SciPod

Despite their numerous side effects, opioid drugs and morphine-like agents have remained a pillar in the medical management of pain. Most clinically used opioid drugs act through mu opioid receptors. Dr Ying-Xian Pan and his team from the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, USA, studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms of mu opioid receptors and aim to develop novel strategies and opioid analg...

Identifying the cause of an illness in a sick baby or child is not always easy, particularly if the disease is rare. Throughout his career, Dr Michael Wangler , at the Baylor College of Medicine and Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, has investigated rare childhood diseases. Combining his expertise in paediatrics and genetics, Dr Wangler utilises genomics, metabolomics and the hum...

Glioblastoma multiforme is an aggressive and life-threatening form of brain cancer. Although some treatments are available to provide comfort and prolong life, it remains an incurable and devastating disease. With the goal of advancing diagnostics and treatments for glioblastoma, Dr Hernando Lopez-Bertoni is carrying out exciting research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Taking...

By asking their students to complete self-assessment exercises, educators can encourage the development of their students. These methods rely on a student’s ability to evaluate their own skills, knowledge, and other qualities, and use their self-assessment to make improvements. Professor Heidi L. Andrade [An-drah-day] at the University of Albany recently reviewed 76 empirical studies focusing on s...

One of the main priorities of the United Nations and other international organisations is to encourage the sustainable economic, social, and environmental development of all countries worldwide. Education plays a crucial role in these efforts, as it allows individuals to become more knowledgeable about matters of public interest, while potentially improving their life skills. Researchers at Purdue...

The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) communities have a long history of exclusion and underrepresentation of women, African American, Latinx, American Indian and LGBTQIA+ students. In order for our STEM enterprise to be truly equitable, everyone that wants to become a scientist must have an equitable opportunity to do so, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation...

Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, we face challenges that require innovative and strategic responding. Dr Aldo Bonasera at Texas A&M University in the USA and Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy, and Dr Hua Zheng at the School of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University in China, have taken a mathematical approach to compare the cu...

Music has the power to influence how we interpret the world around us. Dr. Alessandro Ansani from the Department of Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome believes this interpretation is multidimensional and involves several interconnected cognitive factors and mechanisms. He has recently demonstrated the significant impact that background music can have on our interpretation of a simple movie...

Cyberpunk brings to mind neon lights, artificial intelligence and mega corporations. It is a subgenre of science fiction set in a dystopian, futuristic, and oppressive setting, with advanced technology often featured alongside societal decay. Professor Elana Gomel [ee-lah-nah go-mell] in the Department of English and American Studies at Tel-Aviv University in Israel specialises in narrative theory...

To study the climate of the ancient past, researchers look for its fingerprints in deep marine and lake sediments. Within these geological records are large and active microbial communities that may hold other clues about past environmental conditions and transitions. Tor Einar Møller [Tore Ee-naar Moe-lerr], a doctoral candidate at the University of Bergen, Norway, examined the link between conte...

Permafrost is key to maintaining the stability of steep mountain slopes. Yet as the climate warms, this frozen ground is becoming increasingly prone to thawing. In some cases, these events can trigger cascades of loose rock, with potentially devastating consequences for surrounding communities. Using a combination of computer modelling, and daring field experiments, Dr Florence Magnin at the Labor...

Young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display unusual patterns of speech. Dr Heike Lehnert-LeHouillier and her colleagues from New Mexico State University in the USA, have undertaken one of the first studies to assess linguistic alignment, also known as entrainment, in the conversations of children and adolescents diagnosed with ASD. Their research concluded that when compared wit...

Dr. Robert Trestman , at the Carilion Clinic and Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, has co-developed START NOW, a successful group psychotherapy intervention specifically targeting mental health issues in prisoners. It combines elements of cognitive behavioral therapy to form skills-based learning. Furthermore, START NOW is easily accessible, cost-effective, and designed for use in setting...

Identifying species with accuracy is important for numerous reasons; for instance, accurately knowing which organisms are present in an ecosystem is essential for informing conservation strategies to protect it. Therefore, if there is any question about an organism’s identity, it is important to document that uncertainty. However, levels of uncertainty are unknown for many research groups that car...

The marine environment houses complex types of ecosystems that provide vital services and habitat to aquatic life. Areas of the seafloor where rocky outcrops are present, such as reefs and gravel beds, are some of the rarest marine habitats. Also known as ‘hard substrate habitats’ these ecosystems are under increasing pressure from fishing, eutrophication, climate change, and coastal management. T...

As the impacts of climate change  become increasingly obvious worldwide, focused efforts to mitigate its  worst effects are becoming more urgent. Through his research, Dr Xander Wang at the University of Prince Edward Island aims to innovate the computer  models used to predict these future changes on smaller, regional  scales. His team’s work is making important strides toward...

Water-treatment processes are essential for water reuse in municipal, agricultural and industrial applications. Wastewater treatment ensures our safety and prevents sickness and death from parasites and contaminants every year. However, certain chemical contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides, are difficult to remove from water, and can accumulate in the food web, eventually entering...

The story of research into juvenile hormone, a fundamental chemical that regulates insect life history, follows the same thread as many other tales of scientific discovery. A series of serendipitous findings and observations led researchers to identify this unique hormone and isolate it from a moth. Additional studies focused on its potential as an insecticide, given that it has diverse effects on...

When it becomes too cold or a predator draws near, animals can flee to nicer locales. Plants, on the other hand, do not have this luxury. Instead, they have evolved chemical defences to deter pests and respond to changes in their environment. Dr Ella Katz of the University of California, Davis, is interested in the wide variety of chemical defences found in plants. In a recent study, she and her c...

Chemical space, a term referring to the catalogue of all known molecules, has been constantly expanding for over 200 years. Our understanding of this space is based on the work of countless researchers over the years. Dr Guillermo [Gee-yehr-moe] Restrepo and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Germany, have been analysing trends in the history of chemistry, to gai...

International organisations have recently been trying to educate farmers in developing nations about optimal practices for growing and storing crops. While many farmers stick to these newly acquired practices, others eventually adapt them or slightly deviate from them. Researchers at Purdue University, Michigan State University, Iowa State University, and the Agricultural Research Institute of Moz...

Telemedicine is increasing in utility and demand, not least due to the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of healthcare. With this in mind, Dr Intan Sabrina (at Hospital Tuanku Ampuan Najihah, Hospital Jempol and Tung Shin Hospital, all in Malaysia) and Dr Irma Ruslina Defi (at Hasan Sadikin General Hospital in Indonesia) have collaborated to publish an important review on current...

Blazars are some of the brightest and most vibrant objects known to astronomers: emitting high-velocity jets of matter, and producing gamma rays which outshine almost all other sources in the known universe. To study these phenomena, astronomers must use the latest techniques to observe blazars simultaneously at different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, while also capturing the elusive n...

There are up to one billion people with low literacy globally, many of whom live in rural areas and only speak their region’s local language. In Africa alone, there are an estimated 2000 local languages. Researchers are exploring new ways to make knowledge accessible to isolated communities that only speak local languages. One approach involves the use of animated educational videos, which can be...

In order to meet the demands of a growing human population, farmers across the globe are attempting to improve the yields and nutritional content of their crops. However, this is an especially difficult challenge, in an age where climate change is negatively impacting our agricultural systems. To address these pressing issues, Dr Lynn Brandenberger and Dr Joshua Massey of Oklahoma State University...