Aging societies and population decline have been on the rise globally, but in Japan, the situation has exasperated tenfold. A staggering 36.21 million people, or 28.9% of the populace, are 65 and over. Further, 74.6% of Japan’s 1,747 cities are categorized as shrinking, with urban policies struggling to keep up with the decline. However, the factors that correlate with population changes in cities of varying sizes have not been clarified. Dr. Haruka Kato, a junior associate professor at Osaka Metropolitan University, ...

A research team led by Dr. Hoon Ryu from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Sang-Rok Oh) Brain Disease Research Group, in collaboration with Director Justin C. Lee of the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, President Do-Young Noh) and Professor Junghee Lee from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has uncovered a new mechanism involving astrocytes for treating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and proposed a novel therapeutic target. In this study, the researchers revealed that autophagy pathway ...

Media contacts: Lisa Robinson, lrobinson@aap.org Alex Hulvalchick, ahulvalchick@aap.org American Academy of Pediatrics Announces its First Clinical Practice Guideline for Opioid Prescriptions Pediatricians should prescribe opioids for pain when necessary, with recommended precautions in place to increase safety, according to a clinical practice guideline released during the AAP 2024 National Conference & Exhibition ORLANDO, Fla.--The American Academy of Pediatrics has published its first clinical ...

Drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) are more likely to be involved in at-fault road traffic accidents than drivers of petrol and diesel cars, research by Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software, at University of Limerick and Universitat de Barcelona, reveals. In the analysis of insurance claims and data from onboard sensors, due to be published in the November issue of the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, the Lero researchers reveal a number of key findings: Electric and hybrid drivers exhibit different behaviours ...

Duke-NUS scientists and their collaborators have discovered a potential new treatment for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a type of heart disease that is notoriously difficult to treat. The team discovered that the diseased heart cells had high levels of glucagon activity, a pancreatic hormone that raises blood sugar (glucose) levels. Armed with this novel insight, the scientists demonstrated that a drug that blocks the hormone’s activity, can significantly improve heart ...

WASHINGTON, September 29, 2024 — A substantial number of patients with brain metastases who experience cognitive side effects following radiation therapy may fully regain cognitive function, according to a pooled analysis of three large, phase III clinical trials. Recovery was more likely for people treated with conformal, or highly targeted, radiation techniques, compared to standard whole-brain treatment. The findings will be presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) ...

WASHINGTON, September 29, 2024 — A radiopharmaceutical therapy that has successfully extended progression-free survival for patients with neuroendocrine tumors shows early promise for delivering similar benefits to patients with difficult-to-treat meningioma, a type of brain tumor. Findings of the nonrandomized phase II study will be presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting.  “We’ve found a therapy with a meaningful signal for effectiveness and safety for people with refractory meningioma, a condition with no ...

ORLANDO, Fla.--The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages parents and caregivers to read aloud with their newborns and young children as an opportunity to foster loving, nurturing relationships during a critical time of brain development, and recommends that pediatricians support families with guidance and books at well-child visits, according to an updated policy statement. The policy statement, “Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice,” marks the first update in AAP recommendations since 2014. Given the extraordinary amount of research in this area, an accompanying ...

The study also examined the impact of different game structures, such as simultaneous versus alternating decision-making, and the option of voluntary participation. The results showed that these variations significantly influence participants' cooperation rate.   The research reveals that people tend to cooperate even after being defected, which contradicts many traditional game theory models. "This finding is particularly fascinating because it suggests that humans are more forgiving and cooperative than previously thought," said Dr. Hitoshi Yamamoto, the study's lead researcher.   The ...

An innovative analysis of shared segments within the genome — an indication of distant “relatedness” — has identified undiagnosed cases of Long QT syndrome, a rare disorder that can lead to abnormal heart rhythms, fainting and sudden cardiac death.   The findings, reported in the journal Nature Communications, illustrate the feasibility of the new approach developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to detect undiagnosed carriers of rare ...

UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers and physicians who specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies will present data on the latest radiation oncology research and clinical trial results at the 66th annual American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) meeting in Washington D.C., Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. The annual meeting, which is the leading meeting in radiation oncology, will feature 23 abstracts from UCLA investigators that highlight key areas of radiation oncology, including new research in subspecialties ranging from survivorship, lung cancer/thoracic malignancies, physics, sarcoma, gastrointestinal cancer, genitourinary cancer, gynecological ...

About The Study: In this prespecified secondary analysis of the FINEARTS-HF randomized clinical trial, long-term treatment with the nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist finerenone was estimated to extend event-free survival by up to 3 years among people with heart failure with mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Scott D. Solomon, M.D., email ssolomon@rics.bwh.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced its first-ever academic journal, Advances in Cancer Education & Quality Improvement (ACE-QI). The journal will publish research, training program summaries and quality improvement interventions for the oncology provider community. The open-access, peer-reviewed journal will feature research and professional perspectives focused on training health care providers to meet myriad challenges around prevention, diagnosis, treatment and survivorship in cancer care. “We envision this journal as a catalyst for critical conversations across the cancer care continuum," said Joshua Kuban, M.D., associate ...

PHILADELPHIA – Leading experts in radiation therapy from Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine will present new results from clinical trials and research studies at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO) 66th Annual Meeting, which will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., Sept. 29 through Oct. 2, 2024. At the meeting, Neha Vapiwala, MD, FACR, FASTRO, FASCO, the Eli Glatstein Professor in Radiation Oncology, will take office as president-elect of ASTRO as the first Penn faculty member to lead the premier society ...

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center experts will present research at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting Sept. 29 through Oct. 2.  Osteoradionecrosis more common in patients with head and neck cancer that requires partial jaw removal  Following radiation treatment for head and neck cancer, some patients can experience osteoradionecrosis (ORN) when an area of exposed bone fails to heal after a three-month period.  “ORN of the mandible and maxilla (jaw bones) can be very debilitating, as it often causes severe pain, fistula formation, infection and susceptibility to fractures,” ...

Center for BrainHealth® at The University of Texas at Dallas has received a major match gift commitment from retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral and former University of Texas System chancellor William McRaven and his wife Georgeann. Adm. McRaven recently received the 2024 Bezos Courage & Civility Award presented by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez.   The $2 million challenge grant will support Optimal BrainHealth for Warfighters – including active-duty military, spouses and veterans. This program will help those with traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress (PTS) and similar issues, as well ...

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 27, 2024 — Research from the University of California, Irvine has revealed how disruption of the circadian clock, the body’s internal, 24-hour biological pacemaker, may accelerate the progression of colorectal cancer by affecting the gut microbiome and intestinal barrier function. This discovery offers new avenues for prevention and treatment strategies.   The study, published online today in the journal Science Advances, offers a more comprehensive understanding of how important changes occur in the function and composition of the gut microbiome when the circadian clock is disturbed in the presence ...

The University of Tennessee and the UT Institute of Agriculture have received a $434,038 Seeding Solutions grant from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) to develop and test a decision support tool for farmers to better manage crop production from risks of extreme weather events across the Tennessee River Basin and surrounding southeast US regions. UT is providing matching funds for a total investment of $966,119 over the three-year project. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that extreme weather is responsible for 90% of crop losses. These estimates are generally based on annual climate conditions. ...

Researchers from three of Virginia’s premier universities, including the University of Virginia’s Homa Alemzadeh, aim to take the risk out of self-driving vehicles by overcoming inevitable computer failures with good engineering. The trio will share a $926,737 National Science Foundation award to identify when and where autonomous vehicle systems are most vulnerable to safety-critical failures. They plan to use this knowledge to design ways to efficiently mitigate potential safety hazards and enhance the overall system resilience.  Alemzadeh, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in UVA’s School of Engineering and Applied ...

Since the first sighting of the first-discovered and largest asteroid in our solar system was made in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, astronomers and planetary scientists have pondered the make-up of this asteroid/dwarf planet. Its heavily battered and dimpled surface is covered in impact craters. Scientists have long argued that visible craters on the surface meant that Ceres could not be very icy.  Researchers at Purdue University and the NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) now believe Ceres is a very icy ...

Researchers with McMaster University have discovered that the protein mutated in patients with Huntington’s Disease doesn't repair DNA as intended, impacting the ability of brain cells to heal themselves.    The research, published in PNAS on Sept. 27, 2024, found that the huntingtin protein helps create special molecules that are important for fixing DNA damage. These molecules, known as Poly [ADP-ribose] (PAR), gather around damaged DNA and, like a net, pull in all the factors needed for the repair process. In people with Huntington’s Disease, however, the research found that the mutated version of this protein doesn’t function properly ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Estrogens are known to drive tumor growth in breast cancer cells that carry its receptors, but a new study by Duke Cancer Institute researchers unexpectedly finds that estrogens play a role in fueling the growth of breast cancers without the receptors, as well as numerous other cancers.   Appearing Sept. 27 in the journal Science Advances, the researchers describe how estrogens not only decrease the ability of the immune system to attack tumors, but also reduce the effectiveness of immunotherapies that are used to treat many cancers, notably triple-negative breast cancers. Triple-negative ...

In December 2020 the space probe Hayabusa 2 brought samples of asteroid Ryugu back to Earth. Since then, the few grams of material have been through quite a lot. After initial examinations in Japan, some of the tiny, jet-black grains traveled to research facilities around the world. There they were measured, weighed, chemically analyzed and exposed to infrared, X-ray and synchroton radiation, among other things. At the MPS, researchers examine the ratios of certain metal isotopes in the samples, as in the current study. Scientists refer to isotopes as variants of the same element that differ only in the number of neutrons in the nucleus. Investigations ...

A new study shows how individual brain cells in the hippocampus respond to pronouns. “This may help us unravel how we remember what we read.” Read the following sentence: “Donald Trump and Kamala Harris walked into the bar, she sat down at a table.” We all immediately know that it was Kamala who sat at the table, not Donald. Pronouns like “she” help us to understand language, but pronouns can have multiple meanings. Depending on the context, we understand who the pronoun is referring to. But ...

Recently, a research group led by Prof. WANG Xianlong from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully synthesized high-energy-density materials cubic gauche nitrogen (cg-N) at atmospheric pressure by treating potassium azide (KN3) using the plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique (PECVD). The research results were published in Science Advances. Cg-N is a pure nitrogen material consisting of nitrogen atoms bonded by N-N single bonds, resembling the structure of diamond. It has attracted attention because it has a high-energy-density and produces only nitrogen gas when it decomposes. ...