Breast cancer remains a significant health concern worldwide, with diverse molecular subtypes that necessitate personalized therapeutic approaches. Recent advances have highlighted the importance of molecular signatures in guiding breast cancer treatment. Among these, the phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha (PIK3CA) gene mutation has emerged as a crucial factor in determining the efficacy of targeted therapies, particularly in advanced breast cancer. This review explores the role of PIK3CA mutation detection in breast cancer and its implications for personalized treatment strategies. Breast Cancer Heterogeneity Breast ...

About The Study: This repeated cross-sectional study found that state COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers (HCWs) were associated with increased vaccine uptake among HCWs, especially among younger HCWs and those in states with no test-out option. These findings suggest the potential for vaccine mandates to further promote vaccinations in an already highly vaccinated HCW population, especially when no test-out option is in place.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Charles Stoecker, ...

About The Study: This panel cohort study found that increases in depressive symptoms in adolescence persisted into young adulthood, suggesting the need for primary prevention and mental health resources during the adolescent years.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Katherine M. Keyes, PhD, email kmk2104@columbia.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.27748) Editor’s Note: Please see the ...

About The Study: In this nationally representative survey regarding 26 prominent health-related issues, older adults reported being most concerned about costs of health care and health insurance for older adults in their community, as well as financial scams and fraud. More than half of older adults in nearly all demographic groups reported being very concerned about the costs of medical care and prescription drugs, with significant differences by gender and political ideology. Women reported being more concerned than men, and liberal and moderate individuals more concerned than conservative ...

More than half of the people who voted in the 2020 election were age 50 and older, making this age group a key demographic for candidates up and down the ballot. Now, a new study shows what issues top their lists of health-related concerns going into this November’s election. Five of the top six issues that the highest percentage of older adults reported being very concerned about have to do with the cost of different kinds of health care, from medical care and prescription drugs to long-term care, health insurance ...

The coordinated activity of brain cells, like birds flying in formation, helps us behave intelligently in new situations, according to a study led by Cedars-Sinai investigators. The work, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, is the first to illuminate the neurological processes known as abstraction and inference in the human brain. “Abstraction allows us to ignore irrelevant details and focus on the information we need in order to act, and inference is the use of knowledge to make educated guesses about the world around us,” said Ueli Rutishauser, PhD, professor and Board of Governors Chair in Neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai and co-corresponding author of the ...

Immune cell regulator discovery could lead to treatments for arthritis and severe COVID The discovery of a new regulator affecting immune cells could lead to new treatments to reduce inflammation in diseases including arthritis and severe COVID 19. A large research collaboration, led by the University of Exeter’s MRC Centre for Medical Mycology, has focused on how immune cells sense their environment. This activity triggers responses which are finely balanced, to protect against disease and infection, and to reduce cell-damaging inflammation. The ...

In preclinical models, the subcutaneously implanted device continuously monitored vital signs and delivered naloxone automatically and rapidly when it detected opioid overdose The opioid epidemic continues to have devastating effects in the United States, exacerbated by the increasing presence of fentanyl in illicit opioids. Naloxone is an effective antidote, but it usually requires rapid administration from a bystander. Now, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare ...

As the Paris Olympics captured the world’s attention this month, it proved apparent that winning medals often hinged on the success of teamwork. While such an approach clearly works in sports, new research suggests teamwork is not always the desired method … especially for young scientists trying to find an academic job. “We found that if your team size in your discipline is large, your prospects for an academic career go down,” said Donna Ginther, the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Her paper titled “The rise of teamwork and career prospects in academic science” ...

An international research team led by the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna has discovered that comammox bacteria, first identified by them in 2015, can grow using guanidine, a nitrogen-rich organic compound, as their sole energy and nitrogen source. This unique ability opens new avenues for targeted cultivation of these enigmatic microbes and could also provide a key to reducing agricultural nitrous oxide emissions. The research findings were recently published as an article in the prestigious journal Nature. Nitrification, the conversion of ammonia via nitrite to nitrate, is ...

High-end bicycles used for high-profile road races such as the Tour de France are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks targeting the bike’s wireless gear shifting system.  In recent years, bicycle manufacturers have adopted wireless gear-shifting technology, which gives riders better control over changing gears. The technology is not vulnerable to the physical issues that plague mechanical systems. However, the way the wireless systems were built created critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which a team of computer scientists from the University of California ...

A major international study has explained how bread wheat helped to transform the ancient world on its path to becoming the iconic crop that today sustains a global population of eight billion.  “Our findings shed new light on an iconic event in our civilisation that created a new kind of agriculture and allowed humans to settle down and form societies,” said Professor Brande Wulff, a wheat researcher at KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) and one of the lead ...

A new technique developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will make it much easier for researchers to discover the traits or activities encoded by genes of unknown function in microbes, a key step toward understanding the roles and impact of individual species. The approach, called barcoded overexpression bacterial shotgun library sequencing, or Boba-seq, is described in a paper published August 5 in Nature Communications.   “There is so much genetic dark matter – ...

Annapolis, MD; August 14, 2024—A common variety of consumer insecticide sprays is mostly ineffective and of "little to no value" in eliminating cockroach infestations, a new study shows. Residual insecticides are designed to be sprayed on surfaces where cockroaches are likely to appear, exposing them to the toxic ingredient when they move across the surface later. But laboratory testing by researchers at the University of Kentucky and Auburn University shows that the residues have little effect on German cockroaches (Blattella germanica), ...

Philadelphia, August 14, 2024 – Researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found discrepancies between crash reports and hospital data that might paint an incomplete or inaccurate picture of how crashes impact the safety of child passengers. Enhancing the quality of injury data reported in crash reports can aid researchers in assessing the effectiveness of various transportation safety strategies for children. The findings were recently published by ...

August 14, 2024, TORONTO — A new round of awards from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) will jumpstart eight promising studies that could change how cancers are diagnosed and treated. OICR announced the results of its Pre-Clinical Acceleration Team Awards — part of the Institute’s Clinical Translational Pathway, which helps advance new discoveries so they can benefit people affected by cancer. The winning research teams are based across Ontario and are tackling some of the most common and hardest to treat cancers. They are developing solutions to find cancer earlier, diagnose it more ...

MIAMI (August 14, 2024) – Communities impacted by increased wildfire activity and smoke can use a population health-based action plan to help alleviate health risks, particularly for those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, according to a new perspective article. The article is published in the July 2024 issue of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal. COPD is an inflammatory lung disease, comprising several conditions, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Early life exposure to ‘forever chemicals’ in the environment permanently disrupts the gut microbiome in mice, contributing to the development of metabolic disease in later life, according to new research led by Penn State. The results, published today (Aug. 14) in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, suggest that human exposure to these chemicals during early childhood may be contributing to the recent epidemic of metabolic disorders, including obesity and type 2 diabetes among adults. The researchers focused specifically on 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran ...

Over the course of nearly five months in 2022, NASA's Perseverance rover collected rock samples from Mars that could rewrite the history of water on the Red Planet and even contain evidence for past life on Mars. But the information they contain can't be extracted without more detailed analysis on Earth, which requires a new mission to the planet to retrieve the samples and bring them back. Scientists hope to have the samples on Earth by 2033, though NASA's sample return mission may be delayed. "These samples are the reason why our mission was flown," said paper ...

Among the many devasting impacts in the aftermath of a hurricane are power outages, which can take days or even weeks to restore. Communities grappling with the loss of electricity may encounter obstacles in accessing vital services, including food, fuel and health care. In 2018, Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm, wreaked havoc in Florida as it made landfall in the United States. It was strongest recorded to hit the Florida Panhandle with winds of nearly 161 miles per hour and storm surge reaching heights ...

In 2017, the Minamata Convention on Mercury went into effect, designed to help curb mercury emissions and limit exposure across the globe. However, a new study of mercury levels in soil suggests that the treaty’s provisions might not be enough. The study published in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology estimates that soil stores substantially more mercury than previously thought, and it predicts that increases in plant growth due to climate change may add even more. Mercury is a persistent environmental pollutant, moving through air, water and soil, and accumulating within plants ...

Noble gases have a reputation for being unreactive, inert elements, but more than 60 years ago Neil Bartlett demonstrated the first way to bond xenon. He created XePtF6, an orange-yellow solid. Because it’s difficult to grow sufficiently large crystals that contain noble gases, some of their structures — and therefore functions — remain elusive. Now, researchers have successfully examined tiny crystallites of noble gas compounds. They report structures of multiple xenon compounds in ACS Central ...

Cancer is a complex disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth, significantly impacting global health. Head and neck cancers rank as the sixth most prevalent cancers worldwide, with a higher incidence in South-central Asia. Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the predominant malignancy in this category, posing a significant health concern due to its high mortality and often late-stage diagnosis. The significance of early detection and appropriate screening measures cannot be overstated, as they play a pivotal role in improving survival rates and reducing the disease burden. Overview ...

In collaboration with the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is announcing the establishment of the Chen Institute and Science Prize for Al Accelerated Research. Submissions are now open for the first year of the prize, which will be awarded in 2025. The prize will recognize young researchers who apply techniques in artificial intelligence (AI) – such as machine learning, natural language processing, or computer vision – to help the life sciences research community solve important problems and accelerate their work. Successful applicants will have made a fundamental advance that would not have been ...

More efficient and longer-lasting fuel cells are essential for fuel cell-powered heavy-duty hydrogen vehicles to be an alternative to combustion fuelled counterparts. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed an innovative method to study and understand how parts of fuel cells degrade over time.  This is an important step towards the improved performance of fuel cells and them becoming commercially successful. Hydrogen is a fuel alternative that is becoming increasingly interesting for heavy-duty vehicles.  Hydrogen-powered vehicles only emit water vapour as exhaust, and if the hydrogen is produced using renewable energy, it is completely free ...