Science
press releases.

Science10 Nov 2023

UVA launches futures initiative to chart next decade in higher ed

With an eye toward a decade ahead that promises change, opportunity, and challenge, the University of Virginia on Friday launched its Futures Initiative to help plan for the next 10 years in higher education. Over the next year, a group of thought leaders from across the University, known as the Futures Initiative Group, will examine the current drivers of change in academia, such as artificial intelligence and large language models like ChatGPT, while also looking ahead to the eventual impact of sensor technology, virtual classrooms, the Internet of Things, and myriad other technological changes. The goal of the initiative—which was announced at Datapalooza 2023, an annual event ...

Read the release

Science10 Nov 2023

Found at last: Bizarre, egg-laying mammal finally rediscovered after 60 years

A long-beaked echidna named after Sir David Attenborough and last seen by scientists in 1961 has been photographed for the first time in an Indonesian tropical forest. An international team of researchers worked with local communities to deploy over 80 camera traps to film the elusive animal. Besides rediscovering the echidna, the team uncovered a wealth of species completely new to science, including beetles, spiders, and a remarkable tree-dwelling shrimp. A wide range of images and video footage from the expedition are available (see link below). More than sixty years after it was last recorded, an expedition ...

Read the release

Science10 Nov 2023

Mystery solved: how hummingbirds fly through gaps that are too small

Soaring, wings outstretched, many birds sail through the air unhindered. However, species that dine on fruit, seeds and nectar must negotiate tiny gaps in cluttered foliage to secure a feast. To pass through apertures, many birds pull in their wings, folding them closer to their bodies. However, some of the most manoeuvrable aviators, hummingbirds, have lost the ability to fold their wings at the wrists and elbows. ‘Unless hummingbirds implement distinctive strategies to transit narrow apertures, they may be unable to enter gaps less than one wingspan wide’, ...

Read the release

Science10 Nov 2023

Hummingbirds' unique sideways flutter gets them through small apertures

Most birds that flit through dense, leafy forests have a strategy for maneuvering through tight windows in the vegetation — they bend their wings at the wrist or elbow and barrel through. But hummingbirds can't bend their wing bones during flight, so how do they transit the gaps between leaves and tangled branches? A study published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology shows that hummingbirds have evolved their own unique strategies — two of them, in fact. These strategies have not been reported before, likely because hummers maneuver too ...

Read the release

Science10 Nov 2023

National analysis suggests that potentially serious complications occur in 1 in 18 procedures under the care of an anaesthetist

New survey data from the 7th National Audit Project of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (NAP7) published in Anaesthesia (the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) shows that potentially serious complications occur in one in 18 procedures under the care of an anaesthetist. The risk factors associated with these potentially serious complications include very young age (babies); comorbidities; being male; increased frailty; the urgency and extent of surgery; and surgery taking place at night and/or at weekends. This paper has been produced by a team of authors across ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court restricted abortion rights and public support for abortion increased

A new study examining the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade's constitutional protection of abortion rights, finds that the American public's support for abortion increased after the decision. The findings were published today in Nature Behaviour. "Our results show the extent to which the Supreme Court is out of step with the American public," says co-author Sean Westwood, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth and director of the Polarization Research Lab. The study's findings were based on a large, three-wave survey before the leak ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides detected in New York state beeswax

An analysis of beeswax in managed honeybee hives in New York found a wide variety of pesticide, herbicide and fungicide residues – exposing current and future generations of bees to long-term toxicity. The study, published in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, notes that people may be similarly exposed through contaminated honey, pollen and wax in cosmetics. Though the chemicals found in wax are not beneficial to humans, the small amounts in these products are unlikely to ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Researchers identify previously unknown step in cholesterol absorption in the gut

UCLA researchers have described a previously unknown step in the complex process by which dietary cholesterol is processed in the intestines before being released into the bloodstream – potentially revealing a new pathway to target in cholesterol treatment. Although an existing drug and statins impact part of the process, an experimental drug being studied in UCLA research labs appears to specifically target the newfound pathway, possibly adding a new approach to the cholesterol management toolbox. “Our results show that certain proteins in the Aster family play a critical role in moving cholesterol through the absorption and uptake process,” said ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Desert birds lay larger eggs when they have more helpers

Desert birds lay larger eggs when they have more helpers to feed their chicks, new research shows. White-browed sparrow weavers live in family groups in which only a dominant pair breeds and their grown-up offspring, particularly females, help to feed nestlings. The study, by researchers at the University of Exeter, found that mothers increased the size of their eggs when they had more female helpers on hand. The number of male helpers did not affect egg size, probably because male helpers feed chicks at substantially lower rates than female helpers. “We don’t yet fully understand why helped mothers are laying heavier ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Team creates synthetic enzymes to unravel molecular mysteries

A University of Texas at Dallas bioengineer has developed synthetic enzymes that can control the behavior of the signaling protein Vg1, which plays a key role in the development of muscle, bone and blood in vertebrate embryos. The team of researchers is using a new approach, called the Synthetic Processing (SynPro) system, in zebrafish to study how Vg1 is formed. By learning the molecular rules of signal formation in a developing animal, researchers aim to engineer mechanisms — such as giving cells new instructions — that could play a role in treating or preventing disease. Dr. P.C. Dave P. Dingal, assistant professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Glow in the visible range detected for the first time in the Martian night

An international team led by scientists from the University of Liège has observed, for the first time in the visible range, a glow on the night side of the planet Mars. These new observations provide a better understanding of the dynamics of the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet and its variations throughout the year. A scientific team led by researchers from the Laboratory for Planetary and Atmospheric Physics (LPAP) at the University of Liège (BE) has just observed, for the first time, lights in the night sky over Mars using the UVIS-NOMAD instrument on ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Women produce skin temperature data that are just as predictable as men

Women produce physiological data that is just as predictable as men, at least when it comes to skin temperature. This might seem like common sense, but variations in body signals due to menstrual cycles, such as temperature, were used as an excuse to keep women out of clinical studies for decades. The data for the finding was gathered from a wearable device to continuously monitor the skin temperature of 600 people, half female and half male, over six months. The team found that there were more differences between any ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Doctoral degrees without borders

Doctoral students at nine New York City area graduate engineering programs will soon be able to take courses at each other’s institutions without any additional tuition, as part of a new multi-school agreement announced today. The Inter-University Engineering Doctoral Consortium (IUEDC), led by NYU Tandon School of Engineering, encourages Ph.D. students to complement their primary program by taking courses of interest offered at different schools, providing access to specialty instruction and expertise that may not be available at their home universities. Students should be ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Regenstrief experts will address national, global challenges at AMIA symposium

INDIANAPOLIS -- Regenstrief Institute informaticians and other data experts will share their research insights and innovations from November 11-15 at the 2023 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium in New Orleans, Louisiana. Two Regenstrief researchers also were part of the leadership team that organized and helped set the agenda for the conference, “Transforming Healthcare and Biomedicine for a Sustainable Future.” AMIA’s Annual Symposium is the premier medical informatics event, presenting leading-edge scientific research and a wide array of scientific sessions. The symposium presents work from across the spectrum of the informatics ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Lei Shi elected as a member of the STM Board

On 16 October 2023, the newly elected STM Board Members were announced at the Annual General Meeting. Lei Shi, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Tsinghua University Press (TUP), and the Director of both the Journal Publishing Center and Academic Publishing Center of TUP has been elected to the designated seat representing non-Europe/US based companies. He became the first Chinese representative on the STM Board. STM is the world’s leading association of scholarly publishers, who is committed to advance trusted research for ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Palaeo-CSI: Mosasaurs were picky eaters

Joint press release Utrecht University and Natural History Museum Maastricht The cradle of palaeontology – the study of fossil remains of animals and plants – lies in the Maastricht limestones, where the first Mosasaurus was discovered in 1766. The Dutch-Belgian border area around the Limburg capital is one of the best-explored areas in the world where Cretaceous rocks are concerned, the era that came to an abrupt end 66 million years ago. New data can now be added to all previous knowledge: the Maastricht mosasaurs turned out to be quite picky in their choice of diet. This ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Smartphones and smart speakers may be able to detect alcohol intoxication by analyzing voice patterns: Study

By Kimberly Flynn PISCATAWAY, NJ—Sensors in smartphones and smart speakers could help determine a person’s level of alcohol intoxication based on the changes in their voice, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Researchers at Stanford Medicine and the University of Toronto conducted a small study of 18 adults ages 21 and up. Participants were given a weight-based dose of alcohol and randomly assigned a series of tongue twisters—one before drinking, and one each hour up to seven hours after drinking. The participants were asked to read the tongue twister aloud, and a smartphone was placed on a table withing ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Umbilical cord milking appears to be safe in preterm infants born after 28 weeks

WHAT: A treatment to move blood from the umbilical cord into an infant’s body may provide a safe option for preterm infants born after 28 weeks who need rapid support, suggests a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The procedure, called umbilical cord milking, involves gently squeezing the cord between the thumb and forefinger and pushing the blood into the newborn’s abdomen. The new findings suggest that concerns raised by a 2019 study of infants born before 28 weeks—which concluded that umbilical cord milking might increase the risk of bleeding inside the brain—do not apply to preterm infants born after 28 weeks. The ...

Read the release

Science9 Nov 2023

Oregon State to receive $6.5M for federal effort to modernize geospatial coordinate system

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University is one of four institutions selected to advance a federal effort to modernize the National Spatial Reference System, which underpins surveying, mapping, autonomous vehicle navigation, precision agriculture and the rest of the United States’ geospatial economy. OSU will receive $6.5 million over five years from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for research to be conducted by the new Geospatial Center for the Arctic and Pacific, or GCAP. The funding is through NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey and is part of nearly $20 million awarded overall. The other funding ...

Read the release

Science8 Nov 2023

People who contribute least in crowdsourcing can do the most to improve a public good

Whether talking about the office kitchen, hiking trails or ratings on Yelp, there are always people who put in effort to leave those spaces better. There are also those who contribute nothing to that public good. New research using large-scale online experiments suggests that rewarding people to contribute to a virtual public good, such as a simulated online rating for a ferry system, increased the accuracy of the ratings and improved the overall quality of that resource. The multidisciplinary team, including researchers from the University of California, Davis; Hunter College, College of New York; the Max Planck Institute for ...

Read the release

Science8 Nov 2023

1 in 25 carries a genotype that is associated with a shortened lifespan

1 in 25 carries a genotype that is associated with a shortened lifespan Scientists at deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, have published a study on actionable genotypes detected in the Icelandic population and their association with lifespan. The results of this study are among the things that have motivated the government of Iceland to announce a nationwide effort in precision medicine. As the delivery of precision medicine to a population requires considerable amount of data on genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics of the population, Icelanders are currently exceptionally well suited for ...

Read the release

Science8 Nov 2023

MPFI researcher awarded $1.2 Million from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Dr. Vidhya Rangaraju has been named a recipient of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s “Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award,” which will provide her lab with $1.2 million over four years to study dysfunctions of brain energy supply. Dr. Rangaraju is a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI). With this award, her lab will investigate the causes of disrupted energy supply in neurons that lead to cognitive decline in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ...

Read the release

Science8 Nov 2023

For epilepsy, yoga may be good for your mind

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – For people with epilepsy, doing yoga may help reduce feelings of stigma about the disease along with reducing seizure frequency and anxiety, according to new research published in the November 8, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “People with epilepsy often face stigma that can cause them to feel different than others due to their own health condition and that can have a significant impact on their quality of life,” said study author ...

Read the release

Science8 Nov 2023

New interactive evidence-based mapping tool gives policymakers more insight into highly concentrated cannabis products

After conducting the first scoping review of its kind, researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have developed an evidence based interactive mapping tool to assist policymakers as they consider regulating the concentration of THC in cannabis products and as more potent products move into the marketplace. Their review, funded by the State of Colorado, was released today in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). “We looked at studies that measured adverse or beneficial effects of high concentration ...

Read the release

Science8 Nov 2023

October Consumer Food Insights Report highlights thanksgiving meal plans

October Consumer Food Insights Report highlights Thanksgiving meal plans WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Nearly eight in 10 Americans will celebrate the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with a special meal, according to the October 2023 Consumer Food Insights Report. The survey-based report out of Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainabilityassesses food spending, consumer satisfaction and values, support of agricultural and food policies, and trust in information sources. Purdue ...

Read the release