A team of Dana-Farber researchers has identified a potential new way to assess clinically valuable features of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), a form of kidney cancer, using image processing with deep learning. Their AI-based assessment tool evaluates two-dimensional pictures of a tumor sample on a pathology slide and identifies previously underappreciated features, such as tumor microheterogeneity, that could help predict whether a tumor will respond to immunotherapy. Their results suggest that ...

An international study has revealed strong associations between oral health and survival among people diagnosed with head and neck cancer. Specifically, better oral health, as evidenced by the number of natural teeth and dental visits prior to the time of diagnosis, was associated with increased survival. Importantly, those who had more frequent dental visits were more likely to have their cancer diagnosed at an earlier, and less deadly, stage of the disease than those who had few or no dental visits. The study, by researchers at UNC Lineberger ...

About The Study: The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that rehabilitation interventions in adults with post–COVID-19 condition are associated with improvements in functional exercise capacity, dyspnea, and quality of life, with a high probability of improvement compared with the current standard care. The certainty of evidence was moderate for functional exercise capacity and quality of life and low for other outcomes. Authors: Dimitra V. Pouliopoulou, M.Sc., of Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link ...

About The Study: In this study of 3,635 female participants in the U.S., premenstrual disorders (PMDs) were associated with increased risks of early menopause and moderate or severe vasomotor symptoms (VMS). PMDs may be indicative of underlying physiology linked to early menopause and VMS, suggesting a phenotype observable during the reproductive years that may allow clinicians to target women at risk of earlier menopause and subsequent health risks later in the life course. Authors: Yihui Yang, M.P.H., and Donghao Lu, M.D., Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden are the corresponding authors. To ...

Brigham researchers found that patients prescribed amoxicillin-clavulanate had higher rates of gastrointestinal symptoms and yeast infections than those prescribed amoxicillin Acute sinusitis is one of the most common causes for children to be put on antibiotic medications, with patients in the United States filing nearly 5 million antibiotic prescriptions every year to treat the condition. The drugs amoxicillin and amoxicillin-clavulanate make up most of those prescriptions, but there is a lack of consensus on which should be first-line ...

New research from Queen Mary University of London, published in iScience, shows an increased risk of blood clots in women who have any combination of a particular gene mutation, oestrogen use, or common medical conditions – specifically: obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and kidney disease. Women with the Factor V Leiden (FVL) gene mutation who had been prescribed oestrogen had more than double the risk of blood clotting compared to women who did not have this mutation. And almost 20% of the women who carry FVL, ...

Researchers at IOCB Prague are the first to describe the causes of the behavior of one of the fundamental aromatic molecules, which fascinates the scientific world not only with its blue color but also with other unusual properties – azulene. Their current undertaking will influence the foundations of organic chemistry in the years to come and in practice will help harness the maximum potential of captured light energy. The article appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Azulene has piqued the ...

A groundbreaking research study conducted by Hai-Lei Wei's research team at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China has revealed significant insights into the biosynthesis and modulation of plant immunity by a novel cyclic lipopeptide called medpeptin, produced by Pseudomonas mediterranea. The findings, published in Engineering, shed light on the intricate structure–function interactions of cyclic lipopeptides (CLPs) and open new avenues for the development of plant disease resistance strategies. CLPs, multifunctional secondary metabolites produced by various bacteria, have emerged as key elicitors of plant ...

For over a generation, the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences has been an essential resource for researchers and students of cognitive science and neuroscience. Today, the MIT Press proudly announces its intellectual successor—the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (OECS), a dynamic and openly accessible web reference poised to guide the next generation of exploration. Thanks to generous funding from James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Allen Institute for AI, the first set of articles will be published in 2024. In ...

HOUSTON ― Regular and intense aerobic exercise may reduce the risk of colorectal cancer in patients with Lynch Syndrome (LS) by improving the immune system's ability to detect and remove potentially harmful cells, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.   The findings, published today in Clinical Cancer Research, revealed that LS carriers participating in a high-intensity training (HIIT) regimen saw a reduction of the inflammatory marker prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in both the colon and the blood. Researchers ...

Whether vaccinated or not, having at least four disease risk factors put adults hospitalized due to COVID-19 at higher risk for critical outcomes, according to a 10-state study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) VISION Network. The study describes the characteristics of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 from June 2021 through March 2023 and enumerates their risk factors for critical outcomes, defined as intensive care unit (ICU) admission and/or in-hospital death. It ...

Transition metals form catalytic complexes that can speed up various chemical processes, especially in the production of pharmaceuticals as well as various pigments, dyes, and laboratory reagents like sulfuric acid. The use of light emitting diodes (LEDs) has boosted the use of visible light in reaction catalysis, and scientists have developed photo-redox catalysts made of iridium and ruthenium, which facilitate catalysis when irradiated with specific wavelengths of light. Further, scientists have even demonstrated visible light photoreactions with palladium complexes without the use of photo-redox catalysts. While several such transition metal-catalyzed ...

Physical health and cognitive function declines as we age. Aging impacts people’s ability to perform routine tasks, which affects their well-being and sense of independence. One such routine activity that is frequently affected is driving. For older adults, the inability to drive themselves can mean that they become unable to access basic needs or engage in social activities. In a recent study that was made available online on 29 August 2023 and is all set to be published in volume 176 of Transportation Research in October 2023, researchers ...

WASHINGTON—Pediatric endocrinologists are concerned for their safety and their ability to provide evidenced-based care to transgender and gender-diverse adolescents amid political divides over gender-affirming care, according to a new paper published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society. Pediatric endocrinologists specialize in the care of children and adolescents with disorders related to hormones and the glands that produce them, such as diabetes and disorders of growth, thyroid or puberty. Some pediatric endocrinologists also provide gender-affirming care as part of their medical practice. Among youth ages 13 to 17 in the United States, 1.4% identify as transgender, ...

Scientists are looking to plant tissues that are capable of motion to inspire the design and fabrication of artificial actuators. These bioinspired actuators hold significant potential in applications, such as soft robotics, prosthetics, and smart biomedical devices. A research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has published a perspective paper focusing specifically on the ways plants regulate their motion speed and how this might be applied with artificial actuators.   Their paper is published in the journal Nano Research on September 18.   These artificial actuators, that are responsive to humidity, solvents, heat, light, and electricity, ...

A research group from the Graduate School of Medicine and Research Institute of Environmental Medicine at Nagoya University reported that cholesterol accumulation in macrophages promotes liver fibrosis in the development of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Using a unique supramolecule, they removed cholesterol in a mouse model, stopping the development of the disease. As cholesterol crystals are also found in human patients, this suggests a potential treatment for the disease. Their findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.     As the number of patients with ...

The rapid advancements in flexible electronic technology have led to the emergence of innovative devices such as foldable displays, wearables, e-skin, and medical devices. These breakthroughs have created a growing demand for flexible adhesives that can quickly recover their shape while effectively connecting various components in these devices. However, conventional pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) often face challenges in achieving a balance between recovery capabilities and adhesive strength. In an extraordinary study conducted at UNIST, researchers have successfully synthesized new types of urethane-based crosslinkers that address this critical challenge. Led by Professor Dong Woog ...

The Resilience Justice Project (RJ Project) at the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law has been awarded a one-year multi-institutional grant through a national competitive process to evaluate how climate adaptation planning can be more equitable for low-income communities in eight U.S. coastal areas. The RJ Project will use the $75,000 award from the National Sea Grant Law Center through NOAA’s National Coastal Resilience Fund to examine coastal urban adaptation in the eight cities: Boston, Cleveland, Miami, New Orleans, San Diego, Savannah, Seattle and Tampa. Principal ...

Technological progress can reduce the energy required to achieve the same ends, reducing the use of fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases associated with burning fossil fuels. But technological progress can also make production, consumption, and travel cheaper, stimulating demand and consequently increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Sai Liang and colleagues sought to explore this conundrum by building an environmentally extended general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agent and input-output network covering 141 nations and 65 sectors, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – It turns out yogurt may have a previously unknown benefit: eliminating garlic odors. A new study conducted in a lab – with follow-up human breath tests being planned – showed that whole milk plain yogurt prevented almost all of the volatile compounds responsible for garlic’s pungent scent from escaping into the air. Researchers tested the garlic deodorizing capacity of yogurt and its individual components of water, fat and protein to see how each stood up to the stink. Both fat and protein were effective at trapping garlic odors, leading the scientists to suggest high-protein ...

Researchers led by Yuko Motizuki from the Astro-Glaciology Laboratory at the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan have developed a new laser-based sampling system for studying the composition of ice cores taken from glaciers. The new system has a 3-mm depth-resolution—about 3 times smaller than what is currently available—meaning that it can detect temperature variations that occurred over much smaller periods of time in the past. The new laser melting sampler, or LMS, is expected to help reconstruct continuous annual temperature changes that occurred thousands to hundreds of thousands of years ago, which will ...

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Scientists have found a plant gene that drives the growth of root hairs, the tiny structures that help plants find water and nutrients in the soil. Identified by a team led by Washington State University researcher Karen Sanguinet, the gene, dubbed “BUZZ,” causes faster-growing, denser webs of roots and may also determine how plants find and use nitrates, a prime source of nitrogen essential to plant growth. Nitrates are also used in fertilizers that can pollute the environment as runoff, and this genetic discovery could ultimately help plant scientists find ways to grow crops more sustainably. “Nitrate ...

Research Highlights: Men exposed to stressful working conditions who also felt that they put forth high effort but received low reward had twice the risk of heart disease compared to men who were free of those psychosocial stressors. The impact of job strain and effort-reward imbalance combined was similar to the magnitude of the impact of obesity on the risk of coronary heart disease, in the study of nearly 6,500 white-collar workers in Canada.  Results on how work stress affects women’s heart health were inconclusive. Embargoed ...

How does pedagogical authority operate in the classroom? A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University of Teacher Education, State of Vaud (HEP Vaud) has produced one of the first in-depth field studies on this subject. By filming teachers in training over a period of several months, the researchers identified different ways of exercising teaching authority and assessed their effectiveness. They found that strategies based on double addressing - i.e. addressing several students or groups of students simultaneously, using two different communication channels - were particularly effective. These results ...

While both men and women have historically been accused of the malicious use of magic, only around 10–30% of suspected witches were men by the 16th and 17th centuries.*   This bias towards women is often attributed to misogyny as well as economic hard times. Now, a Cambridge historian has added another contributing factor to the mix.   Dr Philippa Carter argues that the types of employment open to women at the time came with a much higher risk of facing allegations of witchcraft, or maleficium. In a study published in the journal Gender & History, Carter uses the casebooks of Richard ...