Tuesday 25 June 2019

Biochip advances enable next-generation sequencing technologies

Biochips are essentially tiny laboratories designed to function inside living organisms, and they are driving next-generation DNA sequencing technologies. This powerful combination is capable of solving unique and important biological problems, such as single-cell, rare-cell or rare-molecule analysis, which next-generation sequencing can't do on its own.

* This article was originally published here

These neurons affect how much you do, or don't, want to eat

Like a symphony, multiple brain regions work in concert to regulate the need to eat. University of Arizona researchers believe they have identified a symphony conductor—a brain region that regulates appetite suppression and activation—tucked within the amygdala, the brain's emotional hub.

* This article was originally published here

Levanluhta jewellery links Finland to a European exchange network

The Levänluhta water burial site, dating back to the Iron Age (300-800 CE), is one of Finland's most famous archaeological sites. Nearly one hundred individuals, mainly women or children, were buried in a lake located at Isokyrö in SW Finland, during the Iron Age. Some of the deceased were accompanied by arm rings and necklaces made out of copper alloy, bronze or brass.

* This article was originally published here

Little Raspberry Pi 4 debut marks big upgrade

That credit card-sized computer that has been a standout learning experience for students and hobbyists at affordable cost just stole the show, again. The new Raspberry Pi, announced Monday, "packs significant upgrades that could let it finally pass as an incredibly cheap desktop computer," said Gizmodo's Andrew Liszewski.

* This article was originally published here

A miniature robot that could check colons for early signs of disease

Engineers have shown it is technically possible to guide a tiny robotic capsule inside the colon to take micro-ultrasound images.

* This article was originally published here

Does hypertension pose a health risk to older adults who wish to donate a kidney?

In an analysis of clinical information on older living kidney donors, hypertension was linked with a higher risk of developing kidney failure. The study, which is published in an upcoming issue of CJASN, provides new information that may help inform discussions with older individuals when they consider donating a kidney.

* This article was originally published here

Increased walking activity associated with long-term health benefits

Short term pedometer-based walking interventions can have long-term health benefits for adults and older adults, according to new research published in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine on 25 June. Tess Harris and colleagues from St George's University of London, UK and other institutions, conducted two trials of walking interventions which aimed to increase step count and physical activity. Not only did the investigators see sustained increases in physical activity at 3-4 years in the intervention group participants, they also noted fewer cardiovascular events and fractures.

* This article was originally published here

Islands in the sun: Heatwave gives cities that sinking feeling

Boffins call it a heat sink—a passive exchanger designed to dissipate heat—but when the sink is an actual city, its concrete and asphalt sweltering in the heat, it feels more like an oven to those who live and work there.

* This article was originally published here

Google rolled out fix for Nest cam look-through

Finders, weepers. That seemed to be a suitable tweak to the old saying, when the news hit that a former owner of a used Nest Indoor Cam could access the new owner's video feed.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers connect lightning with gamma-ray phenomena in clouds

University of Tokyo graduate student Yuuki Wada with colleagues from Japan have discovered a connection between lightning strikes and two kinds of gamma-ray phenomena in thunderclouds. The research suggests that in certain conditions, weak gamma-ray glows from thunderclouds may precede lightning bolts and their accompanying gamma-ray flashes.

* This article was originally published here

Air pollution found to affect marker of female fertility in real-life study

Ovarian reserve, a term widely adopted to reflect the number of resting follicles in the ovary and thus a marker of potential female fertility, has been found in a large-scale study to be adversely affected by high levels of air pollution.

* This article was originally published here

Fake news 'vaccine' works: 'Pre-bunking' game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

An online game in which people play the role of propaganda producers to help them identify real world disinformation has been shown to increase "psychological resistance" to fake news, according to a study of 15,000 participants.

* This article was originally published here

Blood test predicts stroke risk in patients with diabetes

Having diabetes is a risk factor for many other health conditions, including stroke.

* This article was originally published here

New rapid test diagnoses pneumonia and other lower respiratory infections

Scientists at UEA and the Quadram Institute have developed a new, rapid way of diagnosing lower respiratory tract infections that could improve patient care and control the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

* This article was originally published here

Artificial intelligence learns to recognize nerve cells by their appearance

Is it possible to understand the brain? Science is still far from answering this question. However, since researchers have started training artificial intelligence on neurobiological analyses, it seems at least possible to reconstruct the cellular structure of a brain. New artificial neural networks developed by the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology and Google AI can now even recognize and classify nerve cells independently based on their appearance.

* This article was originally published here

Alzheimer's disease: Sex affects tau accumulation in the brain

The strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease is the apolipoprotein E type 4 allele (ApoE ε4). Research presented by Manish Paranjpe at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) used positron emission tomography (PET) to show that women who are ApoE ε4 carriers and already experiencing mild cognitive impairment are more susceptible than men to tau accumulation in the brain.

* This article was originally published here

Better care needed for people displaying first symptoms of bipolar disorder

Better care and more research into treatments for people experiencing a first manic episode are urgently needed, according to researchers at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

* This article was originally published here

PizzaGAN gets the picture on how to make a pizza

Is nothing sacred? Who would dare to even attempt to talk about a machine-learning experiment that results in the perfect (gasp) pizza? It is difficult to contemplate, but a research quintet did not shy away from trying, and they worked to teach a machine how to make a great pie.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers create multi-junction solar cells from off-the-shelf components

Multi-junction solar cells are both the most efficient type of solar cell on the market today and the most expensive type of solar cell to produce. In a proof-of-concept paper, researchers from North Carolina State University detail a new approach for creating multi-junction solar cells using off-the-shelf components, resulting in lower cost, high-efficiency solar cells for use in multiple applications.

* This article was originally published here