SciPod

Climate change and environmental degradation are increasingly threatening our ability to feed a burgeoning human population. Switching to agricultural practices that support beneficial soil microbes, and thus healthy soils, may help farmers achieve the yields required for continued food security. Dr Zachary Senwo from the College of Agriculture, Life and Natural Sciences at Alabama A&M Univers...

Genetically modified crops can offer a range of environmental and health benefits, such as reduced usage of chemical pesticides, improved farm efficiency and crop yields, and an enhanced nutritional profile. Despite this, fears surrounding genetic modification have led to a lack of acceptance of these foods by many consumers, regulators, and governmental organisations. Dr Richard Goodman from the...

Comparative optimism is the belief that negative events are  more likely to happen to others than oneself. Dr Sasha Scambler  and Dr Koula Asimakopoulou from King’s College London and  their colleagues have recently conducted research exploring how  the perceived controllability of events relating to COVID-19 in a  large sample of UK-based participants impacts upon their h...

Digital technology can open up interesting possibilities for research, by enabling new public engagement initiatives and allowing researchers to easily reach out to countless individuals worldwide. Dr Anna Khlusova at Kings College London recently carried out a study commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Institute, investigating the impact of digitalisation on public engagement in human...

The occupied Palestinian territory has faced specific challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic due to the existing political, economic and social instability. Dr Weeam Hammoudeh and Professor Rita Giacaman from Birzeit University, and Dr Hanna Kienzler and Ms Kristen Meagher from King’s College London, have recently examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this complex situation. They...

Professor David Magnuson , at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, describes himself as ‘a CPG guy’ and occasionally, more informally as ‘a rat guy!’ His work on the function of the central pattern generator (CPG) in the rat spinal cord following spinal cord injury, has produced both surprising and thought-provoking results. This research may ultimately challenge the established clinical belief...

Cells possess the ability to interact with one another through complex signalling pathways. Different signals regulate how cells differentiate, undergoing modifications that ultimately allow them to adopt different cell fates and perform specific functions. The laboratory of Professor Kim Dale from the University of Dundee, Scotland, has made seminal contributions to our understanding of how the N...

Sorghum is a staple crop in many regions of the world. As such, this versatile plant has been selectively bred into a number of cultivars, including sweet varieties predominantly used for forage, silage, sweet syrup and bioenergy production. Dr Elizabeth A. Cooper and her team at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte generated a full reference genome for the sweet sorghum cultivar ‘Rio’ wi...

Prader-Willi Syndrome is a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorder that gives rise to a vast array of symptoms which affect the individual from birth. There is currently no cure for Prader-Willi Syndrome. Professor Gordon Carmichael and his team from the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at the University of Connecticut Health Centre, USA, believe it is crucial to understand the affected...

Professor Gary Elkins at Baylor University, Texas, is a leading expert on complementary and integrative medicine and clinical hypnotherapy. Here, we review his extensive contribution to science in the field of innovative mind-body interventions for symptoms associated with breast cancer and menopause (including the symptoms of hot flushes, sleep, anxiety, quality of life), and women’s health care...

For life on Earth to grow, its genetic material must be copied and reproduced in a process known as DNA replication. Professor Michael O’Donnell , head of the Rockefeller University’s DNA replication laboratory, has devoted his over 30-year career to the study of the protein complex that is responsible for just that – the replisome. Recently, Professor O’Donnell and his team uncovered exciting ins...

It is currently unknown at what point during development a human foetus can recognise antigens as foreign and produce an acquired immune response. The foetus is not usually exposed to pathogens but remains relatively protected in the uterus by the placenta, and contact with allergens, viral antigens, and so on, is fairly rare. Malaria, however, causes significant placental infection and inflammati...

The lining of the gut acts naturally as a protective barrier to harmful or oversized materials. Many  orally-administered drugs consisting of macromolecules or peptides are difficult to deliver because of  their poor permeability across the intestine resulting in failure to reach the bloodstream. Patient  preference would be to take these types of medicines orally rather than the cu...

In recent years, scientific and technological advances have brought great innovation within the life sciences industry, introducing the need for entrepreneurship training for medical and engineering graduates. With this in mind, Michal Gilon-Yanai , Dr Robert Schneider and their collaborators developed an academic program designed to provide students and faculty members with the skills they need t...

The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in racing. Intense selection for speed and  stamina has led the Thoroughbred to develop energy-efficient muscles, with a high aerobic capacity  relative to skeletal muscle mass. Dr Mary F. Rooney and her colleagues from University College  Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, investigated how different myostatin genotyp...

The UNAIDS estimates that 38 million people currently live with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Combination antiretroviral treatment has had great success in saving lives but is also associated with numerous medical and public health challenges. Vaccination remains the best and most cost-effective option for controlling HIV infection across the world. Professor Tomáš Hanke jointly fr...

Sweet basil is among the most popular and economically important culinary herbs, but by 2010, US production began to feel the impact of a newly emerging destructive disease: basil downy mildew. At that time, no sweet basil varieties were resistant to basil downy mildew and growers began relying heavily on fungicide application to avoid devastating crop losses. Dr James Simon at Rutgers University...

More than 80% of agricultural land in the US is managed by farmers whose operations fall between small-scale farms with direct access to local markets, and larger industrialised farms. These farmers in the ‘middle’ increasingly struggle to find a place within the larger food production system. Through his work as part of the ‘Agriculture of the Middle’ Initiative, Dr Thomas Gray of the Rural Busin...

Young people can often be discouraged from engaging with STEM subjects because they seem to have little obvious connection to their everyday lives. At Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, an innovative program led by Dr Tennille D. Presley , is seeking to engage students by combining physics and biology with an art that is central to many students’ social lives: music. Early results f...

Machine learning is rapidly advancing the decision-making capabilities of today’s computers, yet without an in-depth knowledge of the programming it involves, many engineers and researchers find current technology inaccessible. Dr Paul Robertson at Dynamic Object Language Labs (DOLL) in Massachusetts believes that a solution to the issue may have been hidden in plain sight: machine learning itself...

Health advocacy is an often-overlooked part of the work of public health specialists, but in many ways, it can be argued to have the greatest long-term impact on the population’s health. Here we look at the impressive work of Professor Janet Gray (Vassar College) and Public Policy Strategist Ms Nancy Buermeyer , working with colleagues at Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, the leading USA science-...

When the incomes of wealthy individuals and companies grow faster than the economy itself, income inequality rises in society. However, industrialised economies such as the UK and Germany have experienced sustained declines in growth, and policies to promote economic growth often clash with environmental sustainability. Therefore, economists are attempting to find solutions for decreasing income i...

Buddhist-derived meditation is becoming increasingly recognised as being able to promote physical, emotional, and mental health in the Western world. Although an extensive literature supports the many benefits of meditation, the adverse effects remain underreported. The Varieties of Contemplative Experience study was initiated by Dr Willoughby B. Britton at Brown University, Rhode Island, to inves...

Climate change is mostly the result of elevated carbon dioxide emissions. Over the past two decades, research groups have been searching for new technologies that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as an effective way of reversing climate change. Dr Radu Custelcean and his colleagues at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US specialise in this endeavour. The team is developing novel m...

With a sharp increase in the public use of online shopping in recent years, which has spiked further due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of warehouse positioning to provide an optimal delivery service has become a significant area of focus for retailers. Similarly, bike sharing in major cities has also seen an astronomical rise in usage – prompting questions about how bike stations can be...