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The authors investigate whether Western Bluebirds and other perching birds consume eggshells, as a source of calcium, at a greater rate before reproduction and during nest building when they are unable to store calcium.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, with a 10% 5-year survival rate. The authors studied various dosages of TPEN and zinc in combination with Chloroquine and Gemcitabine as treatments to reduce cell proliferation. Results showed that when combined with Chloroquine and Gemcitabine, zinc and TPEN both significantly lowered cell proliferation compared to Gemcitabine, suggesting a synergistic effect that resulted in a more cytotoxic treatment. Further research and clinical trials on this topic are needed to determine whether this could be a viable treatment for pancreatic cancer.

Smartphones are not only becoming an inseparable part of our daily lives, but also a low-cost, powerful optical imaging tool for more and more scientific research applications. In this work, smartphones were used as a low-cost, high-speed, photographic alternative to expensive equipment, such as those typically found in scientific research labs, to accurately perform motion tracking and analysis of fast-moving objects. By analyzing consecutive images, the speed and flight trajectory of water droplets in the air were obtained, thereby enabling us to estimate the area of the water droplets landing on the ground.

Triggered largely by the warming and pollution of oceans, corals are experiencing bleaching and a variety of diseases caused by the spread of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Identification of bleached/diseased corals enables implementation of measures to halt or retard disease. Benthic cover analysis, a standard metric used in large databases to assess live coral cover, as a standalone measure of reef health is insufficient for identification of coral bleaching/disease. Proposed herein is a solution that couples machine learning with crowd-sourced data – images from government archives, citizen science projects, and personal images collected by tourists – to build a model capable of identifying healthy, bleached, and/or diseased coral.

As the world moves towards more eco-friendly methods for chemical synthesis, there's a strong interest in employing enzymes in chemical synthetic processes. Here, the authors explore how the activity of enzymes such as trypsin, lipase and nattokinase is affected by the electronic effects of the substrate they are acting on.

In this study, the authors use quantitative digit ratio measurements and a survey of personality traits to evaluate the potential relationship between sex and levels of conscientiousness.

The authors analyzed biosolids from five Wisconsin wastewater treatment plants and suggest using KBr pellet FTIR as a simple and rapid method to start characterizing P species in biosolids.

Diagnosing of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) using tools developed in the West is challenging in the Indian setting due to a huge diversity in sociocultural and economic backgrounds. Here, the authors developed a home-based, audiovisual game app (Autest) suitable for ASD risk assessment in Indian children under 10 years of age. Ratings suggested that the tool is effective and can reduce social inhibition and facilitate assessment. Further usage and development of Autest can improve risk assessment and early intervention measures for children with ASD in India.

In this study, the authors use high-throughput virtual screening to design and evaluate a set of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors for binding affinity to the protein reverse transcriptase. These studies have important applications toward HIV therapies.

In this study, the authors investigate the suitability of using bacterial cellulose as a scaffold for cell transplants. Interestingly, this cellulose is a can be found in the discard from a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) used to make kombucha.