Anastasopoulos studying machine translation for Austronesian languages

The first comprehensive reference genome for ‘R570’, a widely cultivated modern sugarcane hybrid, has been completed in a landmark advancement for agricultural biotechnology.  Sugarcane contributes $2.2 billion to the Australian economy and accounts for 80 per cent of global sugar supply. The mapping of its genetic blueprint opens opportunities for new tools to enhance breeding programs around the world for this valuable bioenergy and food crop.   It is one of the last major crops to be fully sequenced, due to the fact its genome is almost three times the size of humans’ and far more ...

Super wearable electronics that are lightweight, stretchable and increase sweat permeability by 400-fold have been developed by scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK), enabling reliable long-term monitoring of biosignals for biomedical devices. Led by Professor Yu Xinge in CityUHK’s Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), the research team has recently developed a universal method to creating these super wearable electronics that allow gas and sweat permeability, solving the most critical issue facing wearable biomedical devices. Wearable ...

They published their work on Mar. 20, 2024, in Energy Material Advances.   "TR poses a critical safety concern for HED LIBs," said paper author Jiantao Wang, the general manager of National Power Battery Innovation Center, the general manager of China Automotive Battery Research Institute Co., Ltd, professor in General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals. "It hinders HED LIBs wide application in electric vehicles."   Wang explained that TR can occur during various ...

People who can’t visualise an image in their mind’s eye are less likely to remember the details of important past personal events or to recognise faces, according to a review of nearly ten years of research. People who cannot bring to mind visual imagery are also less likely to experience imagery of other kinds, like imagining music, according to new research by the academic who first discovered the phenomenon. Professor Adam Zeman, of the University of Exeter, first coined the term aphantasia in 2015, to describe those who can’t visualise. ...

From pacemakers to neurostimulators, implantable medical devices rely on batteries to keep the heart on beat and dampen pain. But batteries eventually run low and require invasive surgeries to replace. To address these challenges, researchers in China devised an implantable battery that runs on oxygen in the body. The study, published March 27 in the journal Chem, shows in rats that the proof-of-concept design can deliver stable power and is compatible with the biological system. “When you think about it, oxygen is the source of our life,” says corresponding author Xizheng Liu, who specializes in energy materials and devices at Tianjin University of Technology. “If ...

Researchers Toru Miyamoto, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita of the University of Tokyo have discovered the first species pollinated by sap beetles in the genus Pandanus, a group of palm-like plants native to the tropics and subtropics of Africa and Eurasia. The discovery overturned the long-held belief that these plants were pollinated by wind. The researchers also found that fragrant screw pines’ male and female flowers produced heat at night stably, making them the first such species in the family Pandanaceae. The findings were published in ...

A new Kaiser Permanente study found that a health coaching intervention successfully reduced sitting time for a group of older adults by just over 30 minutes a day. Study participants also showed meaningful improvements in blood pressure, comparable to the effect of other interventions focused on physical activity.  The study was published March 27 in JAMA Network Open and included 283 Kaiser Permanente Washington members aged 60-89. Older adults typically sit for between 65 and 80 percent of the hours that they are awake, and strong evidence shows that ...

About The Study: Individuals at high genetic risk of obesity needed higher daily step counts to reduce the risk of obesity than those at moderate or low genetic risk in this study of 3,124 adults. Population-based recommendations may underestimate physical activity needed to prevent obesity among those at high genetic risk.  Authors: Evan L. Brittain, M.D., M.Sc., and Douglas M. Ruderfer, Ph.D., of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/   (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3821) Editor’s Note: Please ...

Using patient data from six major U.S. cancer centers, Brigham researchers and collaborators developed a risk prediction model for moderate-to-severe kidney injury after receiving the chemotherapy drug cisplatin in the largest, first generalizable study of its kind Cisplatin is a highly effective chemotherapy that has been used to treat cancer for decades, but it can cause kidney injury that can potentially lead to the discontinuation of life-saving cancer treatments. Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, with researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other institutions, ...

About The Study: High prices limit access to newer diabetes medicines in many countries. The findings of this study suggest that robust generic and biosimilar competition could reduce prices to more affordable levels and enable expansion of diabetes treatment globally.  Authors: Melissa J. Barber, Ph.D., of the Yale Collaboration for Regulatory Rigor, Integrity, and Transparency in New Haven, Connecticut, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3474) Editor’s ...