International Research Awards on New Science Inventions

Until now, researchers have believed that dark energy accounted for nearly 70 percent of the ever-accelerating, expanding universe. For many years, this mechanism has been associated with the so-called  cosmological constant , developed by Einstein in 1917, that refers to an unknown repellant cosmic power. But because the cosmological constant—known as dark energy—cannot be measured directly, numerous researchers, including Einstein, have doubted its existence—without being able to suggest a viable alternative. Until now. In  a new study  by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, a model was tested that replaces dark energy with a dark matter in the form of magnetic forces. “If what we discovered is accurate, it would upend our belief that what we thought made up 70 percent of the universe does not actually exist. We have removed dark energy from the equation and added in a few more properties for dark matter. This appears to have the same effect upon the unive...

Nature’s strongest material now has some stiff competition. For the first time, researchers have hard evidence that human-made hexagonal diamonds are stiffer than the common cubic diamonds found in nature and often used in jewelry. Named for their six-sided crystal structure, hexagonal diamonds have been found at some meteorite impact sites, and others have been made briefly in labs, but these were either too small or had too short of an existence to be measured. Now scientists at Washington State University’s Institute for Shock Physics created hexagonal diamonds large enough to measure their stiffness using sound waves. Their findings are detailed in a recent paper in  Physical Review B . “Diamond is a very unique material,” said Yogendra Gupta, director of the Institute for Shock Physics and corresponding author on the study. “It is not only the strongest—it has beautiful optical properties and a very high thermal conductivity. Now we have made the hexagonal form of dia...

The faster-spreading B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 first detected in the United Kingdom, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is quickly on its way to becoming the dominant variant of the virus in the United States, according to a study from scientists at Scripps Research and the COVID-19 test maker Helix. The findings, which appear today in  Cell , suggest that future COVID-19 case numbers and mortality rates in the United States will be higher than would have been otherwise. The analysis suggests that the variant, which has been detectable in an increasing proportion of SARS-CoV-2 samples, is 40-50 percent more transmissible than SARS-CoV-2 lineages that were previously dominant. Other studies have found evidence that the B.1.1.7 variant may be about 50 percent more likely to cause fatal COVID-19. “B.1.1.7 rapidly became the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant in the U.K. and other countries after its emergence late last year, and the U.S. is now on a similar trajectory,” says study ...

Cone snails aren’t glamorous. They don’t have svelte waistlines or jaw-dropping good looks. Yet, some of these worm-hunting gastropods are the femme fatales or lady killers of the undersea world, according to a new study conducted by an international team of researchers, including  University of Utah Health  scientists. The researchers say the snails use a previously undetected set of small molecules that mimic the effects of worm pheromones to drive marine worms into a sexual frenzy, making it easier to lure them out of their hiding places so the snails can gobble them up. “In essence, these cone snails have found a way to turn the natural sex drive of their prey into a lethal weapon,” says  Eric W. Schmidt, Ph.D.,  the study’s senior author and a professor of medicinal chemistry at U of U Health. “What’s exciting about this finding is that they are doing it using an interesting set of small molecules that could one day inspire the development of new types of med...

This could be where the rubber truly hits the road. Rice University scientists have optimized a process to convert waste from rubber tires into graphene that can, in turn, be used to strengthen concrete. The environmental benefits of adding graphene to concrete are clear, chemist James Tour said. “Concrete is the most-produced material in the world, and simply making it produces as much as 9% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions,” Tour said. “If we can use less concrete in our roads, buildings and bridges, we can eliminate some of the emissions at the very start.” Recycled tire waste  is already used as a component of  Portland cement , but graphene has been proven to strengthen cementitious materials, concrete among them, at the molecular level. While the majority of the 800 million tires discarded annually are burned for fuel or ground up for other applications, 16% of them wind up in landfills. “Reclaiming even a fraction of those as graphene will keep millions of...

Whether parents prefer a conformance-oriented or independence-oriented supplemental education program for their children depends on political ideology, according to a  study  of more than 8,500 American parents by a research team from Rice University and the University of Texas at San Antonio. “Conservative parents have a higher need for structure, which drives their preference for conformance-oriented programs,” said study co-author  Vikas Mittal , a professor of marketing at Rice’s  Jones Graduate School of Business . “Many parents are surprised to learn that their political identity can affect the educational choices they make for their children.” Supplemental education programs include private tutoring, test preparation support and educational books and materials as well as online educational support services. The global market for private tutoring services is forecasted to reach $260.7 billion by 2024, and the U.S. market for tutoring is reported to be more t...

After more than three decades of research, scientists have proven that the cancer affecting up to one in four adult California sea lions necrospied at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, is caused by a sexually transmitted herpesvirus. The cancer, known as sea lion urogenital carcinoma, has clear parallels to cervical cancer in humans and provides a helpful model for human cancer study. Scientists have long suspected this cancer was associated with a virus, but this is the first study to prove this theory. The study, which was published in  Animals,  an open-access, peer-reviewed journal, concluded that genital herpesvirus is a driving factor in the development of sea lion urogenital carcinoma. The research also suggests there is an underlying trigger or event that causes the virus to induce cancer in some infected sea lions and not others. Wild California sea lions have among the highest prevalence of a single type of cancer in any mammal, including humans. A second...

Mount Sinai researchers have found that a widely available and inexpensive drug targeting inflammatory genes has reduced morbidity and mortality in mice infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In a study published today in the journal  Cell , the team reported that the drug, Topotecan (TPT), inhibited the expression of inflammatory genes in the lungs of mice as late as four days after infection, a finding with potential implications for treatment of humans. “So far, in pre-clinical models of SARS-CoV-2, there are no therapies–either antiviral, antibody, or plasma–shown to reduce the SARS-CoV-2 disease burden when administered after more than one day post-infection” says senior author Ivan Marazzi, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “This is a huge problem because people who have severe COVID19 and get hospitalized, often do not present symptoms until many days after infection. We took a different approach, an...

People are adept at discerning most of the different emotions that underlie screams, such as anger, frustration, pain, surprise or fear, finds a new study by psychologists at Emory University. Screams of happiness, however, are more often interpreted as fear when heard without any additional context, the results show. PeerJ published the research , the first in-depth look at the human ability to decode the range of emotions tied to the acoustic cues of screams. “To a large extent, the study participants were quite good at judging the original context of a scream, simply by listening to it through headphones without any visual cues,” says  Harold Gouzoules , Emory professor of psychology and senior author of the study. “But when participants listened to screams of excited happiness they tended to judge the emotion as fear. That’s an interesting, surprising finding.” First author of the study is Jonathan Engelberg, an Emory Ph.D. student of psychology. Emory alum Jay Schwartz,...

Judges don’t do court stenography. CEOs don’t take minutes at meetings. So why do we expect doctors and other health care providers to spend hours recording notes — something experts know contributes to burnout? “Having them do so much clerical work doesn’t make sense,” said Lisa Merlo, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and director of wellness programs at the University of Florida College of Medicine.  “In order to improve the health care experience for everyone, we need to help them focus more on the actual practice of medicine.” Physician burnout affects patients, too. Stressed doctors are  less compassionate and more likely to make mistakes . Clinicians who leave the field or cut back hours reduce patient access to care, and replacing doctors in the midst of  a physician shortage  drives up costs. “We can’t ignore burnout and expect doctors to just keep picking up the slack,” Merlo said. Electronic health records — or EHRs — have enabled better, f...

Gas hydrates are a solid compound of gases and water that have an ice-like structure at low temperatures and high pressures. Compounds of methane and water, so-called methane hydrates, are found especially at many ocean margins – also in the Black Sea. In addition to a possible use as an energy source, methane hydrate deposits are being investigated for their stability, as they can dissolve with changes in temperature and pressure. In addition to releases of methane, this can also have an impact on submarine slope stability. During a six-week expedition with the German research vessel METEOR in autumn 2017, a team from MARUM and GEOMAR investigated a methane hydrate deposit in the deep-sea fan of the Danube in the western Black Sea. During the cruise, which was part of the joint project SUGAR III “Submarine Gas Hydrate Resources” jointly funded by the BMWi and BMBF, the gas hydrate deposits were drilled using the mobile seafloor drilling device MARUM-MeBo200. The results of the inves...

More than just a sign of illness, mucus is a critical part of our body’s defenses against disease. Every day, our bodies produce more than a liter of the slippery substance, covering a surface area of more than 400 square meters to trap and disarm microbial invaders. Mucus is made from mucins — proteins that are decorated with sugar molecules. Many scientists are trying to create synthetic versions of mucins in hopes of replicating their beneficial traits. In a new study, researchers from MIT have now generated synthetic mucins with a polymer backbone that more accurately mimic the structure and function of naturally occurring mucins. The team also showed that these synthetic mucins could effectively neutralize the bacterial toxin that causes cholera. The findings could help give researchers a better idea of which features of mucins contribute to different functions, especially their antimicrobial functions, says Laura Kiessling, the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Replicati...

Adding the nutrient selenium to diets protects against obesity and provides metabolic benefits to mice, according to a study published today in eLife. The results could lead to interventions that reproduce many of the anti-aging effects associated with dietary restriction while also allowing people to eat as normal. Several types of diet have been shown to increase healthspan – that is, the period of healthy lifespan. One of the proven methods of increasing healthspan in many organisms, including non-human mammals, is to restrict dietary intake of an amino acid called methionine. Recent studies have suggested that the effects of methionine restriction on healthspan are likely to be conserved in humans. Although it might be feasible for some people to practice methionine restriction, for example, by adhering to a vegan diet, such a diet might not be practical or desirable for everyone. In the current study, a research team from the Orentreich Foundation for the Advancement of Scienc...

Microbial life already had the necessary conditions to exist on our planet 3.5 billion years ago. This was the conclusion reached by a research team after studying microscopic fluid inclusions in barium sulfate (barite) from the Dresser Mine in Marble Bar, Australia. In their publication “Ingredients for microbial life preserved in 3.5-billion-year-old fluid inclusions,” the researchers suggest that organic carbon compounds which could serve as nutrients for microbial life already existed at this time. The study by first author Helge Mißbach (University of Göttingen, Germany) was published in the journal Nature Communications. Co-author Volker Lüders from the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences carried out carbon isotope analyses on gases in fluid inclusions. Fluid inclusions show potential for prehistoric life Lüders assesses the results as surprising, although he cautions against misinterpreting them. “One should not take the study results as direct evidence for early life,...

A year into a global pandemic Cathy Holland, our Director of Global Publisher Business Development, looks ahead at how the pandemic has changed the state of open monographs in a post-COVID world. SEE MORE POSTS IN THIS STATE OF OPEN MONOGRAPHS SERIES This month marks one year since everything started shutting down due to COVID-19. In March of 2020 I, along with many others in our industry, had planned to attend the London Book Fair, but that was not to be. While many parts of life were shutting down, scholarly content was opening up, and in particular, monographs. In April, Charles Watkinson wrote that many publishers, and particularly University Presses, had started to make monographs, journals, and other types of content freely available for a period of time. As the pandemic lingers on even though 2020 is OVER in all senses of the word, we thought it would be interesting to look ahead and predict what may come next for monographs in a post-pandemic world. My personal prediction ...

One in four Germans suffers from metabolic syndrome. Several of four diseases of affluence occur at the same time in this ‘deadly quartet’: obesity, high blood pressure, lipid metabolism disorder and diabetes mellitus. Each of these is a risk factor for severe cardiovascular conditions, such as heart attack and stroke. Treatment aims to help patients lose weight and normalise their lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and blood pressure. In addition to exercise, doctors prescribe a low-calorie and healthy diet. Medication is often also required. However, it is not fully clear what effects nutrition has on the microbiome, immune system and health. A research group led by Dr Sofia Forslund and Professor Dominik N. Müller from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) and the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) has now examined the effect a change of diet has on people with metabolic syndrome. The ECRC is jointly run by the MDC and Chari...