Technology Spain  MADRID 28/06/2022

New mobile traffic data provides a first quantitative evaluation of the 'digital usage gap'

Researchers at IMDEA Networks Institute have carried out a new study to improve our understanding of how information technology utilization can be a factor of social inequality

IMDEA Networks researchers have taken a new step in their studies on the incidence of the ‘digital divide’, after the work published in January, together with the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) and Orange Innovation, on the so-called “usage gap”, which refers to how individuals belonging to different social classes, due to diverse digital skills, have contrasting capability to benefit from novel technologies and, therefore, from the services that those technologies enable. This is an emerging cause of social inequality, in the face of which research is striving to provide better understanding and to provide directions for solutions.

  
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Environment Ecuador  GALÁPAGOS 24/05/2022

Just keep swimming … silky sharks are setting records

Tracking silky sharks has revealed them to be swift swimmers. But they’re also one of the most heavily fished sharks globally. Will expanded marine protection in the Tropical Eastern Pacific go far enough to protect these long-distance swimmers?

Shark satellite tagging carried out by scientists from the Guy Harvey Research Institute, the SOSF Shark Research Center, the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park Directorate is shining a light on the travels of vulnerable silky sharks across the Tropical Eastern Pacific. The expansion of marine protected areas here goes some way to protecting silkies during their migrations, but new tracking data reveal that more must be done to save them from extinction.

  
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Social Sciences Panama  PANAMÁ 24/05/2022

New interactive map of indigenous fishing practices around the pacific rim

Dedicated to “the Ancestors who stewarded the ocean” an interactive story map created by the Pacific Sea Garden Collective reawakens traditional ways of harvesting food from the sea from Panama to Australia to the Pacific Northwest

For thousands of years indigenous peoples have invented ingenious, often strikingly beautiful ways to harvest marine resources that, in combination with their belief systems, prevented overharvesting. But today, commercial fisheries and skyrocketing human populations are driving the future of resources from the sea toward a dangerous tipping point. Inspired by marine biologist Daniel Pauly, a group of indigenous knowledge holders and community members, scientists and artists led by Anne Salomon, a Simon Fraser University professor, formed the Pacific Sea Garden Collective and created an elegantly simple interactive map to share traditional ways that people interacted with the sea, hoping to inspire a more sustainable future.

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 06/05/2022

Key to post-stroke survival: data and algorithms to improve the quality of life of stroke victims

Researchers at IMDEA Networks Institute collaborate with Brown University, through the European MAESTRO project, to improve survival rates after a stroke

According to the study ‘The impact of stroke in Europe’, by King’s College for the European Stroke Alliance, between 2015 and 2035 there will be a 34% increase in the number of cases in Europe (up to 819,771). And in Spain, more than 100,000 people suffer from it (50% have disabling sequelae or die). Therefore, if prevention is fundamental, rehabilitation becomes a decisive factor in survival and quality of life.

  
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Space Chile  ATACAMA 26/04/2022

Scientists find elusive gas hiding in plain sight

The discovery of turbulent, compact gas in otherwise dormant galaxies gives researchers one more clue to solving the mystery of how galaxies in particular live, evolve and die

Scientists discover that post-starburst galaxies condense their gas rather than expelling it, begging the question: what’s keeping them from forming stars? Post-starburst galaxies were previously thought to scatter all of their gas and dust—the fuel required for creating new stars—in violent energy bursts and at extraordinary speed. New data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) reveals that these galaxies don’t scatter all of their star-forming fuel. Instead, these dormant galaxies hold onto and compress large amounts of highly-concentrated, turbulent gas after their supposed end. But contrary to expectation, they’re not using it to form stars.

  
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 22/04/2022
#CovidNewsDiCYT

How fast does the COVID-19 virus change?

Researchers quantify, for the first time, the mutations generated in a single infection with SARS-CoV-2

The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) and the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) are the first to quantify and to characterize the mutations that can be generated by SARS-CoV-2 when it infects cells. The experimental data provides valuable information to understand how the virus evolves in the human population and for the development of antiviral strategies.

  
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Space Chile  ATACAMA 30/03/2022

Hey DUDE: mysterious death of carbon star plays out like six-ring circus

V Hya is a carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star located approximately 1,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra

Scientists studying V Hydrae (V Hya) have witnessed the star’s mysterious death throes in unprecedented detail. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the team discovered six slowly-expanding rings and two hourglass-shaped structures caused by the high-speed ejection of matter out into space. The results of the study are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

  
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Technology Portugal  PORTUGAL 25/03/2022

Facebook analysis to prevent epilepsy-related deaths

Emotion and stress cues hidden in posts might serve as early warnings of unexpected death

A group of researchers demonstrate that social media could be used to detect behaviors preceding Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP), the leading cause of death in people with uncontrolled epileptic seizures. The findings published in Epilepsy & Behavior reveal that the activity of epilepsy patients in social media increased before their sudden death. These changes in digital behavior could be used as early-warning signals to put preventive interventions for SUDEP into practice, possibly avoiding death.

  
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Social Sciences Spain  ESPAÑA 18/03/2022

An archaeological investigation analyses peasant life in Roman Spain

A research project delves into the life of peasant settlements based on the archaeological findings discovered in the Community of Madrid

The archaeology of the Roman period has traditionally been focused on monumental aspects, but very little is known about what the daily life of peasantry was like. An investigation by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) delves into the life of peasant settlements based on the archaeological findings discovered in the Community of Madrid, in the numerous rescue excavations that were carried out during the real estate bubble period.

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 17/03/2022

A decade of deep-reef exploration in the Greater Caribbean

The use of submersibles exponentially increased recorded diversity of islands’ deep-reef fish faunas

The mysteries of underwater life have long been a source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers, and marine biologists. But scientists interested in understanding the biological diversity of the oceans are often limited by the relatively shallow depths accessible via scuba diving. Small research submersibles, while expensive, allow for the exploration of much deeper waters. A new paper co-authored by researchers at the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the University of Washington and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras describes the important contribution of submersibles to increasing our knowledge about the diversity of deep-reef fishes in the Greater Caribbean.

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 04/03/2022

Smelly ocelot habitats may scare off seed-dispersing rodents

An experiment in Panama’s Parque Natural Metropolitano and Gamboa revealed that agoutis were less likely to disperse and pilfer seeds in sites where ferocious felines roam

When going through stressful situations, some people lose their appetite. Similarly, animals that are scared for their lives tend to eat less. In nature, this behavioral change could have downstream effects. Dumas Galvez, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) wondered how fear of predation could influence the consumption patterns of important seed dispersers such as the Central American agouti, a rodent that loves munching on the seeds of Attalea butyracea, a tropical palm tree also known as corozo, palma real o palma de vino.

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 25/02/2022

Enabling 6G: from low-power technologies for communication to machine learning analytics for privacy preservation

IMDEA Networks has recently been awarded the coordinated project ENABLE-6G of the national call UNICO 5G

IMDEA Networks has recently been awarded the coordinated project ENABLE-6G of the national call UNICO 5G. The project consists of two sub-projects, RISC-6G and MAP-6G, and it will be developed by a group of researchers led by Dr. Domenico Giustiniano and Dr. Joerg Widmer. This grant will allow the Institute to continue to do pioneering research in the field of networks and contribute to the development of the next generation of 6G technology.

  
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 18/02/2022

Tell me what you eat and I will tell you how your microbiota evolves

New study reveals how gut bacteria adapt and affect health in response to diet

New research reveals that diet can change the evolutionary path of bacteria in the gut, within host-relevant timescales. The study, published in Cell Host & Microbe, demonstrates how quickly Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (B. theta), a prevalent bacterium in the human gut, acquires adaptive mutations in response to dietary changes. These findings show that acquisition of genetic changes can explain the observed microbiota-mediated negative effects that unbalanced diets have on host health.

 

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 15/02/2022

Eyes in the Sky: drones help solve tropical tree mortality mysteries

Understanding when and where trees die in vast tropical forests is a challenging first step toward understanding carbon dynamics and climate change

Imagine trying to understand how climate change affects vast tropical forests by determining how many trees die each year. Clouds get in the way of satellite views and on-the-ground estimates are expensive and impractical in remote areas. But researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) are excited by a new analysis that explains variation in tree mortality based on drone images of 1500 hectares of the most-studied tropical forest, Barro Colorado Island, in Panama.

  
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Social Sciences El Salvador  EL SALVADOR 15/02/2022

A genetic database to identify missing persons in El Salvador

The Central American country’s powerful database is essential to be able to identify victims and missing persons resulting from the civil war and also emigrants who lose their lives every year trying to cross the border between Mexico and the US

El Salvador, like other Central American countries, has suffered repression and human rights violations ever since colonial times. Indeed, social injustice in the country persisted and was a major trigger of the 1980-1992 armed conflict.

 

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 11/02/2022

New computer vision system designed to analyse cells in microscopy videos

Analysis of biomedical videos captured automatically by microscopy

Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed a system based on computer vision techniques that allows automatic analysis of biomedical videos captured by microscopy in order to characterise and describe the behaviour of the cells that appear in the images.

  
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 10/02/2022

Identified the first patients with new rare disease caused by defects in cell division

Collaborative study between clinicians and researchers unravels mutations in the BUB1 gene responsible for developmental problems

A new study published in Science Advances described the first two patients known to have mutations in both copies of BUB1, a critical gene for cell division. Contrary to previous thoughts, these mutations are compatible with life albeit associated with developmental problems. The identification and clinical/molecular characterization of such mutations could improve the diagnosis of this rare neurodevelopmental disorder and the understanding of syndromes with similar features.

 

  
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Health Spain  ESPAÑA 04/02/2022

A mathematical model may help explain how blood circulates in the brain

UC3M research analyses the appearance of oscillations in flow networks

Research carried out by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) may help us better understand oscillations in blood flow that occur in the cerebrovascular network, thanks to a theoretical model that allows the flow and accumulation of fluid (in this case, blood) to be taken into account.

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 31/01/2022

The AEPD awards its third consecutive data protection prize to IMDEA Networks researchers

The winning article is "50 Ways to Leak Your Data: An Exploration of Apps' Circumvention of the Android Permissions System"

The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has awarded the “Emilio Aced Research and Personal Data Protection Award” for the third consecutive time to a study conducted by IMDEA Networks’ Internet Analytics Group (IAG) led by Dr. Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez.

 

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 31/01/2022

'Squatina mapama', first report of an angel shark from the Central American Caribbean

Genetic analyses helped identify a new cryptic species of the genus Squatina from the Western Atlantic Ocean

Between 2010 and 2011, two research expeditions sponsored by the Spanish government exploring the biodiversity of benthic organisms —those living on the ocean floor— on Central America’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts, came across a new shark species. The Squatina mapama n. sp., collected off the Caribbean coast of Panama became the first record of an angel shark from the Central American Caribbean. A new paper co-authored by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute staff scientist, D. Ross Robertson, described and named it.

 

  
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