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press releases.

Science15 May 2024

Most dangerous areas for whale shark-shipping vessel collisions revealed

Researchers have found that heavily used shipping lanes pass through crucial whale shark feeding grounds, posing a threat to this endangered species. Research published today (Wednesday 15 May) in Science of the Total Environment has revealed areas where the sharks are at the highest risk of colliding with large shipping vessels by mapping the locations of whale shark aggregations and overlaying them with information on shipping traffic. “The almost ubiquitous overlap of at least some large shipping vessel traffic with whale shark aggregations underlines the magnitude of the threat the shipping industry ...

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Science15 May 2024

Higher income reduces stroke mortality risk by a third, new study shows

(Wednesday, 15 May 2024, Basel, Switzerland) New research, presented today at the 10th European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) 2024, has revealed that high-income individuals have a 32% lower risk of post-stroke mortality.1 Additionally, those with a higher education have a 26% lower risk of death post-stroke, highlighting striking disparities in stroke survival based on key social determinants of health (SDoH). The register-based study analysed data from 6,901 stroke patients in Gothenburg, Sweden between November 2014 to December 2019 to examine ...

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Science14 May 2024

UC Irvine-led study links sleep apnea severity during REM stage to verbal memory decline

Irvine, Calif., May 14, 2024 — A research team led by the University of California, Irvine has revealed the link between the frequency of sleep apnea events during the rapid-eye-movement stage and the severity of verbal memory impairment in older adults at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Verbal memory refers to the cognitive ability to retain and recall information presented through spoken words or written text and is particularly vulnerable to Alzheimer’s. The study, recently published online in the journal Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, discovered a specific correlation between the severity of sleep apnea – when breathing pauses while ...

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Science14 May 2024

Far from toxic, lactate rivals glucose as body's major fuel after a carbohydrate meal

As a student competing in track and field at his Parlier high school, Robert Leija was obsessed with how to improve his performance and, in particular, prevent the buildup of lactic acid in his muscles during training. Like many athletes, he blamed it for the performance fatigue and muscle soreness he experienced after intense workouts. But as a kinesiology student at Fresno State, he was handed an out-of-print textbook that told him he had it all wrong. Lactate wasn't a danger sign that athletes had depleted their body's supply of oxygen, but likely a normal product of the metabolic activity required to fuel the muscles during sustained exercise. Now, as a graduate student ...

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Science14 May 2024

Sleep experts to convene in Houston for SLEEP 2024 annual meeting

DARIEN, IL – Leading sleep and circadian scientists, sleep clinicians, and industry innovators will gather June 2-5 in Houston at SLEEP 2024, the 38th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC. Thousands of sleep professionals will connect, explore, and grow at the world’s premier clinical and scientific sleep meeting, held jointly by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. “Every year, SLEEP brings together the world’s ...

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Science14 May 2024

Rice’s Mamouras wins NSF CAREER Award

HOUSTON – (May 14, 2024) – As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows larger and more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult to develop applications. “A common approach to this problem is to move data from the sensing devices to a central location, such as the cloud, for processing,” said Konstantinos Mamouras, assistant professor of computer science at Rice University. “But this centralized approach underutilizes the small IoT devices at the edge of the network and can overwhelm it due to the large movement of data.” With his five-year, $547,555 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Mamouras aims to decentralize the IoT, relieve network congestion and ...

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Science14 May 2024

Counterfeit coins can be detected more easily thanks to a novel approach developed at Concordia

Metal coins may be just about the oldest medium of exchange still in use today, but ensuring their worth requires some of the most state-of-the-art technology available. Counterfeit coins remain a threat to global currencies, with malicious actors flooding markets with fakes. European police broke up a Spain-based criminal ring in late April, demonstrating the issue’s ongoing urgency. However, no counterfeit is completely detection-proof, no matter how genuine it appears. There are always some tell-tale signals of forgery, even if they are not ...

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Science14 May 2024

Professors elected to Academy of Distinguished Scholars

The University of Texas at Arlington has elected two longtime professors to the Academy of Distinguished Scholars, considered the University’s most prestigious research and scholarship honor. Ramon Lopez, professor of physics, and Michael D. Nelson, associate professor of kinesiology, are being recognized for their sustained and significant contributions to research and creativity. “Members of the Academy of Distinguished Scholars exemplify UTA’s commitment to quality research and creative activity,” said Kate C. Miller, vice president of research and innovation. “Mike and Ramon have both ...

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Science14 May 2024

Making every hair appointment a sound experience #ASA186

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 14, 2024 – Walking out of a hair salon can have customers feeling brand new, but the noisy environment may have negative effects at the cost of a new “do.” At Image Creators salon in Maryland, owner Silvia Campana along with her employees and customers noticed they had to work hard to understand each other’s words while in the salon, but they couldn’t put their finger on exactly why. In addition to difficulties understanding speech, Campana experienced increased ear pain and tinnitus after long-term exposure to ...

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Science14 May 2024

Researchers uncover what makes some chickens more water efficient than others

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In the first scientific report of its kind, researchers in Arkansas showed that chickens bred for water conservation continued to put on weight despite heat stress that would normally slow growth. Research by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station indicates the specially bred line of chickens developed by Sara Orlowski could save growers thousands of gallons of water and thousands of pounds of food each month without sacrificing poultry health. Orlowski is an associate professor of poultry science with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. As global population increases ...

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Science14 May 2024

Gene expression of a tropical starfish fluctuates between the seasons

Gene expression of a tropical starfish fluctuates between the seasons ##### In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002620 Article Title: Seasonal tissue-specific gene expression in wild crown-of-thorns starfish reveals reproductive and stress-related transcriptional systems Author Countries: Australia Funding: This research was supported by a Linkage Project grant (LP170101049) from the Australian Research Council to BMD, ...

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Science14 May 2024

150,000+ people died in three decades to 2019 due to heatwaves according to first global mapping of heat-triggered mortality

A Monash-led study - the first to globally map heatwave-related mortality over a three-decade period from 1990 to 2019 – has found that an additional 153,000+ deaths per warm season were associated with heatwaves, with nearly half of those deaths in Asia. In comparison to 1850–1990, the global surface temperature has increased by 1.14℃ in 2013–2022 and is expected to increase by another 0.41-3.41℃ by 2081–2100. With the increasing impacts of climate change, heatwaves are increasing not only in frequency but also in severity and magnitude. The study, published today in PLOS Medicine and led by Monash University’s Professor Yuming Guo, ...

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Science14 May 2024

Study tallies heatwave deaths over recent decades

Between 1990 and 2019, more than 150,000 deaths around the globe were associated with heatwaves each year, according to a new study published May 14th in PLOS Medicine by Yuming Guo of Monash University, Australia, and colleagues. Heatwaves, periods of extremely high ambient temperature that last for a few days, can impose overwhelming thermal stress on the human body. Studies have previously quantified the effect of individual heatwaves on excess deaths in local areas, but have not compared these statistics around the globe over such ...

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Science14 May 2024

Age-associated gene expression changes in mouse sweat glands

“In this study, we first obtained evidence that, in mouse, aging primarily reduced the number of active sweat glands.” BUFFALO, NY- May 14, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 8, entitled, “Characterization of age-associated gene expression changes in mouse sweat glands.” Evaporation of sweat on the skin surface is the major mechanism for dissipating heat in humans. The secretory capacity of sweat glands (SWGs) ...

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Science14 May 2024

2023 was the hottest summer in two thousand years

Researchers have found that 2023 was the hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere in the past two thousand years, almost four degrees warmer than the coldest summer during the same period. Although 2023 has been reported as the hottest year on record, the instrumental evidence only reaches back as far as 1850 at best, and most records are limited to certain regions. Now, by using past climate information from annually resolved tree rings over two millennia, scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have shown how exceptional the summer of 2023 was. Even allowing for natural climate variations over hundreds of years, 2023 was still ...

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Science14 May 2024

Study reveals mixed public opinion on polygenic embryo screening for IVF

Three out of four U.S. adults support the use of emerging technologies that estimate a future child’s likelihood of developing health conditions influenced by multiple genes — such as diabetes, heart disease, and depression — before an embryo is implanted during in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to a new public opinion survey led by researchers at Harvard Medical School. Results of the survey, to be published May 14 in JAMA Network Open, underscore the need for public education and conversation about the positive ...

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Science14 May 2024

People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory

Previously, it was commonly assumed that having an inner voice had to be a human universal. But in recent years, researchers have become aware that not all people share this experience. According to postdoc and linguist Johanne Nedergård from the University of Copenhagen, people describe the condition of living without an inner voice as time-consuming and difficult because they must spend time and effort translating their thoughts into words: “Some say that they think in pictures and then translate the pictures into words when they need to say ...

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Science14 May 2024

SwRI investigating unusual substorm in Earth’s magnetotail using MMS data

SAN ANTONIO — May 14, 2024 —Southwest Research Institute is investigating an unusual event in the Earth’s magnetotail, the elongated portion of the planet’s magnetosphere trailing away from the Sun. Using data from NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, SwRI scientists are examining the nature of substorms, fleeting disturbances in the magnetotail that release energy and often cause aurorae. Since their launch in 2015, the MMS spacecraft have been surveying the magnetopause, the boundary between the magnetosphere ...

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Science14 May 2024

Mislabelled shark meat rampant in Australian markets, study finds

Researchers at Macquarie University have found a significant portion of shark meat sold in Australian fish markets and takeaway shops is mislabelled, including several samples from threatened species. The findings, published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research this month, highlight the ineffectiveness of seafood labelling and the grave implications for both consumer choice and shark conservation. Researchers collected 91 samples of shark meat from 28 retailers across six Australian states and territories and used DNA ...

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Science14 May 2024

Heat’s effects on police and judges

High temperatures affect the decision-making of police officers and judges. Previous research has shown that heat can increase criminal activity, with the leading theory proposing that heat reduces emotional control and increases aggression. A. Patrick Behrer and Valentin Bolotnyy investigate the effects of heat on the behavior of those who respond to criminal activity. The authors analyzed records of 10 million arrests across the state of Texas from 2010 through 2017, along with the legal outcomes that followed each arrest. These data were merged with daily temperature data. Police made fewer arrests per reported crime on the hottest days in the sample, and these arrests were ...

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Science14 May 2024

Scientists unlock mysteries of orangutan communication

In a new study published in PeerJ Life & Environment, scientists have revealed the intricate vocal patterns of Bornean orangutans, shedding new light on the complexities of their communication. Titled "Vocal Complexity in the Long Calls of Bornean Orangutans," the research, led by Dr. Wendy Erb from the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, unveils the remarkable diversity and variability within orangutan long call vocalizations. Orangutans, the charismatic great apes of Southeast Asia, are known for their complex social behaviors and vocal communication. However, understanding the nuances of their vocal repertoire ...

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Science14 May 2024

IOP Publishing report reveals peer review capacity not used to its full potential

A new global study from IOP Publishing (IOPP) has found that certain peer review communities continue to feel overburdened by reviewer requests, while others remain underrepresented. The survey, which generated over 3,000 responses from peer reviewers from across the globe, revealed regional and career-stage disparities: 30% of reviewers from high-income countries indicated that they receive too many peer review requests, compared with just 10% from low and middle-income countries* Just 6% of respondents from China and 7% from India indicated that they ...

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Science14 May 2024

Metalens expands Its reach from light to sound

Junsuk Rho from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Chemical Engineering, and the Department of Electrical Engineering, Dr. Dongwoo Lee from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Beomseok Oh, a PhD student, from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) have achieved a breakthrough in surpassing the limitations of traditional acoustic metalenses. They have successfully developed the first wide field-of-hearing metalens. This research has been recently published in the international journal, Nature Communications. Sound ...

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Science14 May 2024

Ultrasensitive gas detection empowered by synergy of graphene and sub-comb dynamics

Since the inception of microcomb, whose generation relies on Kerr nonlinearity in microresonator, the coherent soliton state has attracted intense researches. Although the operation of sub-comb outputs is straightforward, as noncoherent comb state, it was often overlooked in previous techniques. With graphene sensitization, this sub-comb heterodyne sensing device exhibits an exceptional response to gas molecular adsorption, achieving detect limits of 1.2 ppb for H2S gas and 1.4 ppb for SO2 gas, respectively. In summary, our research synergizes flexible ...

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Science14 May 2024

Concussion, CTE experts warn term used to describe head impacts – “subconcussion” – is misleading and dangerous

BOSTON (May 14, 2024) – A new editorial published this May in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by experts from Spaulding Rehabilitation, Boston University, Mayo Clinic, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation, argues that the term “subconcussion” is a dangerous misnomer that should be retired. The authors are appealing to the medical community and media to substitute the term with more specific terms so the public can better understand the risks of brain injuries and advance effective efforts to prevent chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). “The public has been led to believe through media coverage ...

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