Science
press releases.

Science25 Aug 2023

PolyU scholar’s transformative work on the Leidenfrost effect wins the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year 2023

Prof. Zuankai WANG, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Chair Professor of Nature-Inspired Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has been bestowed one of the 10 winners of the Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year 2023 in Engineering and Technology category for his groundbreaking work on resolving the Leidenfrost effect. The Award aims to foster research and innovation across all disciplines by celebrating cutting-edge discoveries. The Falling Walls Foundation, based in Berlin, established the Award to acknowledge the most recent breakthroughs in science and society worldwide. Prof. WANG’s ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

Insights from past warming: Enhanced temperature seasonality in China during the mid-Holocene

Against the background of global warming, the temperature seasonality has changed obviously at global and regional scales, which has exerted significant ecological and societal impacts. As a populous country highly sensitive to climate change, China experienced an overall decreasing trend of the amplitude of the annual temperature cycle during 1961–2007. This national-scale average downward trend is likely to continue throughout the rest of the 21st century according to future projections, with a spatially robust decrease in most regions but increases at more local scales. ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

A new analytical framework assesses the risk of invasive golden mussels in water diversion projects

Water diversion projects, though meant to correct unequal water distribution, unintentionally promote the growth of invasive aquatic species like the golden mussel. This fast-reproducing, substrate-clinging mussel causes biofouling, damaging structures and water quality, and leading to socio-economic and ecological issues. Yet, how environmental factors aid this colonization remains largely unclear, necessitating further research. In a ground-breaking study published on 24 July 2023 in the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers from Tsinghua University, utilized logistic ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

Smokers who start below age 20 become more addicted and find it difficult to quit

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023: Researchers urge governments to raise the legal age to purchase cigarettes to 22 years or higher as study finds it becomes less addictive and easier to quit as people get older. The research is presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 In 2020, more than one in five people worldwide used tobacco.2 Tobacco kills up to half of its users.2 Smokers below the age of 50 years have a five-fold higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease compared with their non-smoking peers.3 The legal age to purchase tobacco is 18 years old in many ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

Reefs made from culled trees can help kickstart sea life in threatened waters

Reefs, whether natural or man-made, are hotspots of marine biodiversity. But especially in soft-bottomed seas, reefs have now become scarce because many hard substrates have been removed due to overfishing of shellfish, dredging, trawling, and deep-sea mining. How can we restore this lost biodiversity, as encouraged by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy? Now, researchers have shown that culled fruit trees sunk into the sea are a cheap and effective way to recreate reefs and boost the local diversity and abundance of marine life. The study, published ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

UCLA researchers say embedding study recruitment in pre-appointment check-in may significantly boost participation

FINDINGS UCLA researchers find that they can electronically recruit patients for biomedical research at rates up to 40 times higher than the traditional method of patient portal messages by embedding study recruitment into the pre-appointment preCheck-in page. BACKGROUND While patient portal messages are increasingly used to recruit patients for research studies, this method typically results in study enrollment rates of 1-8%. In addition, this method of study recruitment has historically led to ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

Poor lifestyle of over 60s linked to heightened risk of nursing home care

Over 60s with the unhealthiest lifestyles are significantly more likely to require admission to a nursing home than their peers with the healthiest lifestyles, suggest the findings of a large population study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Physical inactivity, smoking, poor diet and sleep disorders between the ages of 60 and 64 seemed to be particularly influential: they were associated with a more than doubling in the risk of admission, the findings show. Modifiable lifestyle risk factors are associated with the development and progression of several long term conditions, ...

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Science25 Aug 2023

Beverage Plant Research indexed in CABI

We are delighted to announce that the Beverage Plant Research articles are now indexed in CABI specialized databases. This important milestone ensures that articles published in Beverage Plant Research are easily found when searching for beverage plant literature and it enables this journal authors to keep track of how often their article has been cited by others. According to the correspondence made by CABI, the Beverage Plant Research will be indexed from Volume 1, 2021. About Beverage Plant Research Beverage Plant Research (e-ISSN: ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

How pre-eclampsia accelerates aging in women

ROCHESTER, Minnesota — Pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening surge in blood pressure, is an enigmatic condition. Each year, it causes the deaths of more than 70,000 women worldwide. Because scientists do not know what causes it, they lack targeted strategies to treat it. Delivery, the only available therapy, is not the cure it is often made out to be, according to Vesna D. Garovic, M.D., Ph.D., a nephrologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who has devoted her career to studying this common pregnancy complication. "Even after delivery, women ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

MSK Research Highlights, August 24, 2023

New research from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and the Sloan Kettering Institute — a hub for basic science and translational research within MSK — suggests a method for revealing DNA repair “scars” could help make treatment decisions in BRCA1- and BRCA2-deficient cancers; modified a bacteria-made compound to target mutant KRAS-driven cancers; and shed new light on brain metastasis in non-small cell lung cancer. New method for revealing DNA repair “scars” ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

A new pathway to regenerate myelin discovered

A study led by Dr. Hyun Kyoung Lee, associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine and investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, has discovered a new biological mechanism to regenerate and repair myelin, a protective sheath that insulates neuronal fibers and plays a vital role in ensuring rapid and accurate neurotransmission. The Duncan NRI team found novel roles for the Dishevelled associated activator of morphogenesis 2 (Daam2) protein and CK2α kinase in regulating myelin repair and regeneration. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Monell Center helps discover epigenetic mechanism that causes bitter taste distortion

PHILADELPHIA (August 24, 2023) – A bitter taste in the mouth is often a symptom or side effect of illness, which may be the result of how the body reacts to pathogens. A new study published in iScience, by Hong Wang, PhD, an Associate Member at the Monell Chemical Sense Center, and colleagues sheds light on the mechanisms involved in the complex interplay between taste perception and immune function. Their work also highlights the potential of a sequencing tool for investigating epigenetic mechanisms that affect taste-cell gene expression. Epigenetics is the study of how and when genes are expressed rather than alteration of the genetic ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Mysterious Neptune dark spot detected from Earth for the first time

Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have observed a large dark spot in Neptune’s atmosphere, with an unexpected smaller bright spot adjacent to it. This is the first time a dark spot on the planet has ever been observed with a telescope on Earth. These occasional features in the blue background of Neptune’s atmosphere are a mystery to astronomers, and the new results provide further clues as to their nature and origin. Large spots are common features in the atmospheres of giant planets, the most famous being Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. On Neptune, a dark spot was first discovered by NASA’s Voyager 2 in ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Breakthrough in β-lactam synthesis using nickel catalysts

Led by Director CHANG Sukbok, scientists from the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalizations within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have made a significant advancement in the synthesis of β-lactam scaffolds, which are structural components frequently found in essential antibiotics such as penicillins and carbapenems. This breakthrough overcomes challenges in β-lactam synthesis to promise streamlined pathways for drug development. The core chemical structure that makes up penicillins is a four-membered cyclic amide scaffold called chiral ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Bees from the time of the pharaohs found mummified on the Southwest Coast of Portugal

A new study reports the discovery of hundreds of mummified bees inside their cocoons. These cocoons, produced almost three thousand years ago, were discovered in a new paleontological site discovered on the coast of Odemira, in Portugal. About 2975 years ago, Pharaoh Siamun reigned in Lower Egypt; in China the Zhou Dynasty elapsed; Solomon was to succeed David on the throne of Israel; in the territory that is now Portugal, the tribes were heading towards the end of the Bronze Age. In particular, on the southwest coast of Portugal, where is now Odemira, something strange and rare ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Fungi-eating plants and flies team up for reproduction

Fungi-eating orchids were found for the first time to offer their flowers to fungi-eating fruit flies in exchange for pollination, which is the first evidence for nursery pollination in orchids. This unique new plant-animal relationship hints at an evolutionary transition towards mutualistic symbiosis. Orchids are well known to trick their pollinators into visiting the flowers by imitating food sources, breeding grounds or even mates without actually offering anything in return. The fungi-eating, non-photosynthetic orchid genus Gastrodia is no different: To attract fruit flies (Drosophila spp.), the plants usually emits a smell like their common diet of fermented fruits ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Preterm babies given certain fatty acids have better vision

Preterm babies given a supplement with a combination of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids have better visual function by the age of two and a half. This has been shown by a study at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe, covers 178 extremely preterm babies at the neonatal units of the university hospitals in Gothenburg, Lund, and Stockholm between 2016 and 2019. Extremely preterm babies are those born before the 28th week of pregnancy. Around half of the children were given preventive oral nutritional supplements containing the omega-6 fatty acid AA (arachidonic acid) and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Stormwater biofiltration increases coho salmon hatchling survival

PUYALLUP, Wash. – A relatively simple, inexpensive method of filtering urban stormwater runoff dramatically boosted survival of newly hatched coho salmon in an experimental study. That’s the good news for the threatened species from the Washington State University-led research. The bad news: unfiltered stormwater killed almost all of them. The findings, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, are consistent with previous research on adult and juvenile coho that found exposure to untreated roadway runoff that typically winds up ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

You can save a cardiac arrest victim’s life even if an ambulance arrives in two minutes

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 24 Aug 2023: Using a defibrillator for a cardiac arrest victim improves 30-day survival even with ambulance response times as short as two minutes, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 The majority of sudden cardiac arrests occur in the community. A cardiac arrhythmia, called ventricular fibrillation, causes the heart to cease pumping and blood flow stops. If blood flow is not restored quickly, the individual passes out and dies within 10 to 20 minutes. Members of the public can help by calling an ambulance and performing chest compressions (called cardiopulmonary resuscitation; CPR) while asking someone else to find a defibrillator. ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Women more severely affected by ME/CFS, study shows

Women with ME/CFS tend to have more symptoms and co-occurring conditions than men, according to initial results from the world’s largest study of the disease. It has long been known that women are more likely to have ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) but the DecodeME study has shown for the first time how their experience differs from men. The study reveals that women who have ME/CFS – a long-term neurological condition where an excessive increase in symptoms can be triggered by normal levels of exertion – for more than 10 years ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Speech Accessibility Project recruiting people with Parkinson’s

Urbana, Illinois — The Speech Accessibility Project is almost halfway through its first phase of gathering voice recordings from people with Parkinson’s. The project still needs more participants, especially those with related neurological conditions like MSA, PSP, CBD, and those who are post-DBS. They must be U.S. residents older than age 18. They can sign up via the Speech Accessibility App. Led by UIUC with support from Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, the Speech Accessibility Project aims to make voice recognition technology ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Do measurements produce the reality they show us?

Whenever the precision of a measurement approaches the uncertainty limit defined by quantum mechanics, the outcomes of the measurement depend on the dynamics of the interactions with the meter used to determine a physical property of the system. This finding may explain why quantum experiments often produce conflicting results and may contradict basic assumptions regarding physical reality. Two quantum physicists from Hiroshima University recently analyzed the dynamics of a measurement interaction, where the value of a physical property is identified with a quantitative change in the meter state. This is a difficult problem, because quantum theory does not identify the value ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

The mouse metaverse: A tool for understanding the molecular mechanism of autism and the mind

Autism is difficult to study and more difficult to treat because it is an individual condition lacking precise quantification. The development of mouse models of human mental disorders has proven a tractable approach to studying the molecular mechanisms, a new review argues and highlights the current state of the art in autism research. Whether or not the autism spectrum is a disorder to be treated or a disability to be accommodated is debated by experts. This, however, is symptomatic for the fact that it is a very individual condition that has many expressions as well as causes, with no quantitative evaluation system or objective, mechanized diagnostic method. This makes ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

New ‘verbal treasure trove’ dictionary captures nuances and uses of Shakespeare’s words

William Shakespeare used the word dotage to capture reduced mental ability (as in being blindly in love) rather than as a quaint term for old age, successes were really outcomes – one could talk of a ‘bad success’ – and, it turns out, the word bastard back then most often referred to a flower that was genetically hybrid. A new dictionary, a verbal treasure trove of the nuances and uses of Shakespeare’s words, is published this week. While dinner was preferred by Shakespeare for what we might think of as lunch (although his contemporaries used it to refer to an evening meal), beef, as today, was strongly associated with the English, but particularly the lower ...

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Science24 Aug 2023

Blink and you'll miss these plants shooting their seeds

DURHAM, N.C. -- If you happened upon a witch hazel plant in the forest, you might describe it as a sweet-smelling shrub with crinkly ribbon-like petals. But to Duke University graduate student Justin Jorge, it’s a howitzer. That’s because of the impressive firepower of its fruits. When witch hazels are ready to disperse their seeds, their woody seed capsules split open. Pressure builds up, and eventually the seeds shoot out like bullets fired from a rifle, hitting 30 feet per second in about half a millisecond. “If you blink you’ll miss it,” said Jorge, who worked on this project as part of his Ph.D. thesis in biomechanics with senior author ...

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