Science

Swapping alpha cells for beta cells to treat diabetes

Blocking cell receptors for glucagon, the counter-hormone to insulin, cured mouse models of diabetes by converting glucagon-producing cells into insulin producers instead, a team led by UT Southwestern reports in a new study. The findings, published online in PNAS, could offer a new way to treat both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in people.
Tags: Science, PNAS, UT Southwestern

Don't focus on genetic diversity to save our species

Scientists at the University of Adelaide have challenged the common assumption that genetic diversity of a species is a key indicator of extinction risk.Published in the journal PNAS, the scientists demonstrate that there is no simple relationship between genetic diversity and species survival. But, Dr João Teixeira and Dr Christian Huber from the University of Adelaide's School of Biological Sciences conclude, the focus shouldn't be on genetic diversity anyway, it should be on habitat protectio...
Tags: Science, Don, Joao Teixeira, PNAS, University of Adelaide, Christian Huber

Three longtime antibiotics could offer alternative to addictive opioid pain relievers

Three decades-old antibiotics administered together can block a type of pain triggered by nerve damage in an animal model, UT Southwestern researchers report. The finding, published online today in PNAS, could offer an alternative to opioid-based painkillers, addictive prescription medications that are responsible for an epidemic of abuse in the US.
Tags: Science, PNAS

Researchers grow artificial hairs with clever physics trick

Things just got hairy at Princeton.Researchers found they could coat a liquid elastic on the outside of a disc and spin it to form useful, complex patterns. When spun just right, tiny spindles rise from the material as it cures. The spindles grow as the disc accelerates, forming a soft solid that resembles hairs. Published in PNAS Feb. 22
Tags: Science, PNAS, Princeton Researchers

Neandertal gene variants both increase and decrease the risk for severe COVID-19

Last year, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany showed that a major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals. Now the same researchers show, in a study published in PNAS, that Neandertals also contributed a protective variant. Half of all people outside Africa carry a Neandertal gene variant that reduces the risk of needing intensive care for COVID-19 by 20 percent.
Tags: Science, Sweden, Africa, PNAS, Karolinska Institutet, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Germany, Neandertals

Capuchin monkey genome reveals clues to its long life and large brain

An international team of scientists has sequenced the genome of a capuchin monkey for the first time, uncovering new genetic clues about the evolution of their long lifespan and large brains. Published in PNAS, the work was led by the University of Calgary in Canada and involved researchers at the University of Liverpool.
Tags: Science, Canada, PNAS, University of Calgary

Singles or pairs in cancer cells

An important receptor on the surface of cancer and immune cells prefers to remain noncommittal; sometimes it is present as a single, sometimes as a pair. This was first shown by an MDC team in the journal PNAS, and will decisively advance the development of new medications.
Tags: Science, PNAS, MDC

UN disaster aid is driven by humanitarian need rather than by strategic donor interests

A new study published in PNAS finds that aid provided by the United Nations (UN) in the aftermath of climate-related disasters is driven by humanitarian need rather than by strategic donor interests. The results underline the importance of climate-related hazards for understanding aid disbursements.
Tags: Science, Un, PNAS, United Nations UN

The odd structure of ORF8: Mapping the coronavirus protein linked to disease severity

A team of biologists who banded together to support COVID-19 science determined the atomic structure of a coronavirus protein thought to help the pathogen evade and dampen response from human immune cells. The structural map - which is now published in the journal PNAS, but has been open-access for the scientific community since August - has laid the groundwork for new antiviral treatments and enabled further investigations into how the newly emerged virus ravages the human body.
Tags: Science, PNAS

Order and disorder in crystalline ice explained

Unlike most other materials, ice at very low temperature is not as ordered as it could be. A new study explains the reasons why this happens and how some of the missing order can be recovered. The scientists have described a relatively obscure and yet fundamental property of very low temperature ice, ferroelectricity. The results, published in PNAS, are likely to extend to ice surfaces and thus be relevant to the agglomeration of ice particles in interstellar space.
Tags: Science, PNAS

Slow start of plate tectonics despite a hot early Earth

Writing in PNAS, scientists from Cologne university present important new constraints showing that plate tectonics started relatively slow, although the early Earth's interior was much hotter than today.
Tags: Science, Earth, Cologne, PNAS

Reston ebolavirus spreads efficiently in pigs

Reston ebolavirus (RESTV) should be considered a livestock pathogen with potential to affect other mammals, including people. The caution comes from a study in PNAS in which scientists found that experimental piglets infected with RESTV developed severe respiratory disease and shed the virus from the upper respiratory tract. RESTV can infect humans but isn't known to cause disease. Now the scientists express concern that pigs could serve as an "interim or amplifying host for ebolaviruses."
Tags: Science, PNAS, RESTON

Pacify the protein and win over a disease

Will it be enough to pacify the activity of certain proteins in order to hold back the development of many dangerous diseases including Alzheimer's disease? An article on a breaking through discovery has just been published in PNAS, a prestigious magazine of American Academy of Sciences. Its first author is Karolina Mikulska-Ruminska, Dr., a biophysicist from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland).The article refers to the mechanisms of the activities of the immune system under inflamm...
Tags: Science, PNAS, Toruń Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus University, American Academy of Sciences, Karolina Mikulska Ruminska

Digging deep for differences in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

A UT Southwestern research team has catalogued gene activity in the skeletal muscle of mice, comparing healthy animals to those carrying a genetic mutation that causes Duchene muscular dystrophy (DMD) in humans. The findings, published online recently in PNAS, could lead to new treatments for this devastating degenerative disease and insights into factors that affect muscle development.
Tags: Science, PNAS, UT Southwestern, DMD, Duchenne, Duchene

How computer simulation will accelerate development of human-interactive "smart robots"

Lehigh University's Jeff Trinkle, along with colleagues at other institutions, has co-authored a "Perspective" paper called "On the use of simulation in robotics: Opportunities, challenges, and suggestions for moving forward" that appears in the latest issue of PNAS arguing that "...well-validated computer simulation can provide a virtual proving ground that in many cases is instrumental in understanding safely, faster, at lower costs, and more thoroughly how the robots of the future should be d...
Tags: Science, PNAS, Lehigh University, Jeff Trinkle

Nature s contributions to people found to be in decline

Over the past 50 years, declining biodiversity has put many of nature s contributions to people at risk. This is the conclusion reached by fifteen leading international experts, including a French ethnoecologist at the CNRS. Based on the IPBES Global Assessment, their work is the subject of an article, published this week in the journal PNAS, which discusses the risks to human well-being and prosperity resulting from the continuing degradation of the environment.
Tags: Science, PNAS, CNRS

Climate change exacerbates biodiversity loss

A considerable number of existing and proposed post-2020 biodiversity targets are at risk of being severely compromised due to climate change, even if other barriers such as habitat exploitation are removed argue the authors of a study led by Almut Arneth from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. According to their analysis published in PNAS, global warming accelerates the loss of biodiversity. Vice versa, measures to protect biodiversity may also mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Tags: Science, PNAS, Almut Arneth, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology According

How the brain remembers right place, right time

DALLAS - Dec. 8, 2020 - Two studies led by UT Southwestern researchers shed new light on how the brain encodes time and place into memories. The findings, published recently in PNAS and Science, not only add to the body of fundamental research on memory, but could eventually provide the basis for new treatments to combat memory loss from conditions such as traumatic brain injury or Alzheimer's disease.
Tags: Science, Dallas, PNAS, UT Southwestern

Towards accessible healthcare for all in sub-Saharan Africa

A state-of-the-art georeferenced database of public healthcare facilities. In the prestigious journal PNAS, a new study published with the contribution of the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE) provides a comprehensive planning-oriented, inequality-focused analysis of different types of healthcare accessibility in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tags: Science, PNAS, Saharan Africa, RFF CMCC European Institute on Economics, Environment EIEE

Princeton researchers find key to piercing harmful bacteria's armor

Princeton University researchers have identified a new bacterial protein that assists in delivering components to the outer membrane of the Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli, as they report in recent papers in PNAS and Trends in Microbiology.
Tags: Science, Princeton, Princeton University, PNAS

Regeneration of eye cells: Warning lights discovered

Moving around in the half-light is difficult but not impossible. To help us in this undertaking we have the rods, a type of photoreceptors present in the retina of vertebrates, capable of detecting very low lights. They are the protagonists of the new study published in PNAS by a team of researchers of SISSA and CNR-Iom which reveals new and essential details of how the retina works and in particular photoreceptors.
Tags: Science, PNAS, SISSA, CNR IOM

New mechanism affecting nerve impulses discovered

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have discovered a new mechanism by which substances can open a certain type of ion channel and in this way regulate nerve impulses. The study, published in the scientific journal PNAS, identifies a large group of substances that influence the coupling between the various functional parts of an ion channel. The discovery may help in the development of future drugs.
Tags: Science, Sweden, PNAS, Linkoping University

Deep Science: Robot perception, acoustic monitoring, using ML to detect arthritis

Research papers come out far too rapidly for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. This column aims to collect the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in but not limited to artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter. The topics in this week’s Deep Science column are a real grab bag that range from planetary science to whale tracking. There are also ...
Tags: Social, TC, Science, Tech, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cybernetics, Simulation, Santa Barbara, Marc Benioff, PNAS, EPFL, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, Lynne, Cognitive Science

Spinal injuries: the recovery of motor skills thanks to nanomaterials

Re-establishing motor skills and neuronal connectivity thanks to the implantation of carbon nanotubes in the injury site. This is the result of a study conducted by SISSA and the University of Trieste and published in PNAS. For the first time, the researchers have used nanomaterial implants in animals with spinal injury, showing the potential of therapeutic approaches that use the mechanical and electric properties of regenerative scaffolds to treat the injured area.
Tags: Science, PNAS, SISSA, University of Trieste

Discovery of an ancient dog species may teach us about human vocalization

In a study published in PNAS, researchers used conservation biology and genomics to discover that the New Guinea singing dog, thought to be extinct for 50 years, still thrives. This finding opens new doors for protecting a remarkable creature that can teach biologists about human vocal learning.
Tags: Science, PNAS, New Guinea

Imaging an estrogen related enzyme may help to predict obesity, self-control issues

Findings to be published in PNAS from a positron emission tomography (PET) brain imaging study of the amygdala reveals that low levels of the enzyme aromatase, which catalyzes estrogen biosynthesis, are associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) and lower self-control, as measured by a standard personality test.
Tags: Science, PNAS

How viral infections associated with cancer become persistent?

A new study led by Pedro Simas, group leader at Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM; Portugal) and Kenneth M. Kaye, Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS; USA), discovered a region of viral protein LANA that is key for viral latency and persistent infection inside human cells. These findings published today in the prestigious journal PNAS, can potentially be used to develop therapy for KSHV tumors since blocking the function of this LANA region is expected to abolish virus persistence, which...
Tags: Usa, Science, Portugal, PNAS, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, KSHV, Harvard Medical School HMS, Pedro Simas, Kenneth M Kaye

New kind of interaction discovered in hydrogen-producing enzymes

Hydrogenases can convert hydrogen just as efficiently as expensive platinum catalysts. In order to make them usable for biotechnological applications, researchers are deciphering how they work in detail. A team from Bochum and Oxford now reports in the journal PNAS that the transfer of protons and electrons by the enzyme takes place spatially separated, but is nevertheless coupled and thus, a decisive factor for efficiency.
Tags: Science, Oxford, PNAS

Poverty alleviation efforts are shaping the success of environmental targets

Social protection programs can facilitate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but can also create trade-offs across divergent social and environmental goals that can undermine their effectiveness, say the authors of new research published in the journal PNAS. This is one of the largest studies on the sustainability implications of social protection, funded by the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at The University of Sheffield.
Tags: Science, PNAS, Grantham Centre

Gene in fat plays key role in insulin resistance

DALLAS - July 23, 2020 - Deleting a key gene in mice in just their fat made tissues throughout these animals insulin resistant, in addition to other effects, a new study by UT Southwestern researchers shows. The findings, reported in a recent issue of PNAS, could shed light on Type 2 diabetes and other insulin resistance disorders, which remain poorly understood despite decades of study.
Tags: Science, Dallas, PNAS, UT Southwestern