for synthesizing graphene nanoribbons from pre-designed molecular building blocks. Using this process the researchers have built nanoribbons that have enhanced properties—such as position-dependent, tunable bandgaps—that are potentially very useful for next-generation electronic circuitry.

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Hydrogen fuel cells -- possibly the best option for emission-free vehicles -- require costly platinum. Nickel and other metals work but aren't nearly as efficient. Findings published in Nature Communications this week help pin down the basic mechanisms of the fuel-cell reaction on platinum, which will help researchers create alternative electrocatalysts.

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Learning how good bacteria in the gut feast on complex carbohydrates could end your break up with bread.

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Luring dormant HIV out of hiding and destroying its last cure-defying holdouts has become the holy grail of HIV eradication, but several recent attempts to do so have failed. Now the findings of a Johns Hopkins-led study reveal why that is and offer a strategy that could form a blueprint for a therapeutic vaccine to eradicate lingering virus from the body.

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A new intermediate step and unexpected enzymatic activity in a metabolic pathway in the body, which could lead to new drug design for psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, has been discovered by researchers at Georgia State University.

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Creating the conditions of the sun, researchers for the first time have been able to experimentally revise figures used by theorists to define iron's key role in passing sunlight from the sun's core to its radiative surface.

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In studying the cellular structure and function of insulin, a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has uncovered previously unknown steps in the development of insulin resistance, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes.

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New research from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis reveals for the first time a new technique that focuses diffuse light inside a dynamic scattering medium containing living tissue.

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A team of scientists has sequenced whole genomes from 544 unrelated trees of the same species. An August 2014 study identified gene sequences from Populus trichocarpa, to understand how trees adapt to different climates.

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Researchers hypothesize that targeting components of the mammalian clock with small molecules like REV-ERB drugs may lead to new treatments for sleep disorders and anxiety disorders. It also is possible that REV-ERB drugs may be leveraged to help in the treatment of addiction.

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A door has been opened to low-power off/on switches in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and nanoelectronic devices, as well as ultrasensitive bio-sensors, with the first observation of piezoelectricity in a free standing two-dimensional semiconductor by a team of researchers with Berkeley Lab.

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People with autism have a wide range of symptoms, with no two people sharing the exact type and severity of behaviors. Now a large-scale analysis of hundreds of patients and nearly 1000 genes has started to uncover how diversity among traits can be traced to differences in patients’ genetic mutations.

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New research indicates that shifts in Pacific trade winds played a key role in twentieth century climate variation and are likely again influencing global temperatures. The study, led by NCAR and the University of Arizona, uses a novel method of analyzing coral chemistry to reveal winds from a century ago.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found that resveratrol, the red-wine ingredient once touted as an elixir of youth, powerfully activates an evolutionarily ancient stress response in human cells. The finding should dispel much of and controversy about how resveratrol really works.

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By analyzing the DNA and RNA of lung cancers, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that patients whose tumors contained a large number of gene fusions had worse outcomes than patients with fewer gene fusions. In addition, the researchers identified several new genetic anomalies that occur in lung cancer, including in patients with a history of smoking.

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Scientists have found the first direct evidence that a mysterious phase of matter known as the "pseudogap" competes with high-temperature superconductivity, robbing it of electrons that otherwise might pair up to carry current through a material with 100 percent efficiency.

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An international team of scientists, led by physicists at the University of Arkansas, has characterized the electronic and magnetic structure in artificially synthesized materials called transition metal oxides.

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First images of molecular fireworks that pinpoint the origin of the zinc sparks. Zinc flux plays a central role in regulating the biochemical processes that ensure a healthy egg-to-embryo transition, and this new unprecedented quantitative information should be useful in improving in vitro fertilization methods.

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Collaborating scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and the University of California San Diego have developed a powerful new system for studying how proteins and other biological molecules form and lose their natural folded structures.

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A team led by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has discovered a way to dramatically increase the selectivity and binding strength of crown ethers by incorporating them within a rigid framework of graphene. Strong, specific electrostatic binding of crown ethers may advance sensors, chemical separations, nuclear-waste cleanup, extraction of metals from ores, purification and recycling of rare-earth elements, water purification, biotechnology, energy production in durable lithium-ion batteries, catalysis, medicine and data storage.

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A new study released today presents powerful evidence that clearing trees not only spews carbon into the atmosphere, but also triggers major shifts in rainfall and increased temperatures worldwide that are just as potent as those caused by current carbon pollution. Further, the study finds that future agricultural productivity across the globe is at risk from deforestation-induced warming and altered rainfall patterns.

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Berkeley Lab researchers used an electric field to reverse the magnetization direction in a multiferroic spintronic device at room temperature, a demonstration that points a new way towards spintronics and smaller, faster and cheaper methods of storing and processing data.

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Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute have invented a powerful and extraordinarily robust method for joining complex organic molecules that can be used to make pharmaceuticals, fabrics, dyes, plastics and other materials previously inaccessible to chemists.

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Johns Hopkins and University of Alberta researchers have identified a single protein as the root of painful and dangerous allergic reactions to a range of medications and other substances. If a new drug can be found that targets the problematic protein, they say, it could help smooth treatment for patients with conditions ranging from prostate cancer to diabetes to HIV.

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In the fight against global warming, carbon capture – chemically trapping carbon dioxide before it releases into the atmosphere – is gaining momentum, but standard methods are plagued by toxicity, corrosiveness and inefficiency. Using a bag of chemistry tricks, Cornell materials scientists have invented low-toxicity, highly effective carbon-trapping “sponges” that could lead to increased use of the technology.

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Researchers have discovered a way to repurpose fibroblasts into functional melanocytes, the body's pigment-producing cells. The technique has immediate and important implications for developing new cell-based treatments for skin diseases such as vitiligo, as well as new screening strategies for melanoma.

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The rate at which carbon emissions warmed Earth’s climate almost 56 million years ago resembles modern, human-caused global warming much more than previously believed, but involved two pulses of carbon to the atmosphere, University of Utah researchers and their colleagues found.

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When someone you know is wearing an unfamiliar hat, you might not recognize them. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using just such a disguise to sneak biomaterials containing peptide signaling molecules into living animals.

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In a study published today by Nature, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center used a microscopic worm (C. elegans) to identify a new path that could lead to drugs to slow aging and the chronic diseases that often accompany it—and might even lead to better cosmetics.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center neurology researchers have identified an important cell signaling mechanism that plays an important role in brain cancer and may provide a new therapeutic target.

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Researchers have developed a method for spying on the activity of every gene within a cell at once. The breakthrough allows them to determine the order in which the three layers of cells in animal embryos evolved. Other applications include cancer research.

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Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have used motion-capture technology to reveal new insight into the sophisticated information processing and acrobatic skills of dragonflies on the hunt.

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Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have used motion-capture technology to reveal new insight into the sophisticated information processing and acrobatic skills of dragonflies on the hunt.

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While many different combinations of genetic traits can cause autism, brains affected by autism share a pattern of ramped-up immune responses, an analysis of data from autopsied human brains reveals. The study, a collaborative effort between Johns Hopkins and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, included data from 72 autism and control brains.

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Near-perfect replications of human and animal cells enables improved study of certain cancers and stem cells, as well as the creation of complex durable objects without machinery.

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An important study conducted in part at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory may lead to new, more effective vaccines and medicines by revealing detailed information about how a flu antibody binds to a wide variety of flu viruses.

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A team of researchers has now shown that winds on Titan must blow 50 percent faster than previously thought in order to move that sand.

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A new treatment for adult-onset diabetes and obesity developed by researchers at Indiana University and the German Research Center for Environmental Health has essentially cured lab animals of obesity, diabetes and associated lipid abnormalities through improved glucose sensitivity, reduced appetite and enhanced calorie burning.

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Brown adipose tissue, widely known as brown fat, is located around the collarbone and acts as the body’s furnace to burn calories. It also keeps the body warm. Obese people have less of it, and its activity is decreased with age. Until now, researchers haven’t understood why.

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Research led by Devon Burr, an associate professor in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at UT, shows that winds on Titan must blow faster than previously thought to move sand. The discovery may explain how the dunes were formed.

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New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis challenges the view that cancer treatment in itself is a direct cause of a fatal form of leukemia that can develop several years after chemotherapy or radiation.

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There is cloud hanging over climate science, but one Cornell University expert on communication and environmental issues says he knows how to help clear the air. In the December issue of Nature Climate Change, Jonathon Schuldt, assistant professor of communication, argues that only by creating a “science of climate diversity” can climate science and the larger climate change movement overcome a crippling lack of ethnic and racial diversity.

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Scientists have discovered an unusual form of electronic order in a new family of unconventional superconductors, giving scientists a new group of materials to explore to understand ability to carry current with no energy loss.

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The average animal cell is 10 microns across but why? Princeton bioengineers take their story of gravity in cells one step further at ASCB, describing how cells manage to support thousands of membrane-less compartments inside the nucleus

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An experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory provided the first fleeting glimpse of the atomic structure of a material as it entered a state resembling room-temperature superconductivity – a long-sought phenomenon in which materials might conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency under everyday conditions.

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An experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory provided the first fleeting glimpse of the atomic structure of a material as it entered a state resembling room-temperature superconductivity – a long-sought phenomenon in which materials might conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency under everyday conditions.

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Scientists at Penn State College of Medicine, working alongside an international team of researchers, have produced the most complete encyclopedia of functional elements in the mouse genome to date and compared it to the human genome. The findings, published recently in Nature, uphold the mouse model of human disease, but pinpoint important differences in gene expression that will guide future health research.