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Science

Depressed adolescents twice as likely to vape

A study on vaping behaviour among Australian high school students has found those who reported severe depressive symptoms were over twice as likely to have tried e-cigarettes, compared to those reporting no depressive symptoms. Data showed overall higher e-cigarette use among those with poorer mental health, including severe depressive symptoms, moderate and high stress, and low wellbeing. The findings show a critical need for effective mental health support at the same time as vaping prevention during early adolescence -- when these issues first emerge. The researchers surveyed over ...

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The risk of global water scarcity is greater when accounting for the origin of rain.
Science

The risk of global water scarcity is greater when accounting for the origin of rain.

Securing the world's water supply is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Research at Stockholm University is now presenting an alternative method for quantifying the global risk of water scarcity. Results indicate higher risks to water supply than previously expected if accounting for the environmental conditions and governability where rain is produced. The common idea of global water supply is rain falling on the earth's surface and then stored in aquifers, lakes, and rivers. This idea is usually used to assess water security and the risk of water scarcity. However, a new study published in Nature Water shows how the water risks are dependent on governance ...

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Science

How hope beats mindfulness when times are tough

A recent study finds that hope appears to be more beneficial than mindfulness at helping people manage stress and stay professionally engaged during periods of prolonged stress at work. The study underscores the importance of looking ahead, rather than living “in the moment,” during hard times. Mindfulness refers to the ability of an individual to focus attention on the present, in a way that is open, curious and not judgmental. Essentially, the ability to be fully in the moment. “There’s a lot of discussion ...

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Science

New findings on TB could change how we treat inflammatory disorders

Tuberculosis is a confounding scourge. It’s the leading cause of death from infectious disease in the world, and yet it’s estimated that those deaths represent perhaps 5% of infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Antibiotics can take credit for saving the lives of some of those with Mtb, but a chasm nevertheless persists between the prevalence of infection and the targeted severity of its impact. A growing body of evidence suggests genetic vulnerabilities to TB account for that gap. Now researchers from ...

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Science

Like people, vultures get set in their ways and have fewer friends as they age

Key takeaways Young griffon vultures move frequently between sleeping sites in different locations, interacting with many friends. They get set in their ways as they age and roost in the same spots with the same individuals; older vultures follow the same paths. Roosts act as information hubs; older vultures may have a more thorough knowledge of where to find food resources and less need to learn about them from other vultures. If you’d rather be watching TV on your couch than dancing at the club, you might have something in common with aging ...

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When the heat makes you disoriented
Science

When the heat makes you disoriented

Climate change is affecting ecosystems in many different ways. One of its consequences are increasingly longer and more intense periods of heat, which affect essential natural processes – such as pollination. A team of researchers from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) has now investigated in more detail how heat affects one particular player in these processes: The bumblebee. "Bumblebees are important pollinators in natural and agricultural systems. They therefore ...

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New discoveries about how mosquitoes mate may help the fight against malaria
Science

New discoveries about how mosquitoes mate may help the fight against malaria

Link to Google Drive folder containing images with caption and credit information: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UM9rl47Xd_Bs-ov0HpVwC-rtUDonM3oJ?usp=sharing Post-embargo link to release: https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/08/30/mosquito-swarm/ Embargoed by Current Biology For public release at 11 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time (8 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time) on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024 A high-pitched buzzing sound in your ear is an unmistakable sign that a female mosquito is out on the hunt — for they, not males, drink blood. Hearing ...

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Low-quality video target detection based on EEG signal using eye movement alignment
Science

Low-quality video target detection based on EEG signal using eye movement alignment

In a research paper, scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology proposed an event related potential (ERP) extraction method to solve the asynchronous problem of low-quality video target detection, designed the time-frequency features based on continuous wavelet transform, and established an EEG decoding model based on neural characterization. The average decoding accuracy of 84.56% is achieved in pseudo-online test. The new research paper, published July 4 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, introduces a low-quality ...

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Science

Study: Transparency is often lacking in datasets used to train large language models

CAMBRDIGE, MA – In order to train more powerful large language models, researchers use vast dataset collections that blend diverse data from thousands of web sources. But as these datasets are combined and recombined into multiple collections, important information about their origins and restrictions on how they can be used are often lost or confounded in the shuffle. Not only does this raise legal and ethical concerns, it can also damage a model’s performance. For instance, if a dataset is miscategorized, someone training a machine-learning model for a certain task may end up unwittingly using data that are not designed for that task. In addition, data from unknown sources ...

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Consensus paper: Carcinogenicity of gene therapies
Science

Consensus paper: Carcinogenicity of gene therapies

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, Gene Therapy Program, and Moderna, have shown that repeated administration of lipid nanoparticle-encapsulated mRNA therapy significantly extended survival and reduced serum leucine levels in a mouse model of maple syrup urine disease (MSUD). Click here to read the article now. The researchers, led by James Wilson, MD, PhD, from the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, evaluated a lipid nanoparticle-based treatment approach to address all possible genetic mutations that can cause MSUD. “Repeated intravenous delivery ...

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HeterMM: Applying in-DRAM index to heterogeneous memory-based key-value stores
Science

HeterMM: Applying in-DRAM index to heterogeneous memory-based key-value stores

Emerging byte-addressable storage technologies, such as NVM, provide a more cost-effective and larger-capacity alternative to DRAM, presenting new opportunities to address the high cost, limited capacity, and volatility of in-memory key-value (KV) stores. Numerous efforts have been dedicated to redesigning conventional structures on NVM. However, they were challenged by the substantial engineering cost and increased complexity to be integrated into existing systems. Thus, a general framework to apply existing indexes to KV stores on NVM becomes more attractive. To solve the problems, a research team led by Xuan Zhou published their new research on ...

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Science

Lack of competition between petrol stations hits households most in poorest areas

Households in low-income areas face significantly higher increases in petrol prices when rival fuel stations close compared to high-income areas, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). At the same time, low-income areas do not benefit from a higher drop in prices when new stations open. The study is published today in the Journal of Industrial Economics. It shows that it matters who operates the petrol stations: large chains respond with higher price increases following the exit of one of their rivals. Other factors, such as reliance on cars, commuting distance, age, or education also drive some of this ...

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Soliton microcomb generation by cavity polygon modes
Science

Soliton microcomb generation by cavity polygon modes

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oea.2024.240061, discusses soliton microcomb generation by cavity polygon modes. Optical frequency comb (OFC) is a coherent light source consisting of a series of discrete, equally spaced and phase-locked frequency lines, which is crucial for practical applications in building optical clocks, searching Earth-like exoplanets, exploring quantum optics, optical frequency synthesis, high-resolution optical spectroscopy, lidar, high-speed telecom communication, microwave photonics, and many others. In recent years, on-chip soliton microcomb, which finely balances ...

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Spin-controlled generation of a complete polarization set with randomly-interleaved plasmonic metasurfaces
Science

Spin-controlled generation of a complete polarization set with randomly-interleaved plasmonic metasurfaces

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oea.2024.240076 , discusses spin-controlled generation of a complete polarization set with randomly-interleaved plasmonic metasurfaces. Optical metasurfaces are finely crafted two-dimensional artificial nanostructures composed of meticulously designed arrays of ultrathin artificial atoms. These surfaces possess capabilities beyond natural materials, enabling multifunctional control of electromagnetic waves. By designing the shape, ...

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Multi-functional and highly reconfigurable monolithic signal processing system
Science

Multi-functional and highly reconfigurable monolithic signal processing system

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Sciences; DOI 10.29026/oes.2024.240012, discusses a multi-functional and highly reconfigurable monolithic signal processing system. Photonic signal processing offers a versatile and promising toolkit for contemporary scenarios ranging from digital optical communication to analog microwave operation. Compared to its electronic counterpart, it eliminates inherent bandwidth limitations and meanwhile exhibits the potential to provide unparalleled scalability and flexibility, particularly through ...

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RISE project awarded NIH grant
Science

RISE project awarded NIH grant

Xiaopeng Zhao, a professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering and founding director of the Applied AI Program in the College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies at UT, is part of a collaborative team that has been awarded a $401,090 grant from the National Institutes of Health. The team received the multi-year funded grant for the project “Robot-based Information and Support to Enhance Alzheimer’s Caregiver Health (RISE).” The research is supported ...

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NEC Society recognizes a decade of impact
Science

NEC Society recognizes a decade of impact

Davis, CA — The NEC Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a devastating neonatal intestinal disease, proudly marks its 10th anniversary. Founded by Jennifer Canvasser after the tragic loss of her son, Micah, the organization works tirelessly to build a world without NEC, the disease that killed her child and claims another child every day in the United States. Canvasser shares, "Ten years ago, patient-families affected by NEC were isolated, and clinician-scientists worked in silos. Over the past decade, we've built an empowered community dedicated to transforming our pain into power and isolation into collaboration.” Since ...

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Ancient gene gives spiders their narrow waist
Science

Ancient gene gives spiders their narrow waist

An ancient gene is crucial for the development of the distinctive waist that divides the spider body plan in two, according to a study publishing August 29th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Emily Setton from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, and colleagues. The spider body is divided into two sections, separated by a narrow waist. Compared to insects and crustaceans, relatively little is known about embryonic development in spiders, and the genes involved in the formation of the spider waist are poorly understood. To investigate, researchers sequenced genes expressed in embryos of the Texas brown tarantula (Aphonopelma hentzi) ...

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Uncovering the secret communication of monkeys: They have names!
Science

Uncovering the secret communication of monkeys: They have names!

New study from Hebrew University reveals that marmoset monkeys use specific calls, known as "phee-calls," to name each other, a behavior previously known to exist only in humans, dolphins, and elephants. This discovery highlights the complexity of social communication in marmosets and suggests that their ability to vocally label each other may provide valuable insights into the evolution of human language. LINK to pictures https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VjzO-70hk27UVX_IuQ6FTsHgmCgk9PCH?usp=drive_link Credit for pictures and sound: David Omer Lab In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from Hebrew ...

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Mechanisms of how morphine relieves pain mapped out
Science

Mechanisms of how morphine relieves pain mapped out

In a study published in Science, researchers at Karolinska Institutet describe the neural processes behind how morphine relieves pain. This is valuable knowledge because the drug has such serious side effects. Morphine is a powerful painkiller that belongs to the group of opioids. It blocks signals in the pain pathways and also increases feelings of pleasure. Morphine acts on several central and peripheral pain pathways in the body, but the neural processes behind the pain relief have not previously been fully understood. Researchers have now investigated how morphine relieves pain using ...

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What’s in the microbiome of the foods we eat?
Science

What’s in the microbiome of the foods we eat?

Microbes are part of the food we eat and can influence our own microbiome, but we know very little about the microbes in our foods. Now, researchers have developed a database of the “food microbiome” by sequencing the metagenomes of 2,533 different foods. They identified 10,899 food-associated microbes, half of which were previously unknown species, and showed that food-associated microbes account for around 3% of the adult and 56% of the infant gut microbiome on average. The study published August 29 in the journal ...

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Scientists discover how starfish get ‘legless’
Science

Scientists discover how starfish get ‘legless’

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have made a groundbreaking discovery about how starfish manage to survive predatory attacks by shedding their own limbs. The team has identified a neurohormone responsible for triggering this remarkable feat of self-preservation. Autotomy, the ability of an animal to detach a body part to evade predators, is a well-known survival strategy in the animal kingdom. While lizards shedding their tails are a familiar example, the mechanisms behind this process remain largely mysterious. Now, scientists have unveiled a key piece of the puzzle. By studying the common European starfish, ...

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Finding new targets for blocking chronic hepatitis
Science

Finding new targets for blocking chronic hepatitis

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) determine how a protein called A20 can regulate the inflammatory response to suppress chronic hepatitis Tokyo, Japan – Many individuals worldwide suffer from chronic liver disease (CLD), which poses significant concerns for its tendency to lead to hepatocellular carcinoma or liver failure. CLD is characterized by inflammation and fibrosis. Certain liver cells, called hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), contribute to both these characteristics, but how they are specifically involved in the inflammatory response is not ...

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Terasaki Institute scientist awarded 2024 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant
Science

Terasaki Institute scientist awarded 2024 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant

LOS ANGELES, August 29, 2024 — Yangzhi Zhu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), has been awarded the prestigious 2024 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant for his groundbreaking work on a lab-on-a-contact lens (LoCL) system. This innovative technology is designed to monitor mental health by providing real-time, non-invasive tracking of panels of key biomarkers, from the wearer’s tears. Mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression, affect nearly a billion ...

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This tiny backyard bug does the fastest backflips on earth
Science

This tiny backyard bug does the fastest backflips on earth

Move over, Sonic. There’s a new spin-jumping champion in town – the globular springtail (Dicyrtomina minuta). This diminutive hexapod backflips into the air, spinning to over 60 times its body height in the blink of an eye, and a new study features the first in-depth look at its jumping prowess. Globular springtails are tiny, usually only a couple millimeters in body length. They don’t fly, bite or sting. But they can jump. In fact, jumping is their go-to (and only) plan for avoiding predators. And they excel at it – to the naked eye it seems as though they vanish entirely when they take off. “When globular springtails ...

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