Thursday 13 June 2019

Gut microbes eat our medication

The first time Vayu Maini Rekdal manipulated microbes, he made a decent sourdough bread. At the time, young Maini Rekdal, and most people who head to the kitchen to whip up a salad dressing, pop popcorn, ferment vegetables, or caramelize onions, did not consider the crucial chemical reactions behind these concoctions.

* This article was originally published here

Novel denoising method generates sharper photorealistic images faster

Monte Carlo computational methods are behind many of the realistic images in games and movies. They automate the complexities in simulating the physics of lights and cameras to generate high-quality renderings from samples of diverse image features and scenes. But the process of Monte Carlo rendering is slow and can take hours—or even days—to produce a single image, and oftentimes the results are still pixelated, or "noisy."

* This article was originally published here

Expansion microscopy and virtual reality illuminate new ways to prevent and treat disease

A combined research team from Carnegie Mellon University and Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason is pairing a nanoscale imaging technique with virtual reality (VR) technology to create a method that allows researchers to "step inside" their biological data.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers identify hidden brain signals behind working memory

Making a specific type of brain pattern last longer improves short-term memory in rats, a new study finds.

* This article was originally published here

Viruses found to use intricate 'treadmill' to move cargo across bacterial cells

Countless textbooks have characterized bacteria as simple, disorganized blobs of molecules.

* This article was originally published here

Antibody treatment allows transplant of mismatched stem cells, tissues in mice

A combination of six antibodies can successfully prepare mice to accept blood and immune stem cells from an immunologically mismatched donor, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

* This article was originally published here

Canada must double its carbon tax to reach emissions target: report

Canada is falling so far behind on its emissions goal under the Paris Agreement that it would have to double its unpopular carbon tax to catch up, a parliamentary budget officer said Thursday.

* This article was originally published here

India plans 'very small' space station after 2022

India plans to establish its own "very small" space station in the next decade as the country gears up for a first manned mission beyond earth.

* This article was originally published here

Understanding intolerance with a better research method

Intolerance has been one of the most discussed topics in Indonesia, a secular country with the world's biggest Muslim majority, due to a rise in cases of intolerance across the country.

* This article was originally published here

Uber tests drone food delivery, launches new autonomous SUV

Uber is testing restaurant food deliveries by drone.

* This article was originally published here

Infusing machine learning models with inductive biases to capture human behavior

Human decision-making is often difficult to predict and delineate theoretically. Nonetheless, in recent decades, several researchers have developed theoretical models aimed at explaining decision-making, as well as machine learning (ML) models that try to predict human behavior. Despite the achievements associated with some of these models, accurately predicting human decisions remains a significant research challenge.

* This article was originally published here

Norovirus structures could help develop treatments for food poisoning

Noroviruses are a leading cause of food-borne illness outbreaks, accounting for 58% of all outbreaks and cause 685 million cases worldwide each year. There is no effective therapeutic against them. Having knowledge of the intricate structure of the outer layer of noroviruses, the capsid, which allows the virus to attach to its human host, could help in vaccine development.

* This article was originally published here