Drink and drug risk is lower among optimistic pupils with 'happy' memories, says study

New Orleans, LA - An analysis by Nicholas Gilpin, PhD, Professor of Physiology and Associate Director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center of Excellence at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, and Michael Taffe, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, summarizes long-standing racial inequities in federal funding for biosciences research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Their report describes prior failures to correct these racial inequities and offers strategies that may be effective in eliminating these disparities. Their paper, published online in the open-access ...

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a widespread condition in the Western World. Around 30% of the population have lipid droplets stored in their liver which diminish its function in the long term. Main causes for NAFLD are our high-caloric diet in combination with a sedentary lifestyle. Hitherto, researchers have not fully understood the cause of this disease and despite the high number of affected individuals, there is no approved therapy. In order to improve our understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying the etiology of NAFLD, Dr. Nina Graffmann, Prof. James Adjaye and the team of the Institute for Stem Cell research and Regenerative Medicine from the University Hospital Duesseldorf differentiated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from healthy ...

Using a combination of telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO's VLT), astronomers have revealed a system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythm around their central star. The researchers believe the system could provide important clues about how planets, including those in the Solar System, form and evolve. The first time the team observed TOI-178, a star some 200 light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, they thought they had spotted two planets going around it in the same orbit. However, a closer look revealed something entirely ...

CHICAGO (January 25, 2021; 9 am CST): A new study finds that older cancer patients are less likely to have optimal results following their cancer operation if they live in an area highly affected by social challenges, especially if they are racial-ethnic minorities. The study was selected for the 2020 Southern Surgical Association Program and published as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print. Study investigators from The Ohio State University (OSU) used a novel risk stratification tool called the social vulnerability index (SVI), a composite measure of 15 social and economic factors. ...

The key factor in preventing non-communicable diseases is lifestyle management at the individual level with a focus on such innovations, which can help increase the awareness of risk factors management in society, claim an international team of researchers, among them - scientists from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania in a recent study. According to them, the management of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases requires many strategies from several perspectives and on different levels. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, are medical conditions that are ...

What happened to the promised applications of graphene and related materials? Thanks to initiatives like the European Union's Graphene Flagship and heavy investments by leading industries, graphene manufacturing is mature enough to produce prototypes and some real-life niche applications. Now, researchers at Graphene Flagship partner The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) in Karlsruhe, Germany, have published two papers that roadmap the expected future mass introduction of graphene and related materials in the market. Back in 2004, graphene was made by peeling off atomically thin layers from a graphite block. Now, thanks to the advances pioneered by the Graphene Flagship, among ...

A team from the Computer Vision Center (CVC) and the University of Barcelona has published the results of a study that evaluates the accuracy and bias in gender and skin colour of automatic face recognition algorithms tested with real world data. Although the top solutions exceed the 99.9% of accuracy, researchers have detected some groups that show higher false positive or false negative rates. Face recognition has been routinely used by both private and governmental organizations worldwide. Automatic face recognition can be used for legitimate and beneficial purposes (e.g. to improve security) but at the same time its power and ubiquity increases a potential negative ...

Small-scale optical devices capable of using photons for high-speed information processing can be fabricated with unprecedented ease and precision using an additive manufacturing process developed at KAUST. Fiber optics are conventionally produced by drawing thin filaments out of molten silica glass down to microscale dimensions. By infusing these fibers with long narrow hollow channels, a new class of optical devices termed "photonic crystal fibers" were introduced. The periodic arrangement of air holes in these photonic crystal fibers act like near-perfect mirrors, allowing trapping and long propagation of light in their central core. "Photonic crystal fibers allow you to confine light in very tight spaces, increasing the optical ...

Skeletal muscle is the largest tissue in the human body and is responsible not only for locomotion but for energy metabolism and heat production. Age-related muscle atrophy reduces motor function and contributes to the need for nursing care. In addition, muscle atrophy associated with various chronic diseases is known to be a risk factor for life expectancy. Myoblasts, the progenitor cells of muscle, play an important role in maintaining muscle homeostasis. However, it has been reported that the differentiation ability of myoblasts decreases with age and disease, and this is thought to be one of the causes of muscle atrophy. In order to prevent or treat muscle atrophy, a research team led by Assistant Professor Tomohide Takaya of Shinshu University, Faculty of Agriculture studied ...

Laser beams can be used to precisely measure an object's position or velocity. Normally, however, a clear, unobstructed view of this object is required - and this prerequisite is not always satisfied. In biomedicine, for example, structures are examined, which are embedded in an irregular, complicated environment. There, the laser beam is deflected, scattered and refracted, often making it impossible to obtain useful data from the measurement. However, Utrecht University (Netherlands) and TU Wien (Vienna, Austria) have now been able to show that meaningful results can be obtained even in such complicated environments. Indeed, there is a way to specifically modify ...