…a more efficient, cleaner alternative to existing alternatives. Vehicles fueled by diesel lead to substantial carbon emissions that are challenging to decarbonize. In 2022, diesel fuel use made up about one-fourth of total U.S. transportation carbon dioxide emissions and about one-tenth of total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Joshua Yuan, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Professor and chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at…
A new approach for diabetes therapies. Prof. Heiko Lickert is the director of the Institute of Diabetes and Regeneration Research at Helmholtz Munich, professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and member of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD). Together with his team, they discovered Inceptor in 2021 and described its role as an inhibitor of the insulin signaling pathway. Both Inceptor and the insulin receptor are located on the surface of beta cells, where Inceptor can block…
Working with week-old zebrafish larva, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and colleagues decoded how the connections formed by a network of neurons in the brainstem guide the fishes’ gaze. The study, published Nov. 22 in Nature Neuroscience, found that a simplified artificial circuit, based on the architecture of this neuronal system, can predict activity in the network. In addition to shedding light on how the brain handles short-term memory, the findings could lead to novel approaches for treating eye movement…
…uncover key mechanisms related to cognitive function. Discovery suggests broad implications for giving brain a boost. While it’s well known that sleep enhances cognitive performance, the underlying neural mechanisms, particularly those related to nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, remain largely unexplored. A new study by a team of researchers at Rice University and Houston Methodist’s Center for Neural Systems Restoration and Weill Cornell Medical College, coordinated by Rice’s Valentin Dragoi, has nonetheless uncovered a key mechanism by which sleep enhances…
Protein design aims to create customized antibodies for therapies, biosensors for diagnostics, or enzymes for chemical reactions. An international research team has now developed a method for designing large new proteins better than before and producing them with the desired properties in the laboratory. Their approach involves a new way of using the capabilities of the AI-based software Alphafold2, for which the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2024. Whether as building blocks, transport systems, enzymes, or antibodies, proteins…
Borrowing principles from pest management, ASU researchers aim to extend survival rate, quality of life for cancer patients. Just as crop-devouring insects evolve to resist pesticides, cancer cells can increase their lethality by developing resistance to treatment. In fact, most deaths from cancer are caused by the evolution of therapeutic resistance. In a new review, Arizona State University researchers, working with colleagues around the world, explore how established agricultural pest management strategies could be adapted to address cancer therapy. The…
A research team from the University of Freiburg and the Medical Center- University of Freiburg has developed a novel biomimetic speaking valve technology that could significantly increase the safety of tracheostomised patients. The challenge: if conventional speaking valves are used improperly, dangerous overpressure can occur, which can cause serious complications and even death. In a collaboration between the Freiburg Botanical Garden, the Medical Center – University of Freiburg and the Cluster of Excellence livMatS of the University of Freiburg, researchers…
ISTA scientists take a deep look into memory processing inside the hippocampus. Resembling a seahorse, as its name implies from the Greek words “hippos” (horse) and “kampus” (sea monster), the hippocampus is a brain region crucial for memory formation. But until recently, scientists have not been able to link memory formation to distinct molecular signals. Now, a team of scientists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences likely opened this…
Scientists at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Dummerstorf have decoded the genome of the African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) in collaboration with international partners. The study (Nguinkal JA et al., Sci Data 11, 2024), which was recently published in the journal Scientific Data, represents a milestone for genetic research on the animal and aquaculture husbandry. The genome of the African catfish decoded The African catfish is one of the most important species in global fish production. It…
New research from the Kind Group at the Hubrecht Institute sheds light on how cells repair damaged DNA. For the first time, the team has mapped the activity of repair proteins in individual human cells. The study demonstrates how these proteins collaborate in so-called “hubs” to repair DNA damage. This knowledge offers opportunities to improve cancer therapies and other treatments where DNA repair is essential. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications on November 21. DNA is the molecule…
The world’s thinnest spaghetti, about 200 times thinner than a human hair, has been created by a UCL-led research team. The spaghetti is not intended to be a new food but was created because of the wide-ranging uses that extremely thin strands of material, called nanofibers, have in medicine and industry. Nanofibers made of starch – produced by most green plants to store excess glucose – are especially promising and could be used in bandages to aid wound healing (as…
The occurrence of multiple stressors undermines the acclimatisation strategies of juvenile herring: If larvae are exposed to several stress factors at the same time, their ability to respond to these changes at the molecular level is reduced. Experiments by a team from the northern German cities of Oldenburg and Kiel show that a combination of two factors is sufficient to prevent a reaction. When herring larvae are exposed to multiple stressors simultaneously, their ability to react to these changes at…
The yeast Candida parapsilosis is emerging as a growing threat for hospitalized patients in a new study. A team led by Dr Amelia Barber from the Cluster of Excellence “Balance of the Microverse” at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Dr Grit Walther from the National Reference Centre for Invasive Fungal Infections (NRZMyk) investigated an outbreak of multi-drug resistant hospital-acquired strain of this fungus. The researchers developed a new molecular detection method that can quickly and cost-effectively differentiate strains of C….
Assumptions that may seem self-evident are not always accurate when it comes to the evolution of vertebrate brains. Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have now demonstrated this by examining the largest neuron in the brains of blind Mexican cavefish. Their findings have been published in the prestigious journal PNAS. What for? In the course of evolution, vertebrate brains can change in response to adaptation to a new habitat or altered living conditions. Until now, our understanding of brain evolution…
Salk scientists identify brain circuit used to consciously slow breathing and confirm this reduces anxiety and negative emotions. Deep breath in, slow breath out… Isn’t it odd that we can self-soothe by slowing down our breathing? Humans have long used slow breathing to regulate their emotions, and practices like yoga and mindfulness have even popularized formal techniques like box breathing. Still, there has been little scientific understanding of how the brain consciously controls our breathing and whether this actually has…
Researchers delved deep into the regulation of cobalt active sites to enhance the selectivity of propylene to improve scalability and affordability of the production of this important chemical. Chemical reactions are not always naturally optimized to yield the products in the quantities needed, especially on the scale needed for the amount of industry in the world today. Researchers from East China University of Science and Technology explored the options available to develop a more cost-effective, scalable and straightforward method to…
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