Science Trends

Researchers are developing an objective test for patient pain. A breakthrough test developed by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers to measure pain in patients could help stem the tide of the opioid crisis in Indiana, and throughout the rest of the nation. A study led by psychiatry professor Alexander Niculescu, MD, PhD and published this week in the Nature journal  Molecular Psychiatry tracked hundreds of participants at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis to identify biomarkers in the blood that can help objectively determine how severe a patient's pain is. The blood test, the first of its kind, would allow physicians far  more accuracy in treating pain -- as well as a better long-term look at the patient's medical future. "We have developed a prototype for a blood test that can objectively tell doctors if the patient is in pain, and how severe that pain is. It's very important to have an objective measure of pain, as p...

Graphic showing the Transition Zone inside the Earth Princeton seismologist Jessica Irving worked with then-graduate student Wenbo Wu and another collaborator to determine the roughness at the top and bottom of the transition zone, a layer within the mantle, using scattered earthquake waves. They found that the top of the transition zone, a layer located 410 kilometers down, is mostly smooth, but the base of the transition zone, 660 km down, in some places is much rougher than the global surface average. “In other words, stronger topography than the Rocky Mountains or the Appalachians is present at the 660-km boundary,” said Wu. NOTE: This graphic is not to scale. Most schoolchildren learn that the Earth has three (or four) layers: a crust, mantle and core, which is sometimes subdivided into an inner and outer core. That's not wrong, but it does leave out several other layers that scientists have identified within the Earth. In a study published this week in  Science , P...

People who eat a lot of animal protein may be more likely to have excessive fat in their livers and a higher risk of liver disease than individuals whose main source of protein is vegetables, a Du  Researchers focused on what’s known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is usually associated with obesity and certain eating habits.  While dietary changes are recommended to treat this type of liver disease, research to date hasn’t clearly demonstrated whether these changes can work for prevention. For the current study, researchers examined data from dietary questionnaires and liver fat scans for 3,882 adults who were 70 years old on average. Scans showed 1,337 participants, or 34 percent had NAFLD, including 132 individuals who were a healthy weight and 1,205 who were overweight. Overweight people who ate the most animal protein were 54 percent more likely to have fatty liver than individuals who consumed less meat, the analysis found. “This was inde...

This new fabric being developed by University of Maryland scientists YuHuang Wang and Ouyang Min is the first textile to automatically change properties to trap or release heat depending on conditions. Despite decades of innovation in fabrics with high-tech thermal properties that keep marathon runners cool or alpine hikers warm, there has never been a material that changes its insulating properties in response to the environment. Until now. University of Maryland researchers have created a fabric that can automatically regulate the amount of heat that passes through it. When conditions are warm and moist, such as those near a sweating body, the fabri c allows infrared radiation (heat) to pass through. When conditions become cooler and drier, the fabric reduces the heat that escapes. The development was reported in the February 8, 2019 issue of the journal   Science . The researchers created the fabric from specially engineered yarn coated with a conductive metal. Under ...

Bees are able to grasp basic maths, according to a new study, which suggests a small brain may not mean low intelligence. After training a group of the pollinating insects, scientists at French National Centre for Scientific Research found they were able to perform addition and subtraction. In recent years, experiments have shown that the skill of mathematics is found across the animal kingdom. In the new study, a team led by Dr Scarlett Howard first taught their bees to recognise colours as symbols for either addition or subtraction. Specifically, blue meant “more” and yellow meant “less”. Next, their bees were trained to enter Yshaped mazes in which they had to make a choice between two sets of shapes. At the entrance to the maze, the bees were met with between one and five shapes, coloured either blue or yellow. Next they flew into a chamber where they could fly towards either the original number of shapes, plus or minus one, or the incorrect number of shapes. If they firs...

  SOON, THIS COULD BE THE ENTIRE WARDROBE Washington: Scientists have created a fabric that can automatically regulate the amount of heat that passes through it, helping a person stay cool or warm depending on the weather condition. When conditions are warm and moist, the fabric allows heat to pass through. When it’s cool and dry, the fabric reduces the heat that escapes, researchers said. Researchers from University of Maryland created the fabric from specially engineered yarn coated with a conductive metal. This is the first textile shown to be able to regulate heat exchange with the environment, according to the study published in ‘Science’. Under hot, humid conditions, the strands of yarn compact and activate the coating, which changes the way the fabric interacts with infrared radiation. They refer to this as “gating” of infrared radiation, which acts as a tunable blind to transmit or block heat. “This is the first technology that allows us to dynamically ga...

The third study compared fathers to mothers and their level of happiness while caring for their children. Fathers, it seems, are more likely to be happy while caring for their children than mothers. A 2019 study out of the University of California Riverside, highlights one more aspect in the divide between fathers and mothers, and more broadly, men and women. The research, a meta-analysis of three different studies, looked at the emotional health of 18,000 people and compared traits like well-being, happiness, episodes of depression, and stress. The first two studies within the research compared parents to childless people and found that fathers are happier than their child-free peers. The reason? Dads, more often than moms, report playing with their children while providing care. Now, let's unpack this a bit. We can assume, that of the 18,000 couples who took part in this research, many split household chores equally. But over recent years, much light has...

A new study finds rates are increasing for six of 12 cancers related to obesity in younger adults in the United States, with steeper increases in progressively younger ages and successively younger generations. The study, appearing in  The Lancet Public Health , also looked at rates for 18 cancers unrelated to obesity, and found rates increasing for only two. The obesity epidemic over the past 40 years has led to younger generations experiencing an earlier and longer lasting exposure to excess adiposity over their lifetime than previous generations. Excess body weight is  a known carcinogen, associated with more than a dozen cancers and suspected in several more. Exposures to carcinogens during early life may have an even more important influence on cancer risk by acting during crucial developmental periods. Several years ago, the authors of the current study identified increases in early onset colorectal cancer in the U.S., a trend that has been observed in several h...

This colorful layered cocktail, called a Galaxy, provided the inspiration for a new form of male contraceptive tested in rats. For decades, women have shouldered most of the burden of contraception. However, long-term use of female birth control pills could increase the risk for side effects such as blood clots or breast cancer. Now, inspired by colorful layered cocktails, researchers have developed a medium-term, reversible male contraceptive. They report their results in the journal  ACS Nano . Common forms of male contraception are either short-term (condoms) or long-term (vasectomy). However, condoms can fail, and vasectomies, while effective, are not often reversible. Xiaolei Wang and colleague s wanted to devise a medium-term, reversible form of male contraception. They drew inspiration from cocktails, such as the Galaxy, that bartenders make by layering colorful liquids in a glass. If the beverage is stirred or heated, the layers combine into a uniform liquid. Wang ...

Graphene-based sensors could will enhance our understanding of the brain. The body of knowledge about the human brain is keeps growing, but many questions remain unanswered. Researchers have been using electrode arrays to record the brain's electrical activity for decades, mapping activity in different brain regions to understand what it looks like when everything is working, and what is happening when it is not. Until now, however, these arrays have only been able to detect activity over a certain frequency threshold. A new technology developed by the Graphene Flagship overcomes this technical limitation, unlocking the wealth of information found below 0.1 Hz, while paving the way for future brain-computer interfaces. The new device was developed thanks to a collaboration between three Graphene Flagship Partners (IMB-CNM, ICN2 and ICFO) and adapted for brain recordings together with biomedical experts at IDIBAPS. This new technology moves away from electrodes and uses a...

Left panel: In the sleep laboratory, the electrical activity of the brain is recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). Right panel: During deep sleep, slow oscillatory high-amplitude waves emerge in the EEG. These waves are generated by the brain cells' rhythmic alternation between highly active phases (red: "up-states") and passive phases (blue: "down-states").Sleeping time is sometimes considered unproductive time. This raises the question whether the time spent asleep could be used more productively -- e.g. for learning a new language? To date sleep research focused on the stabilization and strengthening (consolidation) of memories that had been formed during preceding wakefulness. However, learning during sleep has rarely been examined. There is considerable evidence for wake-learned information undergoing a recapitulation by replay in the sleeping brain. The replay during sleep strengthens the still fragile memory traces und embeds the newly acquired ...

Air Pollution For a while now, the scientific community has known that global warming is caused by humanmade emissions in the form of greenhouse gases and global cooling by air pollution in the form of aerosols. However, new research published in   Science   by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Daniel Rosenfeld shows that the degree to which aerosols cool the earth has been grossly underestimated, necessitating a recalculation of climate change models to more accurately predict the pace of global warming. Aerosols are tiny particles that float in the air. They can form naturally (e.g., desert dust) or artificially (e.g., smoke from coal, car exhaust). Aerosols cool our environment by enhancing cloud cover that reflect the sunlight (heat) back to space. As for the first, clouds form when wind rises and cools. However, cloud composition is largely determined by aerosols. The more aerosol particles a shallow cloud contains, the more small water droplets it wil...

The Antarctic The Earth's atmosphere and oceans play important roles in moving heat from one part of the world to another, and new research is illuminating how those patterns are changing in the face of climate change. "The greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide aren't the only issues to consider as the planet grows warmer -- they are just one part of the equation. The way that the atmosphere and oceans move heat around  is changing, too, and this could have significant effects on temperatures around the world," said Zhengyu Liu, co-lead author of the study and professor of climate dynamics in the Department of Geography at The Ohio State University. Liu and Chengfei He, a graduate student in Ohio State's atmospheric science program, analyzed model simulations to illustrate how heat is expected to be transferred by the oceans and atmosphere in the near future. The researchers compared the models with historical temperature data from the oceans themselves ...

Membraneless protocells -- called complex coacervates -- can bring together molecules of RNA allowing the RNAs to perform certain reactions, an important step in the origin of life on Earth. The Image shows droplets of complex coacervates as seen under a microscope. The inset shows RNA molecules (cyan) are highly concentrated inside the droplets compared to the surrounding (dark). At roughly 2-5 micrometers in diameter, the droplets are about 14-35 times thinner than human hair. Membraneless assemblies of positively- and negatively-charged molecules can bring together RNA molecules in dense liquid droplets, allowing the RNAs to participate in fundamental chemical reactions. These assemblies, called "complex coacervates," also enhance the ability of some RNA molecules themselves to act as enzymes -- molecules that drive chemical reactions. They do this by concentrating the RNA enzymes, their substrates, and other molecules required for the reaction. The results of testin...

With X-ray microscopes, researchers at PSI look inside computer chips, catalysts, small pieces of bone, or brain tissue. The short wavelength of the X-rays makes details visible that are a million times smaller than a grain of sand -- structures in the nanometer range (millionths of a millimeter). As in a normal microscope, a lens is used to gather the light scattered by the sample and forms an enlarged image on the camera. Tiny structures, however, scatter light at very large angles. To obtain high resolution in the image, a correspondingly large lens is needed. "It remains extremely challenging to produce such large lenses," says  PSI physicist Klaus Wakonig: "When working with visible light, there are lenses that can capture very large scattering angles. With X-rays, however, this is more complicated because of the weak interaction with the material of the lens. As a consequence, usually only very small angles can be captured, or the lenses are rather inefficient....