New technique removes the cause of allergic asthma: Antibodies are suctioned off

Allergies are the commonest cause of asthma. The immune system over-reacts to harmless substances such as birch or grass pollen, for example, forming immunoglobulin E antibodies (IgE). Together with the inflammatory cells in the skin and mucous membranes, the "mast cells", IgE antibodies are responsible for certain allergic diseases, such as asthma and hay fever, for example, and are also partly responsible for the development of neurodermatitis. Scientists from MedUni Vienna have now successfully developed a technique for suctioning the IgE antibodies out of the blood, thereby significantly improving the quality of life for people who suffer from severe allergic asthma.

Land tamed through generations of hard work in Mustang is threatened by unanticipated freaky weather patterns in the recent years.

Food security is a global challenge especially in developing countries with a growing population and less land to cultivate. Erratic weather patterns due to global warming in the recent years have increased uncertainty in the productivity of agricultural produce particularly in mountainous regions. New research published in Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, a journal hosted on the INASP-supported Nepal Journals Online platform, has shed light on the new aspects of climate change in Nepal's Himalayan region and has linked it with the state of food insecurity in the Trans-Himalayan land of Upper Mustang.

That old safe haven, gold, could well seal the destiny of at least part of the forests of the Guiana Shield. This is what emerged from work by researchers from CIRAD, the CNRS and the University of French Guiana, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. For the first time, the scientists involved used maps of annual deforestation based on high-resolution satellite images to examine the impact of gold mining on the tropical rainforests of the Guiana Shield between 2001 and 2014. This new analysis, which covered Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá, showed that when gold prices rise, deforestation increases, and that when they fall, deforestation decreases. It also revealed subtantial disparities from one country to another, which would warrant drafting more coordinated regulatory policies on the scale of the Guiana Shield, and casts doubt on the relevance of global deforestation control mechanisms such as REDD+.

During the mid-Cretaceous, angiosperms diversified from several nondiverse lineages to their current global domination [ 1 ], replacing earlier gymnosperm lineages [ 2 ]. Several hypotheses explain this extensive radiation [ 3 ], one of which involves proliferation of insect pollinator associations in the transition from gymnosperm to angiosperm dominance. However, most evidence supports gymnosperm–insect pollinator associations, buttressed by direct evidence of pollen on insect bodies, currently established for four groups: Thysanoptera (thrips), Neuroptera (lacewings), Diptera (flies), and now Coleoptera (beetles). Each group represents a distinctive pollination mode linked to a unique mouthpart type and feeding guild [ 4–9 ].

Whether it involves stopping at a traffic light or diving into freezing water to save someone from drowning: many of our everyday problems require snap decisions in the face of uncertainty. When making decisions, it has been suggested that neurochemicals rapidly flood the brain and signal how uncertain somebody is about a choice. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf have now found evidence of such signalling using measurements of human pupil size. Their results are published in the latest edition of Nature Communications.

Journal of Women's Health

A study of U.S. Navy healthcare personnel has shown that when comparing the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among women and men who had similar deployment experiences, and especially combat experience, the risk of PTSD was significantly higher among women. PTSD risk rose for both men and women with an increasing number of combat exposures, as reported in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website until April 1, 2017.

STAT1 Mutations

Hiroshima University finds way to determine disease-causing mutations.

Researchers at Hiroshima University have developed a smart genetic reference library for locating and weeding out disease-causing mutations in populations. The technique and database, developed by Dr. Satoshi Okada, of HU’s Graduate School of Biomedical & Health Sciences, has successfully estimated naturally occurring rare-variants in the STAT1 gene – and determined the diseases that would result. Using alanine scanning – a method for assessing the functional potential of genes, this study, the first of its kind, should assist doctors in diagnosing primary-immunodeficiency in patients.

Treatment of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis has been greatly improved by the introduction of biologic therapies such as infliximab (which targets tumour necrosis factor alpha), but at considerable cost. A recent analysis of results from 11 published studies including 829 patients shows that a new and lower-cost biosimilar for infliximab-called CT-P13 (Remsima/Inflectra)-has excellent clinical efficacy and safety. Biosimilars are highly similar versions of complex biologic therapies. CT-P13 has been recently approved in the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, and many other countries.

Un team di ricercatori di Istituto di informatica e telematica del Cnr, Mit, Cornell University e Uber ha utilizzato i big data per predirne l’effetto in 30 città: lo studio potrebbe fornire indicazioni per trasformare il futuro del trasporto a livello globale. Milano ha un potenziale di condivisione dei viaggi cinque volte maggiore di Roma. A livello globale, ai primi posti New York e Vienna.  La ricerca pubblicata su Nature Scientific Reports.

Un gruppo di ricercatori dell’Istituto di informatica e telematica del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Iit-Cnr), del Mit, della Cornell University e della società Uber ha utilizzato una quantità senza precedenti di dati sulla mobilità per predire le potenzialità del ride-sharing in 30 città globali. Attraverso l’analisi di oltre 200 milioni di viaggi di taxi effettuati a New York, Singapore, San Francisco e Vienna, i ricercatori hanno scoperto le leggi della mobilità condivisa che possono essere applicate a qualsiasi città. La ricerca, pubblicata nel numero di marzo 2017 della rivista Nature Scientific Reports, potrebbe fornire indicazioni per trasformare il futuro del trasporto a livello globale.

Cista dolmenica a Butera, Sicilia

Nell'antica età del bronzo (fine III millennio a.C.) si diffusero in Europa grandi costruzioni in pietra, i dolmen, rinvenuti da poco anche in Sicilia, seppure con dimensioni più ridotte. Dei loro costruttori si conosce quasi nulla, ma lo studio di due archeologi preistorici siciliani, Salvo Piccolo e Alessandro Bonfanti, tenta  di dissolvere la nebbia che aleggia sul popolo che li ha realizzati nella nostra isola più grande. Da anni, infatti, i due studiosi indagano i contesti che gravitano sui piccoli megaliti siciliani, giungendo a evidenti risultati: “Dolmen, menhir e cromlech – dice Piccolo – sono monumenti preistorici in pietra diffusi un po' ovunque in Europa. I primi, sono costituiti da due pilastri e un lastrone orizzontale sovrapposto, dentro i quali si inumavano i defunti; i secondi erano  segnacoli funerari, allineati e infissi verticalmente nel terreno a indicare, probabilmente, la via siderale per l'aldilà (ad esempio i menhir di Carnac, in Francia). I cromlech, invece, erano costruzioni di forma circolare al cui interno si celebravano riti arcani sollecitati dalle osservazioni astrali. Com'è facile intuire si trattava di architetture parecchio elaborate, testimoni di conoscenze astronomiche sorprendenti che ben si prestavano agli esoterismi religiosi”.