Science
press releases.

Science10 Jul 2024

Could new discovery help treat a rare and severe form of amyloidosis?

In people with a rare condition called light chain amyloidosis, light chain proteins—which are a component of antibodies—mutate and build up in different organs. In new research published in The FEBS Journal, investigators have identified and characterized an antibody fragment that can bind to abnormal light chains to stabilize them and prevent their aggregation. The findings could have an important clinical impact because the current prognosis for individuals with light chain amyloidosis is extremely poor, and current treatments, ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

We can’t distinguish wild coca plants from those grown to make cocaine

A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that while the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has collected annual data on areas of coca cultivation in South America for decades – to monitor the establishment of illegal plantations and associated deforestation – scientists can’t reliably distinguish between different types of coca plants. While identification often relies on leaf shape and size, this does not reflect differences between coca varieties grown for extracting the alkaloid cocaine (the active ingredient in the recreational drug), coca cultivated for traditional purposes, ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

Chronic allergic disorder EoE’s rising incidence in Japan confirmed by large-scale data analysis

Osaka, Japan — In one of the first studies of its kind in Japan, Osaka Metropolitan University-led researchers uncovered the incidence and prevalence of the chronic allergic disorder eosinophilic esophagitis, or EoE. EoE can cause difficulty in swallowing with tissue inflammation and fibrosis as eosinophils, a type of white blood cell, build up in the esophagus. EoE cases have been increasing in North America and Western Europe since the 1990s, but little has been known about the situation in Asia including Japan. Dr. Akinari Sawada, Associate Professor Fumio Tanaka, and Professor Yasuhiro Fujiwara of OMU’s Graduate School of Medicine and colleagues analyzed a ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

An approach for robust facial attribute classification

Face attribute classification (FAC) is a high-profile problem in biometric verification and face retrieval. Although recent research has been devoted to extracting more delicate image attribute features and exploiting the inter-attribute correlations, significant challenges still remain. To solve the problems, a research team led by Na LIU published their new research on 15 June 2024 in Frontiers of Computer Science co-published by Higher Education Press and Springer Nature. The team proposed a scattering-based hybrid block, termed WS-SE, to incorporate frequency-domain (WST) and image-domain (CNN) features in a channel attention manner. Compared with CNN, WS-SE achieved ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

Risky drinkers most at risk: Ads from sports broadcasts significantly increase alcohol urges

10 July 2024 Risky drinkers most at risk: Ads from sports broadcasts significantly increase alcohol urges New Edith Cowan University (ECU) research shows exposure to alcohol advertisements during national sports broadcasts, particularly those that feature a preferred beverage, significantly increases cravings in people with risky drinking behaviours. The ECU study, led by Dr Ross Hollett, analysed nationally televised finals matches from the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League (NRL) ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

How to differentially improve the cultivated land quality in China?

Quality is the core characteristic of cultivated land and is crucial for ensuring sustainable resource utilization and national food security. To meet the increasing demand for food driven by rapid population growth and the continual optimization of dietary structures, the intensity of cultivated land utilization has been steadily increasing. This trend has resulted in degradation issues such as deterioration of black soil, thinning of the cultivated land layer, reduction in organic matter content, soil salinization, acidification, and contamination by heavy metals, all of which threaten national food security. Currently, China has entered a critical period of agricultural ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

Archaeologists report earliest evidence for plant farming in east Africa

A trove of ancient plant remains excavated in Kenya helps explain the history of plant farming in equatorial eastern Africa, a region long thought to be important for early farming but where scant evidence from actual physical crops has been previously uncovered. In a new study published July 10 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, archaeologists from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Pittsburgh and their colleagues report the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from interior east Africa. Up until now, scientists have ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

Daily sugar intake fell by 5 g in kids + 11 g in adults year after UK sugar tax imposition

Daily sugar intake fell by around 5 g in children and by around 11 g in adults in the 12 months following the introduction of the UK’s ‘sugar tax’, formally known as the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, finds an analysis of 11 years of survey data, published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. The sugar from soft drinks alone made up over half this total, the estimates suggest. But overall daily energy intake from free sugars levels are still higher than the updated recommendation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) of 5%---equivalent to 30 g/day for adults, 24 g for 7–10 year olds, and 19 g for 4–6 year olds—point ...

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Science10 Jul 2024

Osteoarthritis may double risk of speedy progression to severe multimorbidity

Osteoarthritis—a condition in which the protective cartilage on the ends of bones breaks down—may more than double the risk of speedy progression to accumulating severe long term conditions (multimorbidity), finds a 20 year study published in the open access journal RMD Open. And there seem to be 4 different speeds of progression to multimorbidity, the findings indicate. Persistently low levels of physical activity, a high calorie diet, plus chronic low grade inflammation may help to explain the link between osteoarthritis and the risk of accumulating other long term conditions, suggest the researchers. Although the exact causes aren’t known, injury, age, family ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Found with Webb: a potentially habitable icy world

A international team of astronomers led by Université de Montréal has made an exciting discovery about the temperate exoplanet LHS 1140 b: it could be a promising "super-Earth" covered in ice or water. When the exoplanet LHS 1140 b was first discovered, astronomers speculated that it might be a mini-Neptune: an essentially gaseous planet, but very small in size compared to Neptune. But after analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) collected in December 2023 - combined with previous data from other space telescopes such as Spitzer, Hubble and ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Moving from the visible to the infrared: Developing high quality nanocrystals

Awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, quantum dots have a wide variety of applications ranging from displays and LED lights to chemical reaction catalysis and bioimaging. These semiconductor nanocrystals are so small—on the order of nanometers—that their properties, such as color, are size dependent, and they start to exhibit quantum properties. This technology has been really well developed, but only in the visible spectrum, leaving untapped opportunities for technologies in both the ultraviolet and infrared regions of the electromagnetic ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Speech Accessibility Project’s three newest partners are dedicated to people with cerebral palsy

The Speech Accessibility Project is partnering with several organizations who serve people with cerebral palsy as it recruits more participants for its speech recognition technology work. They include ADAPT Community Network, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and CP Unlimited. The project is recruiting U.S. and Puerto Rican adults with cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Down syndrome, Parkinson’s and those who have had a stroke. Funded by Big ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

UT Arlington increases interdisciplinary grants by 40% in 2024

The Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation at The University of Texas at Arlington has awarded seven Interdisciplinary Research Program (IRP) grants totaling nearly $140,000 to foster collaboration between groups that do not typically work together. This represents an increase in funding of 40% over the grants awarded in 2023. “UT Arlington has increased its support of interdisciplinary research as we know that many of today’s great societal challenges ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Exponentially increasing understanding of early life on Earth

Despite decades of research, there’s still much scholars don’t understand about life’s beginnings and early evolution. A UC Riverside paper has opened the door to understanding more and to framing future studies that could help predict climate change and search for life beyond Earth. “This paper strives to inform the Earth sciences community where the research needs to go next,” said Christopher Tino, a UCR PhD candidate during the time of research and a first author. Many studies have explored signs ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Aging retinal pigmented epithelium: Omics-based insights into vision decline

“These findings potentially support employing anti-aging therapies such as senolytic pharmacologic compounds to prevent or ameliorate progression to AMD [...]” BUFFALO, NY- July 9, 2024 – A new editorial paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 12, entitled, “Aging retinal pigmented epithelium: omics-based insights into vision decline.” In this new editorial, researchers Ioan V. Matei and Luminita Paraoan from ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Globally significant upwelling is driven by topographical features on seafloor

Irvine, Calif., July 9, 2024 – Exactly how the turbulent mixing of ocean water relates to global overturning circulation has been little understood by oceanographers, but an international research team, including an Earth system scientist at the University of California, Irvine, has found that bumpy topographical features along the sloping ocean floor contribute significantly to ocean seawater upwelling. In a paper published recently in Nature, the researchers describe a “vigorous near-bottom upwelling” that results in the upward transition of water from denser to lighter ocean layers at a rate ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Global database reveals large gaps in our knowledge of four-footed animals

Researchers developed TetrapodTraits – a global database of animals with four feet – which can now be applied for better ecology, evolution and conservation research. Mario Moura of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil, and Walter Jetz of Yale University, US, published this work on July 9th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Tetrapods, which include amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, are generally well-documented species, which makes them useful as models in global biodiversity studies. However, gaps in our knowledge about many of these species, data inconsistencies and shifting scientific names can lead to biased conclusions about biodiversity. To help ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Innovations in polyphenols research: Highlights from the upcoming 17th Annual 2024 World Congress in Milan

The 17th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, taking place on September 19-20, 2024, at Università degli Studi di Milano Statale in Milan, Italy, will gather more than 140 attendees coming from 30+ countries. More than 20 international speakers will cover the latest advances in polyphenols research and their practical applications. Key Topics Polyphenols Applications 2024 will cover a wide range of topics, including the challenges in demonstrating the health benefits of polyphenols, the ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Study points at novel approach to treat Group 3 medulloblastoma

A team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and collaborating institutions has identified and located a population of stem-like cells that initiates and maintains Group 3 medulloblastoma (Gr3-MB) in the developing brain. Gr3-MB is one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer in children and is associated with metastatic spread and poor survival. The researchers showed that eliminating the small population of stem-like ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

The new paradigm in volunteering -- and how organizations can adapt to "neither-growing-nor-fading" brand relationships

Researchers from Emlyon Business School and HEC Montreal published a new Journal of Marketing study that examines the new breed of volunteers who often show a weaker sense of affiliation with organizations and how best to engage them for mutual benefit. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Managing Brand Relationship Plurality: Insights from the Nonprofit Sector” and is authored by Verena Gruber and Jonathan Deschênes. Volunteers stand as vital pillars in the operation and survival of nonprofit organizations. Across ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

From winter's rest to spring's bloom: PmDAM6 gene steers plant bud dormancy

This pivotal study explores the genetic orchestration of bud dormancy in woody perennials, a survival strategy crucial for enduring harsh climates. It focuses on the PmDAM6 gene, revealing its regulatory effects on lipid metabolism and phytohormone dynamics within dormant meristems, which dictate the plant's seasonal transition from rest to growth. Plant dormancy's genetic mechanisms are vital for enhancing agricultural resilience and productivity. The interaction between lipid metabolism and hormone regulation significantly influences ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

It takes a cool microscope and antifreeze to really look at ice

Ice in nature is surrounded by liquid most of the time, and therefore it is key to understand how ice and liquid interact. A Kobe University and Institute for Molecular Science study could now for the first time directly observe the precise shape of ice at the interface between ice and liquid – by using antifreeze and a refrigerated microscope. When we slide on ice, when snowflakes form, when we lick ice cream, the surface of the ice is always covered with liquid water, and understanding the interaction between the ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

First local extinction in the US due to sea level rise

The United States has lost its only stand of the massive Key Largo tree cactus in what researchers believe is the first local extinction of a species caused by sea level rise in the country. The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) still grows on a few scattered islands in the Caribbean, including northern Cuba and parts of the Bahamas. In the United States, it was restricted to a single population in the Florida Keys, first discovered in 1992 and monitored intermittently since. Salt water intrusion from rising seas, soil depletion from hurricanes and high tides, and herbivory by mammals had put significant pressure ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Empowering Ugandan female youth with self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gratitude using Transcendental Meditation

A peer-reviewed study published today in Health Care for Women International found that the Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) technique can empower the lives of female youth living under conditions of poverty in the city slums of Kampala, Uganda. Outcomes include increased self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gratitude; and decreased tiredness, worry, and excessive alcohol use. TM helped these young women improve their mental and physical health, as well as their relations with family and community members. “The ...

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Science9 Jul 2024

Brian Wachtel is promoted to Chief Development Officer at NFCR

The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) proudly announces the promotion of Brian Wachtel to Chief Development Officer. Brian will continue his responsibilities as the Executive Director, and his expanded role will further enhance his leadership within the organization. Brian joined the National Foundation for Cancer Research in September 2016 as the Director of Corporate Partnerships & Special Events. In that capacity, he was in charge of organizing and expanding NFCR’s community outreach events. One of his important ...

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