Thursday 13 June 2019

Environmental oxygen triggers loss of webbed digits

Free fingers have many obvious advantages on land, such as in locomotion and grasping, while webbed fingers are typical of aquatic or gliding animals. But both amphibians and amniotes—which include mammals, reptiles, and birds—can have webbed digits. In new research from Japan, scientists show for the first time that during embryo development, some animal species detect the presence of atmospheric oxygen, which triggers removal of interdigital webbing. Their research appears June 13 in the journal Developmental Cell.

* This article was originally published here

Spain urges youth to always carry condoms amid STI rise

Spain will launch a campaign to urge young people to "always carry a condom on them" as the number of sexually transmitted infections (STI) surges, the government said Thursday.

* This article was originally published here

Hillwood wants to turn AllianceTexas into 'mobility innovation zone' for drones, autonomous vehicles

When Uber announced it would develop and test an urban air taxi service in Dallas, the Perot family's Hillwood was among the first companies to sign on as one of the ride-hailing company's business partners.

* This article was originally published here

Implanted drug 'reservoir' safely reduces injections for people with macular degeneration

In a clinical trial of 220 people with "wet" age-related macular degeneration, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, collaborators from many sites across the country, and Genentech in South San Francisco have added to evidence that using a new implant technology that continuously delivers medication into the eyes is safe and effective in helping maintain vision and reduces the need for injections in the eyes.

* This article was originally published here

Breaking the code: How is a mother's immunity transferred to her baby?

One of the most successful interventions in reducing infectious disease worldwide, vaccination still has limited effectiveness in protecting one group of patients—newborn infants. Now a study based at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard has determined how a pregnant woman's vaccine-induced immunity is transferred to her child, which has implications for the development of more effective maternal vaccines. The report will be published in the June 27 issue of Cell and is receiving early online release.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers show glare of energy consumption in the name of deep learning

Wait, what? Creating an AI can be way worse for the planet than a car? Think carbon footprint. That is what a group at the University of Massachusetts Amherst did. They set out to assess the energy consumption that is needed to train four large neural networks.

* This article was originally published here

Immunotherapy drug shows potential to cure advanced lung cancer

In a new study including Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital researchers, the cancer immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda), increased survival for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a disease once considered an aggressive, and uniformly fatal cancer. The findings were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers create uniform-shape polymer nanocrystals

A team of researchers from the University of Konstanz has demonstrated a new aqueous polymerization procedure for generating polymer nanoparticles with a single chain and uniform shape, which, by contrast to previous methods, involves high particle concentrations. A corresponding paper titled "Uniform shape monodisperse single chain nanocrystals by living aqueous catalytic polymerization" is set for publication in Nature Communications.

* This article was originally published here

Innovative robot fingers hold promise for assistive living, prosthetics

There's nothing quite like the comforting squeeze of your partner's hand. But a robot's hand? That's perhaps a bit different.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers influence CDC's clarification on prescribing opioids for cancer pain

To reduce the number of people who may misuse, abuse, or overdose from opioids, multiple national agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have published guidelines to improve the way opioids are prescribed. Yet some of these guidelines have caused confusion and misapplication among clinicians and unintendedly limited treatment of pain for people with cancer.

* This article was originally published here