New research explains how HIV avoids getting ZAPped

Humans have evolved dynamic defense mechanisms against the viruses that seek to infect our bodies – proteins that specialize in identifying, capturing and destroying the genetic material that viruses try to sneak into our cells. A new study, scheduled to publish the week of Nov. 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, now reveals … Read more

Salmonella – how the body fights back

New research from the University of East Anglia shows how the human body powers its emergency response to salmonella infection. A study, published today in the journal PNAS, reveals how blood stem cells respond in the first few hours following infection – by acquiring energy from bone marrow support cells. It is hoped that the findings … Read more

Nitrous oxide emissions set to rise in the Pacific Ocean

The acidification of the Pacific Ocean in northern Japan is increasing the natural production rate of N2O, an ozone-depleting greenhouse gas. That’s the finding of a study carried out jointly by scientists at EPFL, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and appearing recently in Nature Climate Change. Today’s rising … Read more

Scientists find no evidence for ‘Insect Armageddon’ – but there’s still cause for concern

Researchers who set out to test the widespread theory that the UK is experiencing an alarming plunge in insect numbers have found no evidence for ‘Insect Armageddon’. Instead, the researchers from the University of York found peaks and troughs in moth populations over a period of 50 years. They suggest changing weather patterns and climate … Read more

Miniature fanged ‘deer’ rediscovered tiptoeing through Vietnam’s coastal forests

Global Wildlife Conservation and partners Southern Institute of Ecology and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research have rediscovered a wildlife species lost to science since 1990 called a silver-backed chevrotain—a deer-like species that is the size of a rabbit, has a silver sheen, and has been hanging on in a region of Vietnam ravaged … Read more

‘Messy’ production of perovskite material increases solar cell efficiency

Scientists at the University of Cambridge studying perovskite materials for next generation solar cells and flexible LEDs have discovered that they can be more efficient when their chemical compositions are less ordered, vastly simplifying production processes and lowering cost. The surprising findings, published in Nature Photonics, are the result of a collaborative project, led by Dr … Read more

New approach needed for defining AI standards in cybersecurity, say Oxford academics

Leading experts in cybersecurity and ethics from Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford Dr Mariarosaria Taddeo and Professor Luciano Floridi and Professor Tom McCutcheon from Defence Science and Technology Laboratories’  believe the current approach to defining standards and certification procedures for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in cybersecurity is risky and should be replaced with an … Read more

What’s the story, morning glory? Taxonomy, evolution and sweet potatoes

This indicates that the storage root was an already-existing trait that predisposed the plant for cultivation and not solely the result of human domestication, as previously thought. This discovery, published today in Nature Plants, is part of a comprehensive monographic study of the morning glories, the biggest study of this group of plants to date, which … Read more

Three-dimensional printing of multicomponent glasses using phase-separating resins

Stereolithography, one of the most common three-dimensional printing technologies, comprises several advantages over traditional processing approaches: mass-customization, high complexity and little-to-no waste material. However, this technique has so far remained inaccessible to processing of functional glass structures. Now, researchers at ETH Zürich have developed a bioinspired approach to 3D print transparent glass structures using conventional … Read more