Thanks to a lesser-known feature of microbiology, Michigan State University researchers have helped open a door that could lead to medicines, vitamins and more being made at lower costs and with improved efficiency.
Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, with collaborators, have further elucidated how ovarian cancer tumors defy immunotherapy, identifying new molecular targets that might boost immune response.
Demand for new kinds of antibiotics is surging, as drug-resistant and emerging infections are becoming an increasingly serious global health threat. Researchers are racing to reexamine certain microbes that serve as one of our most successful sources of therapeutics: the actinomycetes.
In a result published in PNAS, scientists derive an elegant equation that provides allows scientists to instantly calculate the quantum information lifetime for 12,000 different potential qubit materials.
Scientists have developed a treatment for pulmonary fibrosis by using nanoparticles coated in mannose — a type of sugar — to stop a population of lung cells called macrophages that contribute to lung tissue scarring. The cell-targeting method holds promise for preventing this severe lung scarring disease, which can result in life-threatening complications like shortness of breath.
In the presence of pancreatic tumors, certain immune cells break down structural proteins into molecules that trigger the building of dense tissue, a known barrier to therapy, a new study shows.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Black Lives Matter protests not only brought public attention to incidents of police brutality, such as the killing of George Floyd in 2020, but they also have shifted public discourse and increased interest in anti-racist ideas, according to research led by Indiana University researchers.
Their paper, "Black Lives Matter protests shift public discourse," shows that the protests have created sustained interest beyond the singular events -- including broader issues such as systemic racism, redlining, criminal justice reform and white supremacy -- and have had a lasting impact on the way people think and talk about racism.
A newly published study of orb-weaving spiders has yielded some extraordinary results: The spiders are using their webs as extended auditory arrays to capture sounds, possibly giving spiders advanced warning of incoming prey or predators.
From sunflowers to starfish, symmetry appears everywhere in biology. This isn’t just true for body plans – the molecular machines keeping our cells alive are also strikingly symmetric.
A Florida State University College of Medicine researcher has made a discovery that alters our understanding of how the body’s DNA repair process works and may lead to new chemotherapy treatments for cancer and other disorders.The fact that DNA can be repaired after it has been damaged is one of the great mysteries of medical science, but pathways involved in the repair process vary during different stages of the cell life cycle.
A single protein can reverse the developmental clock on adult brain cells called astrocytes, morphing them into stem-like cells that produce neurons and other cell types, UT Southwestern researchers report in a PNAS study. The findings might someday lead to a way to regenerate brain tissue after disease or injury.
In a newly published study, scientists showed that five of the compounds are part of a biochemical pathway for synthesis of these important flavor compounds. Using a closely related fruit, Solanum pennellii, scientists found a site on a chromosome essential to produce detectable nitrogenous volatiles in tomatoes, said Denise Tieman, a UF/IFAS research assistant professor of horticultural sciences.
New study, published Feb. 23, 2022, in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), analyzed the reasons for 1.6 million downloads of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus reports, considered among the highest credibility science-based literature.
Through reconstructing an evolutionary history, they found that genetic differences between axolotls and other salamanders in their region of Mexico were almost indistinguishable.
One population of female common yellowthroats prefers males with larger black masks, but another group of females favors a larger yellow bib. A new study has found that both kinds of ornaments are linked to superior genes.
A new study by UCLA researchers and colleagues demonstrates that the Ebola vaccine known as rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP results in a robust and enduring antibody response among vaccinated individuals in areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that are experiencing outbreaks of the disease. Among the more than 600 study participants, 95.6% demonstrated antibody persistence six months after they received the vaccine.
The study is the first published research examining post–Ebola-vaccination antibody response in the DRC, a nation of nearly 90 million. While long-term analyses of the study cohort continue, the findings will help inform health officials’ approach to vaccine use for outbreak control, the researchers said.
University of Illinois Chicago researchers have developed a compound that may one day offer hope for pancreatic cancer treatment. A pre-clinical study of the experimental compound shows that it more than doubles the average survival time for mice with pancreatic cancer and that survival time was extended further when combined with immunotherapy.
A new study puts the total number of tree species on Earth at 73 274, with another 9 186 still to be discovered. Roughly 40% of these undiscovered tree species are in South America.
An IU study found that exposure to lead in drinking water from private wells during early childhood is associated with an increased risk of being reported for delinquency during teenage years.
Our sensory systems provide us with immediate information about the world around us. Researchers have created the first sensory map for smell. The map details how the fruit fly’s olfactory receptor neurons, the components that sense smell, are organized within the insect’s sensory hairs.
University of Washington researchers report that a yeast cells can actively regulate a process called phase separation in one of their membranes, a process that helps cells send different types of signals and perform different types of work.
The importance of meat eating in human evolution is being challenged by a new study from a team of five paleoanthropologists that includes the University at Albany’s John Rowan.
Many nations are calling for protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 from some or all types of exploitation, including fishing. Building off this proposal, a new analysis led by the University of Washington looks at how effective fishing closures are at reducing accidental catch. Researchers found that permanent marine protected areas are a relatively inefficient way to protect marine biodiversity that is accidentally caught in fisheries. Dynamic ocean management — changing the pattern of closures as accidental catch hotspots shift — is much more effective.
When a politician we like supports a COVID-19 policy, we tend to support it. But when a political foe endorses the exact same plan, we tend to oppose it, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research forthcoming Jan. 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Algorithm finds ON neurons, which are activated when an odorant is present, and OFF neurons, which are silenced when an odorant is present but become activated after the odor presentation ends.
Computer simulations from UC San Diego School of Medicine reveal the action mechanism and substrate specificity of an important blood enzyme. These findings open the door for new therapeutics against cardiovascular disease, and further support a unifying theory of phospholipase function.
As polarization has escalated in the U.S., the question of if and when that divide becomes insurmountable has become ever more pressing. In a new study, “Polarization and Tipping Points” published Dec. 7 in PNAS, researchers have identified a tipping point, beyond which extreme polarization becomes irreversible.
Israeli researchers revealed surprising findings about the effectiveness of various deterrence patterns: frequent mild punishments are more effective than infrequent severe punishments
A predictive model of a polarized group, similar to the current U.S. Senate, demonstrates that when an outside threat – like war or a pandemic – fails to unite the group, the divide may be irreversible through democratic means.
A new targeted nanomedicine treatment developed at the University of Chicago has shown promise in reducing vascular lesions caused by atherosclerosis in a mouse model.
Children as young as age 6 develop stereotypes that girls aren't interested in computer science and engineering, according to new research from the University of Washington and the University of Houston.
A Cornell University geochemist has helped discover solid evidence that connects the geochemical fingerprint of the Galápagos plume with mantle materials underneath Panama and Costa Rica – documenting the course of a mantle plume that flows sideways through upper portions of the Earth.
Volcanic gases are helping researchers track large-scale movements in Earth’s deep interior. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists, together with a group of international collaborators, have discovered anomalous geochemical compositions beneath Panama.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Umeå University, and the University of Bonn have identified a new group of molecules that have an antibacterial effect against many antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
New research from Sanford Burnham Prebys has revealed features of the aging Down syndrome brain that could help explain why people with Down syndrome almost inevitably get Alzheimer's later in life.
Women who use cannabis during pregnancy, potentially to relieve stress and anxiety, may inadvertently predispose their children to stress susceptibility and anxiety, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the City University of New York published Monday, November 15, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
A new study featured in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers a potential alternate approach that combines pressure and electrochemistry to stabilize superhydrides at moderate, perhaps even close to ordinary, pressures.
Viral, true tweets spread just as far, wide and deep as viral untrue tweets, according to new research from Cornell University that upends the prevailing assumption that untruths on Twitter move faster.
Currently available COVID vaccines require cold storage and sophisticated manufacturing capacity, which makes it difficult to produce and distribute them widely, especially in less developed countries.
As researchers investigate reasons for America's persistent gender wage gap, one possible explanation that has emerged in roughly the last decade is that women may be less competitive than men, and are therefore passed over for higher-ranking roles with larger salaries.
Scientists may have made a giant leap in fighting the biggest threat to human health by using supercomputing to keep pace with the impressive ability of diseases to evolve.
A new study by an international team, co-led by Dr Gerhard Koenig from the University of Portsmouth, tackled the problem of antibiotic resistance by redesigning existing antibiotics to overcome bacterial resistance mechanisms.
A new study reveals how sperm change their swimming patterns to navigate to the egg, shifting from a symmetrical motion that moves the sperm in a straight path to an asymmetrical one that promotes more circular swimming.
A team of researchers have identified a gene that regulates tomato softening independent of ripening, a finding that could help tomato and other fruit breeders strike the right balance between good shelf life and high-quality flavor.
If you consider “the superwealthy,” “the 1%” or “the economic elite,” rather than individuals, you’re more likely to attribute vast wealth to systemic advantages that have contributed to decades of widening income inequality in the United States, and to feel more troubled by it.
Using supercomputer-driven dynamic modeling based on experimental data, researchers can now probe the process that turns off one X chromosome in female mammal embryos.
A researcher at the University of Missouri School of Medicine has discovered an enzyme that plays a key role in the ability of cancer cells to resist drug treatment.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a chemical compound that interferes with a key feature of many viruses that allows the viruses to invade human cells. The compound, called MM3122, was studied in cells and mice and holds promise as a new way to prevent infection or reduce the severity of COVID-19 if given early in the course of an infection, according to the researchers.