Environment Venezuela  VENEZUELA 05/03/2021

Is odor the secret to bats' sex appeal?

Odors come from very different parts of bats' bodies, from their heads and mouths to their wings or genitalia

When falling in love, humans often pay attention to looks. Many non-human animals also choose a sexual partner based on appearance. Male birds may sport flashy feathers to attract females, lionesses prefer lions with thicker manes and colorful male guppies with large spots attract the most females. But bats are active in the dark. How do they attract mates? Mariana Muñoz-Romo, a senior Latin American postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and National Geographic explorer, pioneers research to understand the role of odors in bat mating behavior.

 

  
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Health Spain  VALLADOLID 03/03/2021

Hydrogel injection may change the way the heart muscle heals after a heart attack

The regeneration of cardiac tissue is minimal so that the damage caused cannot be repaired by itself

Researchers at CÚRAM, the SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices based at National University of Ireland Galway, and BIOFORGE Lab, at the University of Valladolid in Spain, have developed an injectable hydrogel that could help repair and prevent further damage to the heart muscle after a heart attack.

 

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 02/03/2021

First DNA extracted from modern, ancient and fossil tropical shells

The next time you eat seafood, think about the long-term effects. Will consistently eating the biggest fish or the biggest conch, mean that only the smaller individuals will have a chance to reproduce?

In Wonderland, Alice drank a potion to shrink herself. In nature, some animal species shrink to escape the attention of human hunters, a process that takes from decades to millennia. To begin to understand the genetics of shrinking, scientists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama successfully extracted DNA from marine shells. Their new technique will not only shed light on how animals from lizards to lemurs shrink, it will reveal many other stories hidden in shells.

 

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 26/02/2021

Are eastern pacific corals climate change survivors?

A tech entrepreneur who dreamed of becoming a marine biologist teams up with STRI researchers and young Latin American biologists to find out if some coral reefs are more resilient than others

 

Coral reefs cover 1% of the Earth’s surface – but are home to 25% of the world’s marine species. Reefs are under threat from climate change, but a team of researchers from STRI has embarked on a four-year quest to solve a tantalizing mystery: why do some corals in the Tropical Eastern Pacific seem to be more resistant to the damaging effects of climate change than corals elsewhere? By unlocking the secrets of these “super-corals,” they hope to help rescue and restore coral reefs worldwide.

  
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Environment Portugal  PORTUGAL 19/02/2021

How larger brains can predict social behaviours

Team of researchers, co-led by IGC principal investigator Rui Oliveira, discovered that the size of the brain is important for complex social decision making

Eager to understand how the environment can impact animal cognitive performance, a team of researchers discovered that, in cleaner fish from the Great Barrier Reef, the size of the brain is important for complex social decision making. The study published in Nature Communications suggests that large forebrains (the forward-most portion of the brain) enable individuals to adapt better to local environmental conditions, important data to add to the study of coral reef ecosystems.

  
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Technology Spain  ESPAÑA 17/02/2021

CoronaSurveys, selected as Finalist in Pandemic Response Challenge

The project, led by researcher Antonio Fernández Anta (IMDEA Networks Institute), is among the 48 finalist teams from 17 countries selected in the $500K Pandemic Response Challenge sponsored by Cognizant

XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, in partnership with Cognizant, one of the world’s leading technology and professional services companies, have announced that 48 teams from 17 countries are advancing to the final round of the $500K Pandemic Response Challenge. Teams competing in Phase 2 will develop artificial intelligence-driven models (courtesy of supporting partner AWS) to prescribe actions for safely reopening society and limiting economic impact while minimizing COVID-19 transmissions (conclusion of the challenge: February 26, 2021).

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 12/02/2021

DAEMON: Beyond 5G with (Network) Intelligence

The European project involves 12 partners across Europe, and will develop and implement updates to the mobile network architecture so as to best accommodate Network Intelligence (NI) in future 6G systems

IMDEA Networks is the project coordinator for the Network intelligence for aDAptive and sElf-Learning MObile Networks (DAEMON) project, financed under the European Union H2020-ICT-2020-2 call on Information and Communication Technology. From January 2021 to December 2023, the team of researchers will work on the application of Network Intelligence (NI) to 6G systems so as to fully automate network management, with a substantial participation of industry players, including world-leading manufacturers such as Nokia and NEC Corporation, top operators like Telefonica and OTE, as well as innovative SMEs like SRS, ADLINK or WINGS ICT.

  
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 10/02/2021

Sepsis: new evidence to understand and fight the disease

Study published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe reveals new mechanisms that confer resistance against sepsis and sheds light on key aspects of hominid evolution

Researchers discover that the loss of a specific molecule may explain how primates evolved to be able to resist to bacterial infections leading to sepsis. The study published in the prestigious scientific journal Cell Host & Microbe reveals that, in mice, the absence of this molecule (the α-Gal glycan) from the antibodies structure increases the ability to the same antibody to kill bacteria. This evolutionary advantage emerged with a cost, the reproductive decline. These findings shed light on key aspects of hominid evolution and reveal new mechanisms that confer resistance against sepsis, crucial to understand and fight the disease.

  
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Space Spain  MADRID 03/02/2021

A laboratory integrates a deorbit device to eliminate space debris

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and SENER Aeroespacial have set up a laboratory to develop a new device to deorbit space debris based on electrodynamic tether technology

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and SENER Aeroespacial have set up a laboratory to develop a new device to deorbit space debris based on electrodynamic tether technology. The laboratory, located in SENER’s facilities in Tres Cantos (Madrid, Spain), will be used to integrate the avionics system into the deorbit device that is currently under development thanks to E.T.PACK, a FET-OPEN project funded with €3 million by the European Commission. The avionic system of the device belongs to the activities of an industrial doctorate funded by the Government of the Community of Madrid.

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 28/01/2021

Parental control applications often misbehave posing privacy threats for children and even parents

Does the potential of parental control apps for protecting children justify the risks regarding the collection and processing of their data?

The researchers Álvaro Feal (IMDEA Networks Institute), Paolo Calciati (IMDEA Software Institute), Dr. Narseo Vallina-Rodríguez (IMDEA Networks Institute), Dr. Carmela Troncoso (Spring Lab EPFL), and Dr. Alessandra Gorla (IMDEA Software Institute) have won the “Prize for the research and Personal Data Protection Emilio Aced” given by the Spanish data protection agency (AEPD), for the paper “Angel or Devil? A Privacy Study of Mobile Parental Control Apps.

  
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Health Spain  MADRID 18/01/2021

A mathematical study describes how metastasis starts

Research by the UC3M and UCM

A scientific study carried out by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has produced a mathematical description of the way in which a tumor invades the epithelial cells and automatically quantifies the progression of the tumor and the remaining cell islands after its progression. The model developed by these researchers could be used to better understand the biophysical characteristics of the cells involved when developing new treatments for wound healing, organ regeneration, or cancer progression.

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 08/01/2021

Male bats with high testosterone levels have large forearm crusts

Male Fringe-Lipped bats smear a sticky, odorous substance on their forearms. When this was discovered, researchers guessed that it might play a role in mating

Males may put a lot of effort into attracting females. Male peacocks flaunt eye-catching trains, but male bats, because they are active at night, may rely on females’ sense of smell to draw them in. Three years ago, Victoria Flores, a predoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, discovered that male fringed-lipped bats often have a sweet-smelling, crusty substance on their forearms. Because only males had crusts and primarily exhibited these crusts during the putative reproductive season, Flores speculated that crusts might play a role in mating. Now Mariana Muñoz-Romo, postdoctoral fellow at STRI and National Geographic Explorer, and her colleagues have evidence to prove it.

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 28/12/2020

Sea urchins are stuck belly up in low-oxygen hot water

As oceans warm and become more acidic and oxygen-poor, Smithsonian researchers asked how marine life on a Caribbean coral reef copes with changing conditions

“During my study, water temperatures on reefs in Bocas del Toro, Panama, reached an alarming high of almost 33 degrees C (or 91 degrees F), temperatures that would make most of us sweat or look for air conditioning—options not available to reef inhabitants,” said Noelle Lucey, post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI).

  
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Technology Spain  MADRID 18/12/2020

The CoronaSurveys Project, among the finalists for the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge

Recognition of months of work studying the prevalence of coronavirus in real time

Over 150 researchers and 50 organisations participated in the call for proposals entitled the COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge, sponsored by Facebook Data for Good, with the participation of Delphi Group-Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Joint Program on Survey Methodology-University of Maryland (UMD), the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, and Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative by Vital Strategies.


Organised by Catalyst @Health 2.0, on Wednesday the 16th the announcement was made that the award went to the project DeepOutbreak (Georgia Tech), during a ceremony which saw the participation of renowned people including Dr Tom Frieden (President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives); Dr Mark McClellan (Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy); Farzad Mostashari, CEO of Aledade; Kang-Xing Jin, Head of Health at Facebook, and specialist health and technology journalist Christina Farr (NBC). During the event, the finalists pointed out the most noteworthy issues from their research studies.


CoronaSurveys won 5000 dollars in recognition of its status as a finalist, thanks to the results obtained in recent months for the real-time collection, via simple anonymous surveys, of the number of COVID-19 cases in the world and innovations like collecting data on vaccination. Great collaborative work based on an indirect reporting method called Network Scale-up, which leads to extremely precise estimates from a moderate number of responses. The survey is available in 60 languages from countries round the world (150 of them regional), with data and estimates available for use by political leaders and the scientific community.


As pointed out by Antonio Fernández Anta, Research Professor at IMDEA Networks and project promoter since March 2020, along with an extensive team of university researchers and research centres: ‘Participation in Data Challenge has been a unique experience. On the one hand, it has obligated the CoronaSurveys team to start up a working line on prediction and early warning, which we hope will be extremely useful. On the other, it has let us give widespread visibility to the combination of obtaining indirect information and applying the Network Scale-up Method as a technique with many advantages for its application to public health.’

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Technology Spain  MADRID 17/12/2020

Big Data will analyse the mystery of Beethoven’s metronome

Data science and physics research has analysed a centuries-old controversy over Beethoven’s annotations about the tempo (the playing speed) of his works

Data science and physics research at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and UNED has analysed a centuries-old controversy over Beethoven’s annotations about the tempo (the playing speed) of his works, which is considered to be too fast based on these marks. In this study, published in the PLOS ONE journal, it is noted that this deviation could be explained by the composer reading the metronome incorrectly when using it to measure the beat of his symphonies.

  
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Health Portugal  PORTUGAL 17/12/2020

A matter of balance: asymmetric divisions are crucial to form a functional retina

Study published in the scientific journal 'eLife' opens new paths for understanding how the complex brain develops its architecture and function

Researchers at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, have discovered that in the developing retina, and important part of the central nervous system, the divisions leading to the first differentiating neurons are asymmetric and that this asymmetry is necessary to generate the correct types of neurons in the right numbers and proportions. The study, published in the scientific journal eLife, is the first to report this asymmetry and the molecular processes underlying it, opening new paths for understanding how the complex brain develops its architecture and function.

  
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Environment Panama  PANAMÁ 16/12/2020

Smithsonian scientist clears up Panamanian urban legend

How did canal grass arrive in Panama? STRI staff scientist Kristin Saltonstall compared the DNA of sugar cane relatives from around the world to find out

Urban legends about the origins of canal grass in Panama abound, but the Smithsonian has new evidence that puts the question to rest. Canal grass is an invasive weed, native to Asia. Because its tiny seeds blow in the wind, it readily invades clearings and spreads to form impenetrable stands by budding from tillers and rhizomes. Once established, canal grass is challenging to eliminate. Fire burns the tops and stimulates the roots. Glassy hairs edging its leaf blades cut skin and dull machetes.

  
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Social Sciences Brazil  ACRE 04/12/2020

Early human landscape modifications discovered in Amazonia

No evidence of extensive savannah formations during the current Holocene period

In 2002 Professor Alceu Ranzi (Federal University of Acre) and Prof. Martti Parssinen (University of Helsinki) decided to form an international research team to study large geometric earthworks, called geoglyphs, at the Brazilian state of Acre in South-western Amazonia. Soon it appeared that a pre-colonial civilization unknown to international scholars built there geometric ceremonial centers and sophisticated road systems. This civilization flourished in the rainforest 2,000 years ago. The discovery supported Prof. William Balee´s (Tulane University) theory of early human impacts on the current Amazonian tropical forest composition that radically altered the notion of the pristine Amazon rainforest.

  
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Technology Portugal  PORTUGAL 30/11/2020

A new mathematical front to understand species coexistence

Researchers propose new model for host colonization by different microbial species, providing fundamental advances for the understanding of biodiversity

In an effort to understand how different species coexist, researchers develop a mathematical model that establishes interactions in co-colonization as the key. The study, published in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, links epidemiology, ecology and evolution and models host colonization by different microbial species, providing fundamental advances for the analysis of species coexistence and the understanding of biodiversity.

  
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Social Sciences Guatemala  GUATEMALA 23/11/2020

The ritual significance of a classic Maya sweat bath in Guatemala

An unusual offering in an abandoned and unique-looking structure revealed new evidence of the role it played in the community

Sweat baths have a long history of use in Mesoamerica. Commonly used by midwives in postpartum and perinatal care in contemporary Maya communities, these structures are viewed as grandmother figures, a pattern that can also be traced to earlier periods of history. At the site of Xultun, Guatemala, a Classic Maya sweat bath with an unusual collection of artifacts led archaeologists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), the Archaeology Program at Boston University and other collaborating institutions to gather new evidence of these beliefs and an early example of the related ritual practices.

  
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