Curated News: Nature (journal)

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Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have used ultrasound to nudge rodents into an energy-conserving state that mirrors a natural, hibernation-like survival mechanism known as torpor. The technique could help buy precious time for patients in critical care.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists found that immune cells present in individuals long before influenza infection predict whether the illness is symptomatic.

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Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found that the virus responsible for chikungunya fever can spread directly from cell to cell—perhaps solving the longstanding mystery of how the virus, now emerging as a major health threat, can manage to escape antibodies circulating in the bloodstream.

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A research team co-led by UCLA investigators has shown that an immunotherapy drug combination can be an effective second-line therapy for patients with an aggressive and deadly type of melanoma that is resistant to the widely used immunotherapy drugs known as PD-1 inhibitors.

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The qubits that make up quantum computers have a lesser-known cousin called qudits. Qudits can carry more information and are more resistant to the noise that can cause qubits to lose information. However, qudits have historically been difficult for scientists to measure and modify.

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Researchers used diamond mirrors to guide X-ray laser pulses around a rectangular racetrack inside a vacuum chamber. It’s an important step toward developing cavity-based X-ray free-electron lasers, or CBXFELs, to make X-ray laser pulses brighter and cleaner – more like regular lasers are today.

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In a new study, scientists Stewart Edie of the Smithsonian, Shan Huang of the University of Birmingham and colleagues drastically expanded the list of bivalve species, such as clams, oysters, mussels, scallops and their relatives, that humans are known to harvest and identified the traits that make these species prime targets for harvesting.

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Levels of grey matter in two parts of the brain may be linked to a desire to start smoking during adolescence and the strengthening of nicotine addiction, a new study has shown.

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In a development that could accelerate the discovery of new diagnostics and treatments, researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a versatile and low-cost technology for targeted sequencing of full-length RNA molecules.

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Nanovesicles can be bioengineered to target cancer cells and deliver treatments directly, according to research at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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Graphene nanoribbons have outstanding properties that can be precisely controlled. Researchers from Empa and ETH Zurich, in collaboration with partners from Peking University, the University of Warwick and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, have succeeded in attaching electrodes to individual atomically precise nanoribbons, paving the way for precise characterization of the fascinating ribbons and their possible use in quantum technology.

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Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers racing to find some of the earliest galaxies ever glimpsed have now confirmed that a galaxy first detected last summer is in fact among the earliest ever found. The findings are in the journal Nature.

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A first-in-human trial of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for post-stroke rehabilitation patients by Cleveland Clinic researchers has shown that using DBS to target the dentate nucleus – which regulates fine-control of voluntary movements, cognition, language, and sensory functions in the brain – is safe and feasible.

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One of the biggest obstacles to the uptake of plant-based alternatives to meat is their very dry and astringent feel when they are eaten.

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Virginia Tech researchers examined data from 2009 to 2019 from U.S. institutions with more than $40 million in National Institutes of Health funding and at least 15 utility patents. The presence of a well-funded engineering unit correlated with stronger patent production. The results are in Nature Biotechnology.

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Gene therapy might offer a one-time, sustained treatment for patients with serious alcohol addiction, also called alcohol use disorder, according to a new study led by a researcher at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine.

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Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutrons and x-rays to draw a roadmap of every atom, chemical bond and electrical charge inside a key metabolic pathway in the body that cancer cells hijack and dramatically overuse to reproduce. The study essentially paves the way for developing new drugs that act as roadblocks that cut off the supply of vital resources to cancer cells. The drugs would be designed to target highly aggressive tumor-forming cancers that too often become terminal such as lung, colon, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers.

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The climate crisis is increasing the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts and heatwaves, with Africa expected to be among the global regions hit hardest.

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Over the past decade, scientists have made tremendous progress in generating quantum phenomena in mechanical systems. What seemed impossible only fifteen years ago has now become a reality, as researchers successfully create quantum states in macroscopic mechanical objects.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign demonstrated a way to use electricity to recycle polyoxymethylene (POM), a form of plastic that’s growing in use but more challenging to recycle.

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Prof. REN Baohua and his team from the School of Earth and Space Sciences, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), uncovered the connection between Arctic daily warming and the equator region as well as Atlantic storms.

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Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, working with technology company Faculty AI, have shown that machine learning can accurately predict subtypes of Parkinson’s disease using images of patient-derived stem cells.

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A brief roundup of news and story ideas from the experts at UCLA Health.

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An international research team details changes in DNA that researchers found are shared by humans and other mammals throughout history and are associated with life span and numerous other traits.

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Researchers working with Chuan Wang, an associate professor of electrical and systems engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, have developed ink pens that allow individuals to handwrite flexible, stretchable optoelectronic devices on everyday materials including paper, textiles, rubber, plastics and 3D objects.

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Researchers led by a team at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified cellular and molecular features of the brain that set modern humans apart from their closest primate relatives and ancient human ancestors. The findings, published in Nature, offer new insights into human brain evolution.

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Using human "mini-brain" models known as organoids, Mayo Clinic and Yale University scientists have discovered that the roots of autism spectrum disorder may be associated with an imbalance of specific neurons that play a critical role in how the brain communicates and functions.

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A collaborative study undertaken by the Navarrabiomed Biomedical Research Center (Pamplona, Navarre), the Institute of Neurosciences CSIC-UMH (Sant Joan d’Alacant, Valencian Community) and IRB Barcelona (Barcelona, Catalonia) shows that the administration of ranolazine, a drug currently used to treat heart conditions, improves the efficacy of current therapies for melanoma, in mouse models of this disease.

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Researchers have developed an innovative method for screening sensors to detect heavy metals, bacteria and other agents in water. This method could lead to mass manufacturing of sensors that provide dependable part-per-billion monitoring of water quality.

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The study, led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), reveals the inner workings of viral factories, clusters of viral proteins and genomes that form in host cells.

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The surface of Mars, unlike the Earth's, is not constantly renewed by plate tectonics. This has resulted in the preservation of huge areas of terrain remarkable for their abundance in fossil rivers and lakes dating back billions of years.

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An analysis of the hierarchy of tipping points suggests that during the last 66 million years two events set the scene for further climate tipping and for the evolution of the climate system in particular.

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Artificial intelligence could hold the key to feeding 10 billion people by 2050 in the face of climate change and rapidly evolving pests and pathogens according to researchers at The University of Queensland.

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The next generation of 2D semiconductor materials doesn’t like what it sees when it looks in the mirror. Penn State researchers may have solved this issue.

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New observations of mud cracks made by the Curiosity Rover show that high-frequency, wet-dry cycling occurred in early Martian surface environments, indicating that the red planet may have once seen seasonal weather patterns or even flash floods.

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In 1956, theoretical physicist David Pines predicted that electrons in a solid could form a composite particle called a demon. It's eluded detection since its prediction....until now.

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Deep-learning technology developed by a team of Johns Hopkins engineers and cancer researchers can accurately predict cancer-related protein fragments that may trigger an immune system response. If validated in clinical trials, the technology could help scientists overcome a major hurdle to developing personalized immunotherapies and vaccines.

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An international collaboration of scientists including Gang He, PhD, of Stony Brook University, used global power plant data to demonstrate an integrated water-carbon management framework that bridges the gap to coupling diverse water carbon-mitigation technologies with other methods. Their findings are detailed in a paper published in Nature Water.