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Science16 Aug 2023

Young vapers at risk of bronchitis + shortness of breath even if they also smoke

Young vapers are at risk of bronchitic symptoms and shortness of breath, even if they, or others around them, smoke cigarettes or cannabis, suggests research published online in the journal Thorax. The findings prompt the US researchers to call for the respiratory effects of vaping products to be included in regulatory oversight. Latest US estimates indicate that 14% of high school students vaped in 2022. And it’s known that e-cigarette aerosol contains substances that harm the lungs. Several published studies have reported respiratory symptoms among teen and young adult vapers. But most of these have focused exclusively on e-cigarette ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Hastings Center Report, July-August 2023 Issue

The Moral Difference between Faces and FaceTime Kyle E. Karches Although telemedicine can be useful in certain situations, physicians should not consider it an adequate substitute for the office visit, writes Karches, an associate professor of health care ethics and internal medicine at St. Louis University. While seeing the potential for telemedicine to improve care for certain patients, he is concerned about what may be lost if telemedicine comes to replace many in-person visits. Telemedicine rules out an embodied encounter between physician and patient, in which the sense of touch has special ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

New online course equips personal care assistants with essential knowledge for supporting individuals with spinal cord injury

East Hanover, NJ – August 15, 2023 – "Understanding Spinal Cord Injury: A Course for Personal Care Assistants" a new interactive online course designed to enhance the training of personal care assistants (PCAs) for individuals with spinal cord injury, was presented today at the Paralyzed Veterans of America Healthcare (PVA) Summit + Expo at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld Hotel in Orlando, FL, by Jeanne Zanca, MPT, PhD, FACRM, assistant director of the Center for Spinal Cord Injury Research at Kessler Foundation, and chair of the Foundation’s Institutional Review ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Favored asylum seekers are young, female and fleeing war

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has resulted in one of the largest movements of refugees since the Second World War. More than 7.4 million Ukrainians have sought asylum in Europe, almost three times the number of people who found refuge in Europe during Syria’s civil war in 2015 and 2016. To investigate whether and how the willingness of host populations to receive refugees has changed since 2016, an international research team involving ETH Zurich, the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University surveyed 33,000 people in 15 European countries. The first wave of the survey took place in February 2016 and the second from May to June ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Reduced grey matter in frontal lobes linked to teenage smoking and nicotine addiction – study

Levels of grey matter in two parts of the brain may be linked to a desire to start smoking during adolescence and the strengthening of nicotine addiction, a new study has shown. A team of scientists, led by the universities of Cambridge and Warwick in the UK and Fudan University in China, analysed brain imaging and behavioural data of over 800 young people at the ages of 14, 19 and 23. They found that, on average, teenagers who started smoking by 14 years of age had markedly less grey matter in a section of the left frontal lobe linked to ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Study explains how part of the nucleolus evolved

Inside all living cells, loosely formed assemblies known as biomolecular condensates perform many critical functions. However, it is not well understood how proteins and other biomolecules come together to form these assemblies within cells. MIT biologists have now discovered that a single scaffolding protein is responsible for the formation of one of these condensates, which forms within a cell organelle called the nucleolus. Without this protein, known as TCOF1, this condensate cannot form. The findings could help to ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Making sense of life’s random rhythms

CLEVELAND–Life’s random rhythms surround us–from the hypnotic, synchronized blinking of fireflies…to the back-and-forth motion of a child’s swing… to slight variations in the otherwise steady lub-dub of the human heart. But truly understanding those rhythms—called stochastic, or random, oscillations—has eluded scientists. While researchers and clinicians have some success in parsing brain waves and heartbeats, they’ve been unable to compare or catalogue an untold number of variations and sources. Gaining such insight into the underlying ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

First-of-its-kind study reveals predictive factors for outcomes of advanced stage AL amyloidosis

(WASHINGTON, August 15, 2023) – Early improvements in cardiac and hematologic parameters may predict better survival outcomes for patients being treated for stage IIIb AL amyloidosis, a deadly disease with a median survival of 4-6 months caused by abnormal protein buildup, according to new research released today in Blood Advances. Amyloidosis occurs when normal proteins in the body misfold and form amyloid deposits in vital organs and tissues, which can lead to organ dysfunction, failure, and death. The prognosis for patients with advanced cardiac amyloidosis is extremely poor, ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Weaker transcription factors are better when they work together

HOUSTON – (Aug. 15, 2023) – Bioengineers can tailor the genomes of cells to create “cellular therapies” that fight disease, but they have found it difficult to design specialized activating proteins called transcription factors that can throw the switch on bioengineered genes without occasionally turning on some of the cell’s naturally occurring genes. In a study published online in Cell, bioengineers from Rice University, Boston University, Harvard Medical School, Dartmouth College and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute showed they could all but eliminate such “off-target” gene ...

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Science15 Aug 2023

Scientists pinpoint the microbes essential to making traditional mozzarella

Mozzarella is far more than just a pizza topping. A unique Italian cheese, buffalo mozzarella from Campania has been recognized as a delicacy and protected under EU law for nearly 30 years. But what makes this mozzarella so special? The ingredients are simple: water buffalo milk, rennet, and natural whey starter, processed using fresh water and brine. But the natural whey starter contains microbes that are crucial to developing the mozzarella. Scientists from Italy used high-throughput 16S rRNA amplicon ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Scientists identify genes linked to high production of key antibody

A collaboration led by UCLA and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute has yielded new knowledge about the genes responsible for the production and release of immunoglobulin G, the most common type of antibody in the human body. The finding has the potential to advance manufacturing of antibody-based therapies for diseases such as cancer and arthritis, as well as the development of medical treatments that rely on the production of antibodies. Antibodies are a group of proteins that are crucial to the immune system. Immunoglobulin G, or IgG, ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

New research offers solutions to improve drinking water access in developing countries

In 2020, 771 million people worldwide still lacked access to clean drinking water, according to UNICEF and the World Health Organization. For this reason, many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) prioritize building new water projects, including handpumps and small piped systems, to bring clean water to rural areas of developing countries. Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez New research from Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez, the Greg and Patty Fox Collegiate Professor of IT, Analytics and Operations in the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, examines the critical problem of drinking ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Consumers who buy cannabis products containing HHCs could be getting less than they hoped for

Key takeaways In the fast-growing marketplace for recreational marijuana and related products, products containing cannabinoids called HHCs are gaining popularity. The neurological and physiological effects of HHCs are not well understood. A new study by UCLA chemists is the first to explain how well HHCs bind to receptors in the human body; the scientists also devised a safer way to produce HHCs than the current standard process. As more of the nation has adopted legal marijuana, a glut of products has emerged in dispensaries that contain the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Scientists outline a new strategy for understanding the origin of life

Despite decades of progress, the origin of life remains one of the great unsolved problems in science. “The most basic features of biology, that organisms are made of cells, that they pass genetic information through DNA, that they use protein enzymes to run their metabolism, all emerged through specific processes in very early evolutionary history,” says Aaron Goldman, Associate Professor of Biology at Oberlin College. “Understanding how these most basic biological systems first took shape will not only give us greater insight into how life works at the most fundamental level, but what life actually is in the ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Inoue receives funding for Mason CARES Plus

Inoue Receives Funding For Mason CARES Plus Megumi Inoue, Associate Professor, Social Work, received funding for: "Mason CARES Plus." Mason CARES Plus is an expansion study to Mason CARES that will focus on conducting in-depth focus groups and online semi-structured interviews to assess which specific aspects of the Stress Busting Program (SBP) and the Music and Memory program (M&M) were most (and least) impactful in reducing care partner stress and identify effective strategies to improve care partner engagement with the M&M program among Mason CARES participants. Preliminary results from the Mason CARES study show a high ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

How our tastes influence our creativity

What drives us to develop new ideas rather than settling for standard methods and processes? What triggers the desire to innovate at the risk of sacrificing time, energy, and reputation for a resounding failure? Creativity is based on complex mechanisms that we are only beginning to understand and in which motivation plays a central role. But pursuing a goal is not enough to explain why we favor some ideas over others and whether that choice benefits the success of our actions. "Creativity can be defined as the ability to produce original ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Publicly fund nonsurgical procedures for transgender, gender diverse people

Publicly fund nonsurgical procedures for transgender, gender diverse people To support transgender and gender-diverse people, governments should consider publicly funding hair removal and other minimally invasive procedures, authors argue in a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). VIEW EMBARGOED ARTICLE “Minimally invasive procedures such as hair removal and facial injectables may support the process of transition in a timely fashion; evidence supports their therapeutic benefits in the field of gender-affirming care,” write Drs. Katie Ross and Sarah Fraser, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Chromium replaces rare and expensive noble metals

Expensive noble metals often play a vital role in illuminating screens or converting solar energy into fuels. Now, chemists at the University of Basel have succeeded in replacing these rare elements with a significantly cheaper metal. In terms of their properties, the new materials are very similar to those used in the past. We’re familiar with chromium from everyday applications such as chromium steel in the kitchen or chrome-plated motorcycles. Soon, however, the element may also be found in the screens of ubiquitous mobile phones or used to convert solar energy. Researchers led ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Lifestyle factors in the association of shift work and depression and anxiety

About The Study: In this study of 175,000 participants, shift work was significantly associated with a higher risk of depression and anxiety, and lifestyle factors partially mediated the associations. These findings not only support that shift work should be considered an occupational hazard, but also provide evidence for the urgent need for the development of public health interventions that promote healthy lifestyles aimed at improving the mental health of shift workers. Authors: Yanhong Gong, Ph.D., of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

China’s oldest water pipes were a communal effort

A system of ancient ceramic water pipes, the oldest ever unearthed in China, shows that neolithic people were capable of complex engineering feats without the need for a centralised state authority, finds a new study by UCL researchers. In a study published in Nature Water, the archaeological team describe a network of ceramic water pipes and drainage ditches at the Chinese walled site of Pingliangtai dating back 4,000 years to a time known as the Longshan period. The network shows cooperation amongst the community to build and maintain the drainage system, though no evidence of a centralised power or authority. Dr Yijie Zhuang (UCL Institute of Archaeology), ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

New model for the drinking water market in Jordan

In more than 30 cities around the world, millions of people obtain their drinking water from storage tanks – because tap water is often available for only a few hours at any one time. When the public water supply is insufficient, households and businesses mostly resort to private providers. Trucks bring drinking water – often tapped from groundwater wells – from the countryside to the cities and sell it there. This is partly licensed by the state but largely takes place illegally. “In Jordan, these water deliveries by tanker truck make up for the deficit of the public water supply network”, ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

What’s your masculine style: Neo-traditional, egalitarian or progressive?

Men navigate their intimate partner relationships depending on their masculine style, says new research led by UBC men’s health expert John Oliffe. The study, which drew from in-depth interviews with 92 straight men ages 19 to 43 from diverse cultural backgrounds, found three types of masculinities: Neo-traditionalists – Some men largely follow traditional gender roles, such as being the provider and protector in the relationship Egalitarian – Others seek a more equal partnership, with emphasis on mutuality and measurable give and take Progressive ...

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Science14 Aug 2023

Irrigating more US crops by mid-century will be worth the investment

With climate change, irrigating more crops in the United States will be critical to sustaining future yields, as drought conditions are likely to increase due to warmer temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns. Yet less than 20% of croplands are equipped for irrigation. A Dartmouth-led study finds that by the middle of the 21st century under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, the benefits of expanded irrigation will outweigh the costs of installation and operation over an expanded portion of current U.S. ...

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Science13 Aug 2023

3D-printed vegan seafood could someday be what’s for dinner (video)

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 13, 2023 — In the refrigerated grocery store aisle, meat alternatives greatly outnumber plant-based seafoods. But more mock seafood options are needed because of unsustainable fishing and aquaculture practices, which can deplete the supply and harm the environment. Today, researchers present a new approach for creating desirable vegan seafood mimics that taste good, while maintaining the healthful profile of real fish. They 3D-printed an ink made from microalgae protein and mung bean protein, and their proof-of-concept calamari rings can even be air-fried for a quick, tasty snack. The researchers will present their results at the fall meeting of the American ...

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Science12 Aug 2023

For labrum tears, regrowth rather than repair

Tears to the glenoid labrum—cartilage tissue that lines the shoulder where the arm joins—can be repaired with arthroscopic surgery, which significantly weakens the joint and involves a lengthy recovery. Liping Tang, a bioengineering professor at The University of Texas at Arlington, is developing a new method to repair labrum tears that would enable the body to regenerate tissue to completely reattach the sides of the tear. He recently received a five-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases for the research, which would improve the current standard of care ...

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