Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

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SMC participants

Virologist (senior scientist) at the Animal Health Research Centre (CISA, INIA-CSIC)

Researcher at the Instituto Cajal, CSIC

Professor of Energy Economics at Durham University (UK) and CSIC research professor

Researcher at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies of the CSIC (IPP-CSIC)

CSIC research professor and expert in food safety and water quality

Senior Scientist at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, IEO-CSIC

Head of the Epidemiology and Environmental Health research group at CISA, INIA-CSIC.

Senior scientist at the Institute for Biomedical Research of Barcelona (IIBB-CSIC), principal investigator at CIBERSAM and head of the Systems Neuropharmacology group at IDIBAPS-Fundació Clínic.

Research Professor at the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC)

 

Director of the Institute of Neurosciences, a joint centre of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) and the CSIC

Contents related to this centre
Aging

An international team has analyzed data from nearly half a million people to analyze the influence of genes or environment on mortality, age-related diseases and aging. Although the relationship may vary according to the type of disease, their conclusions are that the environment -especially socioeconomic conditions, smoking habits and physical exercise- has a much greater influence than genetics in all the aspects studied. Among other data, environment explains 17 % of the variation in mortality risk, while genetics is limited to 2 %. The results are published in the journal Nature Medicine. 

Musk

A team of researchers from the University of California (USA) has analyzed the presence of hate speech on the social network X (formerly Twitter) since its purchase by Elon Musk in October 2022 until June 2023. Their findings are that this type of racist, homophobic and transphobic speech increased by approximately 50 % throughout this period. In addition, the presence of bots and fake accounts did not decrease, contrary to Musk's own promises. The results are published in the journal Plos One. 

Neutrino

An international team of scientists from the KM3NeT collaboration has detected the signal from the highest-energy cosmic neutrino to date, some 30 times higher than those previously detected. The result suggests that the particle came from beyond the Milky Way, although its precise origin has yet to be determined. The results are published in the journal Nature

Plastics

A multidisciplinary team of US researchers has analyzed the presence of micro- and nanoplastics in 52 human cadavers between 2016 and 2024. The concentrations of these particles were higher in the brain than in the liver or kidneys. They were also higher in the brains of people with dementia, although the researchers acknowledge that causality cannot be established. The results are published in the journal Nature Medicine. 

flying birds

A meta-analysis that brings together data from 628 species of animals, plants and other organisms in terrestrial and marine ecosystems over the last three decades shows that most are losing genetic diversity, especially mammals and birds. ‘The threats affected two thirds of the populations we analysed and less than half are subject to conservation management measures,’ say the authors of the research, published in Nature.

laboratory mouse

A team of researchers has used embryonic stem cell engineering to create a bipaternal mouse - a mouse with two male parents - that lived to adulthood. Their results, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, show how targeting a particular set of genes involved in reproduction enabled this breakthrough in unisexual reproduction in mammals.

avian influenza

A team of researchers from the USA has analyzed the B lymphocytes of seven healthy people in whom no exposure to H5 influenza viruses, such as the avian flu virus, had been documented. The results show that they present antibodies capable of recognizing this type of virus, which, according to the authors, could represent “a first line of defense” in the event of a pandemic. The results are published in the journal Science Immunology.

immune cells brain mice

A study in mice reveals that immune cells in the brain 'engulf' microplastics, forming clumps that can cause brain clots. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, highlight how microplastics can indirectly damage the brain by disrupting blood flow, rather than directly infiltrating brain tissue cells. 

Atlantic salmon

An assessment of the extinction risk of freshwater fauna, covering more than 23,000 species, reveals that around 24% of the species studied are at risk of extinction. The analysis, published in Nature, identifies the main threats from pollution, dams, agriculture and invasive species. Decapods - such as freshwater crabs and shrimps - have the highest percentage of threatened species (30 %), followed by freshwater fish (26 %) and odonates - such as dragonflies (16 %).

IPBES

Meeting in the city of Windoek (Namibia), the plenary of the IPBES - Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - has ratified two new reports: the Nexus Assessment and the Transformative Change Assessment. Three of their authors explained the main findings and the changes they propose at a briefing organised by SMC Spain.