Household surveys are key to understanding smallholder farms but research organizations and development agencies did not always consider interoperability, complicating attempts for wide-scale data analysis. CGIAR researchers began tackling the household survey interoperability problem in 2015. More than 13,000 standardized surveys and 21 countries later, they published their findings, methods and analysis of their massive dataset in February in Scientific Data, a Nature publication. The use of the survey tool continues to expand.

Researchers in Brazil analyzed 12 types of tumor and established a gene expression profile associated with cachexia, a potentially fatal syndrome characterized by severe weight loss and muscle wasting.

With FAPESP's support, researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, Adolfo Lutz Institute and Oxford University in the UK trained a laboratory team to use a low-cost sequencing technology even before the virus arrived in Brazil.

By means of an imaging analysis system made available by FAPESP, a Brazilian research group succeeds at facilitating the selection of sterilized male specimens reared to combat a South American fruit fly known as pest of apple and peach orchards.

Experiments with rats indicate that brain cells submitted to several forms of hypoxia underwent alterations to their energy production mechanism. Such condition may affect the fetus in pregnant women who have developed pre-eclampsia.

Many Caribbean coral reefs are heavily degraded, yet their pre-human, natural states are often assumed or estimated using space-for-time substitution approaches.

Global schemes to fight climate change may miss their mark by ignoring the "fundamental connections" in how food is produced, supplied and consumed, say scientists in a new paper published in the journal Nature Food.

Brazilian researchers found the level of uric acid in saliva to be a good indicator of body fat percentage in a study designed to identify reliable biomarkers that can be used to develop quick noninvasive tests for early detection of chronic diseases.

Researchers Butantan Institute succeeded in reducing the toxicity and potentiating the analgesic effect of crotoxin by encapsulating it in nanostructured silica. The results of tests in an animal model of neuropathic pain are promising.

Astrocytes are neural cells with many important functions in the nervous system. The inflammation of these cells occurs in brain infections and neurodegenerative disorders, a process called astrogliosis. Aware of this fundamental process for the prevention of diseases and improvement of current treatments, a team led by researchers at the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) and other five Brazilian Federal Universities published one of the first studies to categorically observe this inflammatory reaction in human astrocytes created in the laboratory.