Science
press releases.

Science14 Dec 2023

Study shows tree nuts as snacks reduces metabolic syndrome risk in Millenials

DAVIS, CA, December 14, 2023 – A recent study published online in the journal, Nutrients[1], suggests daily tree nut consumption reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome (MetSx) by improving waist circumference, lipid biomarkers, and/or insulin levels, without requiring calorie restriction, in young adults. In a randomized, parallel arm, dietary intervention study design, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center enrolled 84 men and women, ages 22-36, most of whom were either overweight or obese (BMI 24.5 to 34.9 kg/m2) and had at least one MetSx risk factor ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Spinal cord stimulation reduces pain, improves balance in people with lower limb amputation

PITTSBURGH, Dec. 14, 2023 – Spinal cord stimulation can elicit sensation in the missing foot and alleviate phantom limb pain in people with lower limb amputations, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine rehabilitation scientists report today. Pressure sensors on the insole of a prosthetic foot triggered electrical pulses that were then delivered to a participants’ spinal cord. Researchers found that this sensory feedback also improved balance and gait stability. The proof-of-concept study was done in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

What do Gifted dogs have in common?

All dog owners think that their pup is special. Science now has documented that some rare dogs are…even more special! They have a talent for learning hundreds of names of dog toys. Due to the extreme rarity of this phenomenon, until recently, very little was known about these dogs, as most of the studies that documented this ability included only a small sample of one or two dogs. In a new study published in the Journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the Family Dog Project (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest) shed new light on the characteristics of these exceptional dogs. In ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Facial symmetry doesn’t explain “beer goggles”

If you thought blurry eyes were to blame for the “beer goggles” phenomenon, think again. Scientists from the University of Portsmouth have tested the popular theory that people are more likely to find someone attractive while drunk, because their faces appear more symmetrical. The term “beer goggles” has been used for decades to describe when a person finds themselves sexually attracted to someone while intoxicated, but not sober. One possible explanation for the effect is that alcohol impairs the drinker’s ability to detect facial asymmetry, ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Were Neanderthals morning people ?

A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, finds that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be “early risers,” the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. All anatomically modern humans trace their origin to Africa around 300 thousand years ago, where environmental factors shaped many of their biological features. Approximately seventy-thousand years ago, the ancestors ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Mothers and children have their birthday in the same month more often than you’d think – and here’s why

Do you celebrate your birthday in the same month as your mum? If so, you are not alone. The phenomenon occurs more commonly than expected – a new study of millions of families has revealed. Siblings also tend to share month of birth with each other, as do children and fathers, the analysis of 12 years’ worth of data shows, whilst parents are also born in the same month as one another more often than would be predicted. Previous research has found that women’s season of ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Post-meal insulin surge not a villain, says new research

Researchers at Sinai Health have unearthed vital information about the relationship between insulin levels after eating and long-term heart and metabolic health. The research upends the notion that insulin surge following food intake is a bad thing. On the contrary – it could be an indicator of good health to come. Led by Dr. Ravi Retnakaran, Clinician-Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, part of Sinai Health, the study set out to explore how insulin levels after meals impact cardiometabolic health. While past ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Body dissatisfaction linked with depression risk in children

Body dissatisfaction at age 11 is linked to increased risk of depression by age 14, finds a new longitudinal study led by UCL researchers. The findings, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, show that body image concerns explain a large proportion of an association between body mass index (BMI) and depression in children, particularly in girls. The study, supported by Wellcome, involved 13,135 participants of the Millennium Cohort Study, a UCL-led nationally representative birth cohort study of people born between 2000 and 2002. The researchers found that high BMI at age seven was linked with increased depressive symptoms (which can include low mood, loss of pleasure ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Researcher says men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

Researchers at Texas A&M University have already shown that paternal drinking habits prior to conception can have a negative effect on fetal development — with semen from men who regularly consume alcohol impacting placenta development, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)-associated brain and facial defects, and even IVF outcomes. In an article published this month in Andrology, the lab of Dr. Michael Golding has now demonstrated that it takes much longer than previously believed, longer than a month, for the effects of alcohol consumption to leave the father’s ...

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Science14 Dec 2023

Decoding the ‘chassis effect”: host physiology emerges as key predictor

Synthetic biology is a growing discipline of science that involves redesigning naturally occurring organisms to express new, useful attributes. These engineered organisms can be used to address issues unresolved by conventional methods. Broad-host-range (BHR) synthetic biology is an emerging domain that aims to expand the pool of model hosts or ‘chassis,’ by utilizing the rich diversity of the naturally evolving microbial world. The chassis provides a platform for the expression of ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Texas A&M researcher says men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

By Courtney Price, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences Researchers at Texas A&M University have already shown that paternal drinking habits prior to conception can have a negative effect on fetal development — with semen from men who regularly consume alcohol impacting placenta development, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)-associated brain and facial defects, and even IVF outcomes. In an article published this month in Andrology, ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

CUNY SPH partners with UNFPA on campaign to end gender-based violence

New York, NY | December 13, 2023 – The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) has partnered with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign, an initiative to bring global awareness to the widespread issue of gender-based violence, a pervasive public health threat. The 16 Days campaign was launched in 1991 at the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute held by the Center for Global Women’s Leadership (CGWL), with the goal of raising awareness ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Virginia Tech researcher probes the potential for preventing and reversing age-related memory loss

About 40 percent of people over age 65 suffer some form of age-related memory loss, which puts them at higher risk for developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. However, there are currently no approved methods for preventing memory loss with age. Tim Jarome, associate professor of neurobiology in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Animal Sciences is hoping to change that, aided by a $433,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Jarome and his research partner, Assistant Professor Sydney Trask of Purdue University’s Department ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Interactive screen use reduces sleep time in kids, researchers find

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While screen time is generally known to affect sleep, new research suggests that interactive engagement, such as texting friends or playing video games, delays and reduces the time spent asleep to a greater extent than passive screen time, like watching television — especially for teens. The research, which published today (Dec. 13) in the Journal of Adolescent Health, demonstrates that adolescents at age 15 who used screens to communicate with friends or play video games in the hour before bed took 30 minutes longer to fall asleep than if they had refrained from interactive screen time. But it wasn’t just interactive screen time ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

UTA’s Woods and Weidanz named to NAI

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has elected Jon Weidanz and Robert Woods, two professors from The University of Texas at Arlington, as fellows. Weidanz is vice president for research and innovation and holds research positions in bioengineering and kinesiology. He also is a member of the Bone and Muscle Research Center and the Multi-Professional Center for Health Informatics at UTA. Woods is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the advisor of the Formula Society of Automotive Engineering (FSAE) student racing team and the holder of the Dr. Bob Woods Chair in Automotive Engineering Endowed by Paul Andrews ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Scientists identify a key cause of female infertility

Infertility affects around 48 million couples worldwide and can have various causes. In mammals, including humans, eggs are produced in the ovary. When this process goes wrong, it can lead to female infertility. One example of this is premature ovarian insufficiency, which is characterised by problems with egg production before the age of 40. Up to 3.7% of females experience infertility as a result of this condition, and around 30% of cases are due to genetic variations. Professor Kehkooi Kee, from Tsinghua University, China, who helped ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Rare sleep disorder more prevalent than previously thought

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – People who are very sleepy during the day, despite a good night’s rest, may have a sleep disorder called idiopathic hypersomnia. New research has found this neurologic disorder may not be as rare as once thought. The study is published in the December 13, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Symptoms of idiopathic hypersomnia include not only being very sleepy during the day, but ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Consumers grapple with confusion over food-date labels

Consumers grapple with confusion over food-date labels The use of food-date labels such as “use-by” and “best if used by” causes consumer confusion that results in many Americans discarding food that is safe to eat or donate, according to the November 2023 Consumer Food Insights Report. The survey-based report out of Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability assesses food spending, consumer satisfaction and values, support of agricultural ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

This adaptive roof tile can cut both heating and cooling costs

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — About half of an average American building’s energy consumption is spent on heating and cooling. That’s a lot of money spent, fossil fuel burned and strain on an aging energy infrastructure during times of severe temperatures. It’s also a problem UC Santa Barbara researchers Charlie Xiao, Elliot Hawkes and Bolin Liao are hoping to make a dent in. In a paper in the journal Device, the trio present an adaptive tile, which when deployed in arrays on roofs, can lower heating ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

WFIRM and partnering institutions awarded five-year, $6 million grant on kidney, urology, and hematology research

WINSTON-SALEM, NC, December 13, 2023 - The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) has received a $6 million grant from the National Institute for Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. Alongside five other North Carolina institutions, the collaborative effort aims to address critical issues and advance research in the fields of kidney, urology and hematology. Dr. Anthony Atala, the W. Boyce professor and chair of urology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and director of WFIRM, Dr. Ronald Falk, Nan and Hugh Cullman Eminent professor of medicine at UNC, and Dr. Thomas Ortel, professor of medicine ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Vikings in Sweden suffered from tooth decay

Vikings in Sweden suffered from painful dental issues and occasionally tried to treat them, according to a study published December 13, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Carolina Bertilsson of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and colleagues. In 2005, excavations in Varnhem, Sweden uncovered the remains of a Christian church, nearby which was a cemetery containing thousands of Viking graves dating to the 10th-12th century AD. In this study, Bertilsson and colleagues performed clinical and radiographical examination of the dentition of individuals from this site. In total, the team analyzed over 2300 teeth ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Yoga nidra might be a path to better sleep and improved memory

Practicing yoga nidra—a kind of mindfulness training— might improve sleep, cognition, learning, and memory, even in novices, according to a pilot study publishing in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 13 by Karuna Datta of the Armed Forces Medical College in India, and colleagues. After a two-week intervention with a cohort of novice practitioners, the researchers found that the percentage of delta-waves in deep sleep increased and that all tested cognitive abilities improved. Unlike more active forms of yoga, which focus on physical postures, breathing, and muscle control, yoga nidra guides people into a state of conscious relaxation ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Trees are in trouble

This holiday season brings surprising news about your Christmas tree. Scientists just discovered that globally, trees growing in wetter regions are more sensitive to drought. That means if your tree hails from a more humid clime, it’s likely been spoiled for generations. Scientists have long debated whether arid conditions make trees more or less resilient to drought. It seems intuitive that trees living at their biological limits will be most vulnerable to climate change, since even just a little extra stress could tip them past the brink. On the other hand, these populations have adapted to a harsher setting, so they might be more capable of withstanding a drought. According ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

New genetic vulnerability to herbicide found in nearly 50 sweet and field corn lines

URBANA, Ill. — When a sweet corn breeder reached out in 2021 to report severe injury from the herbicide tolpyralate, Marty Williams hoped it was a fluke isolated to a single inbred line. But two years later, after methodical field, greenhouse, and genetic testing, his new Pest Management Science study not only confirms sensitivity to tolpyralate in 49 sweet corn and field corn lines, but also reveals a new genetic vulnerability that may affect corn more generally. Tolpyralate is a relatively new ...

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Science13 Dec 2023

Study presents new pathway for electrochemically controlling ion selectivity

A new study by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign advances fundamental knowledge about the role of solvation in ion binding and presents a new pathway for electrochemically controlling ion selectivity. The study was published in JACS Au. The team, led by Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering professor Xiao Su and recently graduated Ph.D. student Raylin Chen, is building on their prior work exploring electrochemical separations of ions, which has revealed that a critical mechanism for binding ions is solvation. Here, the researchers set out to control solvation of a polymer and use that to bind different ...

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