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press releases.

Science6 Feb 2024

11 leading stroke scientists to receive American Stroke Association honors

PHOENIX, Feb. 6, 2024 – Eleven scientists leading the way in stroke research will be recognized during the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2024 for their exceptional professional achievements. The meeting will be held in Phoenix, Feb. 7-9, and is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health. The illustrious group of awardees includes four groundbreaking scientists who have devoted their careers to stroke research and six scientists will be recognized for their notable new research. The awards include the Ralph L. Sacco Outstanding Stroke Research ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Discover BMB announces exciting lineup of speakers

Be front and center for the hottest research findings in the molecular life sciences at Discover BMB, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, to be held March 23–26 in San Antonio. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from the top minds in the field. Reporters are invited to register for a complimentary press pass to attend #DiscoverBMB in San Antonio or access press materials electronically. Please note that only a limited number of complementary on-site press passes will be issued, so advance registration is recommended. Find more information in the #DiscoverBMB newsroom. As part of an exciting program spotlighting the ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Pore power: high-speed droplet production in microfluidic devices

Over the past two decades, microfluidic devices, which use technology to produce micrometer-sized droplets, have become crucial to various applications. These span chemical reactions, biomolecular analysis, soft-matter chemistry, and the production of fine materials. Furthermore, droplet microfluidics has enabled new applications that were not possible with traditional methods. It can shape the size of the particles and influence their morphology and anisotropy. However, the conventional way of generating droplets in a single microchannel structure is often slow, ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

How a city is organized can create less-biased citizens

The city you live in could be making you, your family, and your friends more unconsciously racist. Or, your city might make you less racist. It depends on how populous, diverse, and segregated your city is, according to a new study that brings together the math of cities with the psychology of how individuals develop unconscious racial biases. The study, published in the latest issue of Nature Communications, presents data and a mathematical model of exposure and adaptation in social networks that can help explain why there is more unconscious, or implicit, racial bias ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Reversible deformation, permanent fabric development

6 February 2024 The Geological Society of America Release No. 24-01 Contributed by Arianna Soldati, GSA Science Communication Fellow Boulder, Colo., USA: Earth is a stressed planet. As plates move, magma rises, and glaciers melt—just to mention a few scenarios—rocks are subject to varying pressure and compressional and extensional forces. The effect of these stresses on rock mineralogy and texture is of great interest to the tectono-metamorphic community. Yet the link between process and outcome remains elusive. There are two possible states of stress: either all principal ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Researchers strike gold with improved catalyst

For the first time, researchers including those at the University of Tokyo discovered a way to improve the durability of gold catalysts by creating a protective layer of metal oxide clusters. The enhanced gold catalysts can withstand a greater range of physical environments compared to unprotected equivalent materials. This could increase their range of possible applications, as well as reduce energy consumption and costs in some situations. These catalysts are widely used throughout industrial settings, including chemical synthesis and production of medicines, these industries could benefit from improved gold catalysts. Everybody loves gold: athletes, pirates, bankers — everybody. ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Law enforcement seizures of psilocybin mushrooms rose dramatically between 2017-2022

Law enforcement seizures of “magic mushrooms” or “shrooms” containing the psychoactive component psilocybin increased dramatically in the United States between January 2017 and December 2022, according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health. The number of law enforcement seizures increased from 402 seizures in 2017 to 1,396 in 2022. In addition, the total weight of psilocybin mushrooms seized by law enforcement increased ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Fatty acids hold clue to creating memories

Researchers at the University of Queensland have revealed the crucial role of saturated fatty acids in the brain’s consolidation of memories. Dr Isaac Akefe from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute has uncovered the molecular mechanism and identified the genes underlying the memory creation process, opening the door to a potential treatment for neurodegenerative disorders. “We’ve shown previously that levels of saturated fatty acids increase in the brain during neuronal communication, but we ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Improved differential-neural cryptanalysis for round-reduced Simeck32/64

Deep learning has led to great improvements recently on a number of difficult tasks. In CRYPTO 2019, Gohr innovatively integrated deep learning with differential cryptanalysis, specifically applied to Speck32/64, resulting in developing a neural distinguisher that outperforms the DDT-based distinguisher. Applying differential neural cryptanalysis methods to more cryptographic algorithms is an issue worth studying. To solve the problems, a research team led by Liu ZHANG published their new research on 15 Dec 2023 in Frontiers of Computer Science co-published by Higher Education Press ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Heavy cannabis use increases risk of developing an anxiety disorder, study suggests

Ottawa, ON, February 5, 2024 – Twenty-seven percent of individuals who had an emergency department visit for cannabis use developed a new anxiety disorder within three years, according to new research. Led by researchers at the Bruyère Research Institute, University of Ottawa Department of Family Medicine, The Ottawa Hospital, and ICES, this is the largest study of the relationship between cannabis use and anxiety to date. The study published today in The Lancet’s open access journal eClinical Medicine included over 12 million individuals living in Ontario, Canada, between 2008 and 2019 who had never received a diagnosis or treatment for anxiety. The researchers ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Amsterdam UMC research shows that ultrasound can be used to detect placenta problems in small babies

A Doppler ultrasound that measures the blood flow of small unborn babies can reveal whether or not the placenta is working properly. In case of repeated deviations from these Doppler measurements, additional monitoring of the unborn baby is necessary. These deviations indicate a higher risk of oxygen deficiency and other health problems for the baby. This study by Amsterdam UMC in collaboration with UMC Groningen and 17 other Dutch hospitals is published today in the British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Around 10% of unborn babies are classed as small for ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Influence of voting advice web tools is limited during elections with authoritarian candidates, study shows

The influence of online vote advice tools designed to help voters discover more about candidates is limited when elections are affected by authoritarianism, a new study shows. Voting advice applications offer voters nonpartisan information about political parties, candidates, and policy issues. The research shows they could be an alternative source of information for those interested in learning about politics in democracies, but their use would be limited in authoritarian settings, particularly in the longer term. In the short-term, and during highly competitive elections with tiny winning margins for candidates ...

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Science6 Feb 2024

Solving an age-old mystery about crystal formation

A million years ago, the oldest known species to walk upright like a human, the Homo Erectus, had a human-like fascination with crystals. Historians can even pin down the possible reasons – crystals didn’t look like anything around at the time - trees, valleys, mountains. Crystals were a material to ponder, a fascinating diversion for the mind. To this day, the human preoccupation with the magic of crystals continues to fill the mind’s eye of scientists who have developed ways to use crystals for everything from malaria cures to solar cells and semiconductors, catalysts and optical elements. Over the years crystals have become crucial constituents ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Are body temperature and depression linked? Science says, yes

People with depression have higher body temperatures, suggesting there could be a mental health benefit to lowering the temperatures of those with the disorder, a new UC San Francisco-led study found. The study, publishing today in Scientific Reports, doesn’t indicate whether depression raises body temperature or a higher temperature causes depression. It’s also unknown whether the higher body temperature observed in people with depression reflects decreased ability to self-cool, increased generation of heat from metabolic processes or a combination of both. Researchers analyzed data from more than 20,000 international ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

How ‘deaths of despair’ differ by race and ethnicity

COLUMBUS, Ohio – White Americans are more likely than Black and Hispanic people in the United States to experience “deaths of despair” even though they are less likely to suffer from severe psychological distress, a new study finds. The results suggest that, for some reason, whites are more vulnerable to the damaging effects of psychological distress than Blacks or Hispanics, said Hui Zheng, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. Zheng is currently on leave at the University of Hong Kong. “The white population has an increasing trend of despair-related mortality after 2000,” Zheng said. ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

USC researchers uncover biological circuit that protects plants from extreme conditions

Climate change is already harming agricultural yields and may one day pose a significant threat to the world’s food supply. Engineering more resilient crops, including those able to thrive in the face of drought or high soil salinity levels, is an increasingly urgent need. A new study from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, reveals details about how plants regulate their responses to stress that may prove crucial to those efforts. Researchers found that plants use their circadian clocks to respond to changes in external water and salt levels throughout the day. That same circuitry—an ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Mystery of moths’ warning sound production explained in new study

The workings of the ultrasonic warning sounds produced by the wings of a species of moth have been revealed by researchers at the University of Bristol. Scientists recently discovered that moths of the genus Yponomeuta (so-called ermine moths) have evolved a very special acoustic defence mechanism against their echolocating predators—bats. Ermine moths produce ultrasonic clicking sounds twice per wingbeat cycle using a minute corrugated membrane in their hindwing. Strikingly, these moths lack hearing organs and are therefore not aware of their unique defence mechanism, nor do they have the capability to control it using muscular ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

It’s true, happiness doesn’t cost much

THIS PRESS RELEASE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL FEBRUARY 5, 2024 at 3:00 PM U.S. EASTERN TIME Many Indigenous peoples and local communities around the world are leading very satisfying lives despite having very little money. This is the conclusion of a study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), which shows that many societies with very low monetary income have remarkably high levels of life satisfaction, comparable to those in wealthy countries. Economic growth is often prescribed as a sure way of increasing the well-being of people in low-income countries, and ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

HHMI Janelia scientists Eric Betzig and Harald Hess to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

Janelia scientists and longtime collaborators Eric Betzig and Harald Hess will be inducted into the 2024 class of the National Inventors Hall of Fame for their invention of photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM), a pioneering imaging technology that enables scientists to image live cells in super-resolution to study biological structures and processes in unprecedented detail. Betzig, a senior fellow at Janelia and an HHMI Investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, and Hess, a senior ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Violence is contagious among members of Italian mafia groups, study shows

Violence spreads in a contagious way like a disease among members of the Italian mafia, a new study shows. Researchers have found committing violent acts with others increases the likelihood people in these groups will go on to carry out more violent offences in the future. The analysis of the criminal careers of organised crime offenders shows previous violence has a “persistent and long-lasting” impact on their behaviour. Prior violent co-offending has a greater impact than prior violent solo offending on the probability of future violence. Prior violent co-offending increases the probability ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Lowder & Foudray receive funding for Fairfax county peer recovery services evaluability assessment

Lowder & Foudray Receive Funding For Fairfax County Peer Recovery Services Evaluability Assessment Evan Marie Lowder, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Law and Society, and Chelsea Foudray, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Criminology, Law and Society, received funding from County of Fairfax for: "Fairfax County Peer Recovery Services Evaluability Assessment." Lowder and Foudray are laying the groundwork for a formal evaluation of Fairfax County Peer Recovery Services (PRS) programming. For ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Watching the enzymes that convert plant fiber into simple sugars

This work was adapted from articles by Elizabeth Boatman and Emily C. Dooley. Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and UC Davis sheds new light on how to access the sugars locked up in plants to produce petroleum-free fuels, chemicals, and medicines. Using microbes to convert grasses, weeds, wood, and other plant residues into sustainable products will be key to achieving carbon neutrality and could even help eliminate drug shortages. But cellulose, the tough tissue that makes up a large proportion of herbaceous and woody plant ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Hart receives funding for boot camp

Hart Receives Funding For Boot Camp David M. Hart, Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, received funding for: "2024 Climate-Tech Innovation Policy 'Boot Camp' for Early Career Researchers." Via this effort, Hart will build interpersonal bridges across the gap that separates the policy and research communities, sensitize researchers to the practical considerations that shape energy and climate innovation policy, and create new inter-disciplinary linkages among early-career researchers. His long-term objective is to shape the research agendas of the participating scholars, so that they contribute as fully as ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Longitudinal study links PFAS contamination with teas, processed meats and food packaging

New research is shedding light on food and beverage products linked to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and suggesting potential solutions for protecting the public. PFAS are known to be harmful to health: They can disrupt hormones, weaken bones and increase disease risk. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” because they take so long to break down, PFAS are used in fabrics, furniture and other household items—but they are also hard to get rid of. Recent tests now trace the chemicals to livestock, drinking water and food packaging, but little is known about the extent of that contamination. A new study, funded in part ...

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Science5 Feb 2024

Losing sleep over killings of unarmed Black individuals by police

PHILADELPHIA – Black adults across the United States suffer from sleep problems following exposure to news about unarmed Black individuals killed by police during police encounters, according to new findings published today in JAMA Internal Medicine from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. The issue, researchers said, may compound the risk factors that poor sleep already poses for many chronic and mental health conditions, from depression to post traumatic stress disorder. Researchers conducted two separate analyses examining changes in sleep duration in the U.S. non-Hispanic Black population before and after exposure to such deaths ...

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