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press releases.

Science8 May 2024

Simulated High-altitude exposure for 24-hours is well tolerated by adolescents and adults with single-ventricle physiology after Fontan-palliation

The researchers conducted a study over four days, including overnight stays, with 18 subjects at :envihab, the DLR medical research centre in Cologne. At a simulated altitude of 2500 meters above sea level, the influence of hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) on various hemodynamic and metabolic parameters was investigated. The central venous pressure via a catheter and the blood flow in the lungs using real-time magnetic resonance imaging were evaluated. The results showed that neither the pulmonarypressure nor the blood flow changed significantly. All patients able to tolerate a longer stay at altitude of 24 to 30 hours without complications. Oxygenation ...

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Science8 May 2024

THC lingers in breastmilk with no clear peak point

PULLMAN, Wash. – When breastfeeding mothers in a recent study used cannabis, its psychoactive component THC showed up in the milk they produced. The Washington State University-led research also found that, unlike alcohol, when THC was detected in milk there was no consistent time when its concentration peaked and started to decline. Importantly, the researchers discovered that the amount of THC they detected in milk was low – they estimated that infants received an average of 0.07 mg of THC per day. For comparison, a common low-dose edible contains 2 mg of THC. The research team stressed that it is unknown whether this amount has any impact ...

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Science8 May 2024

U of T researchers lead discovery of natural compounds that selectively kill parasites

An international team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has found a family of natural compounds with potential as new and more effective treatments for parasitic worms. The compounds stall the unique metabolic process that worms use to survive in the human gut. Parasitic worms transmitted through soil wreak havoc in developing countries in the tropics. Infection by these parasites leads to malaise, weakness, malnutrition and other debilitating symptoms, and can cause developmental defects in children and impair their growth. “Soil-transmitted parasitic worms infect over one billion people around the world, typically in low-income communities of developing countries ...

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Science8 May 2024

Study exposes alarming risks to Scotland's food delivery couriers

A new study highlighting the risks encountered by food delivery couriers reveals a majority feel ‘unsafe’ when at work with every woman surveyed having experienced sexual harassment or abuse. Led by Dr Pedro Mendonca from the Centre for Employment, Work and the Professions (CREWs) at Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh Business School, the two-year project gathered feedback from 207 workers, including 33 women, employed in the food delivery industry in cities across Scotland. It reveals more than 81% felt unsafe in their job yet continued due to financial necessity while 78% believed their ...

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Science7 May 2024

Kinsey Institute study shows female gamers only label half of sexual harassment incidents they experience as such

A new study from the Kinsey Institute reveals that only 50.5% of women who were targets of sexual harassment during online gaming identified qualifying incidents as such. This figure dropped further to only 42.2% for women who witnessed sexual harassment of other women while gaming. The study included 182 women from North America who played online video games at least once a week. Researchers examined a variety of sexual harassment behaviors, from unwanted sexual remarks to explicit images to sexual threats. In line with ...

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Science7 May 2024

More feelings of misinformation, more news avoidance, U-M study shows

As people have more difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction in the United States, they are more likely to feel news fatigue and avoid news altogether, according to a University of Michigan study. More than an unintentional avoidance because of lack of media exposure, the researchers say people actively avoid news. The researchers also find that people who identify as strong Democrats begin relying more on nonpartisan news media when feeling misinformed, while people who identify as strong Republicans report using less news media overall, including less conservative news media. Their results are published in Journalism Studies. "The more confusing ...

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Science7 May 2024

Professor emeritus John (Jack) Johnson elected to the National Academy of Sciences

LA JOLLA, CA—Scripps Research professor emeritus John Johnson, PhD, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences—one of the highest honors given to scientists. According to the Academy, members are selected “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” “Becoming a member of the Academy is a great honor for me and the 70 graduate students and post docs that have worked in my lab since 1978, as well as numerous collaborators at Scripps and around the world,” says Johnson, who is also the Eldon R. Strahm Professor of Structural Virology in the Department of Integrative Structural ...

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Science7 May 2024

Two Brookhaven lab scientists named AAAS Fellows

UPTON, N.Y. — The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has recognized two staff scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory with the distinction of Fellow: Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for High Energy Physics Dmitri Denisov and Senior Chemist Anatoly Frenkel. Each year, AAAS bestows this honor on select members whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science, or its applications, are scientifically or socially distinguished.” Marking the 150th anniversary of the program, new fellows ...

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Science7 May 2024

Could getting enough sleep help prevent osteoporosis?

As part of the University of Colorado Department of Medicine’s annual Research Day, held on April 23, faculty member Christine Swanson, MD, MCR, described her National Institutes of Health-funded clinical research on whether adequate sleep can help prevent osteoporosis. “Osteoporosis can occur for many reasons such as hormonal changes, aging, and lifestyle factors,” said Swanson, an associate professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes. “But some patients I ...

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Science7 May 2024

It flickers, then it tips – study identifies early warning signals for the end of the African humid period

The transition from the African Humid Period (AHP) to dry conditions in North Africa is the clearest example of climate tipping points in recent geological history. They occur when small perturbations trigger a large, non-linear response in the system and shift the climate to a different future state, usually with dramatic consequences for the biosphere. That was also the case in North Africa, where the grasslands, forests, and lakes favored by humans disappeared, causing them to retreat to areas like the mountains, oases, and the Nile Delta. This ...

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Science7 May 2024

Aquatic weed among ‘world’s worst’ expands in Northeastern US

WESTMINSTER, Colorado – 7 May 2024 – An article in the latest issue of Invasive Plant Science and Management provides new insights on a northern hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) subspecies (lithuanica) and its establishment outside the Connecticut River. Considered among the “world’s worst” aquatic weeds, northern hydrilla hinders recreational activities by forming dense canopies. If unchecked, it has the potential to displace native species and host a bacterium that produces ...

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Science7 May 2024

Study: You’re breathing potential carcinogens inside your car

The air inside all personal vehicles is polluted with harmful flame retardants—including those known or suspected to cause cancer—according to a new peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Science & Technology. Car manufacturers add these chemicals to seat foam and other materials to meet an outdated federal flammability standard with no proven fire-safety benefit. “Our research found that interior materials release harmful chemicals into the cabin air of our cars,” said lead author Rebecca ...

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Science7 May 2024

Breakthrough paves the way for next generation of vision implants

A group of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, University of Freiburg and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience have created an exceptionally small implant, with electrodes the size of a single neuron that can also remain intact in the body over time – a unique combination that holds promise for future vision implants for the blind. Often when a person is blind, some or part of the eye is damaged, but the visual cortex in the brain is still functioning and waiting for ...

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Science7 May 2024

New study finds increase in exposures to synthetic tetrahydrocannabinols among young children, teens, and adults

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – A sharp rise in exposures to synthetic cannabis products among youth — some leading to hospitalization — highlights the need for increased education around the dangers of exposure and increased focus on safe storage and packaging, according to pediatricians and researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center. A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center examined trends in calls to poison ...

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Science7 May 2024

Scientists cooked pancakes, Brussels sprouts, and stir fry to detect an oxidant indoors for the first time

A feast cooked up by UBC researchers has revealed singlet oxygen indoors for the first time. Oxi-don’t Singlet oxygen is an oxidant. These chemical compounds can be beneficial—ozone in the stratosphere is one example—but can also cause stress to our lungs, contributing to the development of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease in the long term. Cooking foods can release brown carbon, molecules with the potential to create oxidants when they absorb light. In addition, exposure to cooking emissions has been linked to chronic diseases in chefs. Historically, it was thought there wasn’t enough light indoors to have much ...

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Science7 May 2024

Millions in costs due to discharge of scrubber water into the Baltic Sea

Discharge from ships with so-called scrubbers cause great damage to the Baltic Sea. A new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, shows that these emissions caused pollution corresponding to socio-economic costs of more than EUR 680 million between 2014 and 2022. At the same time, the researchers note that the shipping companies' investments in the much-discussed technology, where exhaust gases are "washed" and discharged into the sea, have already been recouped for most of the ships. This means that the industry is now making billions ...

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Science7 May 2024

A triumph of galaxies in three new images from the VST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Distant, far away galaxies. Interacting galaxies, whose shape has been forged by the mutual gravitational influence, but also galaxies forming groups and clusters, kept together by gravity. They are the protagonists of three new images released by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). VST is an optical telescope with a 2,6 diameter mirror, entirely built in Italy, that has been operating since 2011 at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile. Since 2022, the telescope has been fully managed by INAF through the National Coordination Centre for VST, ...

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Science6 May 2024

Caterbot? Robatapillar? It crawls with ease through loops and bends

Engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State University have combined ancient paperfolding and modern materials science to create a soft robot that bends and twists through mazes with ease. Soft robots can be challenging to guide because steering equipment often increases the robot’s rigidity and cuts its flexibility. The new design overcomes those problems by building the steering system directly into the robot’s body, said Tuo Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton. In an article published May 6 in the journal PNAS, the researchers describe how they created the robot out ...

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Science6 May 2024

The Clues for Cleaner Water

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Drexel University in Philadelphia, along with Brookhaven National Laboratory, are working to solve a multipart mystery to make water disinfection treatments more sustainable. Scalable electrochemical ozone production (EOP) technologies to disinfect dirty water may someday replace centralized chlorine treatments used today, whether in modern cities or remote villages. However, little is understood about EOP at the molecular level and how technologies that make it possible can be made to be efficient, economical, and sustainable. Their research, “Interplay between Catalyst Corrosion and Homogeneous Reactive Oxygen Species ...

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Science6 May 2024

New $14.5 million center to help US Navy overcome emerging challenges

Images The U.S. Office of Naval Research is tapping academic expertise at the University of Michigan to solve current and future problems, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced during his visit to campus over graduation weekend. The $14.5M Center for Naval Research and Education will also help train an engineering research community familiar with naval and marine applications. "I am incredibly proud of the partnership between the University of Michigan and the Department of the Navy. Michigan is a key teammate in rebuilding our shipbuilding industry and restoring the comprehensive—commercial ...

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Science6 May 2024

Greet receives funding for Abstraction in the Andes, 1950 - 1970

Michele Greet, Director, Art History Program, received funding for: “Abstraction in the Andes, 1950-1970.” She will examine the emergence of abstract painting in Andean countries (Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia) in the 1950s and 1960s. She will explore artists’ newfound interest in pre-Columbian art as source material as well as the circulation of ideas from Europe and the United States. Although abstract art rapidly gained acceptance throughout Latin America after World War II, until recently, studies of abstract painting in the region have focused on the geometric styles that emerged in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. Different variants of abstraction ...

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Science6 May 2024

Using advanced genetic techniques, scientists create mice with traits of Tourette disorder

In research that may be a step forward toward finding personalized treatments for Tourette disorder, scientists at Rutgers University–New Brunswick have bred mice that exhibit some of the same behaviors and brain abnormalities seen in humans with the disorder. As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers, using a technique known as CRISPR/Cas9 DNA editing that selectively modifies the DNA of living organisms, inserted the same genetic mutations found in humans with Tourette disorder into the corresponding genes in mouse embryos. After the mice were born, the scientists observed their behavior compared with littermates without the ...

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Science6 May 2024

3D video conferencing tool lets remote user control the view

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Collaborating on a physical object when two people aren’t in the same room can be extremely challenging, but a new remote conferencing system allows the remote user to manipulate a view of the scene in 3D, to assist in complex tasks like debugging complicated hardware. The system, called SharedNeRF, combines two graphics rendering techniques – one that is slow and photorealistic, and another that is instantaneous but less precise – to help the remote user experience ...

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Science6 May 2024

Science doesn't understand how ice forms (video)

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2024 — This video contains incredible macro footage of supercooled water droplets nucleating ice. All George wanted to do was make a crystal-clear ice cube. Instead, he ended up rediscovering dendritic crystal growth, a beautiful phenomenon first described in the 17th century. You’ll never look at your freezer the same way again. https://youtu.be/24TB1vPuzIU?feature=shared Reactions is a video series produced by the American Chemical Society and PBS Digital Studios. Subscribe to Reactions at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions and ...

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Science6 May 2024

Venus has almost no water. A new study may reveal why

Planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered how Venus, Earth’s scalding and uninhabitable neighbor, became so dry. The new study fills in a big gap in what the researchers call “the water story on Venus.” Using computer simulations, the team found that hydrogen atoms in the planet’s atmosphere go whizzing into space through a process known as “dissociative recombination”—causing Venus to lose roughly twice as much water every day compared to previous estimates. The team will publish their findings May 6 in ...

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