Science

Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, will tackle Australia's plastic pollution problem, pledging to help Australia reduce 80 per cent of its plastic waste by the end of the decade.

Giants in History: Woo Jang-choon (8 April 1898 – 10 August 1959) was a Korean-Japanese agricultural scientist and botanist. Woo performed horticultural research, first in Japan, then in Korea.

Microgravity worms help solve astronaut muscle problems, CO2 recycling and drug development, Remote control of robot hand, Enabling the study of diverse Hepatitis B. Read all in the March's Editor's Choice and even more in the Asia Research News 2022 magazine.

Unlike most traditional Japanese universities, the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology has created a ‘flat’ and diverse research environment. On its ten-year anniversary, Outgoing Director Kei Hirose shares what is special about the institute and the secret behind its successful management.

The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) based at Tokyo Institute of Technology will reach a turning point this year. For the first time in its 10-year history, it will extend the scope of its initial research theme, "The Origins and Evolution of the Earth and Life", to include searching for evidence of extra-terrestrial life. ELSI’s new director, Yasuhito Sekine, told Asia Research News what they hope to achieve in the next phase and how.

A research group has revealed that amyloid-β (Aβ) detected in blood is secreted from peripheral tissues (pancreas, adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, liver, etc.) that are sensitive to glucose and insulin. Also, that Aβ secreted from peripheral tissues acts as a regulator on pancreatic β-cells to suppress insulin secretion. The results of this study indicate that blood Aβ levels fluctuate significantly with diet, and special care should be taken when using blood samples as a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer's disease, such as taking blood samples during fasting.

Researchers at Kanazawa University report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a responsive molecular system that, through chemical reactions, inverses its chirality before becoming racemic.

As a result of global warming in the 21st century, the Greenland ice sheet may contribute several metres to sea-level rise in the centuries to come; however, effective climate change mitigation measures will greatly reduce its decay.

Mathematician Yukari Ito was excited at first to work from home. There was no need to commute to her office at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, where she is professor, and she could attend seminars by mathematicians around the world from her living room. But there are also challenges, so she hopes some things will go back to the way they used to be.

Researchers aim to streamline the time- and resource-intensive process of screening ligands during catalyst design by using virtual ligands.

A recent summertime climate pattern could be driving co-occurring European heatwaves and large-scale wildfires over Siberia, Canada and Alaska.

The Global Navigation Satellite System associated with a Japanese cell phone carrier can enhance monitoring of crustal deformation changes for earthquake early warning models.

Giants in History: Roseli Ocampo-Friedmann (23 November 1937 – 4 September 2005) was a Filipino-American scientist whose research focused on cyanobacteria and microorganisms that inhabit extreme environments.

- New HPHAC analogues with an embedded nonbenzenoid aromatic ring have been synthesized. - The newly synthesized HPHACs exhibit multistep redox properties and their dicationic species showed an aromatic nature based on macrocyclic conjugation. - Methylation on the nonbenzenoid aromatic ring resulted in the development of "antiaromaticity".

A research team led by the National Institute for Physiological Sciences and joined by Hokkaido University explored the role of pain neurons in the regulation of endotoxic death. They found that peptide named Reg3γ acts as a pain neuron-enriched brain-targeted hormone that protects the host from endotoxic death.

Scientists develop a method to genetically label neurons with a single gene of interest in mice by combining the anterograde transsynaptic spread of adeno-associated virus serotype 1 (AAV1) with intersectional gene expression. In two distinct circuits: the retina/primary visual cortex to the superior colliculus and the bilateral motor cortex to the dorsal striatum, injections of AAV1 expressing either Cre or Flpo recombinases and the Cre/Flpo double-dependent AAV into two upstream regions and the downstream region, respectively, were used to label postsynaptic neurons receiving inputs from the two upstream regions.

A team at Japan’s Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI), at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) is conducting evidence-based outreach to demonstrate why science communication training is so important, with an aim of encouraging other higher education and research institutions to follow its lead.

Device designers at the University of Tokyo are developing cheap and accessible ways to monitor and explore the sea.

A surprising tree-inspired discovery is helping scientists design surfaces that encourage different liquids to move in varying directions.

Dr Hou Wai-kai, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology (PS), The Education University of Hong Kong, has been elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for his outstanding contribution to the discipline. 

Giants in History: Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran (8 October 1922 – 7 April 2001) is best known for developing the Ramachandran plot to understand the structure of short chains of amino acids, known as peptides.

Our visual processing is facilitated by spaces near the hand in a process known as hand proximity attention. Using a visual phenomenon called the flash-lag effect, researchers showed that proprioceptive information of a hand contributed to hand proximity attention.

Scientists demonstrate an optical trapping technique using nanotextured black silicon that can efficiently trap polymer chains. By adjusting the laser intensity, these “optical tweezers” can control the florescence color emitted through a local concentration of a perylene-modified polymer solution. From a low intensity blue to high intensity orange, this reversible and fully remote technology can almost reach the entire RGB spectrum.

With the aid of mathematics, materials chemistry enables dimension travel, unveiling that all properties of materials are governed by their dimension.

A Detailed comparative study on the structures and electrical properties of related insulators and superconductors

Induction into the Hall of Master Academic Clinicians is the highest accolade for clinical faculty at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre. Exemplary clinical faculty members are selected by a special committee for their subject matter mastery, academic excellence and exceptional mentoring for Duke-NUS students.

Scientists have developed a prototype sensor that could help doctors rapidly measure adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and lactate levels in blood samples from patients, aiding in the rapid assessment of the severity of some diseases.

Using electricity, a new method offers the possibility of recycling CO2 while also performing a notoriously difficult reaction, producing compounds potentially useful for drug development.

In a recent study published in the journal ACS Catalysis researchers from Kanazawa University describe novel scanning electrochemical cell microscopy measurements to determine sites of photoelectrochemical activity in titanium dioxide nanotubes.

Giants in History: Barry Paw (29 August 1962 – 28 December 2017) was a biologist and oncologist born in Myanmar who discovered several novel genes and their functions in red blood cells.