Science
press releases.

Science11 Jul 2023

You’re not getting sleepy: Six myths and misconceptions about hypnosis from an expert

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- A strange mystic swings a pocket watch back and forth, repeating the phrase “You’re getting sleepy, very sleepy,” giving them absolute command over their subject. That’s not how hypnotism really works, but it’s the way it’s often depicted in pop culture. Even some clinicians and hypnosis educators propagate harmful myths about hypnosis. Steven Jay Lynn, a professor of psychology at Binghamton University, State University of New York, is an expert on hypnosis who has made major contributions to the judicial system ...

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Science11 Jul 2023

The moral foundations of hate speech

Moral values such as purity and loyalty are often linked with hateful language, according to a study. Scholars in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) have in recent years focused on improving the automated detection of hate speech so such language can be removed from online spaces. But some scholars have argued that mere detection is not a real solution—that NLP can and should be used to investigate the roots of hateful language. Morteza Dehghani and colleagues conducted three studies of hateful language, looking at speeches and texts written by leaders of the Nazi party between 1933 and 1945, hateful slurs ...

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Science11 Jul 2023

Decoding the impact flash

An experimental study explores the visible impact flash created by high velocity impacts. Impacts by debris and meteoroids pose a significant threat to satellites, space probes, and hypersonic craft. Such high-velocity impacts create a brief, intense burst of light, known as an impact flash, which contains information about both the target and the impactor. Gary Simpson, K.T. Ramesh, and colleagues explored the impact flash by shooting stainless steel spheres into an aluminum alloy plate, at a speed of three kilometers per second — about 6,700 miles per hour, or more than nine times the speed of sound. The resulting impact flashes were photographed ...

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Science11 Jul 2023

Efficient X-ray luminescence imaging with ultrastable and eco-friendly copper(I)-iodide cluster microcubes

Scintillators are optical materials that emit low-energy ultraviolet and visible photons in response to ionizing radiation such as X-rays and gamma rays. This property makes scintillating materials useful for applications like non-destructive testing, X-ray astronomy, security inspection, and medical imaging. In a recently published paper in Light Science & Applications, Professor Xiaowang Liu and Academician Wei Huang, along with their team from the Institute of Flexible Electronics at Northwestern Polytechnical University, ...

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Science11 Jul 2023

New guidance: Bridging the gap between what we know and what we do

ARLINGTON, Va. (July 11, 2023) — Five medical societies have published a set of recommendations for operationalizing strategies for infection prevention in acute care settings that account for conditions within the facility, including the culture and communications style of teams, hospital policies, resources available, leadership support and staff buy-in. “There is no best way to implement a practice, but implementation need not be overly complex,” said Joshua Schaffzin, MD, a pediatric infectious disease physician and a senior author of Implementing Strategies to Prevent ...

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Science11 Jul 2023

Study increases probability of finding water on other worlds by x100

A new analysis shows that there are probably many more Earth-like exoplanets with liquid water than had been thought, significantly increasing the chance of finding life. The work finds that even where the conditions are not ideal for liquid water to exist at the surface of a planet, many stars will harbour geological conditions suitable for liquid water under the planet’s surface. Presenting the work at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Lyon, lead researcher Dr Lujendra Ojha (Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA) said “We know that the presence of liquid water is essential for life. Our work shows that this water can be found in places ...

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Science11 Jul 2023

Fibromyalgia linked to heightened risk of death

Fibromyalgia, a condition that causes persistent widespread pain and fatigue, may be linked to a heightened risk of death as a result of vulnerability to accidents, infections, and especially suicide, suggests a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published in the open access journal RMD Open. The findings prompt the researchers to call for regular monitoring of patients’ physical and mental health to minimise these risks. It’s not clear what causes fibromyalgia, but its prevalence is increasing, say the researchers. And there’s growing recognition that the condition often coexists with other health problems, ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Whale of a debate put to rest

Researchers have finally settled a decades-long dispute about the evolutionary origins of the pygmy right whale. The smallest of the living baleen whales, it’s tank-like skeleton is unique, and its ecology and behaviour remain virtually unknown. Because it is so unusual, the evolutionary relationships of the pygmy right whale (Caperea marginata) have long been a bone of contention. In a study that solves the debate, just published in Marine Mammal Science, an international group of researchers sequenced the complete genome of Caperea, combining ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Acute kidney injury not associated with worsening kidney function in persons with CKD

1. Acute kidney injury not associated with worsening kidney function in persons with CKD Findings suggest kidney disease observed after AKI often present before injury Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3617 URL goes live when the embargo lifts A study of hospitalized persons with chronic kidney disease (CKD) fournd that acute kidney injury (AKI) did not predict worsening of kidney function trajectory once difference in pre-hospitalization characteristically were fully accounted for. Instead, the authors suggest that much of determinants of faster ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Illuminating the future of X-ray imaging: High-resolution and ultrastable solutions with lead-free anti-perovskite nanocrystals

In the realms of material inspection, medical diagnostics, astronomical discovery, and scientific research, the demand for high-resolution and ultrastable X-ray imaging methods has ignited a fervent pursuit of innovative X-ray-responsive materials. These sought-after materials must possess exceptional qualities such as high X-ray attenuation, efficient scintillation, rapid light decay, and robust durability. Among them, lead-halide-based perovskites have emerged as a compelling contender due to their remarkable luminescence efficiency, superior X-ray attenuation capabilities, and short ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

DOE announces $72 million for small business research and development grants

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $72 million in funding for small businesses to pursue scientific, clean energy, and climate research, development, and demonstration projects. The funding will support 296 projects across 44 states and addresses multiple topic areas, such as renewable energy, nuclear energy, cybersecurity, advanced materials and manufacturing, microelectronics, and artificial intelligence. Today’s announcement underscores the Biden-Harris Administration's deep commitment to advancing innovative climate solutions and strengthening America’s ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Massachusetts drinking water may contain unsafe levels of manganese

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## Massachusetts Drinking Water May Contain Unsafe Levels of Manganese A new study measured manganese levels in the residential tap water of a Holliston, Mass. community and found that the manganese concentrations occasionally exceeded the maximum safety level recommended in state and federal guidelines. Manganese is ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

The sound of silence? Researchers prove people hear it

Silence might not be deafening but it’s something that literally can be heard, concludes a team of philosophers and psychologists who used auditory illusions to reveal how moments of silence distort people’s perception of time. The findings address the debate of whether people can hear more than sounds, which has puzzled philosophers for centuries. “We typically think of our sense of hearing as being concerned with sounds. But silence, whatever it is, is not a sound — it’s the absence of sound,” said lead author Rui Zhe Goh, a Johns Hopkins University graduate student in philosophy and psychology. “Surprisingly, ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Real-world context increases capacity for remembering colors

Human memory is fundamental to everything we do. From remembering the faces of someone you just met to finding your cell phone that you just left on a table, one's "visual working memory"— the core cognitive system that retains visual information in an active state for a short period of time, plays a vital role. Prior work has found that visual working memory capacity is well correlated with other important cognitive abilities such as academic performance, and fluid intelligence, which includes general reasoning and problem solving, so understanding its limits is integral to understanding how human cognition works. In the past, theories have proposed that an individual’s ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Ethics & Human Research, July-August 2023

Antiracist Structural Intervention at the Emory University Institutional Review Board Francois Rollin, Vanessa Van Doren, Jessica Alvarez, Rebecca Rousselle, Jada Bussey-Jones Although racial and ethnic categories are social constructs without inherent biologic or genetic meaning, race and ethnicity impact health outcomes through racism. The use of racial categories in biomedical research often misattributes the cause of health inequities to genetic and inherent biological differences rather than to racism. Improving research ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Nearly two thirds of youth would stop vaping without added sweet flavors, menthol, synthetic cooling agents

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Major progress could be made in fighting the youth vaping epidemic with a complete restriction on sweet flavorings and cooling agents in both cartridge and disposable e-cigarette devices, according to a new study from the Center for Tobacco Research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. The current U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) flavor ban only applies to cartridge electronic cigarette devices. A new study published in the Journal of Studies on Addiction and Drugs by researchers ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Breathing poison: Microbial life on nitric oxide respiration

Nitric oxide (NO) is a fascinating and versatile molecule, important for all living things as well as the environment. It is highly reactive and toxic, organisms use it as a signaling molecule, it depletes the ozone layer in our planet’s atmosphere, and it is the precursor of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). Moreover, NO might have played a fundamental role in the emergence and evolution of life on Earth, as it was available as a high-energy oxidant long before there was oxygen. Thus, despite its toxicity, it makes perfect sense that microbes use NO to grow. However, research on the topic is scarce and, to date, microbes growing on it have not been cultivated. ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

GPT detectors can be biased against non-native English writers

In a peer-reviewed opinion paper publishing July 10 in the journal Patterns, researchers show that computer programs commonly used to determine if a text was written by artificial intelligence tend to falsely label articles written by non-native language speakers as AI-generated. The researchers caution against the use of such AI text detectors for their unreliability, which could have negative impacts on individuals including students and those applying for jobs. “Our current recommendation ...

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Science10 Jul 2023

Record-breaking heat in the summer of 2022 caused more than 61,000 deaths in Europe

The summer of 2022 was the hottest summer ever recorded in Europe and was characterised by an intense series of record-breaking heat waves, droughts and forest fires. While Eurostat, the European statistical office, already reported unusually high excess mortality for those dates, until now the fraction of mortality attributable to heat had not been quantified. This is precisely what has been done in a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" ...

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Science7 Jul 2023

Madagascar hippos were forest dwellers

Extinct dwarf hippos that once roamed Madagascar lived in forests rather than open grasslands preferred by common hippos on mainland Africa, researchers at the University of Cincinnati discovered. The findings suggest grasslands that now cover much of the enormous island off the eastern coast of southern Africa were a relatively recent change facilitated by people rather than a natural habitat sustained in part by these famously large vegetarians. The study was published in the journal Plants, People, Planet. When Madagascar broke away from Africa’s mainland 150 million years ago, its plants and animals evolved in geographic isolation in the ...

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Science7 Jul 2023

Bilateral total knee arthroplasty linked to increased complication rates

July 7, 2023 – Patients undergoing bilateral total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are at an increased risk of several types of complications, as compared with matched patients undergoing unilateral TKA, reports a study in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer. "Patients who underwent simultaneous bilateral TKA were at higher risk of experiencing postoperative complications such ...

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Science7 Jul 2023

nTIDE June 2023 Jobs Report: Employment hovers around all-time highs for people with disabilities

East Hanover, NJ – July 7, 2023 – June’s job numbers remained around all-time highs for people with disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). nTIDE experts cautioned that employment of people with disabilities may be negatively affected by further anti-inflationary efforts by the Federal Reserve. Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing May 2023 to June 2023) Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) ...

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Science7 Jul 2023

Uncovering secrets of plant regeneration

Ikoma, Japan – Plants have the unique ability to regenerate entirely from a somatic cell, i.e., an ordinary cell that does not typically participate in reproduction. This process involves the de novo (or new) formation of a shoot apical meristem (SAM) that gives rise to lateral organs, which are key for the plant’s reconstruction. At the cellular level, SAM formation is tightly regulated by either positive or negative regulators (genes/protein molecules) that may induce or restrict shoot regeneration, respectively. But which molecules are involved? Are there other regulatory layers that are yet to be uncovered? To seek answers to the above questions, a research group led by Nara ...

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Science7 Jul 2023

Pain risk varies significantly across states

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The prevalence of moderate or severe joint pain due to arthritis varies strikingly across American states, ranging from 6.9% of the population in Minnesota to 23.1% in West Virginia, according to a new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher. The paper published in the journal PAIN is providing new insights − through its novel combination of individual- and macro-level measures − into geographic differences in pain and their causes. “The risk of joint pain is over three times higher in some states compared to others, with states in the South, ...

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Science7 Jul 2023

Updating pulse oximeters

Updating pulse oximeters A portable device used to detect blood oxygen levels revolutionized the medical field 50 years ago and is now receiving essential updates Efforts to improve the accuracy of pulse oximetry readings for diverse groups of patients and in multiple settings are underway. Joel Moss, M.D., Ph.D., a senior investigator in NHLBI’s Laboratory of Translational Research, and Bennett Yang, a postbaccalaureate fellow in Dr. Moss’s lab, describe this process and the future of pulse oximetry research. Q: Why are portable pulse ...

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