Fungus produces highly effective surfactant

Mortierella alpina lives in the soil and likes to keep cool. This fungus, which belongs to the zygomycetes, grows best at temperatures of 10 to 15 degrees C and occurs mainly in alpine or arctic habitats. In biotechnology, the fungus has been used for the large-scale production of polyunsaturated fatty acids such as arachidonic acids, mainly as a dietary supplement in baby foods.

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National emergency alerts potentially vulnerable to attack

On October 3, 2018, cell phones across the United States received a text message labeled "Presidential Alert." The message read: "THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed."

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Hydrogen-natural gas hydrates harvested by natural gas

A hydrogen-natural gas blend (HNGB) can be a game changer only if it can be stored safely and used as a sustainable clean energy resource. A recent study has suggested a new strategy for stably storing hydrogen, using natural gas as a stabilizer. The research proposed a practical gas phase modulator based synthesis of HNGB without generating chemical waste after dissociation for the immediate service.

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Ageism reduced by education, intergenerational contact

Researchers at Cornell University have shown for the first time that it is possible to reduce ageist attitudes, prejudices and stereotypes through education and intergenerational contact.

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A new drug target for chemically induced Parkinson's disease

More than three decades ago, scientists discovered that a chemical found in a synthetic opioid, MPTP, induced the onset of a form of Parkinson's disease. In a new study led by scientists from the School of Veterinary Medicine, researchers found that an enzyme in the body can metabolize compounds formed in the brain from alkaloids present in certain foods and tobacco into MPTP-like chemicals, triggering a neurodegenerative condition in mice.

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Dissemination of pathogenic bacteria by university student's cell phones

New research has demonstrated the presence of S. aureus in 40% of the cell phones of students sampled at a university. S. aureus is a common cause of hospital and community-based infections and is currently considered an important pathogen because of its level of antibiotic resistance. The research, conducted at the Western University of São Paulo, Brazil, is presented at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

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2018 to 2019 influenza season in U.S. was longest in 10 years

In the United States, the 2018 to 2019 influenza season was of moderate severity and lasted 21 weeks, according to research published in the June 21 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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Imaging results, health data combine in AI model to predict breast cancer

Women know the drill: Breast cancer is too commonly a cancer diagnosis to be ignored, as early detection could make a difference. While false positives may cause an enormous amount of undue stress, false negatives have an impact on how early a cancer is detected and subsequently treated.

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Scientists identify fire hazard areas in forests near Lake Baikal

Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University are developing a system for predicting the likelihood of forest fires. Using Gilbirinsky Forestry in the basin of Lake Baikal, they created a map of the territory and identified forest areas where the likelihood of fire emergency is the highest due to the vegetative conditions of the territory itself. This data will underpin a geographic information system (GIS) for predicting wildfires.

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Newly discovered immune cells at the frontline of HIV infection

Researchers at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research have discovered brand new immune cells that are at the frontline of HIV infection. Known as CD11c+ dendritic cells, these new cells are more susceptible to HIV infection and can then transmit the virus to other cells.

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Enhancing face recognition tools with generative face completion

Researchers at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) in California have recently carried out a study investigating whether completing obstructed faces using artificial neural networks (ANN) can improve the accuracy of face recognition tools. Their study originated from the IARPA Odin research project, which is aimed at identifying true and false faces in images, ultimately to enhance the performance of biometric authentication tools.

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Shaken and stirred: Scientists capture the deformation effect of shock waves on a material

Understanding how shock waves affect structures is crucial for advancements in material science research, including safety protocols and novel surface modifications. Using X-ray diffraction probes, scientists at the Institute of Materials Structure Science of KEK, Tokyo of Tech, Kumamoto University, and University of Tsukuba studied the deformation of polycrystalline aluminum foil when subjected to a laser-driven shock wave.

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Robot circulatory system powers possibilities

Untethered robots suffer from a stamina problem. A possible solution: a circulating liquid—"robot blood"—to store energy and power its applications for sophisticated, long-duration tasks.

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The Ruminant Genome Project reveals the secret lives of deer

Three teams of researchers working independently have conducted three specific studies of ruminants—a class of mammals that obtains nutrients from plants by fermenting it in chambered stomachs. The work was part of an overall project called, quite naturally, the Ruminant Genome Project. All three teams were made up of members from several institutions in China and a few other countries. All three groups have published their findings in the journal Science. Also, Dai Fei Elmer Ker and Yunzhi Peter Yang with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Stanford University, respectively, have published a Perspective piece outlining the work by the three teams in the same journal issue.

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Many elderly patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma benefit from targeted therapies

Many elderly patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC)—who are often underrepresented in clinical trials to treat the kidney cancer—are seeing overall survival benefits from treatment with targeted therapies, according to a new study from Penn Medicine researchers published this month in JAMA Network Open. Analyzing 13 years of data on Medicare patients, the study found that the patients who received targeted therapies were more medically complex than those who received the older, more toxic treatments that were available earlier in the study period, indicating that newer treatments are offering hope to more people.

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Scientists dissolve crude oil in water to study its composition

Researchers from MIPT, Skoltech, the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Lomonosov Moscow State University report a new approach to oil composition analysis. They used high temperature and pressure to dissolve oil in water and analyze its composition. The new method is compliant with green chemistry principles as it obviates the need for environmentally hazardous solvents. The paper was published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

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SPFCNN-Miner: A new classifier to tackle class-unbalanced data

Researchers at Chongqing University in China have recently developed a cost-sensitive meta-learning classifier that can be used when the training data available is high-dimensional or limited. Their classifier, called SPFCNN-Miner, was presented in a paper published in Elsevier's Future Generation Computer Systems.

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NASA selects PUNCH mission to image beyond the Sun's outer corona

NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute to lead the "Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere" (PUNCH) mission, a landmark Small Explorers Program mission that will image beyond the Sun's outer corona.

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Ethics of AI: how should we treat rational, sentient robots – if they existed?

Imagine a world where humans co-existed with beings who, like us, had minds, thoughts, feelings, self-conscious awareness and the capacity to perform purposeful actions—but, unlike us, these beings had artificial mechanical bodies that could be switched on and off.

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Miracle machine makes heroic rescues and leaves patients in limbo

The latest miracle machine in modern medicine—whose use has skyrocketed in recent years—is saving people from the brink of death: adults whose lungs have been ravaged by the flu; a trucker who was trapped underwater in a crash; a man whose heart had stopped working for an astonishing seven hours.

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