Science
press releases.

Science17 Apr 2024

CHEST and APCCMPD announce recipient of collaborative fellow scholarship

Glenview, Illinois – Esha Kapania, MD, will be the mentee for the inaugural year of the 2024 APCCMPD and CHEST Medical Educator Scholar Diversity Fellowship. Designed to pair a fellow-in-training with an established medical educator, the unique scholarship was launched in August by the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) and the Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Program Directors (APCCMPD) to improve diversity in pulmonary and critical care medical education. The program focuses ...

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Science17 Apr 2024

E-tongue can detect white wine spoilage before humans can

PULLMAN, Wash. – While the electronic tongue bears little physical resemblance to its namesake, the strand-like sensory probes of the “e-tongue” still outperformed human senses when detecting contaminated wine in a recent study. In an experiment at Washington State University, the e-tongue identified signs of microorganisms in white wine within a week after contamination—four weeks before a human panel noticed the change in aroma. This was also before those microbes could be grown from the wine in a petri-dish. Winemakers traditionally rely on these two methods, sniffing the wine and petri-dish testing, to ...

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Science17 Apr 2024

A better view with new mid-infrared nanoscopy

A team at the University of Tokyo have constructed an improved mid-infrared microscope, enabling them to see the structures inside living bacteria at the nanometer scale. Mid-infrared microscopy is typically limited by its low resolution, especially when compared to other microscopy techniques. This latest development produced images at 120 nanometers, which the researchers say is a thirtyfold improvement on the resolution of typical mid-infrared microscopes. Being able to view samples more clearly at this smaller scale can aid multiple fields of research, including into infectious diseases, and opens the way for developing ...

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Science17 Apr 2024

New research shows urgency to act on Nigeria’s trans fat elimination policy

Significantly reducing trans fat levels in the Nigerian food supply could prevent approximately 10,000 heart disease deaths and save 90 million USD (12 billion Naira, ₦) in healthcare costs over a decade. New findings by The George Institute for Global Health on the health and economic benefits of enacting the country’s trans fat elimination policy were published today in BMJ Global Health. In 2023, Nigeria followed South Africa as only the second African country to adopt a best practice trans fat ...

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Science17 Apr 2024

From defects to order: Spontaneously emerging crystal arrangements in perovskite halides

Perovskites are among the most extensively studied materials in modern materials science. Their often unique and exotic properties, which stem from perovskite’s peculiar crystal structure, could find revolutionary applications in various cutting-edge fields. One intriguing way of realizing such properties is through the precise ordering of a perovskite’s defects, such as vacancies or substitutions. In oxide chemistry, scientists have known for a long time that oxide defects can spontaneously and consistently arrange themselves throughout the crystal lattice, once they reach certain concentrations (e.g. integer ratio). This emerging ...

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Science17 Apr 2024

Most female athletes support categorization by biological sex, research shows

The majority of female athletes (58%) support categorisation by biological sex, rather than gender identity, but views differ according to sporting context, a new study shows. The peer-reviewed study is the largest of its kind and, based on comprehensive and rigorous analysis of data, is published in the Journal of Sports Sciences. It reports the opinions of 175 national, elite and world-class female athletes from a range of sports and countries regarding the eligibility and inclusion of transgender athletes. Respondents included 26 World champions, ...

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Science17 Apr 2024

Study reveals how humanity could unite to address global challenges

University of Oxford Press Release UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01 BST WEDNESDAY 17 APRIL 2024 / 19:01 ET TUESDAY 16 APRIL 2024 Study reveals how humanity could unite to address global challenges New research led by the University of Oxford has found that perceptions of globally shared life experiences and globally shared biology can strengthen psychological bonding with humanity at large, which can motivate prosocial action on a global scale and help to tackle global problems. The findings have been published ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Huge database gives insight into salmon patterns at sea

A massive new analysis of high seas salmon surveys is enhancing the understanding of salmon ecology, adding details about where various species congregate in the North Pacific Ocean and their different temperature tolerances. The project, led by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, integrates numerous international salmon studies from the North Pacific dating back to the 1950s. Although many individual reports were published by nations and agencies that funded those efforts, they were never fully compiled into ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Water main breaks are rarely due to a single factor, new Concordia research finds

Canadians are no strangers to water main breaks. Aging equipment, increased demand and seasonal weather changes, along with many other factors, have added stress to the infrastructure of utilities across Canada. These challenges are not new, but the usual approach to studying them has often focused on pipe attributes and general protection strategies. In a new paper published in the journal Environmental Systems Research, a pair of Concordia researchers looks at the problem from a global, systemic perspective by identifying the driving factors behind water main breaks across Canada. They hope their work will help utilities develop better ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

What’s behind canned wine’s rotten egg smell? Cornell team IDs the culprit

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers are working to eliminate the rotten egg aroma that sometimes accompanies canned wine by ever-so-slightly altering the product’s formulation and packaging, which is also prone to corrosion. In recent research, the team – led by Gavin Sacks and Julie Goddard, both professors of food science – found that the choice of the ultrathin plastic coating inside aluminum cans can go a long way towards improving the aroma of the beverage and the lifespan of its container. The collaboration began ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Alba Yerro-Colom to use National Science Foundation CAREER award to better predict and prevent landslides

Almost one-fifth of the global land surface is classified as highly susceptible to rainfall-triggered landslides. According to the World Health Organization, landslides are more widespread than any other geological hazard to occur worldwide and are increasing because of climate change. Alba Yerro-Colom, assistant professor in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is motivated to advance the understanding of these natural occurrences while considering how vegetation and changes in rainfall patterns could better predict their potential damage. She ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Reproductive success improves after a single generation in the wild for descendants of some hatchery-origin Chinook salmon

NEWPORT, Ore. – Researchers who created “family trees” for nearly 10,000 fish found that first-generation, wild-born descendants of hatchery-origin Chinook salmon in an Oregon river show improved fitness. The finding, based on data collected over 13 years, is encouraging for Chinook salmon recovery efforts, said Kathleen O’Malley, an associate professor at Oregon State University and the study’s senior author. In this study, fitness is measured by the number of adult offspring a fish produces, with higher fitness leading to more offspring. “Previous studies have shown that hatchery-origin Chinook salmon have lower reproductive success ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Older males out-compete young males when it comes to extra-marital breeding

Young male blue tits are less successful in fathering offspring outside their breeding pair, not because of a lack of experience, but because they are outcompeted by older males, Bart Kempenaers and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Germany report in a study publishing April 16th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Many birds form breeding pairs but will also mate and produce offspring outside of that pairing — known as “extra-pair” paternity. Inexperienced males in their first year of breeding ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Turner to receive funding for Israel Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship

John Turner, Professor, Religious Studies, is set to receive funding for: “Israel Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship.” This funding will support a postdoctoral teaching fellow for three (3) academic years starting in fall 2024. Regarding the importance of this funding, Turner said, “Curricula across academic units at George Mason contain very little material about the modern State of Israel, a significant gap given the importance of the nation and region to contemporary politics and conflict. This grant will enable RELI to address this gap and add content on this important subject.” Turner will receive $248,460 from Israel ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Diverse native wildflower plantings for pollinators in farmlands

Pollinators are declining rapidly, largely due to land conversion and intensification of agriculture. To mitigate their crisis, low-disturbance habitats, such as sown wildflower plantings (commonly known forms are wildflower strips at the edges of arable fields), could promote pollinators by restoration of their resources (food, sheltering and nesting habitats). However, comprehensive knowledge is lacking on how landscape context, spatial configuration and age of wildflower plantings, seasonality and flower composition affect pollinator communities, especially from East-Central Europe. To understand these effects, researchers from the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, established ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Study suggests adolescent stress may raise risk of postpartum depression in adults

In a new study, a Johns Hopkins Medicine-led research team reports that social stress during adolescence in female mice later results in prolonged elevation of the hormone cortisol after they give birth. The researchers say this corresponds to the equivalent hormonal changes in postpartum women who were exposed to adverse early life experiences — suggesting that early life stress may underlie a pathophysiological exacerbation of postpartum depression (PPD). The team’s findings, first published online Apr. 11, 2024, in Nature Mental Health, also suggest that current drug ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

New book gathers insights, methods from rising generation of Indigenous archaeologists

LAWRENCE — A book co-edited by a University of Kansas scholar that collects the experiences and know-how of younger Indigenous archaeologists, titled “Indigenizing Archaeology: Putting Theory into Practice,” is newly published by the University Press of Florida. Carlton Shield Chief Gover, acting assistant professor of anthropology and acting assistant curator of archaeology at KU, conceived and co-edited the new volume. Its chapters include lessons and case studies from the discipline. “This is the first book to our knowledge completely comprised of Indigenous scholars in ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Conformity to masculine gender norms is linked to muscle dysmorphia among young people

Toronto, ON - A new research study out of the University of Toronto sheds light on the intricate relationship between conformity to masculine gender norms and muscle dysmorphia symptomatology among a diverse sample of Canadian adolescents and young adults. The study entitled "Exploring the Association Between Conformity to Masculine Gender Norms and Muscle Dysmorphia Symptomatology in a Gender-Diverse Canadian Population" was recently published in the journal Sex Roles. Muscle dysmorphia, characterized ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

EuBiologics’ simplified OCV achieves WHO PQ

- Euvichol-S, developed jointly by EuBiologics and IVI, improves productivity by approximately 40% over Euvichol-Plus® - Production and supply of Euvichol-S expected to help address cholera vaccine shortages April 15, 2024, SEOUL, Republic of Korea – EuBiologics and the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) announced that Euvichol-S, an improved oral cholera vaccine (OCV) developed jointly by EuBiologics and IVI, has achieved World Health Organization prequalification (PQ). Euvichol-S ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

GPT-4 matches radiologists in detecting errors in radiology reports

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Large language model GPT-4 matched the performance of radiologists in detecting errors in radiology reports, according to research published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Errors in radiology reports may occur due to resident-to-attending discrepancies, speech recognition inaccuracies and high workload. Large language models, such as GPT-4, have the potential to enhance the report generation process. “Our research offers a novel examination of the potential of OpenAI’s GPT-4,” said study lead author Roman J. Gertz, M.D., resident in the Department ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

From a cryptic genetic element in the human gut to a sensitive biomarker

A component of the human intestinal flora that has been little studied to date is the focus of a new study. Plasmids are small extrachromosomal genetic elements that frequently occur in bacterial cells and can influence microbial lifestyles – yet their diversity in natural habitats is poorly understood. An international team led by Prof. Dr. A. Murat Eren from the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) reports in the science journal Cell, a mysterious plasmid, is one of the most numerous genetic elements in the human gut that could potentially serve as a powerful biomarker for identifying ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Creating an island paradise in a fusion reactor

In their ongoing quest to develop a range of methods for managing plasma so it can be used to generate electricity in a process known as fusion, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have shown how two old methods can be combined to provide greater flexibility. While the two methods – known as electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) and applying resonant magnetic perturbations (RMP) – have long been studied, this is the first time researchers have simulated how they can be used together to ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Field-margin wetlands alone can’t fix the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone

Each summer, a hypoxic dead zone forms in the Gulf of Mexico, making some marine habitats unlivable. The dead zone is caused by nutrients—primarily from agricultural fertilizers—flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi River. Restoring wetlands at field margins has been proposed to intercept some of the runoff, as wetland plants and soils are capable of absorbing nutrients like a living sponge. But estimates of nutrient removal by restored wetlands have varied widely. Shan Zuidema and colleagues took a whole-system approach to modeling the potential for wetlands to ameliorate the flow of nitrate to the ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

Research has lost none of its innovative drive

A high-profile study made headlines in 2023 stating that the scientific and innovation system is producing less and less completely new knowledge. Researchers at the University of Basel are now refuting this claim, at least for patents: It is based on a measurement error. The discovery of mRNA in the 1960s was groundbreaking. Suddenly there were completely new findings that ushered in new developments. This kind of discovery is described as “disruptive”. In contrast, research findings are “consolidating” when they build upon existing knowledge. They are also important, as the example of the ...

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Science16 Apr 2024

A nematode gel to protect crops in Africa and Asia

The fall armyworm is a destructive corn pest, which recently arrived in Africa and Asia from the Americas and began causing major yield losses and increased use of insecticides, which pose environmental and human health risks. Entomopathogenic nematodes are soil-dwelling roundworms that can parasitize and kill fall armyworms with no risks to people or the environment, but application can be tricky because the nematodes are susceptible to desiccation and UV radiation from sunlight. Patrick Fallet and colleagues report success using an innocuous biodegradable ...

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