SciPod

The Galapagos Islands are facing increasing danger. Local and global forces – including tourism and climate change – threaten the fragile island ecosystems. The high number of unique plants and animals on the islands means that the loss of a Galapagos species may represent a global extinction event. The Galapagos Initiative, founded by Dr Stephen Walsh of the University of North Carolina at Chapel...

Being overweight is a well-recognised risk factor for the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, and certain types of cancer. As such, obesity represents a significant public health issue worldwide. It is the leading cause of death in the USA, notably in Arkansas, where Dr Jamie I. Baum , at the Department of Food Science at the University of Arkansas, is exploring, with...

Magnetic monopoles have long been dismissed as impossible by many physicists, but their existence has nonetheless been theorised for many decades. Through their extensive research, scientists at Terra Quantum AG, the University of Perugia, and SwissScientific Technologies, show that the end could soon be in sight for this conflict. The team’s investigations into superconducting materials not only...

The far-reaching benefits of nanopore research encompass fields as diverse as physics, healthcare, big data processing and environmental studies. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr Jean-Pierre Leburton is conducting research focused on the use of nanopores in ultrathin solid-state molecular materials, such as graphene and 2D transition-metal dichalcogenides, for DNA sensing appl...

The spaces in between galaxies may be unimaginably vast, but within galactic clusters, they are far from empty. Rather, these expanses are home to a wide range of interplaying, often violent plasma dynamics. In his research, Dr Tom Jones at the University of Minnesota plans to use cutting-edge computer techniques to simulate these processes – shedding new light on physical properties that have elu...

Modern industrial agriculture has helped farmers meet rising food demands, but these practices are contributing to a range of environmental problems. Regenerative agriculture holds promising solutions that could help to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems and contribute to climate change mitigation, while keeping pace with food demands and enhancing farmers’ resilience to environmental stresso...

Choosing which drug molecule to build is only one part of pharmaceutical research; medicinal chemists also need to know how to synthesise drug molecules in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Dr Oscar Verho and his team at Uppsala University in Sweden have made significant progress in this area and are aiming to reduce the time and resources needed to make drug compounds. The team is researchi...

Research investigating the adoption of new technologies can help to unveil global trends in learning and education. Researchers at Michigan State University, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Texas State University and Purdue University have recently carried out a study investigating the use of devices by people in different parts of the world and with various literacy levels to access YouT...

Despite advances in agricultural science, communicating best practices to farmers in remote areas remains difficult. Although mobile learning tools, such as animated videos, have the potential to effectively present new information to diverse, isolated audiences, their long-term efficacy is poorly understood. A team of researchers from the Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique, Michigan St...

Dietary antioxidants, such as vitamin C, are known to reduce the negative effects of toxins in mammals by preventing cellular damage caused by reactive oxygen species. However, it is not known whether these antioxidants have a similar protective effect in insects. A team led by Dr Barry Pittendrigh at Purdue University have investigated the adaptive responses of fruit flies to insecticide exposure...

Insecticide resistance is an ongoing challenge for agriculture and the control of insect-transmitted diseases. In a recent study at Purdue University, a team of scientists led by Dr Barry Pittendrigh [Pitt-uhn-dree] identified a potential chink in the armour of insecticide resistance in fruit flies. If this Achilles’ heel can be exploited, it bodes well for the future control of destructive insect...

Neurodevelopmental disorders range from those on the relatively common autism spectrum to much rarer disorders such as KDM5C-disorder and Weidemann-Steiner Syndrome. Exciting advancements in human genetics have shown that histones – the proteins our DNA wraps around – play a vital role in healthy brain development. Dr Shigeki Iwase from the University of Michigan studies how mutations in the enzym...

Epilepsy is one of the most common causes of disability worldwide, but for many patients, treatment fails to be effective. Dr Victoria Morgan and her team from the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are using functional connectivity mapping to find out why some patients respond better to treatment and what alternative ways there may be to tack...

Severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with high rates of disability and even mortality. Understanding the relationship between patient outcomes and the treatment received, as well as other physiological factors such as inflammation, can improve how we approach TBI. Dr Jack Jallo and his team from the Department of Neurological Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University are researching the...

Natural levels of biodiversity support healthy, resilient ecosystems, and thus also support valuable ecosystem services – such as providing clean water. However, pressures from climate change and habitat destruction are altering biodiversity across the globe. Understanding the mechanisms that give rise to biodiversity patterns is imperative to monitoring how it is changing and informing effective...

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how people work, travel, spend their free time, and interact with each other. This change was in large part influenced by the restrictions that governments put in place to limit the spread of the virus. Researchers at the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Time Use Research, part of University College London, have been monitoring how peop...

Chlamydia pneumoniae (or Cp for short) is a respiratory bacterium that causes treatable lung infections in humans and has been linked to the development of asthma. In a recent study, Dr David L. Hahn at St Mary’s Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the available published data on the frequency and impact of Cp infection in child and adult asthma...

Conventional agricultural practices have greatly increased the yield and efficiency of modern farming, allowing us to better feed a growing population. To protect crops from pests and disease, we rely heavily on chemical pesticides. However, the impacts of pesticide use are not localised to plants – there is growing awareness that pesticides can negatively affect many other organisms, including hu...

Many fields of experimental research are now facing a daunting challenge: despite the fact that separate research teams may work on the same system, the end results of their experiments can be widely varied. In his research, Dr Stanley Luck, at the Science, Technology and Research Institute of Delaware, explores the reasons behind this inherent inability to reproduce experimental results. Based on...

Radio frequency inteferometric lightning maps are important tools for researchers exploring the electrical processes that unfold within storm clouds. Dr Xuan-Min Shao and colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who first introduced broadband interferometry to lightning research over two decades ago, have now developed an advanced ‘beam steering’ interferometry technique to sign...

Engineering is one of the most impactful and transformative fields of teaching, research, and practice, as it shapes the world we live in and ensures the functioning of many systems that maintain human life. The Colorado School of Mines created the first Humanitarian Engineering (HE) program to train engineering students to devise solutions that are efficient, ethical, socially responsible and sus...

Hookah smoking is the least regulated tobacco form. It is rapidly gaining in popularity to the extent that we are now facing a contemporary epidemic of tobacco abuse. Of particular concern is the level of usage among youth and young adults. Professor Mary Rezk-Hanna from the University of California, Los Angeles works with a group of scientists who aim to drive policy regulation of tobacco and alt...

Domestic herbivores – such as cattle, sheep, and goats – are remarkably important to ecosystems. Their feeding behaviours aid the management of natural habitats by preventing any individual plant species dominating the landscape. Thus, understanding livestock dietary preferences is vital for informing land management decisions. Dr John Walker from the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension...

Immune system cells express a number of receptors that bind to sugar ligands. This binding initiates the activation of T-cell lymphocytes and natural killer cells. Dr J. Kenneth Hoober , Dr Laura L. Eggink and the team at Susavion have designed peptides that bind to different receptors on immune cells. The peptides effectively extend the lives of mice with glioblastoma and ovarian cancer, and prev...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an increasingly common disease that causes significant visual impairment. The implications include socioeconomic burdens for individuals and the population as a whole. Working to elucidate the issues surrounding AMD is Professor Gemmy Cheung , who holds senior roles at the Singapore National Eye Centre and the Singapore Eye Research Institute. She has brou...