AMHERST, Mass. – A group of researchers led by University of Massachusetts Amherst engineers have created ultraviolet (UV) rays-emitting glass that can reduce 98% of biofilm from growing on surfaces in underwater environments, as reported in the journal Biofilm.    Biofilm is a slimy layer of various types of microorganisms that grows on wet surfaces. “If you look down your sink and touch the inner side of it—that slimy substance is biofilm,” describes Mariana Lanzarini-Lopes, ...

A woman’s cardiovascular risk can rise sharply after she goes through menopause, quickly catching up to men of a similar age and health profile, according to new findings presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. Researchers said the study underscores the importance of recognizing and addressing early warning signs of heart disease risk in women as they lose the protective effects of estrogen after menopause. “This is a unique study cohort of only post-menopausal ...

Individuals with heart disease stand to gain the most from a low-sodium diet but, on average, consume over twice the recommended daily sodium intake, according to a study being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. Sodium is an essential nutrient, but consuming too much can raise blood pressure, which damages blood vessels and forces the heart to work harder. Excess sodium can also cause the body to retain fluid, exacerbating conditions like heart failure. The current U.S. Dietary Guidelines put out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture ...

People who use e-cigarettes are significantly more likely to develop heart failure compared with those who have never used them, according to one of the largest prospective studies to date investigating possible links between vaping and heart failure. The findings are being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. Heart failure is a condition affecting more than 6 million U.S. adults in which the heart becomes too stiff or too weak to pump blood as effectively as it should. It can often lead to debilitating symptoms and frequent hospitalizations as people age. Electronic nicotine products, which include ...

Is the view from your doorstep mostly trees and sky or buildings and grass? The answer could influence your cardiovascular health, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. Using an analysis of Google Street View images powered by machine learning, researchers found people living in surroundings rich in sidewalks, trees and clear sky saw a significantly lower risk of major adverse cardiac events. “A lot of research has shown that environmental factors strongly affect our health. If we can find a way to stratify this risk and provide interventions before cardiovascular events happen, then ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass (4/2/2024) – Dual topological phases have been discovered in an intrinsic monolayer crystal, a finding that reveals new and unique rule-bending properties in a quantum material, an international team of scientists led by Boston College physicists reported recently in the online version of the journal Nature. The discovery of a dual topological insulator introduces a new method for creating topological flat minibands through electron interactions, which offer a promising platform for exploring exotic quantum phases and electromagnetism, ...

Brussels, Belgium, and San Francisco, United States - The Public Library of Science (PLOS) and the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (“Eurodoc”), today announced a strategic partnership between the organizations to increase awareness of Open Science, its principles, and its implementation into research practices. “In addition to supporting researchers, we also strive to support the implementation of Open Science principles and increase the adoption of ...

Investments in mitigating climate change in many cases benefit future generations more than those alive today. However, initial costs must be borne by those living now, so many climate mitigation policies rely on some level of intergenerational altruism for support. To investigate the strength and shape of intergenerational altruism, Gustav Agneman and colleagues asked Swedish study participants to engage in an experimental task in which they allocated fictional resources across generations, after being told how many descendants they might be expected to have in the next 250 years.  On average, participants allocated most of the resources to the present generation, and fewer and ...

The pursuit of carbon neutrality drives the exploration of clean energy sources, with hydrogen fuel cells emerging as a promising avenue. In these cells, hydrogen undergoes an electrochemical reaction with oxygen to produce electricity and water. Also, the reverse of this process, called electrolysis, can be used to split the abundantly available water to produce hydrogen and oxygen. These two technologies can work in tandem to provide a clean and renewable source of energy. A pivotal element in these two technologies is the platinum (Pt) electrode. Hydrogen fuel cells consist of two electrodes: an anode and a cathode, with an ...

Fukuoka, Japan - Researchers at Kyushu University have developed and validated a machine-learning model that can accurately evaluate the density of surviving tumor cells after treatment in pathological images of osteosarcoma—the most prevalent malignant bone tumor. The model can assess how individual tumor cells respond to treatment and can predict overall patient prognosis more reliably than conventional methods. Surgery and chemotherapy have significantly improved the outcomes of patients with localized osteosarcoma. However, patients with advanced metastatic disease (the stage where cancerous cells have spread to distant tissues) have a low survival rate. ...

All-solid-state lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries with solid electrolytes are non-flammable and have higher energy density and transference numbers than those with liquid electrolytes. They are expected to take a share of the market for conventional liquid electrolyte Li-ion batteries, such as electric vehicles. However, despite these advantages, solid electrolytes have lower Li-ion conductivity and pose challenges in achieving adequate electrode-solid electrolyte contact. While sulfide-based solid electrolytes are conductive, they react with moisture to form toxic hydrogen disulfide. Therefore, there's ...

A new study found that during the pandemic pediatric emergency departments (EDs) saw more children and adolescents who needed a psychiatric admission, as well as an increase in severe conditions, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and substance use disorders. The higher demand for a psychiatric inpatient bed often exceeded availability, resulting in over 12-hour stays in the ED awaiting admission for nearly 20 percent of children with mental health emergencies in 2022, up from 7 percent before the pandemic. Findings were published in Academic Emergency Medicine. “Our data shows that pediatric emergency departments saw more severe mental health presentations during the pandemic, ...

We’ve all been there: staring at a math test with a problem that seems impossible to solve. What if finding the solution to a problem took almost a century? For mathematicians who dabble in Ramsey theory, this is very much the case. In fact, little progress had been made in solving Ramsey problems since the 1930s. Now, University of California San Diego researchers Jacques Verstraete and Sam Mattheus have found the answer to r(4,t), a longstanding Ramsey problem that has perplexed ...

Chickens are one of the most economically important animals in the world today. However, the story of their origins and dispersal across the ancient world is still poorly understood. In fact, new archaeological techniques have recently led to the recognition that many finds of bones previously thought to represent early chickens in fact belonged to wild birds. Now, in a new publication, an international team of archaeologists, historians, and biomolecular scientists present the earliest clear evidence for the raising of chickens for egg production, and argue that the loss of seasonal egg laying was the main driver for the dispersal of domestic chickens across Eurasia and northeast Africa.  Using ...

Association in-between features has been demonstrated to improve the representation ability of data.  However, the original association data reconstruction method may face two issues: the dimension of reconstructed data is undoubtedly highly than that of original data, and adopted association measure method does not well balance effectiveness and efficiency. To solve the problems, a research team led by Yuhua QIAN published their new research on 12 Mar 2024 in Frontiers of ...

  The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a division of the National Institutes of Health, has granted Eiji Yoshihara, PhD, a principal investigator at The Lundquist Institute (TLI) and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, a five-year grant totaling $3 million. This prestigious NIH R01 grant, known for its rigorous peer-review process, is dedicated to advancing stem cell therapy research for treating diabetes. Insulin-dependent diabetes, including autoimmune Type 1 and stress-induced Type 2, presents a significant health burden, often necessitating lifelong ...

A recent collaborative study has discovered rare variants in the YKT6 gene as the cause of a new neurological disorder characterized by developmental delays along with severe progressive liver disease and a potential risk for liver cancer. The study, published in Genetics in Medicine, was led by Dr. Hugo Bellen, Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine and Principal Investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Wendy Chung, the Chief of the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s ...

Australia could soon see megadroughts that last for more than 20 years, according to new modelling from The Australian National University (ANU) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. The researchers’ bleak findings are before factoring in human impact on the climate since the Industrial Revolution. The ANU-led team also found that 20th century droughts in southwestern and eastern Australia, including the Murray-Darling Basin, were longer on average compared to pre-industrial times. According to the scientists, the findings paint a worrying picture of future droughts in Australia that are far worse than anything in recent experience. Megadroughts are exceptionally ...

Jens Dilling has been named associate laboratory director for the Neutron Sciences Directorate, or NScD, at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, effective April 1. “ORNL pioneered neutron scattering in the 1940s, developing a new technique that enables scientists to explore and create new materials, batteries and more,” ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer said. “Today, ORNL remains at the forefront of this science, and Jens will play a critical role in ensuring the nation's ...

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have been awarded two new grants by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), totaling $6.7 million, to develop and clinically test technologies that can noninvasively examine and quantify immune cells found in tumors. These immune cells, called macrophages, are involved in the body’s normal inflammatory responses, but they also make up a significant portion of solid tumors. The density of macrophages in a tumor can affect how it responds to treatment, so the ability to count them noninvasively could help doctors decide which therapies ...

DARIEN, IL – The risk of increased health care utilization among children with a chronic medical condition is higher for those who also have a sleep disorder, according to a new study that examined Medicaid claims data. The study found that among children who had a chronic medical condition, those who also had a diagnosed sleep disorder were nearly two times more likely to have increased health care utilization (odds ratio = 1.83) than those who had no sleep disorder. The most common sleep disorder diagnosis was sleep-disordered breathing, which was present in 1,796 children. ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 1 April 2024     Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet      @Annalsofim     Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only ...

Mark Torres, assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Rice University, has won a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to unlock new insights in river water chemistry, including its implications for addressing environmental concerns. Torres’ five-year, $612,930 grant is to develop innovative approaches for analyzing variations in river water chemistry. He will lead a research team to shed light on the interplay between water flow and chemical reactions to better understand the effects of climate change on water resources. “The chemistry ...

For Tom Maccarone, the universe really is his laboratory. “I am drawn to the idea of things going on where there are conditions you have little or no hope of reproducing in a lab,” said Maccarone, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas Tech University. “It gives you a way to do the most exotic physics experiments without having to build a giant laboratory. I am also drawn to problems where we still don’t really know anything.” Maccarone recently enjoyed the best of both ...

Mental health issues during pregnancy or the first year of parenthood have a much greater chance of getting detected and treated now than just over a decade ago, a trio of new studies suggests. But the rise in diagnosis and care hasn’t happened equally across different groups and states, leaving some pregnant or postpartum individuals more likely to suffer through treatable symptoms that can put themselves and their newborn at risk. In general, the studies show rises in diagnoses of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder ...