Science
press releases.

Science7 Feb 2024

Getting to know the ​‘ghost’ inside batteries

An Argonne team developing materials for solid-state batteries took an unexpected detour to investigate tiny short-circuits known as soft-shorts. Their insights will benefit battery researchers around the world. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have shed important new light on what the early signs of battery failure look like. Their study — which relates to a condition called soft-shorts — provides the research community with valuable knowledge and methods to design better electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The Argonne team’s research focused on all-solid batteries with anodes (negative electrodes) ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Endovascular thrombectomy for large ischemic stroke across ischemic injury and penumbra profiles

About The Study: In this exploratory analysis of a randomized clinical trial of 336 patients with extensive ischemic stroke, endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) improved clinical outcomes across a wide spectrum of infarct volumes, although enrollment of patients with minimal penumbra volume was low. In EVT-treated patients, clinical outcomes worsened as presenting ischemic injury estimates increased. Authors: Amrou Sarraj, M.D., of University Hospital Cleveland Medical Center—Case Western ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

MD Anderson research highlights for February 7, 2024

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. Recent developments at MD Anderson include a combination treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the discovery of a molecular driver in metastatic breast cancer, an oral combination therapy for high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), a novel method to mechanically destroy ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

UW-developed smart earrings can monitor a person’s temperature

Smart accessories are increasingly common. Rings and watches track vitals, while Ray-Bans now come with cameras and microphones. Wearable tech has even broached brooches. Yet certain accessories have yet to get the smart touch. University of Washington researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user’s earlobe temperature. In a study of six users, the earring outperformed a smartwatch at sensing skin temperature during periods of rest. It also showed promise for monitoring signs of stress, eating, exercise and ovulation. The smart earring prototype is about ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Trends in stroke thrombolysis care metrics and outcomes by race and ethnicity

About The Study: In this study of more than 1 million patients with stroke, the Target: Stroke quality initiative was associated with improvement in thrombolysis frequency, timeliness, and outcomes for all racial and ethnic groups. However, disparities persisted, indicating a need for further interventions. Authors: Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

After prison, perpetrators of genocide say they’ve changed

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After serving decades in prison, Rwandans convicted of crimes of genocide returned to their communities articulating a “narrative of redemption,” saying they were good people, despite their past crimes. And they were hopeful about their prospects for reintegrating into their communities. Many of these former prisoners had been convicted of murder, often of their own neighbors, connected to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. But they said they had changed – even while minimizing their role in the killings. In ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Warmer water may help rivers keep antimicrobial resistance at bay

Highlights: Wastewater, even when treated, can deliver antimicrobial resistance genes to rivers. Further research is needed on if rivers function as a protective barrier. Researchers subjected biofilms from pristine rivers to wastewater. Antibiotic resistant bacteria from wastewater successfully integrated at first, but in the warmest water were edged out by naturally occurring microbes. The study suggests that temperature can influence the microbial competition in rivers. Washington, D.C.—Antimicrobial resistant genes (ARGs) from wastewater can end up in natural biofilms in rivers, but they may not stick around very long. This week in mSphere, ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

New scientific research will test PREVENT risk calculator among diverse groups

DALLAS, Feb. 7, 2024 — Research teams from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, New York University and Duke University will work together to assess the accuracy of the American Heart Association’s new PREVENTTM risk calculator with funding from the Association’s De-biasing Clinical Care Algorithms project. The American Heart Association, celebrating 100 years of service in 2024, is­ the single largest non-government supporter of heart and brain health research in the U.S. The de-biasing project is funded by a grant from the Doris Duke Foundation to study the role of race and ethnicity in clinical equations and their ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

More than half million dollars in research grants awarded to understand No. 1 birth defect

DALLAS, Feb. 6, 2024 — Five promising scientific researchers will advance their work to better understand and treat the most common birth defect in the U.S., congenital heart defects (CHDs), thanks to joint financial support from the American Heart Association and The Children’s Heart Foundation's Congenital Heart Defect Research Awards program. To date, the American Heart Association, celebrating 100 years of lifesaving service and devoted to a world of healthier lives for all, and The Children’s Heart Foundation, dedicated to funding congenital heart defect research, have ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Rice’s Santiago Segarra wins NSF CAREER Award

HOUSTON – (Feb. 7, 2024) – Artificial intelligence is good at many tasks involving data in the form of text, audio and images, including face recognition and text summarization. “AI is an amazing tool and has been extended over less conventional domains, such as climate data defined on spheres (representing the Earth) and traffic data defined on road networks,” said Santiago Segarra, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and statistics. With his five-year, $599,138 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, Segarra intends to study the use of graphs to represent these ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Repetitive high concentration capsaicin patch applications for nerve pain in a real-world setting

Capsaicin, derived from hot chili pepper plants, has been used to treat various types of pain, and a high concentration capsaicin patch (HCCP) is approved for the treatment of nerve (or neuropathic) pain. In a real-world study published in Pain Practice that included 97 outpatients in Germany diagnosed primarily with neuropathic back pain, postoperative/posttraumatic neuropathic pain, or postherpetic neuralgia (shingles pain), patients appeared to benefit from multiple HCCP applications. Among the ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Does gender affect food allergy’s impact on quality of life?

An analysis of relevant published studies indicates that across all ages, food allergy negatively affects individuals’ quality of life to a greater extent in females than in males. The analysis, which is published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy, included 34 studies. In the studies, women and the parents of girls tended to report a greater impact of food allergy on health-related quality of life than men or parents of boys. Evidence also showed that improvements in quality of life over the course of treatment for food allergy can be different for males and females, with weak evidence suggesting that male children may experience more improvements ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Preterm births linked to ‘hormone disruptor’ chemicals may cost united states billions

Daily exposure to chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic food containers and many cosmetics may be tied to nearly 56,600 preterm births in the U.S. in 2018, a new study shows. The resulting medical costs, the authors of the report say, were estimated to reach a minimum of $1.6 billion and as much as $8.1 billion over the lifetime of the children. For decades, the chemicals, called phthalates, have been shown to interfere with the function of certain hormones, or signaling compounds that circulate in the blood and guide much of the body’s processes. Exposure to these toxins, which is believed to occur as consumer products break down and are ingested, has been linked ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

We must tackle female ageism in sport and exercise science, urge researchers

Action is urgently needed to address the dearth of older women in sport and exercise science, not only for the sake of the growing numbers of female athletes, but women’s health in general, urge a group of international researchers in an editorial, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. There are already far too few sports and exercise science studies that include women, point out the authors, citing their own 2021 report on the sex data gap. This showed that out of 5261 studies, from across six popular sport and exercise science journals, women and girls made up just over a third of the total number of participants, a figure that is likely ...

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Science7 Feb 2024

Women may find it harder to adjust to later life divorce and break-ups than men

Women may find it harder to emotionally adjust to divorce or a relationship break-up in later life than men do, if patterns of antidepressant use are indicative, suggests a large long term study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. While both sexes increased their antidepressant use in the run up to, and immediate aftermath of, a divorce, break-up, or bereavement, women’s use of these drugs was greater than men’s. And while re-partnering was associated with a slight reduction in antidepressant use in both sexes, it was particularly short-lived in women, the study findings indicate. Due to population ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

A Filipino fruit dove, long part of Peabody collection, reveals its secrets

In May 1953, Filipino ornithologist D. S. Rabor collected a single female fruit dove on the forested slopes of an active volcano on the Philippine island of Negros. The small apple green bird, which had yellow edgings on its wings and prominent circles of bare skin around its eyes, was unlike any other known pigeon species. In 1954, Rabor and Yale professor Dillon Ripley described the unique specimen as Ptilinopus arcanus, a name inspired by the Latin word for “secret.” The Negros Fruit Dove, as it is commonly known, has never been ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

New study finds “sweet spot” for length of yarn-shaped supercapacitors

As interest in wearable technology has surged, research into creating energy-storage devices that can be woven into textiles has also increased. Researchers at North Carolina State University have now identified a “sweet spot” at which the length of a threadlike energy storage technology called a “yarn-shaped supercapacitor” (YSC) yields the highest and most efficient flow of energy per unit length. “When it comes to the length of the YSC, it’s a tradeoff between power and energy,” said Wei ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Researchers at UMass Amherst discover key to molecular mystery of how plants respond to changing conditions

AMHERST, Mass. – A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently published a pioneering study that answers a central question in biology: how do organisms rally a wide range of cellular processes when they encounter a change—either internally or in the external environment—to thrive in good times or survive the bad times? The research, focused on plants and published in Cell, identifies the interactions between four compounds: pectin, receptor proteins FERONIA and LLG1 and the signal RALF peptide. In particular, the team discovered that a molecular condensation process, called liquid-liquid phase separation, that ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

N. Ross Chapman selected as 2024 Recipient of the Walter Munk Medal

The Oceanography Society (TOS) congratulates N. Ross Chapman for being selected as the 2024 recipient of The Oceanography Society’s Walter Munk Medal. The citation on his certificate recognizes him for applications of advanced signal processing approaches to acoustical oceanography and contributions to geo-acoustic inversions. Among Dr. Chapman’s many achievements, the Medal Selection Committee noted his extraordinary contributions to geo-acoustic inversions, acoustic propagation modeling, ambient noise measurements, ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

WVU researcher determines ADHD gives entrepreneurs an edge

The brains of people with ADHD function in ways that can benefit them as entrepreneurs, according to research from the West Virginia University John Chambers College of Business and Economics. Associate Professor Nancy McIntyre said her paper in the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research broadens the scope, in an entrepreneurial context, from “if ADHD functions” to “how ADHD functions.” The paper is based on a study demonstrating an entrepreneur with ADHD is able to use routines, patterns and habits like a big net ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

How ovarian tissue freezing could prevent menopause—possibly forever

Most women agree that menopause has its advantages and disadvantages. Some relish the end of menstruation and concerns about unplanned pregnancies, while others dread the possibililty of hot flashes, moodiness, and other unpleasant symptoms. What some women consider a brief and barely noticeable phase in their lives can evolve into lasting changes and discomfort for others. Now, a new paradigm around the biological processes of menopause is capturing the attention of a small group of scientists around the country. The primary question: can menopause be delayed in healthy women, allowing them to extend their child-bearing years—and perhaps ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Researchers breathe new life into lung repair

In the human body, the lungs and their vasculature can be likened to a building with an intricate plumbing system. The lungs’ blood vessels are the pipes essential for transporting blood and nutrients for oxygen delivery and carbon dioxide removal. Much like how pipes can get rusty or clogged, disrupting normal water flow, damage from respiratory viruses, like SARS-CoV-2 or influenza, can interfere with this “plumbing system.” In a recent study, researchers looked at the critical role of vascular ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

A new origin story for deadly Seattle fault

American Geophysical Union 6 February 2024 AGU Release No. 24-04 For Immediate Release This press release is available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/seattle-fault-may-have-origins-in-an-ancient-tear-in-the-continent Seattle fault may have origins in an ancient tear in the continent Magnetic data suggest the hazardous Seattle fault zone developed as the edge of the continent tore itself in two more than 50 million years ago, providing a possible new origin story for the fault AGU ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Gun violence exposure and suicide among black adults

About The Study: Gun violence exposure among Black adults in the U.S. was significantly associated with lifetime suicidal ideation and behavior in this study that included 3,015 Black adults. Public health efforts to substantially reduce interpersonal gun violence may yield additional benefits by decreasing suicide among Black individuals in the U.S. Authors: Daniel C. Semenza, Ph.D., of Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.54953) Editor’s ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

GPT-3 transforms chemical research

Artificial intelligence is growing into a pivotal tool in chemical research, offering novel methods to tackle complex challenges that traditional approaches struggle with. One subtype of artificial intelligence that has seen increasing use in chemistry is machine learning, which uses algorithms and statistical models to make decisions based on data and perform tasks that it has not been explicitly programmed for. However, to make reliable predictions, machine learning also demands large amounts of data, which isn’t always available in chemical research. Small chemical datasets simply do not provide enough information for these algorithms to train on, which limits their effectiveness. In ...

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