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• Scientists uncover immune cells that may lower airway allergy and asthma risk
• Personality traits linked to toilet paper stockpiling
• Elastomeric masks provide a more durable, less costly option for health care workers
• COVID-19 may trigger new diabetes, experts warn
• Self-swabbing tests for COVID-19 accurate and safe, study reports
• Up to 45 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections may be asymptomatic
• Face masks critical in preventing spread of COVID-19
• Researchers uncover cancer cell vulnerabilities; may lead to better cancer therapies
• Water bacteria have a green thumb
• Radioactive cloud over Europe had civilian background
• Fuel walking and cycling with low carbon diets
• Cytokine implicated in HLH treatment resistance
• Repairing thousands of disease-causing mutations
• Unlocking PNA's superpowers for self-assembling nanostructures
• Study identifies mechanism affecting X chromosome that could lead to new disease therapies
• Impacts of climate change on migrating mule deer
• Artificial intelligence makes blurry faces look more than 60 times sharper
• Minimizing thermal conductivity of crystalline material with optimal nanostructure
• Versatile symbionts: Reed beetles benefit from bacterial helpers through all life stages
• Statistical analyses of plant metabolites allow solid testing of plant defense theories
• Silicones may lead to cell death
• Protecting scientific diversity
• New efficient ships won't be enough to curb shipping sector's environmental damage
• COVID-19: Tradeoffs between economics and public health
• Only 1 in 3 COVID-19 research authors are women, and even fewer are senior authors
• 237+ million medication errors made every year in England
• Discovering how the brain works through computation
• Survey suggests the importance of clearly communicating coronavirus risk, behaviors
• Researchers create new type of COVID-19 antibody test
• Self-driving cars that recognize free space can better detect objects
• Chemotherapy/immunotherapy combo shows promise for first-line treatment of mesothelioma
• A protein that helps to fight viruses can also block lung damage repair
• Harnessing pickle power to promote dental health
• COVID-19 threatens the entire nervous system
• An ion channel senses cell swelling and helps cells to choose a response

Scientists uncover immune cells that may lower airway allergy and asthma risk Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT Scientists offer a clue to why non-allergic people don't have a strong reaction to house dust mites. They've uncovered a previously unknown subset of T cells that may control allergic immune reactions and asthma from ever developing in response to house dust mites -- and other possible allergens.

Personality traits linked to toilet paper stockpiling Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT People who feel more threatened by COVID-19 and rank highly on scales of emotionality and conscientiousness were most likely to stockpile toilet paper in March 2020, according to a new study.

Elastomeric masks provide a more durable, less costly option for health care workers Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT A cost-effective strategy for health care systems to offset N95 mask shortages due to COVID-19 is to switch to reusable elastomeric respirator masks.

COVID-19 may trigger new diabetes, experts warn Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT Emerging evidence suggests that COVID-19 may actually trigger the onset of diabetes in healthy people and also cause severe complications of pre-existing diabetes.

Self-swabbing tests for COVID-19 accurate and safe, study reports Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT Test samples collected by people who swabbed their own nasal passages yielded results for the COVID-19 virus that were as accurate as samples collected by a health care worker, according to a small study.

Up to 45 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections may be asymptomatic Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT Asymptomatic infections may have played a significant role in the early and ongoing spread of COVID-19 and highlight the need for expansive testing and contact tracing to mitigate the pandemic.

Face masks critical in preventing spread of COVID-19 Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:22 PM PDT A study has found that not wearing a face mask dramatically increases a person's chances of being infected by the COVID-19 virus.

Researchers uncover cancer cell vulnerabilities; may lead to better cancer therapies Posted: 12 Jun 2020 02:12 PM PDT A new study reveals a protein responsible for genetic changes resulting in a variety of cancers, may also be the key to more effective, targeted cancer therapy.

Water bacteria have a green thumb Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT A research team has discover new natural products that bacteria in water use to regulate the growth of competing organisms.

Radioactive cloud over Europe had civilian background Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT A mysterious cloud containing radioactive ruthenium-106, which moved across Europe in 2017, is still bothering Europe's radiation protection entities. German researchers now found out that the cloud did not originate from military sources but rather from civilian nuclear activities.

Fuel walking and cycling with low carbon diets Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Walking and cycling have many benefits and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but researchers say we need to think about what people eat to fuel their walking and cycling.

Cytokine implicated in HLH treatment resistance Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Research sheds light on cytokine storm syndromes and how ruxolitinib may benefit patients with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.

Repairing thousands of disease-causing mutations Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Researchers have created a new searchable library of base editors -- an especially efficient and precise kind of genetic corrector. Using experimental data from editing more than 38,000 target sites in cells with 11 of the most popular base editors (BEs), they created a machine learning model that accurately predicts base editing outcomes. Called BE-Hive, the library is free and open to the public.

Unlocking PNA's superpowers for self-assembling nanostructures Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Researchers have developed a method for self-assembling nanostructures with gamma-modified peptide nucleic acid, a synthetic mimic of DNA. The process has the potential to impact nanomanufacturing and future biomedical technologies like targeted diagnostics and drug delivery.

Study identifies mechanism affecting X chromosome that could lead to new disease therapies Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Learning how to inactivate and reactivate an X chromosome would have important implications for medicine. A notable category of beneficiaries could be people with certain congenital diseases known as X-linked disorders, which are caused by mutations in genes on the X chromosome.

Impacts of climate change on migrating mule deer Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT The benefits of migration are likely to decrease for mule deer and other migratory herbivores as drought becomes more common due to ongoing climate change.

Artificial intelligence makes blurry faces look more than 60 times sharper Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Researchers have developed an AI tool that can turn blurry faces into eerily convincing computer-generated portraits, in finer detail than ever before. Previous methods can scale an image to eight times its original resolution. But a team has come up with a way to take a handful of pixels and create realistic-looking faces with up to 64 times the resolution, 'imagining' features such as eyelashes and stubble that weren't there in the first place.

Minimizing thermal conductivity of crystalline material with optimal nanostructure Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Researchers have minimized thermal conductivity by designing, fabricating, and evaluating the optimal nanostructure-multilayer materials through materials informatics (MI), which combines machine learning and molecular simulation.

Versatile symbionts: Reed beetles benefit from bacterial helpers through all life stages Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 AM PDT Researchers have investigated the contributions that symbiotic bacteria make to the unusual life cycle and diet of reed beetles.

Statistical analyses of plant metabolites allow solid testing of plant defense theories Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:13 AM PDT Do plants attacked by herbivores produce substances that are most effective against attackers in a targeted manner, or are herbivore-induced changes in a plant metabolism random, which could thwart the performance of herbivores? Scientists have tested these long-standing hypotheses for the first time using the coyote tobacco Nicotiana attenuata and its close relatives. They combined extensive measurements of known and unknown plant metabolites using mass spectrometry with statistical measures derived from information theory.

Silicones may lead to cell death Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:13 AM PDT Silicone molecules from breast implants can initiate processes in human cells that lead to cell death, according to new research

Protecting scientific diversity Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:13 AM PDT The COVID-19 pandemic means that scientists face great challenges because they have to reorient, interrupt or even cancel research and teaching. A team of international scientists are highlighting the precarious situation of many scientists and calling for a collective effort by the scientific community, especially from its leadership, to protect decades of effort to build an inclusive scientific community.

New efficient ships won't be enough to curb shipping sector's environmental damage Posted: 11 Jun 2020 05:38 PM PDT New climate research has stated that urgent action on emissions from existing ships is the key to tackling shipping's impact on climate change.

COVID-19: Tradeoffs between economics and public health Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT A new study uses a variety of data on consumer and business activity to tackle that question, measuring 26 types of businesses by both their usefulness and risk. Vital forms of commerce that are relatively uncrowded fare the best in the study; less significant types of businesses that generate crowds perform worse. The results can help inform the policy decisions of government officials during the ongoing pandemic.

Only 1 in 3 COVID-19 research authors are women, and even fewer are senior authors Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT Women make up only a third of all authors who have published research on COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in January this year, and even fewer of them are senior authors on these papers, suggests a recent analysis.

237+ million medication errors made every year in England Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT More than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year, indicate national estimates.

Discovering how the brain works through computation Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT Researchers propose a new computational system to expand the understanding of the brain at an intermediate level, between neurons and cognitive phenomena such as language. They have developed a brain architecture based on neuronal assemblies, and they demonstrate its use in the syntactic processing in the production of language; their model is consistent with recent experimental results.

Survey suggests the importance of clearly communicating coronavirus risk, behaviors Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT A newly published analysis of March survey data sheds light on our understanding of how perceptions of the virus impact behavior, finding individuals who perceive greater risk from COVID-19 were more likely to engage in protective behaviors like hand-washing and social distancing.

Researchers create new type of COVID-19 antibody test Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT Researchers have developed a COVID-19 test that pinpoints human antibodies specific to a particular part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The test can be ramped up to document past and recent COVID-19 infections and possibly used to identify asymptomatic virus infection and the level of immunity in individuals.

Self-driving cars that recognize free space can better detect objects Posted: 11 Jun 2020 03:39 PM PDT It's important that self-driving cars quickly detect other cars or pedestrians sharing the road. Researchers have shown that they can significantly improve detection accuracy by helping the vehicle also recognize what it doesn't see. Empty space, that is.

Chemotherapy/immunotherapy combo shows promise for first-line treatment of mesothelioma Posted: 11 Jun 2020 12:24 PM PDT Inoperable malignant pleural mesothelioma, is a rare and aggressive cancer of the protective lining of the lungs, or pleura, often caused by exposure to asbestos.

A protein that helps to fight viruses can also block lung damage repair Posted: 11 Jun 2020 12:24 PM PDT Researchers have found that a protein which is initially helpful in the body's immune response to a virus, can later interfere with the repair of lung tissue. The work highlights the need for careful consideration regarding the use of this protein to treat viruses, including coronavirus.

Harnessing pickle power to promote dental health Posted: 11 Jun 2020 12:24 PM PDT A research team evaluated 14 different types of Sichuan pickles from southwest China. They extracted 54 different strains of Lactobacilli and found that one, L. plantarum K41, significantly reduced the incidence and severity of cavities. K41 was also highly tolerant of acids and salts, an additional benefit as a probiotic for harsh oral conditions. It also could have potential commercial value when added to dairy products.

COVID-19 threatens the entire nervous system Posted: 11 Jun 2020 12:24 PM PDT A new review of neurological symptoms of COVID-19 patients in current scientific literature reveals the disease poses a global threat to the entire nervous system. About half of hospitalized patients have neurological manifestations of COVID-19, which include headache, dizziness, decreased alertness, difficulty concentrating, disorders of smell and taste, seizures, strokes, weakness and muscle pain.

An ion channel senses cell swelling and helps cells to choose a response Posted: 11 Jun 2020 12:24 PM PDT Researchers provide new insights into how plants sense and respond to mechanical signals, such as cell swelling, rather than chemicals signals, such as nutrients or growth factors.

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