Author: Ranveer Kumar

Plant-derived agent shows promise in the treatment of malaria. Malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium which is transferred to humans by mosquitos feeding on blood. Plasmodium has evolved to evade the human immune system and survive and replicate inside the body. One of these immune evasion mechanisms involves the activation of a particular protein called TGFbeta as soon as the parasite enters the blood. TGFbeta then switches the immune system from killing infected cells to killing bacteria; one way that the parasite can survive within the host environment. Vernonia Amygdalina is a species of plant found predominantly in sub-Saharan…

Algorithm developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers could help public health officials combat misinformation LOS ALAMOS, N.M., April 19, 2021—A new machine-learning program accurately identifies COVID-19-related conspiracy theories on social media and models how they evolved over time—a tool that could someday help public health officials combat misinformation online. “A lot of machine-learning studies related to misinformation on social media focus on identifying different kinds of conspiracy theories,” said Courtney Shelley, a postdoctoral researcher in the Information Systems and Modeling Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-author of the study that was published last week in the Journal of Medical Internet…

Fetal tissue is uniquely valuable to medical researchers – useful for developing treatments and better understanding diseases like HIV, Parkinson’s, and COVID-19. But many anti-abortion rights groups oppose it on moral or religious grounds. Now, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra says he’s reversing several restrictions on fetal tissue research put in place during the Trump administration. Here’s what you need to know: What is fetal tissue research – and why do many scientists say it’s necessary? Fetal tissue is uniquely adaptable and useful for many types of scientific inquiry. Lawrence Goldstein, a Distinguished Professor at the University of California San…

From being utilized as construction material to biofuel, mushrooms hold incredible potential & could potentially help humanity in getting rid of a problem that is been brewing for quite a long time: Plastic. Since the large-scale manufacturing of plastics started during the 1950s, people have made 9 billion tons of plastic and this creates a crisis that is difficult to handle since plastic requires over 400 years to degrade. Those used by humans of the ’60s still exist in some form, and with just 9% recycled, just 12% has been burned. This has lead researchers to look for alternative techniques…

More than 300 businesses have signed an open letter calling on the Biden administration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to at least half of 2005 levels by 2030. That would nearly double a previous target set by former President Barack Obama in 2015, who pledged a 25 to 28% reduction by 2025. The United States is not currently on track to meet either goal. The signatories include some of largest companies in the United States, including Walmart, Apple, McDonald’s and Starbucks. “A bold 2030 target is needed to catalyze a zero-emissions future, spur a robust economic recovery, create millions of…

Pristine areas in the Amazon and Siberia may expand with animal reintroductions, scientists say Just 3% of the world’s land remains ecologically intact with healthy populations of all its original animals and undisturbed habitat, a study suggests. These fragments of wilderness undamaged by human activities are mainly in parts of the Amazon and Congo tropical forests, east Siberian and northern Canadian forests and tundra, and the Sahara. Invasive alien species including cats, foxes, rabbits, goats and camels have had a major impact on native species in Australia, with the study finding no intact areas left. The researchers suggest reintroducing a…

A new study in SLEEP, published by Oxford University Press, demonstrates the significant benefits of later school start times for middle and high school students’ sleep schedules. Sleep is essential to a student’s overall health, social development, and academic achievement, yet lack of sleep is common among children and adolescents. Biological changes to sleep cycles during puberty make falling asleep early difficult for adolescents. This, coupled with early school start times, means that students often end up with insufficient sleep. Approximately 28,000 elementary, middle, and high school students and parents completed surveys annually, before changes to school start times and for…

True flexibility is about how people work, not just where Employers must avoid measures that give the illusion of flexible working while still requiring staff to consistently put in long hours and be responsive at irregular times – otherwise parents and carers risk missing out on the benefits of remote working, a new report warns. Employee research and advisory agency Karian and Box and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London surveyed 254 organisations. They found that while 90% said they’d increased support for home-working since the start of the pandemic, and 97% are planning to adopt…

Two opposing evolutionary forces explain the presence of the two different colors of spotted salamander egg masses at ponds in Pennsylvania, according to a new study led by a Penn State biologist. Understanding the processes that maintain biological diversity in wild populations is a central question in biology and may allow researchers to predict how species will respond to global change. Spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) are a widespread species that occur across the eastern United States and return to temporary ponds in the spring to reproduce. Female salamanders lay their eggs in clumps called egg masses, which are either opaque white or…

New research on Indian jumping ants shows they can undergo dramatic reversible changes previously unknown in insects. For most ant colonies, there’s a straightforward hierarchy: a single queen lays all the eggs, while a caste system of workers manages everything else—foraging for food, nursing baby ants, going to war, and so on. Only males and queens can reproduce, and the rest of the ants are sterile. If the queen dies, the colony usually does, too. Things are different for the Indian jumping ant, a species with forceps-like jaws and large black eyes that inhabits forests along India’s western coast. In these colonies,…