Science
press releases.

Science11 Mar 2024

Cicadas’ unique urination unlocks new understanding of fluid dynamics

Cicadas are the soundtrack of summer, but their pee is more special than their music. Rather than sprinkling droplets, they emit jets of urine from their small frames. For years, Georgia Tech researchers have wanted to understand the cicada’s unique urination. Saad Bhamla, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, and his research group hoped for an opportunity to study a cicada’s fluid excretion. However, while cicadas are easily heard, they hide in trees, making them hard to observe. As such, seeing a cicada pee is an event. Bhamla’s team had only watched the process on YouTube. Then, ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

New research sets trap for potentially deadly sandfly

Scientists have discovered the specific enzyme that a species of sandfly uses to produce a pheromone attractant, which could lead to the creation of targeted traps to control them and reduce the spread of the potentially fatal disease, Leishmaniasis. The team from the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry analysed the genome of the Lutzomyia longipalpis, a species of sandfly native to Brazil and South America that can spread a disease called Leishmaniasis. The study identified the enzyme, called a Terpene Synthase that is responsible ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Researchers solve crucial cold-induced sweetening problem in potato production

Researchers have discovered a game changer for the potato industry. According to a new study published in a leading international society journal published by the American Society of Plant Biologists, a small genetic element is the cause of a major production problem in potatoes. “Our manuscript reveals the mystery of “cold-induced sweetening” (CIS), the most troublesome and expensive problem for the potato processing industry,” explained Jiming Jiang, Corresponding Author of “Molecular dissection of an intronic enhancer governing cold-induced expression ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Natural history specimens have never been so accessible

With the help of 16 grants from the National Science Foundation, researchers have painstakingly taken computed topography (CT) scans of more than 13,000 individual specimens to create 3D images of more than half of all the world's animal groups, including mammals, fishes, amphibians and reptiles. The research team, made of members from The University of Texas at Arlington and 25 other institutions, are now a quarter of the way through inputting nearly 30,000 media files to the open-source repository MorphoSource. This will allow researchers ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

New study finds female entrepreneurs do better with guidance from female mentors

INFORMS Journal Marketing Science Study Key Takeaways: Female entrepreneurs increase their chances of success and improved performance with female mentors. One of the key benefits to female entrepreneurs is a mentoring style characterized as “positive engagement.” BALTIMORE, MD, March 11, 2024 – In business and in life, the power of mentorship has long been understood, but how important is it that your mentor look like you? This question was at the center of a new study, which specifically found that mentor gender has a powerful impact on ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

AI-generated food images look tastier than real ones

With the Global Nutrition and Hydration Week 2024 starting today, researchers have announced an intriguing discovery – consumers generally prefer AI-generated images of food over real food images, especially when they are unaware of their true nature. The new findings have been published in Food Quality and Preference. According to the researchers, the results suggest that AI-generated food visuals excel at enhancing the appeal of depicted foods by leveraging key features such as symmetry, shape, glossiness, and overall lighting and colour. All of these are known to contribute significantly ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

TaskMatrix.AI: Making big models do small jobs with APIs

A research team at Microsoft has designed an efficiency tool called TaskMatrix.AI that can be used to accomplish a wide variety of specific AI tasks. TaskMatrix.AI connects general-purpose foundation models like GPT-4, the model behind ChatGPT, with specialized models suitable for certain tasks — much like a human project manager. This research was published Feb. 16 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal. Foundation models and specialized models usually have different mechanisms thus are not easily compatible. Rather than modifying and integrating existing models, TaskMatrix.AI bridges the gaps between them through application ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Turns out—male roundworms are picky when choosing a mate, new research finds

A piece of rotting fruit is likely covered in hundreds if not thousands of microscopic roundworms, including C. elegans—a popular experimental model system for studying neurogenetics. With a lifespan of only a few weeks, C. elegans must reproduce quickly and often. The species is made up of hermaphrodites and males. The hermaphrodites have female bodies, can self-fertilize, and can mate with males. Recent research from of the Portman Lab at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, found the males do not mate indiscriminately—they are selective about things like age, mating history, and nutrition. “We ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Anemonefish are better taxonomists than humans

Anemonefish form mutualistic relationships with the sea anemones they live in and these associations are not random: some species such as the yellow-tail anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii) are generalists and can live in almost any sea anemone, others like the tomato clownfish (Amphiprion frenatus) are specialists, living in only one sea anemone species, the bubble-tip sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor). Reasons for these preferences are unclear because we know very little about the genetic diversity of giant sea anemones. Researchers at the Marine Eco-Evo-Devo Unit and Marine Genomics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Permitless open carry laws may lead to more firearm-related suicides

Key Takeaways Suicide by firearm rates increased 18% in nine years in states that began allowing firearm owners to openly carry a firearm without a permit, a new study finds. U.S. rates of firearm-related suicide rose from 21,175 in 2013 to 26,328 in 2021, an increase that may be related to more permissive open carry laws. CHICAGO: In states that relaxed firearm laws to allow openly carrying a loaded firearm in public without a permit, significantly more people died by firearms and ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Preventing magnet meltdowns before they can start

The particle accelerators that enable high-energy physics and serve many fields of science, such as materials, medical, and fusion research, are driven by superconducting magnets that are, to put it simply, quite finicky. Superconductors are a special class of materials which, when cooled below a certain temperature, carry large electrical currents without resistance. If you arrange the material in coils, the current passing through will produce strong magnetic fields, effectively storing the potential energy of the moving electrons in the form of magnetic field. But if they get ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Global-local path choice model: a new method to understand the walkability of cities

In many cities worldwide, the notion of walking as sustainable urban mobility is becoming increasingly popular. Improving the walkability of cities has many benefits, including improved health, reduced traffic, and consequently lower air pollution. To improve walkability, it is important to conduct a thorough analysis of what factors make cities more walkable. One essential aspect in analyzing walkability is understanding traveler behavior. Before and during their journey, various factors can influence their path choices. For example, travelers can consider the most efficient route before starting but could encounter unexpected events necessitating route changes. ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

New research investigates the genetics of circulating vitamin A

A Newcastle research team has been exploring the role of vitamin A in the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders. Professor Murray Cairns of the University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute said the connectivity between neurons in the brain is thought to be altered in people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions. “Our previous research suggests this could be to do with vitamin A levels or retinol levels, which are known to play an important role in the differentiation, maturation and synaptic function of brain cells. “Our new study by William Reay and colleagues combined the summary statistics from thousands of individual ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Americans' trust in scientific expertise survived polarization, Trump attacks on science

Americans' basic confidence in science and scientific expertise was unshaken by the Trump administration's attacks on scientific expertise, and has remained high during the last six decades, according to an analysis led by the University of Michigan. Trump's attacks on scientific experts—exemplified by criticism of Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—increased the level of partisan polarization in the United States and made the question of scientific expertise more salient ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Unveiling Inaoside A: An antioxidant derived from mushrooms

Natural products have unique chemical structures and biological activities and can play a pivotal role in advancing pharmaceutical science. In a pioneering study, researchers from Shinshu University discovered Inaoside A, an antioxidant derived from Laetiporus cremeiporus mushrooms. This breakthrough sheds light on the potential of mushrooms as a source of therapeutic bioactive compounds. The search for novel bioactive compounds from natural sources has gained considerable momentum in recent years due to the need for new therapeutic ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Dangers of smell impairment highlighted in new research

Peer-reviewed – survey - people More than a third of people who self-identify as having a smell disorder have had at least one gas safety scare in the last five years, according to new research. The study, led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) in collaboration with the charity Fifth Sense, asked people who cannot smell well what safety concerns they had and if they had experienced any hazardous events. A total of 432 people responded to the online survey, which was conducted from February 25 to September 28, 2022, and distributed via the charity. It ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

Leonid Sazanov wins Schrödinger Award

At school, he was inspired by Schrödinger´s book ‘What is Life?’. Now, several decades later, Leonid Sazanov is awarded the Erwin Schrödinger Prize by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). The scientist heads a research group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and was honored “for his outstanding achievements in the field of structural biology of membrane protein complexes.” Sazanov is the sixth ISTA scientist to receive the prestigious Schrödinger Award. “I am especially ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

New study reveals transgenerational effects of pesticide linuron on frogs

Grand-offspring of male frogs exposed to the pesticide linuron exhibited changes in their DNA that was linked to significant physiological impacts, a study from Stockholm University reveals. The research highlights the profound transgenerational consequences of environmental pollution on amphibian populations, which are already under threat of extinction. The study is published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Amphibians, particularly frogs, play a crucial role in our ecosystem. However, nearly half of all amphibian species ...

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Science11 Mar 2024

For people who speak many languages, there’s something special about their native tongue

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A new study of people who speak many languages has found that there is something special about how the brain processes their native language. In the brains of these polyglots — people who speak five or more languages — the same language regions light up when they listen to any of the languages that they speak. In general, this network responds more strongly to languages in which the speaker is more proficient, with one notable exception: the speaker’s native language. When listening ...

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Science9 Mar 2024

Paclitaxel-coated balloon vs uncoated balloon for coronary in-stent restenosis

About The Study: Among patients undergoing coronary angioplasty for in-stent restenosis, a paclitaxel-coated balloon was superior to an uncoated balloon with respect to the composite end point of target lesion failure in this multicenter randomized trial that included 600 patients. Paclitaxel-coated balloons are an effective treatment option for patients with coronary in-stent restenosis. Authors: Robert W. Yeh, M.D., M.Sc., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is ...

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Science8 Mar 2024

Child care costs, availability keeping New York parents at home, poll finds

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Two out of five New Yorkers with children who participated in a recent poll report that a member of their household opts not to work, mostly because child care is too expensive, while child care workers earn among the lowest wages in the state, according to a report released March 8 by the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab. Continuing a multiyear effort with collaborators to determine the “true” cost of child care, “The Status of Child Care in New York State” finds that recent increases in state subsidies helped stabilize ...

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Science8 Mar 2024

nTIDE February 2024 Jobs Report: Overall employment trend still positive despite recent declines for people with disabilities

East Hanover, NJ – March 8, 2024 – Despite recent declines in the labor force participation rate and employment-to-population ratio, the overall employment trend remains positive for people with disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing January 2024 to February 2024) Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ...

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Science8 Mar 2024

Primary care scarcity linked to more surgical emergencies & problems

America’s shortage of primary care doctors and nurse practitioners has a downstream effect in the nation’s operating rooms, a new study finds. And patients suffer as a result. In all, people living in areas with the most severe shortages of primary care providers have a much higher risk of having emergency surgery, rather than a scheduled operation, compared with people with the same condition who live in areas with less-dire primary care shortages.Those living in the areas with the lowest availability of primary care providers ...

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Science8 Mar 2024

Novel PET tracer maps fructose metabolism to identify cardiac and neural disorders

Reston, VA—A new PET radiotracer can differentiate diseased tissues from healthy tissues based on fructose metabolism, according to new research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Fructose metabolism—or fructolysis—is indicative of a variety of diseases, and by noninvasively mapping fructolysis physicians can more accurately detect diseases and treat them earlier. Glucose is used as the primary biochemical fuel throughout the body, powering key processes like tissue function, growth, and repair. Glucose is also consumed extensively during inflammation and cancer growth and can be visualized with PET scans. Evidence continues to mount that ...

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Science8 Mar 2024

New study reveals molecular fingerprint of biological aging

University of Pittsburgh researchers have uncovered blood-based markers linked with healthy and rapid aging, allowing them to predict a person’s biological age — how fast a person’s cells and organs age regardless of their birthdate. The new research, published in Aging Cell, points to pathways and compounds that may underlie biological age, shedding light on why people age differently and suggesting novel targets for interventions that could slow aging and promote healthspan, the length of time a person is healthy. “Age is more than just a number,” said senior author Aditi Gurkar, Ph.D., assistant professor of geriatric medicine at ...

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