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Gravidanza fisiologica: le nuove linee guida dell'ISS tra scienza e appropriatezza

Gravidanza fisiologica: le nuove linee guida dell'ISS tra scienza e appropriatezza

07 Marzo 2026

L'Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) ha presentato l'ultimo aggiornamento delle...

Il vaccino contro il cancro: la previdenza della salute

Il vaccino contro il cancro: la previdenza della salute

07 Marzo 2026

La prevenzione non è un costo, ma un investimento simile...

Arctic Circle – Polar Dialogue: Italy Takes the Lead in Rome

Arctic Circle – Polar Dialogue: Italy Takes the Lead in Rome

06 Marzo 2026

Scientists, ministers, and representatives from over 40 nations gathered at...

Botulismo: Anche le dosi minime di tossina aprono la porta alle infezioni intestinali

Botulismo: Anche le dosi minime di tossina aprono la porta alle infezioni intestinali

06 Marzo 2026

Uno studio dell’Università di Padova rivela che quantità di neurotossina...

Cronaca di un fallimento umano e le frontiere della sicurezza tecnologica

Cronaca di un fallimento umano e le frontiere della sicurezza tecnologica

06 Marzo 2026

Il caso del piccolo Domenico, il bambino di due anni...

Dai fondali marini alla medicina: un piccolo invertebrato svela come l'elettricità "parla" ai geni

Dai fondali marini alla medicina: un piccolo invertebrato svela come l'elettricità "parla" ai geni

05 Marzo 2026

Un’importante ricerca condotta dalle Università di Padova e Milano (Statale)...

I segreti delle iene siciliane: l'evoluzione svelata dal 3D

I segreti delle iene siciliane: l'evoluzione svelata dal 3D

04 Marzo 2026

Un team internazionale di ricerca, a guida dell'Università degli Studi...

Il piccolo scavatore che ha cambiato la storia: Il mistero di Alnashetri

Il piccolo scavatore che ha cambiato la storia: Il mistero di Alnashetri

02 Marzo 2026

Immaginate un dinosauro non più grande di un tacchino, agile,...

Marzo 2026
Mercoledì, 04 Ottobre 2017 10:58

Improving air quality with soy

 

 

soy beans

 

Air pollution is a major public health issue worldwide. Filters can help improve the quality of the air we breathe, but they also contribute to landfill when they are finished with and thrown away, as they are often made of plastic. Could bio-based filters be the answer? Researchers in the US have developed bio-based air filters that they claim can capture toxic chemicals that current filters can’t. The scientists, at Washington State University (WSU), say that these inexpensive soy filters could lead to better air purification and improve air quality. Air pollution causes an estimated 467,000 premature deaths every year in Europe, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA). The agency’s Air quality in Europe — 2016 report found that 85% of people living in urban areas in the EU are exposed to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at levels deemed harmful by the World Health Organization (WHO). These tiny particles, which have a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres, are considered some of the most dangerous air pollutants.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

Chemists at the University of Basel have been able to show for the first time that anaerobic bacteria can produce the vitamin ergothioneine in the absence of oxygen. This suggests that bacteria were forming this compound even before there was oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. The vitamin’s function therefore remains a mystery, as it was previously ascribed a role in oxygen-dependent processes.

Ergothioneine is a sulfur-containing vitamin. Whereas bacteria and fungi can produce it themselves, higher organisms rely on absorbing it from food or from the ground. It is suspected that ergothioneine plays an important physiological role in combating oxidative stress in cells. However, its precise role remains unclear. There are currently no known symptoms of its deficiency, which explains why the vitamin has long been overlooked. To gain a better understanding of its function, the group led by Professor Florian Seebeck at the University of Basel’s Department of Chemistry is researching the sequence of chemical reactions by which bacteria produce the vitamin. Scientists have long been aware of an oxygen-dependent reaction pathway in which a key step is the formation of a carbon–sulfur bond using oxygen from the air. Until now, however, studies had only focused on aerobic organisms, which require oxygen in order for their metabolism to operate.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

 

 European bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). Illustration by Citron

 

We may be underestimating the long-term impact of oil spills on fish, particularly their ability to tolerate low oxygen environments, according to research from the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO) and L'Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (Ifremer). The new study tested the capacity of European sea bass to perform not just in typical seawater but also in low-oxygen level sea water. Researchers used a novel integrated respiratory assessment paradigm (IRAP) to screen both the fish’s aerobic capacity and tolerance for low-oxygen (hypoxic) levels, grouping the fish into hypoxia tolerant and hypoxia sensitive phenotypic groups. They then exposed the fish to dispersed crude oil for 48 hours. The fish’s performance was retested nearly six months later—much longer than most previous studies – to see if the exposure to oil had residual effects.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

 

 

The Nobel prize in Physics 2017 has been awarded to Rainer Weiss, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Barry C Barish and Kip S Thorne, both of the California Institute of Technology, for their work on constructing the Ligo gravitational wave detector and the amazing record of those waves.The waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein a hundred years ago, came from a collision between two black holes, more than a thousand million years ago. According to the Nobel committee "The signal was extremely weak when it reached Earth, but is already promising a revolution in astrophysics. Gravitational waves are an entirely new way of observing the most violent events in space and testing the limits of our knowledge." The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was designed to detect the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. The prediction of these waves (GWs), oscillations in the space–time metric that propagate at the speed of light, is one of the most profound differences between Einstein's general theory of relativity and the Newtonian theory of gravity that it replaced.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

According to a research conducted at the University of Jyväskylä, estrogen acts as a regulator of muscle energy metabolism and muscle cell viability. Menopause leads to the cessation of ovarian estrogen production concurrent to the deterioration of muscle function. After menopause, the risk of metabolic diseases also increases. Although a healthy lifestyle does not increase the amount of estrogen in circulation, it reduces risks. The well-known symptoms of menopause include hot flashes, mood swings and other so-called women’s troubles. The consequences of the menopausal withdrawal of estrogen production are, however, broader than commonly assumed. Menopause accelerates the aging changes of many tissues, of which perhaps the most known and well-studied is osteoporosis. The effects of estrogen on skeletal muscles are not yet well known. The study from the University of Jyväskylä discovered that estrogen acts as an upstream regulator for the energy metabolism and viability of muscle cells.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

 

 

Research points to a new model of mental health service delivery that can save therapist time and money.



A stepped care model of treatment for youth with anxiety can be effectively delivered using at least 14% less therapist time than traditional treatment service, reports a study published in the October 2017 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP). In today's stretched economy, finding cheaper and more efficient ways to spend our public health dollars is critical. Mental health professionals can now treat young people with anxiety disorders effectively. But professional treatment comes at a cost. Standard, scientifically proven treatments for youth with anxiety usually require 15 to 20 hours of input from a mental health professional. Finding ways to reduce this time but still maintain good outcomes is the next research frontier.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

 

 

Traditional Chinese medicine is widely used as a form of complementary medicine all over the world for various indications and for improving general health. Proprietary Chinese medicines (pCMs)—which are composed solely of Chinese medicines and formulated in a finished dose form—are generally believed to be natural and safe, but a new analysis in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reveals serious dangers.

Various reports have documented the adulteration of pCMs and health products with undeclared agents, including prescription drugs, drug analogues, and banned drugs. Such adulation can have serious and even fatal consequences. To examine the problem, Tony Wing Lai Mak, MBChB, MBA, FRCPath, FRCPA, FHKCPath, FHKAM(Path), Chor Kwan Ching, MBChB, MSc, FRCPA, FHKAM (Pathology), and their colleagues at the only tertiary referral clinical toxicology laboratory in Hong Kong retrospectively reviewed cases involving use of pCMs or health products adulterated with undeclared drugs referred to the centre from 2005 to 2015.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

 

 A study has given new insights into how sleep contributes to brain plasticity – the ability for our brain to change and reorganise itself – and could pave the way for new ways to help people with learning and memory disorders.

Researchers at the Humboldt and Charité Universities in Berlin, led by Dr Julie Seibt from the University of Surrey, used cutting edge techniques to record activity in a particular region of brain cells that is responsible for holding new information – the dendrites. The study, published in Nature Communications, found that activity in dendrites increases when we sleep, and that this increase is linked to specific brain waves that are seen to be key to how we form memories. Dr Julie Seibt, Lecturer in Sleep and Plasticity at the University of Surrey and lead author of the study, said: “Our brains are amazing and fascinating organs – they have the ability to change and adapt based on our experiences. It is becoming increasingly clear that sleep plays an important role in these adaptive changes. Our study tells us that a large proportion of these changes may occur during very short and repetitive brain waves called spindles.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline
Lunedì, 02 Ottobre 2017 09:24

La scuola hi-tech in gara

Sulla scia del successo delle precedenti edizioni, il concorso ‘InvFactor - anche tu genio’, organizzato dall’Istituto di ricerche sulla popolazione e le politiche sociali del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Irpps-Cnr) e dalla Rappresentanza in Italia della Commissione Europea, torna a selezionare le migliori invenzioni create dagli studenti nei laboratori scolastici. La premiazione dei tre vincitori 2017 si è tenuta il 28 settembre a Roma, presso lo Spazio Europa.

Primo classificato è il progetto proposto dall’Iti ‘G. M. Angioy’ di Sassari: ‘Sintesi e applicazione green di nanoparticelle di rame’. L’aspetto importante e innovativo di questo procedimento sta nel fatto che la sintesi, che ha lo scopo di creare un nuovo materiale conduttivo, è realizzata attraverso una ‘green way’, ovvero con l'utilizzo di prodotti naturali, a partire da un infuso di foglie di alloro. Tali nanoparticelle evidenziano proprietà conduttive se disperse in gomma arabica, pertanto si potrebbe pensare a un utilizzo di questo metodo ecocompatibile per la realizzazione di circuiti, resistenze e pannelli touch a basso costo. 

Pubblicato in Scienza generale

 

 

‘Buried beneath the sands’ exhibition to take place at University of Leicester until 12 November

The rediscovery of Ancient Egyptian monuments, temples and tombs during the 19th century by pioneering adventurers will be charted as part of a new exhibition running at the University of Leicester until 12 November.  

Titled ‘Buried beneath the sands: Unearthing Ancient Egypt’, the exhibition is brought to life through a number of beautiful contemporary images which showcase the majesty of the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Temple at Abu Simbel and a number of other iconic structures – some of the most exceptionally preserved monuments in history.   The exhibition celebrates the achievements of Egyptologist and adventurer Giovanni Belzoni, who was the first to set foot inside Abu Simbel, which had been sealed for centuries beneath the sands of the desert. Belzoni’s exploits in Egypt have aroused strong feelings among some archaeologists – he used a battering ram to open sealed doorways in the Valley of the King and he carved his name (together with those of his companions) on the north wall of the temple sanctuary at Abu Simbel.

Pubblicato in Scienceonline

Medicina

Gravidanza fisiologica: le nuove linee guida dell'ISS tra scienza e appropriatezza

Gravidanza fisiologica: le nuove linee guida dell'ISS tra scienza e appropriatezza

07 Marzo 2026

L'Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) ha presentato l'ultimo aggiornamento delle...

Paleontologia

Il piccolo scavatore che ha cambiato la storia: Il mistero di Alnashetri

Il piccolo scavatore che ha cambiato la storia: Il mistero di Alnashetri

02 Marzo 2026

Immaginate un dinosauro non più grande di un tacchino, agile, con zampe fatte per...

Geografia e Storia

Dagli Ipogei del Tepui venezuelano ai terreni marziani: un protocollo innovativo per l'indagine di siti estremi

Dagli Ipogei del Tepui venezuelano ai terreni marziani: un protocollo innovativo per l'indagine di siti estremi

15 Dicembre 2025

Un team internazionale ha applicato metodologie analitiche portatili avanzate per esaminare in situ le...

Astronomia e Spazio

Destinazione Giove: a Roma nasce lo SWIM Lab per scovare oceani extraterrestri

Destinazione Giove: a Roma nasce lo SWIM Lab per scovare oceani extraterrestri

30 Dicembre 2025

Inaugurato presso l'Università Roma Tre un centro di eccellenza mondiale: studierà...

Scienze Naturali e Ambiente

Idrogeno Verde: la sfida non è solo l'energia, ma l'acqua

Idrogeno Verde: la sfida non è solo l'energia, ma l'acqua

28 Febbraio 2026

Una ricerca svedese rivela un paradosso: produrre carburante pulito per l'industria...

 

Scienzaonline con sottotitolo Sciencenew  - Periodico
Autorizzazioni del Tribunale di Roma – diffusioni:
telematica quotidiana 229/2006 del 08/06/2006
mensile per mezzo stampa 293/2003 del 07/07/2003
Scienceonline, Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Roma 228/2006 del 29/05/06
Pubblicato a Roma – Via A. De Viti de Marco, 50 – Direttore Responsabile Guido Donati

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