Footballers wearing jerseys featuring small numbers are rated as more slender than those wearing big numbers, in experiments indicating how visual perception may be influenced by cognition

Jimmy Jiang envisions a future where every house is powered by renewable energy stored in batteries. In his chemistry lab, Jiang and his students at the University of Cincinnati have created a new battery that could have profound implications for the large-scale energy storage needed by wind and solar farms. Innovations such as UC’s will have profound effects on green energy, Jiang said. Batteries store renewable energy for when it’s needed, not just when it’s produced. This is crucial for getting the most out of wind and solar power, he said. “Energy ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — This summer, viral misinformation claimed that the Amish did not vaccinate against COVID-19 and, as a result, had a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of the United States. Now, a Penn State study is the first to provide geographically broad and population-wide evidence that while the Amish-populated counties across the nation tend to have lower vaccination rates than other populations, they are not entirely unvaccinated.  The research was published recently in the journal Population Research and Policy Review. The Amish are a distinctive Christian subculture that traces its roots to the 16th century Protestant ...

A recent article published in Volume 3 of the journal Psychoradiology, researchers from Sichuan Normal University introduced an innovative Three-Choice BIC paradigm that merges the GNG and two-choice oddball (TCO) tasks. This study engaged 48 college students who responded to varied stimuli using designated keys and restrained responses to no-go stimuli. Employing functional neuroimaging coupled with conjunction and ROI analyses, the researchers sought to unveil unique neural pathways linked to BIC ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The treadmill exercise test with electrocardiogram (ECG), also known as an exercise stress test, is one of the most familiar tests in medicine. While exercise testing typically is focused on diagnosing coronary artery disease, a recent study from Mayo Clinic finds that exercise test abnormalities, such as low functional aerobic capacity, predicted non-cardiovascular causes of death such as cancer in addition to cardiovascular-related deaths. These new findings are published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The exercise stress test is noninvasive, easily available and provides important diagnostic information. In addition to the ECG itself, ...

DENVER/Sept. 6, 2023 — A newly funded study will evaluate both the frequency and major risk factors for cancer in golden retrievers, a breed commonly affected by the disease.   The study will use data from Morris Animal Foundation’s Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, which is one of the largest and most comprehensive canine health studies in the world. The study will also incorporate data from Veterinary Companion Animal Surveillance System (VetCompass), a not-for-profit research project based at the Royal Veterinary College ...

LA JOLLA, CA—A good night’s sleep has many proven health benefits, and a new Scripps Research study suggests one more: preventing opioid relapse. In the new study, published online in Neuropharmacology on August 12, 2023, scientists gave an experimental insomnia treatment to rats experiencing oxycodone withdrawal. The researchers found that the animals were far less likely to seek out drugs again in the future—even after ending the treatment. These findings could eventually lead to therapies to help prevent opioid addiction or relapse in humans. “These results are very encouraging,” says Rémi Martin-Fardon, PhD, associate professor of molecular medicine ...

The researchers studied birds given a simulated bacterial infection in order to stimulate their immune system. The birds were then compared with birds whose immune system was not stimulated – and their activity was measured for several weeks using miniature data loggers. “We found that the birds whose immune system was stimulated had reduced activity for three weeks, which is much longer than we expected. We could also see that the "sick" blackbirds stopped their activities ...

The 2023 edition of the António Champalimaud Vision Award recognizes the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group (SJEHG) for its work supporting hundreds of thousands of people living in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, helping in the fight against blindness while providing access to essential health services in a region marked by conflict and instability. The SJEHG has been developing its activity at the centre of three major world religions. The ongoing conflict in the region has had a severe impact on health care access and delivery. Without the intervention of the SJEHG, the rate of blindness would be rampant, increasing ...

Precisive real-time prediction of the movement of nearby vehicles or the future trajectory of pedestrians is essential for safe autonomous driving. A research team led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) recently developed a novel AI system that improves predictive accuracy amid dense traffic and increases computational efficiency by over 85%, offering great potential for enhancing the safety of autonomous vehicles. Professor Wang Jianping, in the Department of Computer Science (CS) at CityU, who led the study, explained the critical importance ...

Study Title: Being Breastfed in Infancy and Risk of Colorectal Cancer and Precursor Lesions Publication: Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology: https://www.cghjournal.org/article/S1542-3565(23)00673-0/fulltext Dana-Farber Cancer Institute authors include Chen Yuan, ScD, first author; Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, senior author Summary: Rates of young-onset colorectal cancer have been on the rise since the early 1990s. This study, led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, investigated potential links between being breastfed as an infant and having colorectal cancer later in life. The team evaluated data collected by the Nurses’ Health Study ...