People with allergic conditions such as hay fever, rhinitis, and atopic eczema, may have a lower risk of COVID-19 infection, especially if they also have asthma, finds a large, population-based study of UK adults, published online in the respiratory journal Thorax. And contrary to the findings of recent studies, older age, male sex, and other underlying […]

A human stroke drug, fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration and soon entering Phase 3 clinical trials, shows intriguing signs that it might also be a safe and powerful defense against Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. A new study published Tuesday in the Journal of Experimental Medicine showed the drug, 3K3A-APC, protected mice from injury to the […]

Combining machine learning with computationally derived descriptors has allowed scientists to find new examples of a special class of catalyst using only a few experimental data points. The team led by Franziska Schoenebeck from RWTH Aachen University in Germany developed a workflow that identified 21 phosphine ligands that may form dinuclear palladium(I) complexes with a […]

‘For too long, the lived experiences and voices of disabled people have not been at the heart of research and policymaking,’ said Eilionóir Flynn, one of Europe’s top researchers in the field of disability rights. Europeans with disabilities are still at a higher risk of poverty and social exclusion than those without disabilities. For Professor […]

When forecasting how storms may change in the future, it helps to know something about their past. Judging from historical records dating back to the 1850s, hurricanes in the North Atlantic have become more frequent over the last 150 years. However, scientists have questioned whether this upward trend is a reflection of reality, or simply […]

As fossil fuel usage is phased out to meet climate policy goals, an emerging challenge is discovering alternative synthesis routes for valuable chemicals manufactured using petrochemicals. With this in mind, researchers in China have genetically engineered Escherichia coli to generate the well-known painkiller paracetamol, starting from glucose or glycerol rather than benzene derivatives. While the […]

What to do with the non-biodegradable plastics used in food packaging and agriculture? Researchers are turning their attention to microorganisms, enzymes, earthworms and insects to break down plastics. Plastics are everywhere, and farms are no exception. Plastic sheets are spread on the ground as a form of mulch to suppress weeds. Plastic is also used […]

In 2020, researchers globally spent an estimated 130 million hours – equivalent to 15,000 years – peer-reviewing manuscripts for scholarly journals, according to a study published last month.  Although academics are usually not paid for conducting peer review, the study estimates the monetary value of peer review conducted last year in the US alone to be […]

Like snowflakes, no two branches are alike. They can differ in size, shape and texture; some might be wet or moss-covered or bursting with offshoots. And yet birds can land on just about any of them. This ability was of great interest to the labs of Stanford University engineers Mark Cutkosky and David Lentink – now at […]

The oldest unequivocal evidence of upright walking in the human lineage are footprints discovered at Laetoli, Tanzania in 1978, by paleontologist Mary Leakey and her team. The bipedal trackways date to 3.7 million years ago. Another set of mysterious footprints was partially excavated at nearby Site A in 1976 but dismissed as possibly being made […]