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1,071 news posts
Environment
14 Sep 2023
Identifying polar bears just got easier: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss
By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Polar bear identity and sex can be established from paw prints The recent loss of sea ice is forcing polar bears – one of the Arctic’s biggest predators – to spend more time on land closer to human settlements. To prevent potential human-animal conflicts and to protect the species, polar bear populations must be monitored and managed. More often than not, this is a costly and difficult endeavor, in part because of the remote regions the bears inhabit. Now, a team of researchers in the US has developed a method to keep track of polar bears that might make scientist less reliant on having to capture the bears to get data. Writing in Frontiers in Conservation Science, they investigated the use of environmental DNA – cells which the animals shed when walking – collected from paw-prints in the snow to identify individual polar bears and their sex. They sampled 13 polar […]
Featured news
13 Sep 2023
Certain proteins in breast milk found to be essential for a baby’s healthy gut
By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Researchers have shown that high concentrations of key proteins in human breast milk, especially osteopontin and κ-casein, are associated with a greater abundance of two species of bacteria in the gut of babies: Clostridium butyricum and Parabacteroides distasonis, known to be beneficial for human health and used as probiotics. These results suggest that proteins in breast milk influence the abundance of beneficial gut microbes in infants, playing an important role in early immune and metabolic development More than 320 million years of mammalian evolution has adapted breast milk to meet all the physiological needs of babies: it contains not only nutrients, but also hormones, antimicrobials, digestive enzymes, and growth factors. Furthermore, many of the proteins in breast milk, for example casein and milk fat globule membrane proteins, aren’t just sources of energy and molecular building blocks, but also directly stimulate immunity, at least under preclinical conditions. Likewise, the gut microbiome, composed of bacteria, archaea, and fungi, plays a vital role in the regulation of the immune system. This raises the possibility that the immune-boosting function of breast milk proteins might be two-pronged: not only by stimulating the immune system directly, but also indirectly, by […]
Featured news
12 Sep 2023
Frontiers adopts CCC Ringgold Identify Database to enhance data quality
Open access publisher Frontiers has adopted the CCC Ringgold Identify Database as its Persistent Identifier (PID) solution. The unique numerical identifier system applied to organizations in the scholarly communications sector enhances data quality and promotes open access publishing. Photo credit: Frontiers With over 600,000 Ringgold PIDs and metadata records, the Ringgold Identify Database provides a detailed view of organizations that span the scholarly ecosystem from funders to publishers, as well as those which license and create scholarly content, such as universities and government entities. The uniqueness of each identifier ensures accuracy in recognizing contributions and creates connections between articles, researchers, institutions, and funders. This supports stakeholders in understanding complex organizational hierarchies and consortia connections and allows for more strategic decision-making. The highly granular dataset also supports the shift to open access publishing models. Publishers like Frontiers can explore information around funding and discount eligibility under institutional and consortia agreements and assist in compliance with institutional and funder mandates, such as Plan S or OSTP. The Ringgold system lends itself to interoperability as it complements other PIDs in place, including ORCID IDs, DOIs, and ISNI IDs. This makes it possible to join records across internal and external systems for a more […]
Frontiers news
11 Sep 2023
Lucia Baldino – One scientist is an island, many scientists make up a flourishing community
Author: Leticia Nani Silva Dr Lucia Baldino is a researcher in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Salerno, Italy. Her work focuses on optimizing production processes and designing innovative methods for the development of nanomaterials applied to pharmaceutical, medical, food, and cosmetic fields. Her contribution to her field has made her stand out amongst her community and this is why we have chosen her to represent United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9, which focuses on innovation, industry, and infrastructure. In this interview, we highlight the importance of working collaboratively with scientists across the world on innovating traditional methods used within science. We discuss how these innovative methods can aid in discovering new models of drug delivery and applications in the medical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic fields. We conclude our conversation by highlighting the changes that need to happen within the field of engineering, and how working together as a community will drive us further into a sustainable future. Photo credit: Raffaele Longobardi We start our conversation by discussing Dr Baldino’s work and how it focuses on innovative and sustainable processes assisted by supercritical carbon dioxide to produce several bio-products, such as aerogels, micro- and nanoparticles. Her work also […]
Climate action
08 Sep 2023
The climate crisis could reshape Italian mountain forests forever
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock. With the changes in conditions caused by the climate crisis, the forests of the Italian Alps and Apennines are set to alter. Many species, including keystone species, will have smaller ranges to grow in. Some others may expand their ranges, possibly helping to maintain forests in the years to come. Scientists now warn that conserving our forests depends on detailed biodiversity modelling. As a result of the climate crisis, future forests may become unrecognizable. Trees that currently make up European woods may no longer be seen — or they may have moved several hundred meters uphill. Scientists writing in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change have mapped the forests of five vulnerable mountain areas in Italy and modelled the future of these fragile ecosystems. “If I imagine my daughter walking with me as an old man, in our mountain forests, I can imagine that we can see the initial stage of a profound change of species,” said Dr Sergio Noce of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change Foundation (CMCC). “Like any natural process, time is needed, and forests have times that are totally different from us.” Seeing the wood for the trees […]
Featured news
07 Sep 2023
What makes a Grand Slam champion? Research finds three key guidelines for tennis coaches
by Dr Dario Novak, University of Zagreb Image courtesy of Dr Novak: Dario Novak and Marin Čilić, 2020 Olympic silver medalist To provide adequate support to young athletes, it is important to understand their development path. Over the years, researchers have recognized the significance of tracking all processes aimed at optimizing athletes’ progress and overall success. In a new study by Mario Oršolić, Dr Petar Barbaros, and Dr Dario Novak, 30 tennis players at different levels of success were interviewed, including 10 Grand Slam winners, to understand how they got into the sport and what drove their success. The research, published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, sought to deepen the understanding of specialization in tennis by exploring the experiences of tennis players at different levels of success. By analyzing their stories, the researchers aimed to contribute to a wider knowledge on the development of tennis players, as well as providing valuable insight for individual sports careers. They condensed their findings down to the following guidelines for coaches and players: It is important that the initial introduction into tennis for younger children is aimed at stimulating positive feelings and love for the sport; Specialization (targeted and more intensive training) […]
Featured news
05 Sep 2023
To amplify, falsify or verify? AI and published science
In August this year, Marie Soulière, senior publishing manager at Frontiers, featured in closing keynote discussion at the annual FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute. She was joined by leading voices from the Allen Institute for AI, the University of Washington, the São Paulo Research Foundation and the University of Manchester. Here are some of her personal reflections. Photo credit: Frontiers With ingenuity we can reverse global threats, from climate change to health emergencies. With global collaboration, political will, and scientific breakthrough at a scale not yet seen. But on all those counts, success will depend on the widespread sharing of the latest scientific knowledge. All of it. Scale will count. We need more than incremental change. Good scientific research – published and shared globally with machine readability across large volumes of information – will grow our chances of success. Which is where Artificial Intelligence comes in. Perhaps no other new technology has thrown up so many opportunities, and risks, for scientific research. The publication and dissemination of new science will be transformed in unimagined ways. But to what end? To amplify, to falsify or to verify? To grow our chances of success? And which outcomes are most likely in the short […]
Frontiers news
04 Sep 2023
Frontiers implements new policy to counter ‘Authorship-for-sale’
Frontiers has today published a new author policy designed to help prevent cases of “authorship-for-sale” among its research publications, a term used throughout the industry which refers to the unethical practice of buying or selling authorship on research papers. “We recognize that there are legitimate reasons for the request of authorship changes after submission. However, to create real impact in reducing authorship-for-sale schemes, publishers must depend on responsible collaboration from our authors to ensure that their author lists are correct at the point of submission,” says Dr Frederick Fenter, chief executive editor of Frontiers. Under the new policy, requests for authorship changes will only be granted under exceptional circumstances and after in-depth assessment by the Frontiers’ research integrity unit. A ledger of requests will be maintained to identify suspicious patterns and trends among these types of requests. As of today, Frontiers has identified and retracted 38 research papers linked to the practice. “The updated policy and decision to retract these papers reflect our commitment to upholding integrity throughout our portfolio and ensuring that authorship is attributed based on genuine contributions to the research process,” says Dr Fenter. “By taking this unambiguous stance, we aim to maintain the trust of readers, […]
Featured news
31 Aug 2023
Scientists develop finger sweat test to detect antipsychotic drugs in patients
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Maintaining a regimen of antipsychotic drugs can be difficult, but going off them unexpectedly can have disastrous health consequences for patients. Traditionally, monitoring patients on these drugs involves blood tests, which can be painful and time-consuming. A quick, non-invasive finger sweat test newly developed by scientists could replace these blood tests and make patients’ lives easier. Antipsychotic drugs treat incredibly vulnerable patients. Maintaining a treatment regimen is difficult for many patients, but not taking the medication is associated with a higher risk of poor health outcomes. These drugs are also very powerful with strong side-effects, and blood tests are often used to calibrate a patient’s dosage and confirm that they are taking the recommended dose. However, blood tests are invasive and potentially uncomfortable. Scientists have now discovered a way to test the levels of common antipsychotic drugs in the sweat from patients’ fingerprints, offering a quicker, more comfortable, and more convenient alternative to blood draws for patient monitoring. “Our test offers patients a quick and dignified way of showing commitment to antipsychotic treatment,” said Katherine Longman of the University of Surrey, first author of the study in Frontiers in Chemistry. “This non-invasive […]
Featured news
30 Aug 2023
Open access: In conversation with Frontiers’ Dr Marie Souliere
Joining us today is Dr Marie Soulière, senior publishing manager at Frontiers, who was elected as Council Member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in 2020. In this interview, we delve into the challenges faced by open access publishers when it comes to publication ethics. Dr Soulière highlights the rising complexity of fraud, ranging from data manipulation to fake peer reviews, and the heightened scrutiny faced by open access publishers. We also explore Frontiers’ unwavering commitment to quality, their adherence to COPE guidelines, and their proactive approach to evolving research integrity practices in response to emerging threats. Photo credit: Frontiers What are the main issues open access publishers face right now regarding publication ethics? How have these changed in recent years? Throughout the industry, the main changes have been the increase in complexity and sophistication of fraud. Anything from text reuse to data manipulation, authorship-for-sale, fake peer review and identity theft, has scaled up. While all publishers face these issues, open access publishers face more scrutiny from readers as all published articles are freely accessible to all. This has the advantage of allowing some ethical issues to come to light more quickly and for open access publishers to correct […]
Featured news
29 Aug 2023
Visibility and impact: The twin peaks for open access researchers
In August this year, Georgina Harris, portfolio manager at Frontiers, ran a workshop at the annual FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute, alongside Timothy Vollmer of UC Berkeley Library. Here are some of her personal reflections. Photo credit: Frontiers Amid the shift in published science – from paywalls to open access – researchers have more chances than ever to share their work, see its impact, and build the professional network that grows from it. But how to secure all that? For over a decade the FORCE11 community has shown the way, and Frontiers is proud to be a sponsor. This community group offers researchers the new thinking, pragmatic tools, and personal tips they will need to thrive in a competitive publishing environment. I had the pleasure of running the first workshop of its annual Scholarly Communication Institute alongside Timothy Vollmer of UC Berkeley Library. With the librarians, researchers, and scholarly communication experts who took part, we saw a picture emerge of a positive, shared experience in open access publishing, with growing curiosity and greater experimentation. Let me share three of the discussion points. First, in a complex, interlinked world, communication depends on more than one channel for cut-through. This is no less true of leading-edge science. […]
Environment
25 Aug 2023
Reefs made from culled trees can help kickstart sea life in threatened waters
By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer One of the ‘tree-reefs’ being examined after five months in the Wadden Sea. Image credit: Jon Dickson Researchers have shown that structures made from culled pear trees sunk into soft-bottomed seas like the Dutch Wadden Sea provide excellent replacements for naturally occurring hard substrates, of which many have been lost due to human activities. These ‘tree-reefs’ were rapidly colonized and became hotspots for fish, crustaceans, polyps, and shellfish. Reefs, whether natural or man-made, are hotspots of marine biodiversity. But especially in soft-bottomed seas, reefs have now become scarce because many hard substrates have been removed due to overfishing of shellfish, dredging, trawling, and deep-sea mining. How can we restore this lost biodiversity, as encouraged by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy? Now, researchers have shown that culled fruit trees sunk into the sea are a cheap and effective way to recreate reefs and boost the local diversity and abundance of marine life. The study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, was done in the Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest tidal flats system in the world. “Here we show that native marine […]
Featured news
24 Aug 2023
New pocket-sized device for clinicians could spot infected wounds faster
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Scientists have developed a device that works with a smartphone or tablet to capture medical images which can identify infected wounds. By capturing the heat produced by a wound and the fluorescence of bacteria, it helps clinicians tell the difference between inflammation and a potentially dangerous infection. This could allow for quicker intervention, catching infections before they become serious threats to health. It’s notoriously difficult for doctors to identify a wound that is becoming infected. Clinical signs and symptoms are imprecise and methods of identifying bacteria can be time-consuming and inaccessible, so a diagnosis can be subjective and dependent on clinician experience. But infection can stall healing or spread into the body if it isn’t treated quickly, putting a patient’s health in grave danger. An international team of scientists and clinicians thinks they have the solution: a device run from a smartphone or tablet app which allows advanced imaging of a wound to identify infection. “Wound care is one of today’s most expensive and overlooked threats to patientsand our overall healthcare system,” said Robert Fraser of Western University and Swift Medical Inc, corresponding author of the study published in Frontiers in Medicine. […]
Featured news
23 Aug 2023
People taking adult education classes run lower risk of dementia
By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Researchers analyzed health information on middle-aged and senior participants in the UK Biobank. They showed that those who took part in adult education classes had a 19% lower risk of developing dementia within five years of follow-up. Adult education also appeared to help preserve nonverbal reasoning performance and fluid intelligence. How can we best keep our brain fit as we grow older? It’s well known that regular cognitive activity, for example brainteasers, sudokus, or certain video games in middle and old age tends to protect against cognitive decline and dementias like Alzheimer’s. But many of us regularly engage in adult education classes, for example learning a language or a new skill. Is such adult education likewise associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia? Yes, according to researchers from the Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan who have shown this for the first time, in a new study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. “Here we show that people who take adult education classes have a lower risk of developing dementia five years later,” said Dr Hikaru Takeuchi, an associate professor and the study’s first […]
Featured news
22 Aug 2023
City-living may make male song sparrows more doting ‘super’ fathers
By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Rob Lachlan New behavioral traits are often the first response of animals to changing environmental conditions. As cities increasingly become habitats of wildlife, researchers have studied behavioral changes in birds and examined how urbanization impacts parental care behavior of male song sparrows. The team found that in cities, where male song sparrows are known to be more aggressive than in rural surroundings, male birds visited nests more often than rural conspecifics visited countryside nests. When animals settle in new environments, or when their natural habitats are rapidly changed by human influence, their behaviors change. One such behavioral change that has been observed in several bird species that settled in cities is increased aggression, born out of the need to defend territories. City-living sparrows have, due to lower species density, fewer encounters with their kin than in the countryside. Yet, urban song sparrows have been shown to be consistently more aggressive in defending their territories. Now, a team of researchers in the US has investigated the effects of urbanization and the associated increase in male aggression on the parental care provided by male birds. “Male songbirds in temperate zones are thought to reduce […]