news 2020

Caterpillars can consume plastics, but it is not a magic solution. Caterpillars can consume plastics! Back in 2017, the world was getting to know this extraordinary phenomenon by global news coverage of findings of Bombelli et al. Their claims were that larvae of the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, consume polyethylene at an extraordinary rate, and moreover produce ethylene glycol as a major metabolite.

Software for the analysis and visualization of single-cell data is one of the projects that will receive funding as part of CZI's Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) program. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced $3.8 million in funding for 23 grants to support open-source software projects essential to biomedical research, enabling software maintenance, growth, development, and community engagement.

At the European nuclear and particle physics laboratory CERN, physicists can produce extremely rare short-lived atoms and molecules. Researchers from KU Leuven have shown that these particles lead the way to uncharted territory in nuclear and particle physics. One of the oldest active installations at the Centre for European Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva is the ISOLDE laboratory.

Hydropower plants can support solar and wind power, rather unpredictable by nature, in a climate-friendly manner. A new study in the scientific journal  Nature Sustainability  has now mapped the potential for such "solar-wind-water" strategies for West Africa: an important region where the power sector is still under development, and where generation capacity and power grids will be greatly expanded in the coming years.

To form metastases, cancer cells must be able to migrate. But cancer cells are connected to each other by 'Velcro'. University of Louvain (UCLouvain) researchers have discovered that certain cancer cells manage to suppress this 'Velcro' effect so that they can migrate more easily. It's a mechanism called endocytosis.

Research at Ghent University shows that COVID-19 pandemic affects mental health and daily lives of autistic adults. Research group EXPLORA (Ghent University) has set up an online survey to investigate the effects of the current COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and daily lives of adults on the autism spectrum.

A researcher at Ghent University has identified a lost Silk Road city larger than medieval Ghent, London or Venice. Historians and archaeologists have been searching for nearly 200 years for the city of Magas, capital of the ninth to twelfth century kingdom of Alania. This Kingdom, located in the North Caucasus mountains of modern Russia, controlled a critical section of the Silk Roads: a trade route which connected East Asia and the Mediterranean centuries before the era of European expansion.

An international team of astronomers has captured fifteen images of the inner rims of planet-forming disks located hundreds of light years away. These disks of dust and gas, similar in shape to a music record, form around young stars. The images shed new light on how planetary systems are formed. They were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics .

The accumulation of one particular protein in the brain is at the basis of three very different age-related conditions. Until recently, nobody understood how this was possible. Research by the Laboratory for Neurobiology and Gene Therapy now reveals that the shape of the protein determines the clinical picture.

Neurobiologists at KU Leuven have discovered how the signalling molecule Neuromedin U plays a crucial role in our learning process. The protein allows the brain to recall negative memories and, as such, learn from the past. The findings of their study on roundworms have been published Communications.

A new tool maps the threats to the tropical dry forests in Peru and Ecuador.

Corona measures such as staying at home and keeping your distance cause tension and stress, which can increase the risk of aggression.

A team of researchers from the COSIC research group at KU Leuven and from the University of Birmingham has discovered that a wide range of car models produced by Toyota, Kia and Hyundai use weak cryptographic keys. This makes it easy to clone the key fob transponder. It is likely that millions of cars are affected.

Antwerp researchers launch website to compare coronavirus impact per country. All European countries are currently fighting the coronavirus. The capacity of their respective health systems will play a decisive role in their efforts to combat COVID-19. UAntwerp scientists have developed a method to compare the pressure on different countries' health systems in real time.

Computer scientists at KU Leuven have once again exposed a security flaw in Intel processors. Jo Van Bulck and Frank Piessens gave the manufacturer one year's time to fix the problem. Now that the embargo has lifted, the KU Leuven team and their colleagues in Austria, the United States, and Australia can share their findings.

The costs of bringing a new drug to market may be lower than has been previously claimed by the pharmaceutical industry, according to a study published today (Tuesday March 3, 2020) in the journal JAMA.

Scientists have composed a complete map of the cells in the developing human thymus. They identified more than 50 different cell states in the human thymus which dynamically change in abundance during life. For the first time, scientists from the VIB Center for Inflammation Research, Ghent University, The Wellcome Sanger Institute (UK), and Newcastle University (UK) have composed a complete map of the cells in the developing human thymus.

In the event of a bone fracture, fatty acids in our blood signal to stem cells that they have to develop into bone-forming cells. If there are no blood vessels nearby, the stem cells end up forming cartilage. The finding that specific nutrients directly influence the development of stem cells opens new avenues for stem cell research.

The acclaimed exhibition on Jan Van Eyck, recommendations on drug policy, relevant campaigns on sexual health, etc.

Chloroquine, an antimalarial medicine that has been on the international market since 1934, proves to be active against the novel SARS coronavirus type 2 (COVID-19).