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Brazil: Pregnant women with COVID-19 disease are at a higher risk of developing pre-eclampsia, shows a recent review by Brazilian researchers. Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by persistent high blood pressure, usually in the second half of pregnancy or shortly after delivery, and causes serious harm to the mother and baby. The study findings appear in the journal Clinical Science. Infection by SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy can reduce the availability of ACE2, a protein [...]

Brasilia [Brazil], August 25 (ANI): Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can increase the benefits of aerobic exercise and improve the gait of patients with Parkinson's disease immediately after a session. Step time variability decreases, reaction time shortens, and executive control of gait is enhanced. These were the main findings of a randomized, double-blinded, sham-controlled crossover study of 20 volunteers by researchers at Sao Paulo State University's Institute of [...]

Researchers describe the genome of Bothrops jararaca and suggest the origin of genes responsible for toxins in its venom. A group led by researchers at Butantan Institute and funded by São Paulo Research Foundation—FAPESP has completed the first sequencing of a Brazilian snake's genome. The study is reported in an article published in the journalPNAS. It suggests that the nine genes that encode toxins produced by the jararaca pit viper Bothrops jararaca probably originated in [...]

More than 70% of plant species that produce flowers depend on birds to disperse their seeds. Birds feed on fruit from a wide array of different plants, and bird-plant interactions configure a welter of complex networks. A study conducted at the University of São Paulo's Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) in Brazil shows that the evolutionary stability of eachbird speciesdepends on the position it occupies in these networks, increasing in step with the number and centrality of its [...]

A pregnant woman infected by zika virus does not face a greater risk of giving birth to a baby with microcephaly if she has previously been exposed to dengue virus, according to a Brazilian study that compared data for pregnant women in Rio de Janeiro and Manaus. A zika epidemic broke out in Brazil in 2015-16 in areas where dengue is endemic. Both viruses are transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Some of the states affected by the zika epidemic reported a rise in cases of microcephaly, a [...]

  Pure quantum systems can undergo phase transitions analogous to the classical phase transition between the liquid and gaseous states of water. At the quantum level, however, the particle spins in states that emerge from phase transitions display collective entangled behavior. This unexpected observation offers a new avenue for the production of materials with topological properties that are useful in spintronics applications and quantum computing. The discovery was made by an [...]

Newborn infants and babies aged up to three months should be stimulated to manipulate objects and observe adults performing everyday tasks. This incentive helps their social, motor and cognitive development, researchers note in an article published in the May 2021 issue of the journal Infant Behavior Development. According to the authors, from the earliest age babies watch adults carrying out activities such as handling utensils and putting them away in drawers or closets. They should [...]

Brazilian researchers have found that tissues which specialise in saliva production and secretion can serve as reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19, magnifying its infectious potential. Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) analysed samples from three types of salivary gland obtained during a minimally invasive autopsy procedure performed on 24 patients who died from complications of Covid-19 and discovered that SARS-CoV-2 infects and replicates in the salivary [...]

Rainfall associated with the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), the belt of converging trade winds and rising air that encircles the Earth near the Equator, affects the food and water security of approximately 1 billion people worldwide. They include about 11% of the Brazilian population, concentrated in four states of the Northeast region—Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Piauí, and Maranhão. Large swaths of these states have a semi-arid climate, and about half of all [...]