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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 21-Jul-2025 08:10 ET (21-Jul-2025 12:10 GMT/UTC)

Report on bioenergy and sustainability to be launched at World Bank

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Over the past two years, 137 experts from 24 countries and 82 institutions have collaborated to analyze a range of issues related to the sustainability of bioenergy production and use. The resulting report Bioenergy & Sustainability: Bridging the Gaps, will be launched at a symposium at the World Bank, on Sept. 28, 2015, in Washington, D.C.

Experiment confirms fundamental symmetry in nature

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists working with ALICE, a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider ring, have made precise measurements of particle mass and electric charge that confirm the existence of a fundamental symmetry in nature. The findings, reported in a paper published online in Nature Physics on Aug. 17, led the researchers to confirm a fundamental symmetry between the nuclei of the particles and their antiparticles in terms of charge, parity and time.

Journal: Nature Physics
Funder: São Paulo Research Foundation

Brain plasticity in the most dreaded biblical disease

Publicase International
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study shows that nerve damage caused by leprosy is associated to changes in the brain of patients.

Journal: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Funder: Brazilian Innovation Agency, Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support in the State of Rio de Janeiro, National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development, and others

Closer to a treatment for the 'asthma of the esophagus'

D'Or Institute for Research and Education
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from Brazilian institutions and the Yale University School of Medicine have elucidated the chemical process behind a mysterious gastrointestinal disease that is becoming more frequent every day: the eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), also known as the 'asthma of the esophagus'. The researchers identified a molecule which plays a key role in this condition and that can be a target in a new therapeutic strategy.

Journal: Mucosal Immunology

Sequestered prion protein takes the good mood away, suggests new hypothesis on depression

Publicase International
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The discovery of antidepressant drugs led to the first biochemical hypothesis of depression, known as the monoamine hypothesis. However, this hypothesis does not seem to fully explain the complexity of human depression. Now a new study offers one more important key that may increase our understanding of the pathogenesis behind clinical depression and neurodegenerative disorders.

Journal: Journal of Biological Chemistry
Funder: Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support in the State of Rio de Janeiro, National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development

Brazilian antibody will be used to create new cancer drug

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Business Announcement

A Brazilian company has signed a licensing agreement with an American laboratory, under which the US-based company's technology will be used to produce a monoclonal antibody (mAb), developed in Brazil, that can be deployed for the purposes of cancer treatment.

Funder: São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

When fat is the solution: Using adipose cells to attenuate chagasic cardiomyopathy

Publicase International
Peer-Reviewed Publication

It could be a plot for a vampire story: In the middle of the night, blood-sucking creatures feed on peoples' faces and spread a deadly disease to the hearts of millions, who are then fated to endure a painful death.

Journal: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Funder: Rio de Janeiro State Foundation for Research, Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development

Brazilian company doubles shelf life of pasteurized fresh milk

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Business Announcement

A Brazilian company has increased the shelf life of grade A pasteurized fresh whole milk from seven to 15 days. This feat was achieved by incorporating silver-based microparticles with bactericidal, antimicrobial and self-sterilizing properties into the rigid plastic bottles used as packaging for the milk. The microparticles are included as a powder in the polyethylene preform that is used to make plastic bottles by blow or injection molding.

Funder: São Paulo Research Foundation- FAPESP

Parasitic flatworms flout global biodiversity patterns

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The odds of being attacked and castrated by a variety of parasitic flatworms increases for marine horn snails the farther they are found from the tropics. A Smithsonian-led research team discovered this exception to an otherwise globally observed pattern -- usually biodiversity is greatest in the tropics and decreases toward the poles.

Journal: Ecology
Funder: NSF-NIH Ecology of Infectious Diseases grant, Smithsonian Institution's Marine Science Network, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows to OM), Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

More endangered pygmy sloths in Panama than previously estimated

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Pygmy sloths wander inland in addition to inhabiting the mangrove fringes of their island refuge. A Smithsonian visiting scientist realized that the population size of the pygmy sloth was underestimated; a new, higher estimate for the number of sloths on Panama's Escudo de Veraguas Island points to how little is known about the species, and it underscores the need to conserve the sloths' isolated home.

Journal: Journal of Mammalogy