Science
press releases.

Science29 Aug 2024

Labor day crowds temporarily impact local streams, research shows

Crowds flocking to rivers and streams over Labor Day weekend are doing more than cooling off and having fun. They’re temporarily introducing chemicals and microscopic organisms into their local waterways, according to new research from Johns Hopkins University. The research, published today in ACS ES&T Water, is the first holistic assessment of how recreation impacts streams. Findings also provide insight into the compounds and chemicals people are splashing around in when their favorite swimming spots are packed. “Residue from ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Borderzone Breakthrough: A new source of cardiac inflammation

Ischemic heart disease is the most common cause of death in the world. It begins with a “heart attack”, also known as a myocardial infarction (MI), which causes part of the heart to die due to inadequate coronary blood flow. This leads to vigorous inflammation, heart wall remodeling, and heart failure. Anti-inflammatory drugs have been surprisingly ineffective at preventing heart failure. As a consequence, they are not a routine part of post-MI care. However, it is possible that the most potent molecular and cellular inflammation targets have yet to be discovered. In the Aug. 28, ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

New study assesses the efficacy of suvorexant in reducing delirium in older adults

Delirium is a sudden onset and temporary state of disturbed consciousness or cognition, occurring due to underlying medical issues like fever or alcohol withdrawal. It is most common among older hospitalized adults aged 75 years or above, leading to increased risk of falls, dementia, low life expectancy, and high healthcare expenses. Non-pharmacological approaches to prevent or reduce delirium are time-consuming, hard to implement, and partially effective. So, pharmacological interventions offer hope. Insomnia, a significant risk factor for delirium, could be alleviated with sleep-promoting medications. However, not all ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Researchers identify basic approaches for how people recognize words

University of Iowa researchers have defined how people recognize words. In a new study with people who use cochlear implants to hear, the researchers identified three main approaches that people with or without hearing impairment use to recognize words, an essential building block for understanding spoken language. Which approach depends on the person, regardless of hearing aptitude or ability: Some wait a bit before identifying a word, while others may tussle between two or more words before deciding which word has been heard. When a person hears a word, the brain briefly considers hundreds, if not thousands, ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Children contribute to group projects when there are clear and common goals

Children can work together to reach a target that benefits a whole group even if it is at a personal cost to themselves, a new study has shown. Researchers invited groups of six to 10-year-olds to take part in a game where they were each given containers of water and could decide how much of it to offer into a common pool. If the group contributed a certain amount of water it resulted in benefits for the whole group, but children also obtained benefits for any water they kept. At the same time, the ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Ancient sea cow attacked by a crocodile and sharks sheds new light on prehistoric food chains

A new study describing how a prehistoric sea cow was preyed upon by not one, but two different carnivores – a crocodilian and a shark – is revealing clues into both the predation patterns of ancient creatures and the wider food chain millions of years ago. Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the findings mark one of the few examples of a creature being preyed upon by different animals during the Early to Middle Miocene epoch (23 million to 11.6 million years ago). Predation marks in the skull indicate that the dugongine sea cow, ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Waging war on ‘superbugs’ in aged care

There’s an urgent need for more careful antibiotic management to protect older people living in residential aged care from the dangerous spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria or ‘superbugs’, researchers from Flinders University and SAHMRI warn. A new study published in the well-respected Journal of Infection, explores the link between the widespread use of antibiotics in residential aged care and the resulting antibiotic resistant bacteria in the gut that can be passed on to other residents. “Commonly ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Improvement of durability of membrane electrode assembly by frame sealing structure in temperature shock

Fuel cells offer a promising solution for clean energy with advantages over traditional electric power systems, including extended driving range and higher energy density. Despite these benefits, the high costs and durability concerns associated with fuel cell stacks have limited their commercialization. The durability of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs), a key component of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), is particularly affected by the frame sealing structure, which is often overlooked in research. The study, conducted by Tiankuo Chu ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

Gria: An efficient deterministic concurrency control protocol

The concurrency control in deterministic databases, i.e., deterministic concurrency control, ensures that each transaction batch produces a unique result. In this way, replicas can process transactions in batches without communicating with each other to ensure consistency, which is simpler and more efficient than non-deterministic databases in achieving high availability through replication. Early deterministic concurrency control protocols, e.g. Calvin, Bohm, PWV, rely on the prior knowledge of the read-write set, which is impractical in most scenarios. The state-of-the-art Ari breaks this limitation. However, Aria has three issues. First, ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

NSF grants $22 million for 'extreme microbe' lab collaboration

The National Science Foundation has announced a $22 million grant to establish a “BioFoundry” laboratory for the study of extreme microorganisms with collaborating facilities at UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, and Cal Poly Pomona. The BioFoundry for Extreme and Exceptional Fungi, Archaea, and Bacteria, or ExFAB, will focus on developing techniques to learn from nature’s more unusual microorganisms. These microbes are considered “extreme” because they have unusual nutritional requirements, grow at extremely high or low temperatures, or grow without ...

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Science29 Aug 2024

UC Santa Barbara to lead $22M NSF-funded center on exceptional microbes

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — This week, the National Science Foundation announced the award of a six-year, $22M grant to UC Santa Barbara under its biofoundries program for the establishment of the BioFoundry for Extreme and Exceptional Fungi, Archaea and Bacteria (ExFAB), a collaboration led by UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), together with UC Riverside (UCR), and Cal Poly Pomona (CPP). ExFAB establishes the nation’s first biofoundry that focuses on largely untapped and unexplored extreme microbes. UCSB's award is one of only five grants made under NSF's BioFoundry program during this funding cycle, which awarded ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

New USC research reveals untapped potential for mobilizing voters of color in battleground states

With swing states playing a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential election, new reports from the Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID) at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy have found significant voter turnout disparities between white, non-Latino voters and voters of color in all nine battleground states. The reports highlight the persistent “voter representation gap,” where voters of color remain underrepresented at the polls, despite substantial population growth. If narrowed by November, the research concludes, this gap could significantly influence election results, particularly in swing states that had particularly close ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

How stigma affects Asian Americans living with hepatitis B

Asian Americans comprise just 6% of the U.S. population, but they represent over 60% of Americans with hepatitis B. Hepatitis B (HBV) is a virus that infects the liver, and while some people may recover from the infection, others can go on to develop liver failure or cancer. HBV is transmitted through blood, semen or other bodily fluids, but it can also be passed from mother to child during birth, which is how the majority of Asian Americans acquire the disease. Up until 2010, laws in China allowed for discrimination against people with HBV, barring adults from employment and keeping ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Using high resolution mass spectrometry to study fuel chemistry

WASHINGTON – U.S. Naval Research Laboratory researcher Mark Romanczyk, Ph.D., developed new analytical methods to rapidly analyze fuels and complex petroleum products by using high-resolution mass spectrometry. The approaches Romanczyk utilizes enable highly detailed qualitative analysis of complex mixtures in minutes. One recent method facilitated the investigation of chemical changes that occurred in weathered crude oil in terrestrial environments. Several of the methods were recently published in the ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Geographic differences in US homicide rates have decreased since the 1970s

A new study finds that, counter to expectations, geographic disparities in rates of homicides in the US have decreased in recent decades. Richard Boylan of Rice University in Houston, Texas, US, presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 28, 2024. Since the 1970s, gaps in economic and social wellbeing between Americans living in different regions have grown. Some researchers hypothesize that areas with reduced economic and social well-being would see higher rates of violent crime. For instance, impoverished areas with lower tax bases might receive less police protection, ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Dogs understand words from soundboard buttons, study reveals

If you’ve seen those viral social media videos of dogs using soundboard buttons to “talk,” you’re not alone. These buttons have taken the pet world by storm, leading to impressive and sometimes seemingly miraculous feats shared across platforms like TikTok and Instagram. But are these dogs truly communicating, or are they just responding to cues from their owners? Now, a new study published in PLOS ONE – by researchers from the University of California San Diego and other institutions – ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Chromosome copying errors pinpointed in embryo development

A new discovery by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics (BDR) in Japan upends decades of assumptions regarding DNA replication. Led by Ichiro Hiratani and colleagues, the experiments published August 28 in Nature show that DNA replication in early embryos is different from what past research has taught, and includes a period of instability that is prone to chromosomal copying errors. As failed pregnancies and developmental disorders are often related to chromosomal abnormalities the findings could impact the field of reproductive medicine, perhaps leading to improved methods of in vitro fertilization (IVF). During embryogenesis, ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Plant signaling pathways decoded

When it comes to survival, plants have a huge disadvantage compared to many other living organisms: they cannot simply change their location if predators or pathogens attack them or the environmental conditions change to their disadvantage. For this reason, plants have developed different strategies with which they react to such attacks. Such reactions are usually triggered by certain signals from the environment. As has long been known, the intracellular calcium concentration plays an important role in the processing of these signals. However, in addition to changes in the cytoplasmic calcium level, changes in the cell's ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Fighting fungal foes: Walnut's genetic armor against anthracnose revealed

A pivotal study has pinpointed a gene module crucial for enhancing walnut trees' resistance to anthracnose, a widespread fungal disease threatening the walnut industry. The research reveals how the JrPHL8-JrWRKY4-JrSTH2L module regulates disease defense, opening up new opportunities for breeding resistant walnut varieties and promoting sustainable cultivation practices. Anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, poses a significant threat to walnut production, causing severe losses ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Dr. David A. Schwartz receives 39th annual Alton Ochsner Award

NEW ORLEANS – Ochsner Health has announced David A. Schwartz, MD, as the 2024 winner of the Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Disease. Dr. Schwartz is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Immunology and director of the Program to Advance Physician Scientists and Translational Research at University of Colorado’s Anschutz School of Medicine. Dr. Schwartz won the 39th annual Alton Ochsner Award for his research on how genetic and environmental factors, including smoking, contribute to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). He found that ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Love is blind for male fruit flies who will choose sex over safety

Male fruit flies will become oblivious to physical danger as they become more engaged in courtship and sex, new research shows. Researchers at the University of Birmingham have shown that pursuit of a coveted reward – in this case a female fly – will cause a male fruit fly to ignore threats such as predation. In the study, published today (28 Aug) in Nature, the team was able to show for the first time the neural networks in the fly’s brain that direct this decision-making process, revealing the neurotransmitter dopamine has a leading role to play. Lead researcher Dr Carolina Rezaval said: “Every day we make decisions that require us to ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Kidney donors’ risk of death at all-time low

The risk of death for people who donate a kidney for transplantation — already small a decade ago — has dropped by more than half since then, a new study shows. Each year, roughly 6,000 Americans volunteer to donate a kidney, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Before undergoing the procedure, donors are informed of the potential risks, including death. Based on data from 1995 through 2009, experts had originally predicted that about three of every 10,000 donors were likely to die within three months of the procedure. The authors of the ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Thirty-year trends in perioperative mortality risk for living kidney donors

About The Study: Perioperative mortality after living donation declined substantially in the past decade compared with prior decades, to fewer than 1 event per 10,000 donations. Risk was higher for male donors and donors with a history of hypertension. Current guidelines for donor informed consent, based on 2009 data, should be updated to reflect this information. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Dorry L. Segev, MD, PhD, email dorry.segev@nyulangone.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.14527) Editor’s Note: Please ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

First-generation antihistamines and seizures in young children

About The Study: Prescriptions for first-generation antihistamines were associated with a 22.0% higher seizure risk in children, especially in those ages 6 to 24 months in this cohort study. These findings emphasize the need for careful and judicious prescription of first-generation antihistamines in young children and underline the need for further research to elucidate associations between antihistamine prescriptions and seizure risk. Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Seonkyeong Rhie, MD, (starclusters@gmail.com) and Man Yong Han, MD, (drmesh@gmail.com). To ...

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Science28 Aug 2024

Team discovers transient rise in depletion attraction contributes to mitotic chromosome condensation

A team of scientists studying cell division developed a special light microscopy system and used it to analyze the molecular density of cellular environments. Their results provide a novel insight into mitotic chromosome condensation in living human cells. Their work is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on August 27, 2024. DOI：https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2403153121 To carry out their study, the team developed an orientation-independent-differential interference contrast (OI-DIC) microscopy system combined with a confocal ...

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