FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – Improving your brain health in the new year can start with a simple step, talking with your neurologist or primary care physician about 12 factors to protect your brain. The factors are outlined in an Emerging Issues in Neurology article developed by the American Academy of Neurology and published in the December 16, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Neurologists are the experts in brain health, with the training and insight needed to help you ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—Microelectronics run the modern world. Staying ahead of the development curve requires an investment that doesn’t just keep pace but sets new standards for the next generation of technological advances. Today, the Department of Energy announced the creation of three Microelectronics Science Research Centers to address the nation’s specific needs for microelectronics designed to operate in extreme environments such as high radiation, extreme cold, and high magnetic field—situations where robust and reliable operating environments are crucial. The new MSRCs not only focus on the next generation ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 23 December 2024     @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 on their own behalf, but also ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – A drug recently approved to prevent migraine may start working right away, according to a study published in the December 23, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at the drug atogepant, which is a calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist taken by mouth. “With many current drugs to prevent migraine, it takes time to find the right dosage for the individual ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – For people with multiple sclerosis (MS), having a COVID-19 infection is not associated with worsening MS symptoms or disability, according to a study published in the December 23, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Infections may be associated with more disability among people with MS,” said study author Amber Salter, PhD, of UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $179 million in funding for three Microelectronics Science Research Centers (MSRCs). These three MSRCs will perform basic research in microelectronics materials, device and system design, and manufacturing science to transform future microelectronics technologies. The MSRCs were authorized by the Micro Act, passed in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and complement the activities appropriated under the CHIPS and Science Act at the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, and other agencies. For decades, DOE has been at ...

The pace at which anthropogenic climate change has altered the terrestrial carbon stores is making our current climate-change mitigation efforts seem fruitless, unless behaviors are quickly changed. Climate change induced by human behaviors, or anthropogenic climate change, has been a hot topic for decades and is not going away. As with any problem, reviewing datasets from the past to analyze trends and garner information is one of the first steps towards a solution. Gross primary productivity, or GPP, is a key indicator of the overall health of an ecosystem and is the amount of CO2 fixed by plants per unit of time and area. Researchers ...

PHILADELPHIA – A year after becoming available, vaccines to protect against RSV in newborns and older adults are being more widely accepted by the American public, according to a new Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) health survey conducted in November 2024. Over half of U.S. adults (52%) think the vaccine given to pregnant individuals to protect their infants from RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) is effective, up from 42% in October 2023, soon after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the vaccine. And 61% say the RSV vaccine for adults age 60 and older is effective, up from 54% ...

A choice was made to include each word in this sentence. Every message, even the most mundane, is crafted with a specific frame in mind that impacts how the message is perceived.   The study of framing effects is a multidisciplinary line of research that investigates when, how, and why language influences those who receive a message and how it impacts their response.   This multifaceted science is in the spotlight in the latest issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Stephen Flusberg of Vassar College and his team provide a comprehensive review of ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new gene editing tool that helps cellular machinery skip parts of genes responsible for diseases has been applied to reduce the formation of amyloid-beta plaque precursors in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report.  The application in live mice shows the improved efficiency of the tool, called SPLICER, over the current standard in gene editing technology, as well as the potential for application in other diseases, the researchers said. Led by Pablo Perez-Pinera, a professor of bioengineering at ...

Early treatment of pediatric Crohn’s disease with anti-tumor necrosis factor medications can substantially reduce the risk of perianal fistulas, a particularly debilitating complication of Crohn’s disease. Michigan Medicine researchers confirmed this finding using prospective data. The resulting paper, “Early tumour necrosis factor antagonist treatment prevents perianal fistula development in children with Crohn’s disease: Post-hoc analysis of the RISK study,” appeared in Gut. A previous retrospective study from the same team had established a link between early treatment and reduced likelihood of perianal fistulas. That research, however, ...

ANN ARBOR—Bright, twisted light can be produced with technology similar to an Edison light bulb, researchers at the University of Michigan have shown. The finding adds nuance to fundamental physics while offering a new avenue for robotic vision systems and other applications for light that traces out a helix in space. "It's hard to generate enough brightness when producing twisted light with traditional ways like electron or photon luminescence," said Jun Lu, an adjunct research investigator in chemical engineering at U-M and first author of the study on the cover of this week's Science.  "We ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- A cell protein previously believed only to provide a scaffolding for DNA has also been shown to directly influence DNA transcription into RNA – the first step of the process by which an organism’s genetic code expresses itself. The fundamental breakthrough was discovered in apple cells but is relevant to all living organisms made of nucleus-containing cells, including humans. The finding, published Dec. 20 in Plant Cell, was co-authored by Cornell researchers and colleagues from the University of California, Davis, and Shandong Agricultural University in Shandong, China. Every cell in an organism ...

Understanding the boundary between classical and quantum physics has long been a central question in science. While thermal light fields have traditionally been viewed as classical, the team fragmented these fields into smaller multiphoton subsystems. Surprisingly, they uncovered quantum coherence—features such as particle interference previously thought unique to quantum systems—within a classical light source.   By using a sophisticated technique involving photon-number-resolving detection and orbital angular momentum (OAM) measurements, the researchers projected a classical pseudothermal light field into isolated multiphoton ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – December 23, 2024) Signals relayed to motor neurons from the brain enable muscle movement, but these signals typically pass through spinal interneurons before they reach their destination. How the brain and this highly diverse group of “switchboard operator” cells are connected is poorly understood. To address this, scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital created a whole-brain atlas visualizing regions of the brain that send direct inputs to V1 interneurons, a group of cells necessary for movement. The resulting atlas and accompanying three-dimensional interactive website provide a framework to further understand ...

2021’s Marshall Fire became the most destructive fire in Colorado history, burning nearly 1,000 homes and forcing more than 37,000 residents of Boulder County to evacuate.  New research by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder found compromised indoor air quality in homes near the burnt area for weeks after the fire, similar to pollution levels recorded in urban Los Angeles in the 1990s. According to the researchers, the findings can help individuals weigh their options when returning ...

Six months after the Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 houses in Boulder County, Colo., more than half of residents of surviving homes in the area reported physical symptoms— including headaches, sore throats or a strange taste in their mouth— that they attributed to poor air quality, a new CU Boulder study has found. A companion study showed that the air quality inside one home post-fire equaled that of downtown Los Angeles in the 1990s on a high pollution day, with hazardous gases lingering for weeks. “Our research suggests that there could be important health impacts for people returning ...

Background and objectives Shenqi Fuzheng (SQ) is a widely used Chinese medicine formula known for its immune-enhancing and Qi-supplementing properties. However, the blood-absorbed components of SQ and their pharmacokinetics remain underexplored. This study aimed to comprehensively analyze the chemical constituents of SQ and investigate their absorption and pharmacokinetic behavior in rat plasma. Methods Ultra-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (hereinafter referred to as UPLC-Triple-TOF/MS) ...

Glass ceilings comprising gender norms and practices can prevent women from advancing in organizational hierarchies, but glass fences may also be limiting — especially to Japanese female faculty who must navigate strong cultural gender expectations, according to a new study by Megumi Watanabe, associate professor at Hiroshima University. Watanabe, who teaches family sociology courses at HU’s Department of Integrated Global Studies, found that glass fences — a term coined by sociologist Kathrin Zippel to represent the invisible gendered barriers preventing female researchers ...

Vector winds play a crucial role in triggering and maintaining convective weather, such as squall lines and typhoons, as well as the effective utilization of wind energy resources. The mesoscale model of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA-MESO) and the highest-resolution model of the European Center for Medium Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) are widely used in weather forecasting. However, little attention has been paid to the ability of such models to simulate vector winds. Moreover, the modeled wind field is often divided ...

NEW YORK, NY, December 23, 2024 — Researchers with the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) have unveiled a critical mechanism that links cellular stress in the brain to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study, published in the journal Neuron, highlights microglia, the brain's primary immune cells, as central players in both the protective and harmful responses associated with the disease. Microglia, often dubbed the brain's first responders, are now recognized ...

About The Study: Between 2020 and 2023, buprenorphine dispensing increased among adolescents but decreased among young adults. The increases likely reflect successful outreach to pediatricians, enhanced prescribing through telehealth, and elimination of waiver requirements; these changes might differentially affect young adults, who might be less likely to access health care. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Andrew Terranella, MD, MPH, email aqt1@cdc.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.24121) Editor’s ...

Patients in emergency departments who are treated by physicians with a high propensity to admit those they see into the hospital are more likely to be discharged after only a short stay, suggesting a possible unnecessary admission, while they are no less likely to die, new research suggests. The findings suggest that differences in physicians’ skill or risk aversion may come into play when they make admitting decisions, said Dr. Dan Ly, assistant professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, U.S. youths ages 0 to 19 years experienced important disparities in firearm and motor vehicle crash fatality rates and increases over time when considering the intersectionality by age group, sex, race, and ethnicity. These findings suggest that a multipronged strategy focused on individual, community, and policy level approaches for specific high-risk groups for each injury mechanism is necessary to address these leading causes of death in U.S. youths. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lois K. Lee, MD, MPH, email lois.lee@childrens.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

About The Study: In this longitudinal cohort study, medical cannabis laws were associated with increased cannabis use disorder and cannabis poisoning diagnoses, and recreational cannabis laws were associated with increased cannabis poisoning in adults ages 18 to 64 with employer-sponsored health insurance. Communities with increased access to cannabis may experience increased health care use and costs due to increases in cannabis poisoning and cannabis use disorder, and new clinical and policy interventions are needed to curb these rising diagnoses.  Corresponding ...