#Journal of Biosciences

[crimsonpublishersbiosciences]

Modulating the Antioxidant Activity of Thin Layer-by-Layer Films with Polyphenols_Crimson Publishers

Abstract:

Layer-by-layer deposition of a polycation and of a cheap polyphenol, tannic acid, allows to produce thin coatings having an antioxidant activity proportional to the amount of deposited polyphenol. This means that the used probe, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), is able to reach all tannic acid molecules present in the film whatever their location. However, when the tannic acid containing film is capped with a few nanometers thick capping layer made of poly (allylamine hydrochloride) and poly (sodium 4-styrene sulfonate), the DPPH has no access anymore to the embedded tannic acid. On this basis, an application is proposed for the production of a packaging film containing tannic acid as a probe able to sense if the packaging has undergone some mechanical damage.

Read More About this Article: https://crimsonpublishers.com/sbb/fulltext/SBB.000560.php

Read More Articles: https://crimsonpublishers.com/sbb/

[klevxander]

Here are some search sites you may have never heard of because Google is so powerful it "hides" them from us. science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed. repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science. bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries. link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols. worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where the rarest book you need is near you. refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

[innspubnet]

Author Instruction of the International Journal of Biosciences | IJB

International Journal of Biosciences | IJB publishes high-quality original research papers together with Review articles and short-communication. Submission of a manuscript to IJB implies that it is not under consideration by any other journal, and no part has been published elsewhere, with the exception of a short abstract. All of the authors have to be aware of the submission. Author…

[victusinveritas]

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.

Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.

Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.

Source here.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

A new report from a team of international scientists has revealed harsh realities on Earth, with 25 of 35 planetary vital signs reaching record extremes. Without immediate action, scientists warn that these extremes could threaten life on Earth.

In the new study, published in the journal BioScience, scientists presented a stark look at the state of the climate crisis.

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis,” the scientists wrote.

Scientists use 35 different planetary vital signs to track the effects of climate change, including human population, global tree cover loss, meat production per capita, energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, ice mass changes, glacier thickness and more.

Twenty-five of these vital signs are already breaking records, including human population, coal and oil consumption, ruminant livestock populations, U.S. heat-related deaths, carbon emissions, methane levels, fossil fuel subsidies, ocean heat content changes, ocean acidification, glacier thickness and tree cover loss, among others.

According to the scientists, the human population is increasing by around 200,000 people per day, while ruminant livestock populations are increasing by around 170,000 animals per day. They also found that fossil fuel consumption increased 1.5% in 2023.

A separate report, the 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment, recently confirmed a decrease in tree cover, with 6.3 million hectares of land deforested in 2023.

Although the scientists did find that renewable energy consumption increased in 2023, renewables are still not overtaking fossil fuel demand enough to limit severe impacts of climate change.

Further, scientists warned that atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations have reached record highs, the average surface temperature of the Earth is at a record high, ocean acidity has broken records, ocean heating is at an all-time high, and global sea levels are at the highest amounts ever recorded. 

On the other hand, Greenland and Antarctic ice masses have reached record lows, and the average global glacier thickness is at an all-time low.

We are already seeing the devastating impacts of these vital signs hitting extremes, with a 117% increase in heat deaths in the U.S. from 1999 to 2023. Last year, areas across Asia experienced deadly heat waves that killed thousands of people, the report authors warned.

Now, the U.S. is facing two back-to-back hurricanes amid rising ocean temperatures, which have nearly doubled in the past two decades, a recent report from EU Copernicus found.

[lenbryant]

Search Engines that aren't Google:

Via Darren Cousins, July 29, 2022

Shared with Public

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.

Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.

Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

As a new stronger covid strain spreading across Europe is identified, Zoe Beaty looks at the symptoms and how we’re still living with the virus four years after the world went into lockdown

Her morning coffee was the first clue. Earlier in the summer, Rebecca Jones made her usual pot at 8am, and took the much-awaited first sip. Only, it tasted off. “It was just horrible,” says Jones. She’d tasted it once before, back in 2020. “That’s when I knew it was Covid.”

During this year’s unsettled summer, Covid has been quietly lurking in the background of many people’s lives. Four years ago, the sense of urgency was still in its infancy – we would still experience two more nationwide lockdowns and UK death figures would reach 227,000 by May of 2023. Worldwide, that toll stretched to more than 7 million. We wore masks, we distanced ourselves, isolated – and worried.

The road back to normality was long and arduous, but very sweet for the majority. Our simplest pleasures – hugging, holidaying, not worrying about where a surgical mask is – for a while were consistently vocalised. It made sense that much of the thrill of being able to nip for a pint after work or do a food shop without queuing wore off relatively quickly.

For a while, it was almost a surprise when someone told you they’d tested positive. Isolation seemed silly again. But now, that confidence is steadily being chipped away at. A morsel of fear is back – but this time with little to no solid advice. And with a wider perspective of the new threat that long Covid poses.

Reports earlier this year found that up to two million people are living with long Covid in the UK, or one in 20 people who have contracted the disease. And according to experts a new ‘stronger’ variant is now spreading across Europe. First identified as the XEC strain in Germany in June, global health experts believe that it could be the dominant variant within months and cause a new spike when the weather turns colder.

Symptoms include tiredness, difficulty sleeping, shortness of breath and chest pain, among many others. The latest UK figures show there has been a 4.30 per cent rise in Covid cases week-on-week and England reported 1.465 hospital admissions up until August 30. Detailed data is still being collected on the new variant.

Most people will get better within a few weeks, but for others it could take longer to recover. People who smoke or who are overweight, who have been admitted to hospital due to the severity of their Covid symptoms in the past . or who live in deprived areas are most at risk. Age is also linked to “persistent symptoms”.

“Over the last few years, Covid-19 has become an illness that we have learnt to live with. But that does not mean it’s not still a deadly disease,” says Professor Mark Wass, head of the University of Kent’s School of Bioscience. “Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows that over the last few months there have been 100-200 deaths related to Covid-19 per week.

“While Covid-19 is still deadly, for many symptoms are now similar to a cold – but there is always the risk of long Covid,” Wass adds.

This year’s “summer Covid wave” – a rise in cases – is difficult to prove. “The surveillance of Covid cases in the UK is far less intensive than it once was, so it is more difficult to track the rise and fall of waves of infection, or to assess the severity of different variants, or to know how effective the vaccines are against them,” Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently.

In our homes, the trend has followed suit. Most of us now only test as an afterthought. None of us are sure if old Covid tests are out of date. And we’re reluctant to spend £29.99 for one.

While it is hard to track infections, there has been an increase in the number of cases where Covid is recorded on death certificates in the UK in the past months. After a spike in January and February, numbers fell sharply until May when the lowest number of deaths in a week stood at 93, before climbing again above 200 on several weeks in July and August.

Being vaccinated reduces the risk of contracting long Covid by four times, some studies suggest – but, right now, only the most vulnerable are able to access a booster vaccination. Government vaccine advisers, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) closed the spring campaign offering boosters to the over-75s, people in care homes or those who are immunosuppressed – on 30 June.

Wass says that vaccine programmes are now seasonal, no autumn vaccine programme has been announced – those who wish to be vaccinated must now pay £45 to £99 for a booster. “If you are eligible, then the advice is to get vaccinated. We know that the immunity offered by vaccines reduces over time, so getting vaccinated offers the best protection.”

Anecdotally at least, those unable to get boosters who catch the virus appear to be feeling the after-effects. And since knowledge of long Covid will only increase as the years go by, we’re learning of more cases or more severe cases.

One friend was diagnosed with Parsonage-Turner syndrome – a neurological condition that causes sudden, severe pain in the shoulder and upper arm – after contracting Covid in June. Despite being a healthy 39-year-old who regularly works out, he’s now living with consistent pain and weakness, which can last for months.

“At first I thought it was arthritis,” he tells me. About a week before he felt “unbelievably sharp pains” across his shoulder and he’d begun to experience brain fog and feeling faint. “The next day I was bedridden and by the end of day three I had a rash across my body.” The initial symptoms went away relatively quickly – but since then he’s been left with an incurable condition.

“The doctors said it was probably the virus attacking my joints,” he explains. “It means I can’t lift anything remotely heavy with my left arm. It’s been incredibly debilitating – especially as weight lifting is how I stave off depression.”

Others express the same difficulties and frustrations – at GPs who “treat it just like another germ”, or being “horrified and upset that no one tests these days, and expects you to be okay after a couple of days”. Olivia, 35, whose name has been changed, has been dealing with long Covid for almost a year. “It’s crazy being someone whose life has been so affected by Covid, and having these conversations with friends who are going around knowing they’ve got Covid, going to work, all those things.

“Because there’s no acknowledgement by society that it’s a bad thing if you catch it, or it can be. It’s way higher than you think.” Next week Olivia will move in with her boyfriend who contracted long Covid this summer. “We’re partly moving in so I can help look after him. A lot of the symptoms are the same as I’ve had.

“It seems mad that both of us could have it. But that seems to be the situation.”

Olivia had to take three months off her role as a programme director to try and recover – greatly affecting her work – an experience that millions of others share, some of them in extremes. This week the Wall Street Journal reported that “long Covid knocked a million Americans off their career paths”. “Years after infection, even answering email remains arduous for some,” they found.

BBC Breakfast recently ran a 15-minute segment on those who have contracted ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome, as a result of contracting Covid. They reported on cases such as young newlyweds James and Karen Hargrave.

While Karen, who has launched a campaign – There for ME, to raise awareness of their experiences – recovered from the virus and ME enough to go back to work part-time, her husband, previously a keen runner, can no longer function. He is now unable to speak – she hasn’t heard his voice in a year – and he struggles to swallow.

Rebecca Jones, from Holton-le-Clay in Lincolnshire, also contracted long Covid the first time she caught the virus. It left her with alopecia and fatigue and even caused her to fail a memory test for dementia, which she says was “terrifying”.

This time she’s been left with “ghost smells”, and disruption to her senses. Now, she’s unable to get vaccinated, despite previously being on the vulnerable list and can’t afford to pay for a private vaccine. Her menopausal hot flushes, which had been dormant for two years before she contracted Covid, have come back and have not stopped since, she says.

“I’ve even emailed my MP,” she says. “But I was just sent the same advice word for word as is on the NHS website. I can’t get vaccinated, even though I want to. In our group of friends, I’ve seen people get Covid and just ignore it and go down to the local. I just thought, how can you be so irresponsible?”

“If you have Covid-19, then the advice is the same as for other contagious respiratory diseases,” says Wass. “We should try to reduce their spread by trying to stay at home and avoiding contact with people.”

Still, many aren’t – or can’t – adhere to that advice. The disruption to work and personal lives has already been great and, while hybrid working continues to help stop the spread of infection of any kind, workers rely on the discretion of their employers to support those experiencing chronic conditions like long Covid. In the US, the condition has been registered as a disability, though it’s yet to be determined in the UK.

In the coming months and years, experts say we’ll be subject to more “waves” as the disease is “driven by a combination of new variants and a partial waning immunity to infection”, Woolhouse told the BMJ.

Will we begin to see a more conscientious approach to dealing with the virus? Those suffering the long-term effects warn that we should.

[floridaboiler]

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.

Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.

Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free 

[plethoraworldatlas]

As U.S. conservationists continue to fight for federal protections that would cover gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, research released Wednesday highlights just how important the apex predators are to the western United States.

The study was published in the journal BioScience and led by William Ripple, a scientist at Oregon State University (OSU) and the Conservation Biology Institute known for his work on trophic cascades and carnivores as well as his demands for climate action.

The paper uses gray wolves to show the trouble with "shifting baselines," which, "in ecology encapsulate the gradual and often unnoticed alterations in ecosystems over time, leading to a redefinition of what is considered normal or baseline conditions."

As the study details:

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) in North America have experienced a substantial contraction of their historical range, at one point almost disappearing from the contiguous 48 United States. However, their conservation is important in part because of the potential cascading effects wolves can have on lower trophic levels. Namely, the proliferation and changes to behavior and density of large herbivores following the extirpation or displacement of wolves can have major effects on various aspects of vegetation structure, succession, productivity, species composition, and diversity, which, in turn, can have implications for overall biodiversity and the quality of habitat for other wildlife.

"By the 1930s, wolves were largely absent from the American West, including its national parks," Ripple said in a statement. "Most published ecological research from this region occurred after the extirpation of wolves."

"This situation underscores the potential impact of shifting baselines on our understanding of plant community succession, animal community dynamics, and ecosystem functions," he continued.

The researchers examined journal articles, master's theses, and Ph.D. dissertations from 1955 to 2021 that involved field work in national parks in the northwestern United States for whether they included information on the removal of gray wolves.

They found that "in total, approximately 41% (39 of 96) of the publications mentioned or discussed the historical presence of wolves or large carnivores, but most (approximately 59%) did not. The results for the theses and journal articles were similar."

While the researchers focused on wolves, Robert Beschta, co-author and emeritus professor at OSU, noted that "in addition to the loss or displacement of large predators, there may be other potential anthropogenic legacies within national parks that should be considered, including fire suppression, invasion by exotic plants and animals, and overgrazing by livestock."

Ripple stressed that "studying altered ecosystems without recognizing how or why the system has changed over time since the absence of a large predator could have serious implications for wildlife management, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem restoration."

"We hope our study will be of use to both conservation organizations and government agencies in identifying ecosystem management goals," he added.

Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), welcomed the study, tellingInside Climate News that "I think this is a really important paper, because sometimes science advances at a certain rate without a self-introspection."

"Nature is a really complex tapestry," she said. "It's woven together by threads that hold it together and keep it strong. When you start to pull threads out like you remove apex predators, the whole thing begins to unravel."

The paper comes amid a wolf conservation battle that involves Weiss' group. In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) determined that Endangered Species Act protections for the wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains were "not warranted."

Two coalitions of conservation organizations, including CBD, swiftly filed notices of their intent to sue over the decision if FWS didn't change course. After the legally required 60-day notice period passed, they filed the lawsuits in April.

Earlier this week, "the cases were voluntarily dismissed and immediately refiled to avoid any potential arguments from the defendants that the plaintiffs failed to give the secretary of the interior proper 60-days' notice under the Endangered Species Act," Collette Adkins, an attorney who leads CBD's Carnivore Conservation program, told Common Dreams in an email Thursday.

"Plaintiffs believe that their case was properly noticed," she said, "but we refiled to avoid any further disruption of the proceedings."

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.

Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.

Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

[crimsonpublishersbiosciences]

An Alternate Form of the Integrated First-Order Rate Equation_Crimson Publishers

Abstract:

Derivation of a first-order equation suitable for use in beginning energy science and chemistry courses is shown to be

A = Ao/ 2t /t1/2

Where,

Ao is the original amount of the sample

A is the amount

T is time t and

t1/2 is the half-life

Ao is larger than A

Read More About this Article: https://crimsonpublishers.com/sbb/fulltext/SBB.000564.php

Read More Articles: https://crimsonpublishers.com/sbb/index.php

[rlyehtaxidermist]

I'm a day late for Thresholdposting but since I've been reminded, I'd like to shout out the American Research Journal of Biosciences, a predatory publisher that agreed to publish "Rapid Genetic and Developmental Morphological Change Following Extreme Celerity", a sham paper detailing the characters' alleged observations of the effect seen in the infamous episode.

For those unfamiliar, predatory publishers are fake journals who charge authors considerable fees, ostensibly to support their peer review program, but offer few or no actual review or other helpful services, simply pocketing the researchers' money. Predatory journals are a particular problem in the open access research movement, as many legitimate open access journals also charge fees in order to maintain their services in lieu of charging an access fee in the traditional model.

The original charge that the American Research Journal of Biosciences offered was $749 - though this was dropped to $50 when the author claimed they had limited funding. The author paid out of pocket, taking the loss to expose the journal's fraud.

when the joke was revealed, they quickly expunged it from their website, but it can still be seen on the Wayback Machine

[mattyhd]

I’m a humble wildlife biology student. I think I just found a life hack to answer the big question:

“What do I research?”

First, consider what research is needed, and the question morphs into:

“What research is interesting AND relevant?”

Boy have I just discovered a little hack.

Professors weren’t exaggerating when they said READ ARTICLES, particularly scholarly ones.

I’d like to add to this.

Read recent articles about a topic of choice, and be sure to check out the summaries, conclusions, and reflections.

Why?

They often point you exactly in the right direction by listing the implications of their own research and the gray areas/increasingly significant topics related to it.

EXAMPLE:

I just read a journal article called “The challenges of success: Future wolf conservation and management in the United States” by David E Ausband and L David Mech at Bioscience.

Near the end of the article were these delicious paragraphs, listing exactly the kind of topics that need more research:

These provide a sense of direction. They do for me, at least.

From here it’s a matter of introspection and narrowing-down to see which topics resonate the most.

For me, monitoring wolf dispersal/colonization patterns, particularly in the face of human expansion, is what I dream of researching. Predicting their expansion could be helpful to teaching society about coexistence.

Anyways. That’s the end of today’s entry!

[hekatontarch]

Stolen from a post on Facebook (yes, I’m that old), so I cannot take credit for this, but this is just good information:

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.

[renee-writer]

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.

Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.

Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

[bpod-bpod]

Cross-cell Traffic

Visualising and analysing in live cells how one of the least-well understood members of the family of lipid molecules called PIPs regulates trafficking across cell membranes

Read the published research paper here

Edvard Munch, painter of the acclaimed image The Scream was born on this day (12th December) in 1863

Adapted video from work by James H. Vines and colleagues

School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, Firth Court Western Bank, Sheffield, UK

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Journal of Cell Biology, June 2023

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