Synthetic opioid overdose deaths in the United States soared from less than 3,000 in 2013 to almost 20,000 in 2016, accounting for half of all opioid-related overdose deaths. These medicines are frequently obtained on the internet’s secret “darknet.” An analysis published today (October 8, 2019) in Contemporary Economic Policy that examined the darknet’s opioid purchases from 2014 to 2016 found that vendors priced fentanyl in 2014 at a 90% discount compared with an equivalent dose of heroin....

In mathematics, simple equations can generate a complex evolution in time and intriguing patterns in space. One famous example of this is the Mandelbrot set, named after the French-American mathematician of Polish origin, Benoit B. Mandelbrot (1924-2010), the most studied fractal. This set is based on a single quadratic equation with only one parameter and one variable. The fascinating fractal patterns of the Mandelbrot set have attracted attention far beyond mathematics....

Polyamides are important plastics. They can be found in ski bindings and in cars or items of clothing. Commercially, they have been made predominantly from crude oil up until now; there are just a few “green” alternatives, such as polyamides based on castor oil. Bio-based compounds are often significantly more expensive to produce and have therefore only been able to penetrate the market before now if they have had particular properties....

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile observed the debris from the explosionThis is the first time such an event has been conclusively identifiedThe dual rings of dust and gas – the debris from the explosion – resemble an hourglassStudying the remains of the merger, the researchers were able to detect the tell-tale signature of lithiumThe remains are also rich in organic molecules such as formaldehyde (H2CO) and methanamide (NH2CHO)The brown dwarf star was ‘shredded’ and dumped on the surface of a white dwarf star, leading to the 1670 eruption and the hourglass we see today...

People who smoked traditional cigarettes in addition to using e-cigarettes experienced health effects as harmful as those who smoked cigarettes exclusively; those effects are associated with a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and death.In a large data analysis of more than 7,100 U.S. adults, researchers examined the association of cigarette and e-cigarette use with inflammation and oxidative stress as biomarkers predicting cardiovascular disease.This is among the first nationally representative studies of e-cigarettes to include these kinds of measurable early indicators of the health impacts of nicotine products....

While the modern world relies on energy storage devices more and more heavily, it is becoming increasingly important to implement sustainable battery technologies that are friendlier to the environment, are easy to dispose, rely on abundant elements only, and are cheap. Organic batteries are desirable candidates for such purposes. However, organic cathode materials that store a lot of energy per mass unit can be charged quickly, are durable, and can be easily produced on a large scale at the same time, remain underdeveloped....

In a study jointly conducted by the Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) Core Facility at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) and Beijing Tsinghua University, an antibody was found to be capable of neutralizing major SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. As SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to emerge and spread around the world, antibodies and vaccines to confer broad and potent neutralizing activity are urgently needed. The paper titled “A Potent and Protective Human Neutralizing Antibody Against SARS-CoV-2 Variants,” which was first published in Frontiers in Immunology December 2021, explained how the team isolated and characterized monoclonal antibodies from individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2....

In a preliminary study of COVID-19 patients with mild-to-moderate disease who were attempting to recover in their homes, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the drug fluvoxamine seems to prevent some of the most serious complications of the illness and make hospitalization and the need for supplemental oxygen less likely. The study, a collaboration between the university’s Department of Psychiatry and Division of Infectious Diseases, involved 152 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19....

The study, conducted by an international team and led by RMIT University’s Professor Christian Doerig, outlines a strategy that could save years of drug discovery research and millions of dollars in drug development by repurposing existing treatments designed for other diseases such as cancer. The approach shows so much promise it has received government funding for its potential application in the fight against COVID-19. The study, published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the parasites that cause malaria are heavily dependent on enzymes in red blood cells where the parasites hide and proliferate....

A new machine learning algorithm trained only with real data has classified over 2,300 supernovae with over 80% accuracy. Artificial intelligence is classifying real supernova explosions without the traditional use of spectra, thanks to a team of astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The complete data sets and resulting classifications are publicly available for open use. By training a machine learning model to categorize supernovae based on their visible characteristics, the astronomers were able to classify real data from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey for 2,315 supernovae with an accuracy rate of 82-percent without the use of spectra....

Drinking artificially sweetened beverages is associated with a significantly lower risk of colon cancer recurrence and cancer death, a team of investigators led by a Yale Cancer Center scientist has found. The study was published today in PLOS ONE. “Artificially sweetened drinks have a checkered reputation in the public because of purported health risks that have never really been documented,” said the study’s senior author, Charles S. Fuchs, M.D., director of Yale Cancer Center....

Each black hole’s mass is more than 800 million times that of our sun. As the two gradually draw closer together in a death spiral, they will begin sending gravitational waves rippling through space-time. Those cosmic ripples will join the as-yet-undetected background noise of gravitational waves from other supermassive black holes. Even before the destined collision, the gravitational waves emanating from the supermassive black hole pair will dwarf those previously detected from the mergers of much smaller black holes and neutron stars....

The galaxy, called BOSS-EUVLG1, has a red-shift of 2.47. This is a measure of the reddening of the light coming from the galaxy, and can be used to find its distance, the further away the galaxy, the greater the value. For BOSS-EUVLG1, the value of 2.47 means that we are observing the galaxy when the universe was some 2 thousand million years old, around 20% of its present age. The large values of redshift and luminosity of BOSS-EUVLG1 caused it to be classified previoulsy in the BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey) project as a quasar....

The galaxy, located over 3 billion light years away, is small, a so-called dwarf galaxy, and very different to our own Milky Way. Also, a persistent, compact radio source is close to the source of the bursts, which provides important insights into its astrophysical origin. The results from an international team, including Laura Spitler from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, appear today in three publications in Nature and the Astrophysical Journal Letters....

According to the study — published in the journal Ecology and Evolution — Tupaia glis, the common treeshrew, defies two widely tested rules that describe patterns of geographical variation within species: the island rule and Bergmann’s rule. The island rule predicts that populations of small mammals evolve larger body sizes on islands than on the mainland, whereas island-bound large mammals evolve smaller body sizes than their mainland counterparts. Bergmann’s rule holds that populations of a species in colder climates — generally located at higher latitudes — have larger body sizes than populations in warmer climates, which are usually at lower latitudes....

Tissue engineers create artificial organs and tissues that can be used to develop and test new drugs, repair damaged tissue, and even replace entire organs in the human body. However, current fabrication methods limit their ability to produce free-form shapes and achieve high cell viability. Researchers at the Laboratory of Applied Photonics Devices (LAPD), in EPFL’s School of Engineering, working with colleagues from Utrecht University, have come up with an optical technique that takes just a few seconds to sculpt complex tissue shapes in a biocompatible hydrogel containing stem cells....

Study author Professor Giuseppe Rosano of the IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana, Rome, Italy said: “It is well established that both obesity and estrogen-containing contraceptives are risk factors for VTE. Despite this, obese women continue to receive these drugs. The scientific evidence indicates that obesity and combined oral contraceptives have a synergistic effect on VTE risk and this should be considered in prescribing decisions. Progestin-only products, including pills, intrauterine devices, or implants are a safer alternative to the combined pill in women carrying excess weight....

ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope has helped to identify a star and a black hole that orbit each other at the dizzying rate of once every 2.4 hours, smashing the previous record by nearly an hour. The black hole in this compact pairing, known as MAXI J1659-152, is at least three times more massive than the Sun, while its red dwarf companion star has a mass only 20% that of the Sun....

Current advice from the America Dental Association tells you that if your gums bleed, make sure you are brushing and flossing twice a day because it could be a sign of gingivitis, an early stage of periodontal disease. And that might be true. So if you are concerned, see your dentist. However, a new University of Washington study suggests you should also check your intake of vitamin C. “When you see your gums bleed, the first thing you should think about is not, I should brush more....

A growing number of patients with advanced lung cancer could soon be offered a blood test to help to decide the best treatment for them instead of having to get a tumor sample for analysis. New data from the BFAST trial presented at the ESMO Congress 2019 have shown that the test can be used successfully to identify complex DNA mutations in the cells of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) suitable for the latest targeted medicines....