Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

MIT physicists have metaphorically turned graphite, or pencil lead, into gold by isolating five ultrathin flakes stacked in a specific order. The resulting material can then be tuned to exhibit three important properties never before seen in natural graphite.

Article URL: https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/en/research-news/20230508140000.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36588044 Points: 1 # Comments: 0

Researchers at Kyoto University have found that neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, can induce anti-inflammatory macrophages (M2) within granulomas, which are dense globular structures that form during chronic inflammation. This M2 macrophage polarization can help regulate inflammation and tiss

Patients with diabetic neuropathy may have difficulty chewing, which may interfere with their ability to follow nutrition advice for optimal blood glucose control, a small study in Japan suggests.

Anyone who has seen a cat experience catnip knows that it makes them go a bit wild -- they rub in it, roll on it, chew it, and lick it aggressively. It is widely accepted that this plant, and its Asian counterpart, silvervine, have intoxicative properties, but this might not be the only reason that cats rub on and chew the plants so enthusiastically. Researchers have found that when cats damage catnip, much higher…

Mice are typically used as models in advanced prostate cancer research, but the profound differences between them and humans has long bedeviled the translation of findings from the animal to success in people. Dogs however are the only other animal that suffers from a significant incidence of prostate cancer, and researchers are finding them much more enlightening subjects in identification of drugs that show…

Wetland plants have a high tolerance against flooding due to the formation of 'lysigenous aerenchyma,' air channels that help transfer gases to the submerged roots. These channels also help the plant withstand drought and nutrient deficiency. Now, scientists investigate the underlying mechanism of aerenchyma formation to understand the phenomenon better, opening doors to the development of crops that are resilient…

MIT physicists have created an ultrathin, two-dimensional material with unusual magnetic properties.

ICM-flagged Afib not tied to repeat stroke in an already fairly anticoagulated population

Young children encode social cues according to context, then process the social stimuli to form a representation of the current social situation. Once the action values are compared, children then chose to perform the optimal action that has the highest value.

Researchers have found that extracting drawing features from a combination of five drawing tasks -- rather than from any single task alone -- leads to more accurate classification of people with normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease by capturing different, complementary aspects of cognitive impairments. Their proposed portable, easy-to-use screening test may improve patient diagnosis,…

Researchers identify gene expression signatures in different types of lymph nodes cells that play an active role in the development of lymphomas.

In a lab experiment, samples of different variants were applied to pieces of plastic and human skin collected from autopsies. A variant "survived" until it could no longer be detected on the surface.

Exploratory phase II trial strikes out

MIT physicists and colleagues created a five-lane superhighway for electrons that could allow ultra-efficient electronics and more.

Researchers established a model, termed "dynamic prospect theory," which more accurately portrays human and monkey decision-making under uncertainty.

Osaka Metropolitan University Website.

MIT McGovern Institute neuroscientists expand the CRISPR toolkit with a new, compact Cas7-11 enzyme, making it small enough to fit into a single viral vector for therapeutic applications.

Researchers have found a high incidence of coffee leaf rust (CLR) disease in Vietnam, the world's second-largest coffee producer. Potential origins and migration routes were revealed, as well as a close genetic relationship with several Central and South American rust fungus populations. These findings will help to predict future spread of CLR, and highlight the need to consider seedling sources and human…

An AI algorithm demonstrated strong performance for detecting chronic liver disease from routinely acquired echocardiography studies containing subcostal images of the liver.