Articles Archives

Health & Medicine

Mothers’ burdens after living donor liver transplantation

Many mothers who donate a portion of their liver to their child go on to have more children. Research has been conducted to investigate whether there are any medical complications associated with pregnancy or childbirth after liver donation, but no research has considered the mothers’ experiences. Dr Ayaka Fujita and colleagues from Kyushu University interviewed women about their experiences with […]

Health & Medicine

Assessing the effectiveness of pre-travel testing for COVID-19

There is a global need to implement new control measures for travel in order to monitor and prevent the spread of COVID-19 and novel variants. Dr Amy Hou and Dr Lorrin Pang, Maui District Health Office and Hawaii State Department of Health, are exploring a simple, rapid method that can be used to monitor the COVID-19 infection status of travellers […]

Health & Medicine

Cointegration of causes of mortality as a possible measure of human ageing

Many of us can expect to live longer than previous generations. We might also surmise that one of the top five causes of mortality will prove our demise. Ultimately, however, most causes of death are linked to ageing, an inevitable process for which we have no direct measurement. Professor Séverine Arnold, of the University of Lausanne, has provided a potential […]

Earth & Environment

Nutrient management strategies for sustainable mulberry plantations

Mulberry is a very important, economically multipurpose tree. One of its key uses is as a food source for mulberry silkworms that feast exclusively on its leaves. Therefore, finding ways to boost leaf yields/quality and growth of mulberry trees is of great interest to the silk production industry. Dr Songmei Shi and Professor Xinhua He, from Southwest University, China, have […]

Business & Economics

Social enterprises: Essential players in sustainable social development?

Creating the strong social bonds that are essential to achieving high levels of social cohesion cannot be left to pure commercial interests or interventions by civil authorities, either local or national. Tony Marshall and June-ho Jang from Anyang University, South Korea, have studied the role that social enterprises – committed to achieving both profit and social objectives – play in […]

Arts & Humanities

Digital Assyriology: Using artificial intelligence to unlock an ancient lingua franca

The ancient writing system of cuneiform was used to record millennia of human history, but relatively few of the hundreds of thousands of known cuneiform texts have yet been translated and made available to researchers and the public alike. The Babylonian Engine project, led by Dr Shai Gordin of Ariel University, Israel, has developed two tools – Atrahasis and Akkademia […]

Engineering & Technology

New superalloy design for 3D-printing set to transform manufacturing

Engineers at Alloyed, Professor Roger Reed, Dr Roger Reed and colleagues at the University of Oxford, have developed new robust superalloys that can be used in additive manufacturing – otherwise known as 3D printing. Their 3D printed superalloy objects can be as strong as those made using standard techniques, a breakthrough that could transform the efficiency of some of our […]

Physical Sciences

Understanding the atomic and electronic structure of solid-density liquid carbon

How fast does a solid melt? You might think quite slowly, on a timescale of minutes to hours. However, recent experiments by Dr Emiliano Principi and his team at the FERMI free electron laser show that the melting of carbon by a laser pulse is actually an ultrafast, nonthermal process – taking less than a billionth of a second. By […]

Biology

Antibiotic resistance in enterobacteria from pigs

Antibiotic resistance is a global threat affecting humans, pets, livestock and plants. As antibiotic usage to prevent infections is commonplace in livestock farming, there is a significant pressure to adopt alternative farming practices. Dr Dominic Poulin-Laprade and her colleagues at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, investigated how antibiotic-free farming practices affected the presence of […]

Physical Sciences

Electron paramagnetic resonance: EPR everywhere

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measures the signal from unpaired electrons and is a technique already widely used in the bioscience and pharmaceutical industries. Dr Joshua R. Biller of TDA Research, Inc, USA is championing the novel use of EPR to answer research questions. He explains that rapid innovations in EPR will allow a wider group of researchers to image tumours, […]