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Featured news

30 Nov 2022

Biomarker in urine could be the first to reveal early-stage Alzheimer’s disease

By Conn Hastings, science writer Image: BlurryMe/Shutterstock.com Alzheimer’s disease can remain undetected until it is too late to treat. Large-scale screening programs could help to detect early-stage disease, but current diagnostic methods are too cumbersome and expensive. A new study published to Frontiers is the first to identify formic acid as a sensitive urinary biomarker that can reveal early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, potentially paving the way for inexpensive and convenient disease screening.   Could a simple urine test reveal if someone has early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and could this pave the way for large-scale screening programs? A new study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience certainly suggests so. The researchers tested a large group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease of different levels of severity and healthy controls with normal cognition to identify differences in urinary biomarkers. They found that urinary formic acid is a sensitive marker of subjective cognitive decline that may indicate the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Current methods to diagnose Alzheimer’s are expensive, inconvenient, and unsuitable for routine screening. This means that most patients only receive a diagnosis when it is too late for effective treatment. However, a non-invasive, inexpensive, and convenient urine test for formic acid could be […]

Featured news

29 Nov 2022

Philipp University of Marburg forms publishing agreement with Frontiers

Philipps University Marburg has formed an institutional membership agreement for open access publishing with Frontiers. This institutional agreement means that eligible researchers of Philipps University Marburg may benefit from 10 % membership discount. To check your eligibility, for information on how much of the APCs can be covered by the Open Access Publishing Fund or if you require any further details, please visit the libraries Open Access Publishing page or contact openaccess@ub.uni-marburg.de, a prerequisite for eligibility is that the corresponding author of the article is a member of Philipps University Marburg Philipps University of Marburg supports its researchers in making their research more widely available. This agreement will further encourage researchers of Philipps University Marburg to publish open access, increasing the volume of research openly available. While this reduces costs for the researcher, it also benefits the wider research community and the public at large.   For more information on Frontiers’ institutional agreements please visit our institutional memberships page or contact institutions@frontiersin.org to discuss the possibilities for your own organization.  Information for researchers  If you are a researcher of Philipps University Marburg, please select Philipp University Marburg in the payment information section (“Frontiers institutional members”) when submitting your article. Frontiers will verify your […]

Featured news

24 Nov 2022

How you help a child go to sleep is related to their behavioral development, finds new study

By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers science writer Image: yamasan0708/Shutterstock.com A group of international researchers examined parental methods to help toddlers sleep across 14 cultures and found that these methods are related to the development of a child’s temperament. The researchers suggested focusing on better sleep-related parenting practices to support positive behavioral development across cultures. The importance of good sleep during childhood development has been extensively researched. Bad sleep quality and behaviors are detrimental to neurobehavioral functioning, emotional reactivity and regulation, and can pose a risk for future psychopathology. “Parental sleeping techniques are correlated with children’s sleep quality, and the importance of cultural context in child development has been long recognized,” said corresponding author Ms Christie Pham, of Washington State University. “We wanted to examine whether cross-cultural differences in parental sleep-supporting strategies account for differences in toddler temperament.” In a study published in Frontiers in Psychology, Pham and her colleagues studied the effect of different parental sleep-supporting techniques on child temperament across 14 cultures. They hypothesized that passive ways of helping a child fall asleep (eg, cuddling, singing, and reading), but not active methods (eg, walking, car rides, and playing), would be positively related to a child’s temperament. ► Read original article► Download original […]

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23 Nov 2022

World’s heaviest flying bird may be self-medicating on plants used in traditional medicine

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Great bustard male displaying on lek. Image credit: Carlos Palacín Researchers show that great bustards in Spain prefer to eat two plant species with compounds active in vitro against protozoa, nematodes, and fungi: corn poppies and purple viper’s bugloss. Males, who spend much time and energy on sexual displays during the mating season, have a stronger preference for these plants than females, and more so during the mating season than at other times of the year. The authors thus consider great bustards as prime candidates for non-human animals that self-medicate, but stress that more research is needed to definitively prove this. If you see a great bustard (Otis tarda) in the wild, you’re unlikely to forget it. Massive, colorful, and impossible to mistake, they are the heaviest birds living today capable of flight, with the greatest size difference between the sexes. They are also ‘lek breeders’, where males gather at chosen sites to put on an audiovisual show for the visiting females, who choose a mate based on his appearance and the quality of his showbirdship. But now, a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggests that great bustards have another claim to […]

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17 Nov 2022

Vast phytoplankton blooms may be lurking beneath Antarctic ice

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Researchers using NASA’s Earth observing system find that Antarctic sea ice allows enough light in to let hidden phytoplankton bloom in the Southern Ocean. Until now, we thought the packed sea ice of the Southern Ocean blocked all light from reaching the sea beneath, preventing phytoplankton — tiny algae which are the base of aquatic food webs — from growing there. The less light available, the less the phytoplankton can photosynthesize and therefore the less phytoplankton there will be, heavily restricting life beneath the ice. But research inspired by increasing under-ice blooms of phytoplankton in the Arctic has shown that Antarctic waters also have unexpected denizens, indicating that there is underestimated ecological variability under the ice. Blooms are often spotted as soon as the sea ice begins its seasonal retreat, supported by plenty of light and freshwater with high iron content. Yet a team led by Dr Christopher Horvat of Brown University and the University of Auckland suspected that there would already be potential phytoplankton blooms in waiting. Writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, they described using sampling from independent BGC-Argo floats and climate model output to estimate light availability beneath […]

Featured news

16 Nov 2022

Smart ‘Joey’ bots could soon swarm underground to clean and inspect our pipes

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Joey’s design. Image credit: TL Nguyen, A Blight, A Pickering, A Barber, GH Jackson-Mills, JH Boyle, R Richardson, M Dogar, N Cohen Researchers from the University of Leeds have developed the first mini-robot, called Joey, that can find its own way independently through networks of narrow pipes underground, to inspect any damage or leaks. Joeys are cheap to produce, smart, small, and light, and can move through pipes inclined at a slope or over slippery or muddy sediment at the bottom of the pipes. Future versions of Joey will operate in swarms, with their mobile base on a larger ‘mother’ robot Kanga, which will be equipped with arms and tools for repairs to the pipes. Beneath our streets lies a maze of pipes, conduits for water, sewage, and gas. Regular inspection of these pipes for leaks, or repair, normally requires these to be dug up. The latter is not only onerous and expensive – with an estimated annual cost of £5.5bn in the UK alone – but causes disruption to traffic as well as nuisance to people living nearby, not to mention damage to the environment. Now imagine a robot that can find its […]

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15 Nov 2022

Colorado State University forms open access publishing agreement with Frontiers

UPDATE Feb 2023: Due to overwhelming demand, Colorado State University is no longer accepting funding requests at this time. CSU is exploring the feasibility of future opportunities to support researchers with article processing charges for Frontiers publications. For questions, please contact Khaleedah Thomas at Khaleedah.Thomas@colostate.edu. Colorado State University supports its researchers in making their research more widely available. As part of this support, Colorado State University Libraries has entered an institutional membership agreement for open access publishing with Frontiers. This institutional agreement means that eligible Colorado State University researchers may publish in any Frontiers journal at no cost to them. Articles may benefit from a 7.5% membership discount. To be eligible, a publication’s corresponding author must be affiliated with Colorado State University. Eligible authors will benefit from a simplified invoicing process, managed directly between Frontiers and the Libraries, relieving authors of the responsibility of payment.  This agreement will further encourage Colorado State University researchers to publish open access, increasing the volume of research openly available. While this reduces costs for the researcher, it also benefits the wider research community and the public at large.   For more information on Frontiers’ institutional agreements please visit our institutional memberships page or contact institutions@frontiersin.org to discuss the possibilities for your […]

Featured news

11 Nov 2022

Monica Montgomery – Policies for Peace

Author: Lucy Thompson Monica Montgomery is the Political Director for the non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization Council for a Livable World. The organization is dedicated to reducing the danger of nuclear weapons and eventually eliminating them through advocating sensible national security policies and helping elect congressional candidates who support them. Today, we discuss Monica’s journey into policymaking, the importance of representation, and the intersection of peace and policy within society.    Photo credit: Monica Montgomery What was your inspiration that led you to your current role?  I first became interested in nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament work through my undergraduate studies at University of Notre Dame, where I had a professor who had extensively worked in Washington, DC on disarmament issues. He organized a trip to the Vatican for a conference that was hosted by Pope Francis himself on issues of nuclear disarmament. I attended this conference and I was really inspired by the message of the Pope. I’ve had Catholic schooling all my life, but this was not something that I had really ever engaged in or had ever thought of nuclear arms control within this sphere.  I think that a lot of the younger generation in the US, at […]

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11 Nov 2022

Having good friendships may make for a healthier gut microbiome

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Grooming rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago. Image credit: Lauren Brent Researchers show for the first time that monkeys that are more sociable – eg, grooming or being groomed more often, and with more grooming partners – have a healthier gut microbiome. For example, they have more of the beneficial bacteria Faecalibacterium and Prevotella, and fewer of the typically pathogenic bacteria Streptococcus. This is further evidence that in primates, social connectedness translates into good physical and mental health, and vice versa. Social connections are essential for good health and wellbeing in social animals, such as ourselves and other primates. There is also increasing evidence that the gut microbiome – through the so-called ‘gut-brain axis’ – plays a key role in our physical and mental health and that bacteria can be transmitted socially, for example through touch. So how does social connectedness translate into the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome? That’s the topic of a new study in Frontiers in Microbiology on rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta. Lead author Dr Katerina Johnson, a research associate at the Department of Experimental Psychology and the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Oxford, said: “Here we show […]

Featured news

09 Nov 2022

Birkbeck, University of London has joined the Frontiers – JISC national open access deal

We would like to announce that Birkbeck, University of London has joined the national open access deal agreed between Jisc Collections and Frontiers.  This landmark deal provides a simplified and streamlined route to open access publishing for researchers in the UK, who publish 7% of the world’s research.  Eligible authors will benefit from a streamlined invoicing process, relieving authors of the responsibility of payment. Furthermore, Birkbeck, University of London will benefit from a discount on Article Processing Charges (APCs) for articles covered by this agreement.  Birkbeck, University of London supports its researchers in making their research more widely available. This agreement will further encourage Birkbeck, University of London researchers to publish open access, increasing the volume of research openly available. While this reduces costs for the researcher, it also benefits the wider research community and the public at large.    For more information on Frontiers’ institutional agreements please visit our institutional memberships page or contact institutions@frontiersin.org to discuss the possibilities for your own organization.   Information for authors:  To submit your article under this agreement, please select ‘Birkbeck, University of London’ as the payer in the invoice section when submitting your article.  Frontiers will then verify your eligibility with Birkbeck, University of London and, if confirmed, the […]

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09 Nov 2022

Frontiers in Aerospace Engineering Online Webinars: Intelligent Aerospace Systems

This Webinar Series is presented by a Specialty Chief Editor of the Frontiers in Aerospace Engineering journal, Professor Kelly Cohen (University of Cincinnati) and members of the Intelligent Aerospace Systems Editorial Board. Growing trends in Artificial Intelligence coupled with increasingly autonomous aerospace systems are bringing about a major paradigm shift resulting in new opportunities that have the potential to radically extend the state of the art in aerospace systems. These innovative technologies are pushing the market into new areas such as advanced air mobility with autonomy of such systems a key enabler which need to be trustworthy, synergize with human operators to augment performance, and assure safety and reliability of operations. The goal of this Webinar Series in Intelligent Aerospace Systems is to promote new advances in AI-systems and technologies that incorporates exciting and relevant developments in the Industrial Revolution 4.0/5.0. Editorial Board members and invited external speakers will discuss their work on these issues, covering a review of trustworthiness in AI and Intelligent systems, applications to existing architectures, and the state-of-the-art. Speaker: Doctor Krishna Kalyanam, NASA Ames Aviation Systems Division Talk Title: Bringing the fruits of AI/ML to Aviation and Air Traffic Management Date and Time: Monday November 28th […]

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07 Nov 2022

5 articles you need to check out on the future of materials research

By Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com In a fast-moving field of research like materials science, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest breakthroughs. Now at Frontiers, we highlight just five of the latest research articles to shed more light on the way we build our world around us, published by top researchers in the Frontiers in Materials Research Topic ‘Horizons in Materials’. Growing green technology: from trees to tech Scientists aiming to power the appliances of the future are developing special phenolic compounds from resins instead of petrol – a first step towards organic electrodes. Since biomass is the only green, renewable source of carbon materials, carbon-based electrodes for new-generation metal-ion batteries could be a more eco-friendly replacement for lithium-ion batteries. Some of the methods to make these compounds currently available are problematic because they require dangerously high temperatures and pressures and hazardous chemicals, but new methods are being developed which use mechanical forces instead. If these compounds can be developed into renewable sources for electronics, Dr Javier Quílez-Bermejo and his team at the Université de Lorraine point out, the potential for revolutionizing electronic devices would be huge, opening the way for greener fuel […]

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04 Nov 2022

From ghost gear to microbe memories: 4 Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just four amazing papers you may have missed. The hunt for ghost gear 25-30% of the plastic waste in the sea is lost fishing gear, or ‘ghost gear’, some of it now up to 60 years old. This ghost gear devastates the environment not only through continuing to trap fish, but also by shedding microplastics into the environment which then enter the food chain. Once it sinks as far as the sea floor, it becomes invisible from above – a hidden threat to the marine ecosystem. A team led by Andrea Stolte from the World Wildlife Foundation, writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, reported a successful ghost-hunting collaboration between fisherfolk, scientists, and divers in the Baltic Sea. This coalition of stakeholders had several options for hunting down the ghost gear. Traditionally, when lost gear is spotted, fisherfolk use search hooks and other similar tools to try to retrieve it. However, this proved to be inefficient and damaging to the […]

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03 Nov 2022

60% of home ‘compostable’ plastic doesn’t fully break down, ending up in our soil

By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers science writer Image: Citizen scientist image from www.bigcompostexperiment.org.uk In a UK-wide study, researchers found that 60% of home-compostable plastics do not fully disintegrate in home compost bins, and inevitably end up in our soil. The study also found that citizens are confused about the labels of compostable and biodegradable plastics, leading to incorrect plastic waste disposal. These results highlight the need to revise and redesign this supposedly sustainable plastic waste management system. Global plastic pollution remains one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. A new OECD report shows that plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Globally, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, while 50% ends up in landfills, 22% evades waste management systems, and 19% is incinerated. In response to this pollution crisis, several countries have set targets to eliminate all single-use plastics and to make plastic packaging 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025.  Compostable plastics are becoming more common as the demand for sustainable products grows. The main applications of compostable plastics include food packaging, bags; cups and plates, cutlery, and bio-waste bags. But there are some fundamental problems with these types of plastics. They are largely unregulated and […]