ResearchPod

Dr Shelley Newman of Newman Specialty VetPath, USA, has improved the diagnosis, classification, and treatment of mast cell tumours and pancreatic diseases in veterinary species and contributed to the literature by characterising many new disease processes in exotic species.

Read more about their work in Research Outreach

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.20.12.0663

Even this early in the 21st century, there are signs of economic and cultural trends that may be its hallmarks in history - for better, for worse and in ways yet to be seen.

Today i’m speaking with Dr Huiyao 'Henry' Wang of the Centre of China and Globalisation about the future of China in international commerce and diplomacy, how to connect with, and within, global superpowers, and what history might have to say about current events.

Read more at the CCG website, or in their recent report: http://en.ccg.org.cn/archives/73205

For as long as people have farmed, it has been known that planting the same crop in the same field without change over the years leads to reduced crop yield. Decaying plant material from past harvests leaves extracellular, or free-drifting, plant DNA in the soil, that prohibits the growth of new plants of the same species. This phenomenon, known as toxicity, is responsible for a plant–soil negative feedback mechanism

Dr Annalisa Iuorio from the University of Vienna, a specialist in the mathematical modelling of dynamic systems in ecological settings, researched the effects of toxicity on vegetation distribution. They hope that their research can be applied to  other fields in biology, even including  cancer research. This research supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.29.226522

The dream of nuclear fusion as a source of near-unlimited energy is decades old, but, with the latest advances by research teams working around the world, it may just be within reach.

Dr Tamás Biró of the Wigner Research Centre for Physics is leading research on laser ignition of nanoparticles to bring that goal closer to fruition.

You can read more about his research in Research Outreach.

Read the original article: https://journals.aps.org/prxenergy/abstract/10.1103/PRXEnergy.1.023001

Peter Verheyen of the Sola Society and Academy at Vienna University, Austria, explores the notion that the conscious reality we experience as human beings is drawn from the information constantly emitted from the real physical world.

 He argues that the real physical world is akin to a giant quantum computer that gives rise to consciousness itself.

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.3390/sci3040035

Read more in Research Outreach

The cellular waste in your blood can tell you a lot about your health -any immune activation, mineral deficits, or stress hormones circulating through you. So, what do you think it means when chunks of cells, knocked loose by the shear stress of your own blood pressure, start turning up?

Dr Ramani Ramchandran at the Medical College of Wisconsin and his team are developing new tests for these cellular fragments in blood to determine what they can tell us about your whole-body health.

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.151813

More than one in seven people in the US have chronic kidney disease (CKD), making it one of the top causes of death. Anaemia is a common, though under-treated complication.

Dr Robert Provenzano of Wayne State University and his team pooled together the results of three randomised clinical trials to investigate the efficacy and safety of of new treatment, Roxadustat, in managing the blood disease risks of CKD patients.

Read the original article: doi.org/10.2215/CJN.16191020

Read more in Research Features

For members of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), festivals are used to promote a concept known as   “the ASEAN Way”: respecting each other’s sovereignty, non-interference in the internal affairs of one another, and peaceful settlements of disputes.

In his most recent paper, Dr David Ocón of Singapore Management University researches the “ulterior motives” of festivals and how they can be used for political and economic ends.

Read the original article: https://doi.org/10.1163/1871191X-bja10081

Biodiversity data can be analysed to predict species distribution at various scales of time and space. However, survey completeness and temporal decay in data quality introduce uncertainty into biodiversity models. 

Researchers Joaquín Hortal, Juliana Stropp, Richard Ladle, and Geiziane Tessarolo, among others, are constructing the first Maps of Biogeographical Ignorance (MoBIs) that account for uncertainty in biodiversity analysis. Presented alongside species distribution models (SDMs), MoBIs ensure conservation resources are appropriately distributed.

Read the original article: doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05793

Read more in Research Outreach

The 'resource curse’,  or "Dutch disease“, describes when countries rich in natural resources face reduced domestic growth rates in other sectors due an influx of foreign currency or investment, mixed with market volatility.

The Tao of Finance initiative from the World Academy of Arts and Sciences examines the link between this ‘disease’ and the 17 UN-Sustainability Development Goals, and identifies an  upgraded monetary system to make the resource curse history.

Read more about the Tao of Finance at the WAAS website, or read the books ‘Financing Our Future' and 'Financing our Anthropocene'