Saturday 18 May 2019

Toy transformers and real-life whales inspire biohybrid robot

Drawing inspiration from biology and the toy shelf, researchers at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and City University of Hong Kong have developed a swimming robot with a light-controlled cellular engine that can perform highly-targeted drug delivery.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers unravel mechanisms that control cell size

Working with bacteria, a multidisciplinary team at the University of California San Diego has provided new insight into a longstanding question in science: What are the underlying mechanisms that control the size of cells?

* This article was originally published here

For many HIV+ women, daily survival takes precedence over viral suppression

According to scientists who study women infected with HIV, statistics often paint an impressionist view of the lives of these women that misses the granular detail that tells the real story. The imprecise big picture is that most of this population is doing a good job at suppressing the virus, but facts gathered on the ground show that many struggle with issues of daily living that can make taking a pill to keep HIV at bay difficult.

* This article was originally published here

Americans increasingly open about mental health

(HealthDay)—Americans are becoming more positive about mental health, although some stigma remains, according to the results of a new poll released by the American Psychological Association (APA).

* This article was originally published here

New machine learning algorithm can predict age and gender from just your Twitter profile

A new "demographic inference" tool developed by academics can make predictions based solely on the information in a person's social media profile (i.e. screen name, biography, profile photo, and name). The tool—which works in 32 languages—could pave the way for views expressed on social media to be factored in to popular survey methods.

* This article was originally published here

Cancer drug could be repurposed to provide treatment for brain aneurysms

An important class of drug used to treat cancer patients could be used to treat brain aneurysms, according to new research published this week.

* This article was originally published here

Metals influence C-peptide hormone related to insulin

Metals such as zinc, copper and chromium bind to and influence a peptide involved in insulin production, according to new work from chemists at the University of California, Davis. The research is part of a new field of "metalloendocrinology" that takes a detailed look at the role of metals in biological processes in the body.

* This article was originally published here

Could hypnotherapy be alternative to opioids for pain?

(HealthDay)—Hypnosis might sound like a magic trick to some, but the therapy can be an effective pain reliever, a new review shows.

* This article was originally published here

Air pollution hotspots in Europe

Big cities beset with gridlocked traffic, major regions producing coal, pockets of heavy industry encased by mountains—Europe's air pollution hotspots are clearly visible from space on most sunny weekdays.

* This article was originally published here

Early dengue virus infection could 'defuse' Zika virus

"We now know for sure that Zika virus infection during pregnancy can affect the unborn foetus in such a way that the child develops microcephaly and other severe symptoms," explains Prof Felix Drexler, a virologist at Charité who has been developing diagnostic tests for Zika and other viruses at the DZIF. Just a few years ago, pictures of affected newborns were cause for worldwide dismay and perplexity. "However, what we did not understand then was that high incidence of microcephaly seemed to occur particularly in northeastern Brazil," says Drexler. Why are expecting mothers in these regions at a higher risk of developing a severe Zika-associated disease than in other regions? The scientists consequently began to search for cofactors that have an influence on whether a Zika infection during pregnancy will develop fatal consequences or not.

* This article was originally published here

Artificial intelligence shines light on the dark web

Beneath the surface web, the public form of the internet you use daily to check email or read news articles, exists a concealed "dark web." Host to anonymous, password-protected sites, the dark web is where criminal marketplaces thrive in the advertising and selling of weapons, drugs, and trafficked persons. Law enforcement agencies work continuously to stop these activities, but the challenges they face in investigating and prosecuting the real-world people behind the users who post on these sites are tremendous.

* This article was originally published here

Fuel subsidies defy green trend amid rising climate alarm

Even as warnings of climate catastrophe and calls for greener economies grow ever louder, the world is still spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year to subsidise the fossil fuels that are causing the planet to overheat.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers develop electric field-based dressing to help heal wound infections

Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine have found a way to charge up the fight against bacterial infections using electricity.

* This article was originally published here

Machine learning speeds modeling of experiments aimed at capturing fusion energy on Earth

Machine learning (ML), a form of artificial intelligence that recognizes faces, understands language and navigates self-driving cars, can help bring to Earth the clean fusion energy that lights the sun and stars. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are using ML to create a model for rapid control of plasma—the state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions—that fuels fusion reactions.

* This article was originally published here

New laws of robotics needed to tackle AI: expert

Decades after Isaac Asimov first wrote his laws for robots, their ever-expanding role in our lives requires a radical new set of rules, legal and AI expert Frank Pasquale warned on Thursday.

* This article was originally published here

Study describes TBI caregiver QOL measurement system

(HealthDay)—A new tool, the Traumatic Brain Injury Caregiver Quality of Life (TBI-CareQOL), combines five new measures and 10 existing measures and can identify health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among caregivers of individuals with TBI, according to a study published in the April issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

* This article was originally published here

Extraordinarily transparent compact metallic metamaterials

In materials science, achromatic optical components can be designed with high transparency and low dispersion. Materials scientists have shown that although metals are highly opaque, densely packed arrays of metallic nanoparticles with more than 75 percent metal by volume can become more transparent to infrared radiation than dielectrics such as germanium. Such arrays can form effective dielectrics that are virtually dispersion-free across ultra-broadband ranges of wavelengths to engineer a variety of next-generation metamaterial-based optical devices.

* This article was originally published here

Eyes in the sky project will show power plant pollution marks

Air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths every year, worldwide. According to a State of Global Air report, air pollution is the fifth greatest global mortality risk.

* This article was originally published here