In cleft lip and palate, the formation of the mouth region is impaired during embryonic development. To date, more than 45 genetic segments are known to contain common risk variants. “We now also found an enrichment of rare variants, especially new mutations, at two of these regions,” says Dr. Kerstin U. Ludwig, head of an Emmy Noether group at the Institute of Human Genetics at the University Hospital Bonn. The researchers furthermore used novel data analysis methods to find evidence that the transcription factor Musculin also plays a role....

With an estimated 16.9 million cancer survivors in the United States and two-thirds of newly diagnosed cancer patients living more than five years, many cancer researchers believe it’s important to better understand opioid use in oncology patients. While there are guidelines for how to help cancer patients avoid opioid dependence, many researchers are concerned that recommendations for risk reduction are based on expert opinions not related to cancer patients specifically....

For these procedures, as well as others now in clinical trials, such as imaging tumors, researchers use a portion of the light spectrum known as the near-infrared (NIR) — 700 to 900 nanometers, just beyond what the human eye can detect. A dye that fluoresces at this wavelength is administered to the body or tissue and then imaged using a specialized camera. Researchers have shown that light with wavelengths greater than 1,000 nanometers, known as short-wave infrared (SWIR), offers much clearer images than NIR, but there are no FDA-approved fluorescence dyes with peak emission in the SWIR range....

A collaborative research effort by scientists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Duke University, and University College of London in the UK, sheds new light on alcohol-related birth defects. The project, led by Kathleen K. Sulik, PhD, a professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at UNC, could help enhance how doctors diagnose birth defects caused by alcohol exposure in the womb....

New flight engineers Frank Rubio from NASA and Dmitri Petelin from Roscosmos are beginning their first space mission with veteran cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, who is on his second space station mission. The threesome blasted off from Kazakhstan at 9:54 a.m. EDT on Wednesday inside the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft to the orbiting lab. The trio docked to the Rassvet module less than three-and-a-half hours later. Once there, they needed to wait a couple of more hours for leak and pressure checks before opening the spacecraft hatch....

Nuclear physicists have found a new way to use the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory—to see the shape and details inside atomic nuclei. The method relies on particles of light that surround gold ions as they speed around the collider and a new type of quantum entanglement that’s never been seen before. Through a series of quantum fluctuations, the particles of light (a....

Researchers in Japan have developed a vaccination strategy in mice that promotes the production of antibodies that can neutralize not only SARS-CoV-2 but a broad range of other coronaviruses as well. If successfully translated to humans, the approach, to be published today (October 8, 2021), in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, could lead to the development of a next-generation vaccine capable of preventing future coronavirus pandemics. The SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 enters human cells by using its spike protein to bind to a cell surface receptor called ACE2....

Heat production accounts for more than 50% of the world’s final energy consumption and analysis of waste heat potential shows that 72% of the world’s primary energy consumption is lost after conversion, mainly in the form of heat. It is also responsible for more than 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Against this background, researchers led by Prof. LI Bing from the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed and realized a new concept—barocaloric thermal batteries based on the unique inverse barocaloric effect....

“There is no internal clock of aging that you can regulate with a simple switch — at least not in the form of the treatments studied here,” concludes Dr. Dan Ehninger of the DZNE, the initiator of the study. The team has developed a new analytical approach to make influences on aging processes measurable. The study, which was conducted by researchers from DZNE, Helmholtz Munich, and the German Center for Diabetes (DZD) has been published in the journal Nature Communications....

In Star Trek, the Borg are a ruthless, hive-minded collective that assimilate other beings with the intent of taking over the galaxy. Here on nonfictional planet Earth, Borgs are DNA packages that could help humans fight climate change. Last year, a team of scientists discovered DNA structures within a methane-consuming microbe called Methanoperedens that appear to supercharge the organism’s metabolic rate. They named the genetic elements “Borgs” because the DNA within them contains genes assimilated from many organisms....

Their findings were published in npj Quantum Information. Quantum computers use the laws of quantum mechanics and units known as qubits to greatly increase the threshold at which information can be transmitted and processed. Whereas traditional “bits” have a value of either 0 or 1, qubits are encoded with values of both 0 and 1, or any combination thereof, allowing for a vast number of possibilities for storing data. While still in their early stages, quantum systems have the potential to be exponentially more powerful than today’s leading classical computing systems and promise to revolutionize research in materials, chemistry, high-energy physics, and across the scientific spectrum....

The achievement opens a pathway for development of the first practical and efficient devices to generate and detect light at terahertz wavelengths — between infrared light and microwaves. Such devices could be used in applications as diverse as communications in outer space, cancer detection, and scanning for concealed weapons. The research could also enable exploration of the basic physics of matter at infinitesimally small scales and help usher in an era of quantum metamaterials, whose structures are engineered at atomic dimensions....

The John Innes Center will co-lead a pioneering research program investigating how a plant-based diet could prevent chronic illness. The Edesia: Plants, Food and Health Ph.D. program aims to advance understanding of plant-based nutrition from crop to clinic, initiating a step-change in nutritional research in the UK and addressing diet-related illness globally. Named after the Roman goddess of food who emphasized the good things we get from our diets, Edesia reflects a growing recognition that plant-based foods are critical in tackling chronic illnesses such as cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease....

Planets are formed in gaseous dusty disks called protoplanetary disks around young stars. Dust particles aggregate together to form Earth-like planets or to become the cores of more massive planets by collecting large amounts of gas from the disk to form Jupiter-like gaseous giant planets. According to current theories, as time goes by the gas in the disk is either incorporated into planets or blown away by radiation pressure from the central star....

What are the key research priorities that will help tackle the global challenges of climate change, the biodiversity crises and feed a growing population in a sustainable way? Ten years after these priorities were first debated and summarised by a panel of scientists and published in New Phytologist, the panel reflects on the changes to plant science and the progress made to address these research areas, published today (March 16) in a Letter in the journal New Phytologist....

The team recently published their findings in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. They reported that among women 65 years or older, each additional 31 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day was linked to a 21% lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or dementia. Additionally, each additional 1,865 daily steps was associated with a 33% lower risk. “Given that the onset of dementia begins 20 years or more before symptoms show, the early intervention for delaying or preventing cognitive decline and dementia among older adults is essential,” said senior author Andrea LaCroix, Ph....

Cygnus OB2 is a star cluster in the Milky Way that contains many hot, massive young stars.This composite image of Cygnus OB2 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue), infrared data from Spitzer (red), and optical data from the Isaac Newton Telescope (orange).Astronomers would like to better understand how this and other star factories like it form and evolve.A deep Chandra observation of Cygnus OB2 has found almost 1,500 stars emitting X-rays....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science and they indicate that the collapse was due to extreme climate changes. The scientists analyzed 2,000-year-old stalagmites from a cave in southern Belize and studied archaeological records. Palaeoclimatologist Douglas Kennett of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues think that unusual rainfall patterns accelerated the fall of the Maya people. The team estimated rainfall in the Mayan lowlands by measuring oxygen isotopes incorporated into the stalagmite from rainwater, which had seeped into the cave from above....

The discovery of a new species is always exciting, but it can be even more so when a species thought to be extinct is found alive. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History have made just such a discovery at Naples Point, where they found a small clam that had previously only been known from fossil records. The researchers’ findings have recently been published in the journal Zookeys....

They thrive underground, with their vibrant flowers emerging from the soil, sometimes giving them the appearance of mushrooms. Approximately 90 species of Thismia have been discovered, but many are only known from their place of origin and some may have already gone extinct. One such species, Thismia kobensis was originally discovered in Kobe City, Japan in 1992. Unfortunately, its habitat was destroyed by an industrial complex and it was subsequently presumed extinct....