From Italy and the World

CNN  —  Ambassadors from Russia and Belarus have been invited back to the Nobel Prize banquet after being excluded last year because of the invasion of Ukraine, the Nobel Foundation said. Iran has also been invited to the December event in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, after being left out…

CNN  —  A Russian military blogger who has written critically of Russia’s conduct in Ukraine was arrested in Moscow Thursday, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. The blogger, Andrey Kurshin, runs the Moscow Calling Telegram channel, which has some 87,000 subscribers. “A criminal case was opened against the administrator…

CNN  —  Ukraine has opened more than 3,000 criminal cases over Russia’s alleged crimes against children in the country, including dozens of torture cases, Ukrainian prosecutors said Thursday. The allegations include “murders, mutilations, abduction of children, forced displacement, deportation, sexual violence against children and kidnapping,” Yulia Usenko, head of the…

Ukrainian forces said they had penetrated the “first line” of Russian strongholds in the Zaporizhzhia region, in a sign that Kyiv is edging closer to Moscow’s sprawling network of fortified trenches along the southern front. The Ukrainian military claimed on Thursday that its units had advanced toward two villages to the south and…

Hydrogen spillover is exactly what it sounds like. Small metal nanoparticles anchored on a thermally stable oxide, like silica, comprise a major class of catalysts, which are substances used to accelerate chemical reactions without being consumed themselves. The catalytic reaction usually occurs on the reactive — and expensive — metal,…

Scientists have established the effectiveness of vaccines they developed to prevent the disfiguring skin disease leishmaniasis in animal studies, and Phase 1 human trial planning is in motion for the most promising candidate. But in new work, the research team has determined how these vaccine candidates, created using mutated disease-causing…

Case Western Reserve University biochemical researchers have identified a new function of a key protein that leads to cancer-a finding they believe could lead to more effective treatments for a range of cancers and other diseases. The protein is LSD1 (lysine-specific histone demethylase 1A), which functions as a type of…

The ability to accurately detect heat and pain is critical to human survival, but scientists have struggled to understand on a molecular level exactly how our bodies sense these potential risks. Now, University at Buffalo researchers have unraveled the complex biological phenomena that drive these critical functions. Their research, published…

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered some new and surprising ways that viral RNA and influenza virus are detected by human lung cells, which has potential implications for treating people affected by such viruses. Influenza viruses remain a major threat to human health and can cause severe symptoms in…

An international team of marine scientists, led by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Center for Coastal Studies in the USA, has studied the DNA of family groups from four different whale species to estimate their mutation rates. The results revealed much higher mutation rates than previously…

A broad new strategy could hold hope for treating virtually all blood cancers with CAR T cell therapy, which is currently approved for five subtypes of blood cancer. Scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the potential efficacy of this approach in preclinical…

Researchers have developed an automated version of the viral plaque assay, the gold-standard method for detecting and quantifying viruses. The new method uses time-lapse holographic imaging and deep learning to greatly reduce detection time and eliminate staining and manual counting. This advance could help streamline the development of new vaccines…

Cloud gaming, which involves playing a video game remotely from the cloud, witnessed unprecedented growth during the lockdowns and gaming hardware shortages that occurred during the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, the burgeoning industry encompasses a $6 billion global market and more than 23 million players worldwide. However, interdevice…

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has begun the study of one of the most renowned supernovae, SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). Located 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, SN 1987A has been a target of intense observations at wavelengths ranging from gamma rays to radio for nearly 40 years,…

The mushroom body — the learning and memory region in the brains of arthropods — is responsible for the ability of insects to make abstract behavioural decisions, which are then carried out by downstream motor networks. That is the result of a study conducted by Professor Dr Martin Paul Nawrot…

The largest genetic study of its kind, coordinated by the International League Against Epilepsy, including scientists from FutureNeuro at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, has discovered specific changes in our DNA that increase the risk of developing epilepsy. The research, published today in Nature Genetics, greatly advances our…

Researchers at University of Manchester and the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, have revealed an innovative approach to track individual molecule dynamics within nanofluidic structures, illuminating their response to molecules in ways never before possible. Nanofluidics, the study of fluids confined within ultra-small spaces, offers insights into the…

Breast milk is widely acknowledged as the most beneficial nutrition for infants, but many families face medical or logistical challenges in breastfeeding. In the U.S., just 45% of infants continue to be exclusively breastfed at 3 months of age, according to the Centers for Disease Control. For decades, researchers have…

An artificial intelligence with the ability to look inward and fine tune its own neural network performs better when it chooses diversity over lack of diversity, a new study finds. The resulting diverse neural networks were particularly effective at solving complex tasks. “We created a test system with a non-human…

Vitamin C and other antioxidants stimulate the formation of new blood vessels in lung cancer tumours, a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation shows. The discovery corroborates the idea that dietary supplements containing antioxidants can accelerate tumour growth and metastasis. “We’ve found that antioxidants…

A new article published in RadioGraphics, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), examines the use of monoclonal antibody therapies for treating Alzheimer disease and alerts physicians to be on the lookout for a potential side effect: amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA). Alzheimer disease is a progressive, irreversible…

A new study has found that US dog owners who harbor mistrust in the safety and efficacy of childhood and adult vaccines are also more likely to hold negative views about vaccinating their four-legged friends. Public confidence in adult and child vaccines has declined during the pandemic, largely spurred by…

A main crux of neuroscience is learning how our senses translate light into sight, sound into hearing, food into taste, and texture into touch. Smell is where these sensory relationships get more complex and perplexing. To address this question, a research team co-led by the Monell Chemical Senses Center and…

Exciting a brain region using electrical noise stimulation can help improve mathematical learning in those who struggle with the subject, according to a new study from the Universities of Surrey and Oxford, Loughborough University, and Radboud University in The Netherlands. During this unique study, researchers investigated the impact of neurostimulation…

CNN  —  Ukrainian forces said they had penetrated the “first line” of Russian strongholds in the Zaporizhzhia region, in a sign that Kyiv is edging closer to Moscow’s sprawling network of fortified trenches along the southern front. The Ukrainian military claimed on Thursday that its units had advanced towards two…

CNN  —  A Russian official claimed Thursday that a Ukrainian sabotage operation had been foiled in Bryansk, southwestern Russia, with several Ukrainians killed or captured. Alexander Bogomaz, governor of the Bryansk region that borders both Ukraine and Belarus, said on his Telegram channel that two of the group had died…