COVID-19 causes mitochondrial dysfunction in heart and other organs, researchers find

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, researchers have been trying to determine why this virus creates such negative long-term effects compared with most coronaviruses. Now, a multi-institutional consortium of researchers led by a team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the COVID-19 International…

After seventeen years, a spacecraft makes its first visit home

On Aug. 12, 2023, NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft will pass between the Sun and Earth, marking the first Earth flyby of the nearly 17-year-old mission. The visit home brings a special chance for the spacecraft to collaborate with NASA missions near Earth and reveal new insights into our closest star.  The…

Tool finds bias in state-of-the-art generative AI model

Text-to-image (T2I) generative artificial intelligence tools are increasingly powerful and widespread tools that can create nearly any image based on just a few inputted words. T2I generative AI can create convincingly realistic photos and videos which are being used more and more for a multitude of purposes, from art to…

Fat burning during exercise varies widely between individuals: Study reveals limitations of commercial exercise machines, emphasizing the need for a more personalized approach to exercise

The best heart rate for burning fat differs for each individual and often does not align with the “fat burning zone” on commercial exercise machines, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai researchers report. Instead, the researchers said, clinical exercise testing — a diagnostic procedure to measure a person’s physiological…

Mechanism underlying bacterial resistance to the antibiotic albicidin revealed: New study underscores the growing threat of antibiotic resistance in healthcare

A new analysis shows that infectious bacteria exposed to the antibiotic albicidin rapidly develop up to a 1,000-fold increase in resistance via a gene amplification mechanism. Mareike Saathoff of Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and colleagues present these findings August 10 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Bacterial resistance to…

Bioengineered tool unmasks cancer cells

Cancer cells can evade the body’s immune defenses by exploiting a normally helpful and ubiquitous group of molecules known as mucins. Now, Stanford researchers have engineered a biomolecule that removes mucins specifically from cancer cells — a discovery that could play a significant role in future therapies for cancer. Mucins…

A climate-orchestrated early human love story

A new study published in the journal Science by an international team finds that past changes in atmospheric CO2 and corresponding shifts in climate and vegetation played a key role in determining when and where early human species interbred. Modern-day people carry in their cells a small quantity of DNA…

Tattoo technique transfers gold nanopatterns onto live cells

For now, cyborgs exist only in fiction, but the concept is becoming more plausible as science progresses. And now, researchers are reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters that they have developed a proof-of-concept technique to “tattoo” living cells and tissues with flexible arrays of gold nanodots and nanowires. With further refinement,…

Long COVID symptoms can emerge months after infection

Long COVID can persist for at least a year after the acute illness has passed, or appear months later, according to the most comprehensive look yet at how symptoms play out over a year. The multicenter study, a collaboration between UC San Francisco, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

New gene editing tool helps zero in on small cancer-linked mutations

A change in just one letter in the code that makes up a cancer-causing gene can significantly affect how aggressive a tumor is or how well a patient with cancer responds to a particular therapy. A new, very precise gene-editing tool created by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators will enable scientists…

NIST demonstrates a new ‘primary standard’ for measuring ultralow pressures: Chip manufacturing, gravitational wave detectors and quantum computers could all benefit from better ways to measure a vacuum.

A vacuum chamber is never perfectly empty. A small number of atoms or molecules always remain, and measuring the tiny pressures they exert is critical. For instance, semiconductor manufacturers create microchips in vacuum chambers that must be almost entirely devoid of atomic and molecular contaminants, and so they need to…

Study confirms link between concealed carry weapons and gun homicide rates: As the right to carry expands in several states, researchers note acute safety risks with the expansion of legal firearm ownership

Concealed guns significantly impact homicide rates and public safety, according to a Rutgers study that found an increase in homicides based on the number of concealed carry weapons licenses issued. In a new study published in the Journal of Urban Health, researchers examined the reciprocal county-level relationship between the number…

Making molecules dance to our tune reveals what drives their first movements

Bringing ultrafast physics to structural biology has revealed the dance of molecular ‘coherence’ in unprecedented clarity. How molecules change when they react to stimuli such as light is fundamental in biology, for example during photosynthesis. Scientists have been working to unravel the workings of these changes in several fields, and…

Gut microbiome can increase risk, severity of HIV, EBV disease

Over the past decade, the gut microbiome has gained significant interest by scientists and non-scientists alike. Recent research has shown that the bacteria and other microbes in our gut play a supporting role in immunity, metabolism, digestion, and the fight against “bad bacteria” that try to invade our bodies. However,…

Scientists reveal two paths to autism in the developing brain

Two distinct neurodevelopmental abnormalities that arise just weeks after the start of brain development have been associated with the emergence of autism spectrum disorder, according to a new Yale-led study in which researchers developed brain organoids from the stem cells of boys diagnosed with the disorder. And, researchers say, the…

Potential application of unwanted electronic noise in semiconductors: Random telegraph noises in vanadium-doped tungsten diselenide can be tuned with voltage polarity

Random Telegraph Noise (RTN), a type of unwanted electronic noise, has long been a nuisance in electronic systems, causing fluctuations and errors in signal processing. However, a team of researchers from the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), South Korea has made an intriguing…

Effectiveness of video gameplay restrictions questioned in new study

Legal restrictions placed on the amount of time young people in China can play video games may be less effective than originally thought, a new study has revealed. To investigate the effectiveness of the policy, a team of researchers led by the University of York, analysed over 7 billion hours…

Nematodes joy ride across electric voltages

Hokkaido University researchers found that tiny nematode worm larvae surf electric fields to hitch rides on passing insects. Many living organisms are known to make use of electric fields. Some fish species use them to detect predators or prey, and insects such as bees use them to attract pollen while…

Researcher pioneers technique to self-assemble high-performance biomolecular films

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a novel technique to self-assemble a thin layer of amino acids with ordered orientation over a large area that demonstrates high piezoelectric strength, making the manufacturing of biocompatible and biodegradable medical microdevices, such as…