In a study published in Science, researchers at Karolinska Institutet describe the neural processes behind how morphine relieves pain. This is valuable knowledge because the drug has such serious side effects. Morphine is a powerful painkiller that belongs to the group of opioids. It blocks signals in the pain pathways and also increases feelings of pleasure. Morphine acts on several central and peripheral pain pathways in the body, but the neural processes behind the pain relief have not previously been fully understood. Researchers have now investigated how morphine relieves pain using ...

Chemists at the University of Amsterdam have developed a method to furnish a range of molecules with a trifluoromethyl group attached to a sulphur, nitrogen or oxygen atom. Their procedure, which has just been published in Science, avoids the use of PFAS reagents. It thus provides an environmentally friendly synthesis route for pharmaceutical and agrochemical compounds that rely on the presence of the trifluoromethyl group. The straightforward and effective method was developed at the Flow Chemistry group at the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences ...

Scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) School of Dentistry created a first of its kind sleep apnea model for studying chronic pain. A study published July 30 in Science Signaling, explains the mechanism behind persistent pain related to obstructive sleep apnea. More than 100 million people worldwide are affected by obstructive sleep apnea. This health condition causes a person to stop breathing numerous times while they are sleeping. Reduced sleep time and sleep quality can lead to numerous health problems including chronic pain, which is diagnosed at a much higher rate ...

August 29, 2024 — Marijuana use is common among patients considering plastic surgery and is associated with elevated nicotine levels on laboratory tests, reports a paper in the September issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "We found that patients who report marijuana use also have elevated urine nicotine and cotinine levels ...

August 29, 2024 — A machine learning algorithm performs well in predicting the risk of persistent opioid use after hand surgery, reports a study in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "We found that a machine learning model performs well in identifying hand surgery patients who are more likely to become persistent opioid users," comments ASPS ...

INDIANAPOLIS – A team led by research scientists from the Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute has received funding expected to total $15.5 million from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging to establish a national network structure to include more nursing home residents in clinical trials. Even though clinical trials are critical to the development and testing of medical therapies and treatments including drugs and care models, individuals living in nursing homes are rarely included in clinical research studies. The new five-year award will fund ...

Microbes are part of the food we eat and can influence our own microbiome, but we know very little about the microbes in our foods. Now, researchers have developed a database of the “food microbiome” by sequencing the metagenomes of 2,533 different foods. They identified 10,899 food-associated microbes, half of which were previously unknown species, and showed that food-associated microbes account for around 3% of the adult and 56% of the infant gut microbiome on average. The study published August 29 in the journal ...

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have made a groundbreaking discovery about how starfish manage to survive predatory attacks by shedding their own limbs. The team has identified a neurohormone responsible for triggering this remarkable feat of self-preservation.  Autotomy, the ability of an animal to detach a body part to evade predators, is a well-known survival strategy in the animal kingdom. While lizards shedding their tails are a familiar example, the mechanisms behind this process remain largely mysterious.  Now, scientists have unveiled a key piece of the puzzle. By studying the common European starfish, ...

About The Study: Postmenopausal women with historical hormone therapy (HT) use were biologically younger than those not receiving HT, with a more evident association observed in those with low socioeconomic status. The biological aging discrepancy mediated the association between HT and decreased mortality. Promoting HT in postmenopausal women could be important for healthy aging. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Chenglong Li, PhD, email chenglongli@bjmu.edu.cn. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.30839) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this study of women ages 18 or older diagnosed with stage I to III breast cancer between 2010 and 2018 suggest that residing in persistently impoverished neighborhoods is associated with poor tumor characteristics and increased mortality.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Samilia Obeng-Gyasi, MD, MPH, email samilia.obeng-gyasi@osumc.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.27755) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

About The Study: Inhaler prescriptions filled by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services beneficiaries in 2022 resulted in an estimated 1.15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, equivalent to 226,960 homes’ yearly electricity use. Metered-dose inhalers were responsible for nearly all inhaler-related emissions, with the largest contribution arising from short-acting β-agonist medications. Although dry-powder and soft-mist inhalers had substantially lower emissions, they accounted for a disproportionate amount of spending, representing nearly two-thirds ...

How are rodents able to navigate pitch-black subway tunnels or other dark environments so adeptly, despite not being able to rely on vision?   With the assistance of a novel motion simulator, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel have discovered that rats rely on airflow to navigate their surroundings. When they move, the flow of air relative to their bodies provides crucial information, complementary to their sense of balance, to perceive their own motion in space. This might explain their agility in the dark as they scurry through pipes and tunnels, ...

PHILADELPHIA – A new tool for monitoring immune health patterns over time has revealed how a pair of checkpoint inhibitor therapies works together to recruit new cancer-fighting T cells with every infusion. Findings from the use of the new tool, developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC), were published today in Cancer Cell. The study challenges fundamental assumptions about how a common immunotherapy ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) determine how a protein called A20 can regulate the inflammatory response to suppress chronic hepatitis Tokyo, Japan – Many individuals worldwide suffer from chronic liver disease (CLD), which poses significant concerns for its tendency to lead to hepatocellular carcinoma or liver failure. CLD is characterized by inflammation and fibrosis. Certain liver cells, called hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), contribute to both these characteristics, but how they are specifically involved in the inflammatory response is not ...

The Microbiology Society, one of the largest microbiology societies in Europe, is pleased to announce a new three year Publish and Read offering with German consortium ZB Med – Information Centre for Life Sciences, available to its 400 member institutions and 2,000 hospitals. This agreement was established in partnership with HARRASSOWITZ, the Society’s representative agency in Germany. From 2025, member institutions can join this consortium-wide Publish and Read agreement to enjoy discounted pricing. For participating institutions, the ...

Researchers at Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, implement modifications to their high-speed atomic force microscopy that simultaneously improve resolution and speed, while enabling direct measurements of 3D structures to provide conclusive evidence of a contested hydration layer forming as calcite dissolves. Understanding the dissolution processes of minerals can provide key insights into geochemical processes. Attempts to explain some of the observations during the dissolution of calcite (CaCO3) have led to the hypothesis that a hydration layer forms, although this has been contested. Hydration layers are also ...

A new study has found an answer for a long-lasting question in aging research - Is Alzheimer’s disease-dementia a form of accelerated aging or is there a different path that can lead us to healthier brain aging? In an international effort, the researchers mapped 1.65 million cells from 437 aging brains, and uncovered distinct paths of cellular change in the aging brains, with one leading to Alzheimer’s disease and the other to an alternative form brain aging. They also point to  specific cell signatures predicted to advance disease once they appear in the aging ...

Toronto- August 27, 2024 - JMIR Publications invites submissions to a new theme issue titled “Advancing Digital Health: Real-World Implementation and Strategic Insights from Industry-Driven Innovation” in JMIR Medical Informatics, a leading peer-reviewed journal indexed in PubMed with a unique focus on clinical informatics and the digitization of care processes. The health care landscape is transforming rapidly, driven by technological innovation and the pressing need for more efficient, accessible and patient-centric health care solutions.  Yet, the health IT industry grapples with ...

LOS ANGELES, August 29, 2024 — Yangzhi Zhu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), has been awarded the prestigious 2024 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant for his groundbreaking work on a lab-on-a-contact lens (LoCL) system. This innovative technology is designed to monitor mental health by providing real-time, non-invasive tracking of panels of key biomarkers, from the wearer’s tears. Mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression, affect nearly a billion ...

A recent case report published in Cyborg Bionic Systems details the diagnosis of Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH) using multimodality diagnostic approaches, highlighting significant advancements in medical diagnostics and patient care. The study conducted by a team of researchers from Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China, presents a comprehensive case study of a 68-year-old male patient diagnosed with iNPH, showcasing the effectiveness of these advanced diagnostic techniques. iNPH is a condition characterized by the accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) causing ventricular dilation, ...

Move over, Sonic. There’s a new spin-jumping champion in town – the globular springtail (Dicyrtomina minuta). This diminutive hexapod backflips into the air, spinning to over 60 times its body height in the blink of an eye, and a new study features the first in-depth look at its jumping prowess. Globular springtails are tiny, usually only a couple millimeters in body length. They don’t fly, bite or sting. But they can jump. In fact, jumping is their go-to (and only) plan for avoiding predators. And they excel at it – to the naked eye it seems as though they vanish entirely when they take off. “When globular springtails ...

Highlights: Salmonella enterica causes disease in 1.2 million people in the U.S. annually. The most common way people get infected is by consuming contaminated fresh produce. New research shows that bacterial leaf spot of lettuce and high humidity promote S. enterica growth in lettuce, and climate change is predicted to increase humid periods. Washington, D.C.—Climate change will increase the risk of the foodborne illness from Salmonella enterica, according to a new study. The research was published today in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.  S. enterica causes disease in 1.2 million people in the ...

Transformations in the global climate system are profoundly destabilizing ecosystems across the Caribbean, with South Florida and Puerto Rico experiencing notable impacts. To address this challenge, researchers from Florida Atlantic University and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in Cayey, are turning to ethnography – an in-depth, immersive research method that involves observing and interviewing people in their natural settings. FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, in collaboration with UPR Cayey, has received a $650,000 grant from ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists who have described in a new study the step-by-step details of a bacterial defense strategy see the mechanism as a promising platform for development of a new genome-editing method. The system involves two proteins that team up to disable plasmids, small DNA molecules that exchange genetic information among different bacterial strains. While plasmids provide evolutionary benefits, they can also be seen by host bacteria as threats. The research team determined that one protein uses a short piece of DNA – known as a DNA guide – to ...

Crowds flocking to rivers and streams over Labor Day weekend are doing more than cooling off and having fun. They’re temporarily introducing chemicals and microscopic organisms into their local waterways, according to new research from Johns Hopkins University. The research, published today in ACS ES&T Water, is the first holistic assessment of how recreation impacts streams. Findings also provide insight into the compounds and chemicals people are splashing around in when their favorite swimming spots are packed.  “Residue from ...