Wednesday 5 June 2019

Molecular bait can help hydrogels heal wounds

Like fishermen, Rice University bioengineers are angling for their daily catch. But their bait, biomolecules in a hydrogel scaffold, lures microscopic stem cells instead of fish.

* This article was originally published here

Networking with ghosts in the machine... and speaking kettles

Imagine for just a moment that your kettle could speak? What would it say? How would it feel? More importantly, what on earth would you ask it?

* This article was originally published here

DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians

Two children's milk teeth buried deep in a remote archaeological site in north eastern Siberia have revealed a previously unknown group of people lived there during the last Ice Age.

* This article was originally published here

Smaller city effort to aid chronically homeless can be successful

Creating a municipally funded team to provide intensive services to chronically homeless people who use a large amount of public services can help the individuals get off the streets, while also reducing spending on services such as police services and emergency medical care, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

* This article was originally published here

Q&A: Tanning beds raise risk for skin cancer

Dear Mayo Clinic: My daughter and her friends are all talking about going to a tanning bed. I suggested to my daughter that she get a spray tan instead, but I don't think I've convinced her since she's under the impression that tanning beds are somewhat safe. Is there any kind of tanning bed that is safe and that won't damage the skin?

* This article was originally published here

Trump ends fetal tissue research by federal scientists

The Trump administration said Wednesday it is ending medical research by government scientists that uses human fetal tissue, overriding the advice of scientists that there's no other way to tackle some health problems and handing abortion opponents a major victory.

* This article was originally published here

Amazon says drone deliveries coming 'within months'

Amazon said Wednesday it expects to begin large-scale deliveries by drone in the coming months as it unveiled its newest design for its "Prime Air" fleet.

* This article was originally published here

Ancient DNA sheds light on Arctic hunter-gatherer migration to North America 5,000 years ago

The first humans in North America arrived from Asia some time before 14,500 years ago. The next major stream of gene flow came about 5000 years ago, and is known to archaeologists as Paleo-Eskimos. About 800 years ago, the ancestors of the present-day Inuit and Yup'ik people replaced this population across the Arctic. By about 700 years ago, the archaeological evidence for the Paleo-Eskimo culture disappeared. Their genetic legacy in living populations has been contentious, with several genetic studies arguing that they made little contribution to later North Americans.

* This article was originally published here

Apple iTunes to play last song

Apple on Monday announced the demise of its groundbreaking iTunes platform in favor of three more tailored apps, as it refines its offerings to be a stage for digital music, films, podcasts and more.

* This article was originally published here

To fight tuberculosis infection, early protection is crucial

In the first days after the tuberculosis (TB) bacteria infect the body, a flurry of immune cells are activated to fight the infection. Now, researchers have identified a master cell that coordinates the body's immune defenses in those crucial early days, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

* This article was originally published here

Data center boosters hope new tax incentives 'stop the bleeding,' keep tech sites in Illinois

Illinois lawmakers approved a data center tax incentive proponents say could make tech giants and other firms think twice about locating their data storage facilities anywhere else.

* This article was originally published here

Autonomous boats can target and latch onto each other

The city of Amsterdam envisions a future where fleets of autonomous boats cruise its many canals to transport goods and people, collect trash, or self-assemble into floating stages and bridges. To further that vision, MIT researchers have given new capabilities to their fleet of robotic boats—which are being developed as part of an ongoing project—that lets them target and clasp onto each other, and keep trying if they fail.

* This article was originally published here

Reducing opioid prescriptions after C-sections

Nearly a third of birthing moms now deliver babies via caesarean section—and many of them go home with powerful opioid painkillers.

* This article was originally published here

New cloud-based tool accelerates research on conditions such as dementia, sports concussion

Scientists in the United States, Europe and South America are reporting how a new cloud-computing web platform allows scientists to track data and analyses on the brain, potentially reducing delays in discovery.

* This article was originally published here

Investigating cardiovascular health among Asian Americans

Physician-scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Minnesota have recently collaborated to assess the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and key cardiovascular diseases among Asian Americans. Among their landmark findings, recently published in the journal American Journal of Cardiology, is that American-born Asian Americans had higher odds of poor diet and elevated blood pressure than foreign-born Asian Americans—including among the most educated and affluent.

* This article was originally published here

Apple's new Photos app for iOS 13 may just be the tool you've been waiting for

We take more and more photos every year on our new and improved smartphones, but finding them is probably the greatest pain point consumers face.

* This article was originally published here

NASA-NOAA satellite sees system 91L's eeach into the western gulf of Mexico

System 91L is an area of tropical low pressure located in the Bay of Campeche. On June 3, when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed the western Gulf of Mexico, it captured an image of the storm that showed its extensive reach.

* This article was originally published here

Maestro: a new attack that orchestrates malicious flows with BGP

Researchers at the University of Tennessee have recently identified the Maestro attack, a new link flooding attack (LFA) that leverages plane traffic control engineering techniques to concentrate botnet-sourced distributed denial of service (DDos) flows on transit links. In their paper, recently published on arXiv, the researchers outlined this type attack, tried to understand its scope and presented effective mitigations for network operators who wish to insulate themselves from it.

* This article was originally published here

Deep learning techniques teach neural model to 'play' retrosynthesis

Researchers, from biochemists to material scientists, have long relied on the rich variety of organic molecules to solve pressing challenges. Some molecules may be useful in treating diseases, others for lighting our digital displays, still others for pigments, paints, and plastics. The unique properties of each molecule are determined by its structure—that is, by the connectivity of its constituent atoms. Once a promising structure is identified, there remains the difficult task of making the targeted molecule through a sequence of chemical reactions. But which ones?

* This article was originally published here

Bats have an ambulance in their ears

Anybody who has been passed by an ambulance at high speed has experienced a physical effect called the Doppler shift: As the ambulance moves toward the listener, its motion compresses the siren's sound waves and raises the sound pitch. As the ambulance moves away from the listener, the sound waves get dilated and the pitch is lowered. A listener wearing a blindfold could use this Doppler shift pattern to track the motion of the ambulance.

* This article was originally published here