University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new explainable artificial intelligence (AI) model to reduce bias and enhance trust and accuracy in machine learning-generated decision-making and knowledge organization.  Traditional machine learning models often yield biased results, favouring groups with large populations or being influenced by unknown factors, and take extensive effort to identify from instances containing patterns and sub-patterns coming from different classes or primary sources.  The medical field is one area where there are severe implications for biased machine learning results. Hospital staff and medical ...

A remarkable new fossil from China reveals for the first time that a group of reptiles were already using whale-like filter feeding 250 million years ago.  New research by a team from China and the UK has shown details of the skull of an early marine reptile called Hupehsuchus that indicate it had soft structures such as an expanding throat region to allow it to engulf great masses of water containing shrimp-like prey, and baleen whale-like structures to filter food items as it swam forward.  The team also found that the Hupehsuchus skulls show the same grooves and notches along the edges of its jaws similar to baleen whales, ...

In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers provide answers to whether COVID-19 vaccinations reduce sickness and mortality following infection with SARS-CoV-2. The study published today in The Lancet Microbe found among individuals recently infected with SARS-CoV-2, those who were fully vaccinated had lower concentrations of almost all inflammation markers (cytokines and chemokines) than those who were unvaccinated in the short-term and long-term after symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. While vaccinations don’t entirely prevent infection, this study demonstrates that vaccination significantly reduces morbidity and mortality by significantly reducing elevated levels ...

Exposure to relatively high levels of air pollution is linked to increased use of community mental health services by people with dementia, finds a large long term study focusing on a large area of London with heavy traffic and published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health. Cutting levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter might reduce demand in urban areas and help free up resources in overstretched psychiatric services, suggest the researchers. An estimated 850,000 people are living with dementia in the UK, with the number projected to increase to 2 million by 2050, in tandem with the ageing of the population. Dementia is already the leading cause of death in the ...

Amid widely differing capacities of available menstrual hygiene products, a menstrual disc—similar in shape to a diaphragm—may be best for dealing with heavy monthly blood flow as well as indicating excessive blood loss, suggests research published online in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health. Despite the fact that 800 million women around the globe will be on their period every day, menstruation remains something of a taboo subject—a stance that has hindered research and transformed a normal bodily process into something that is often associated with stigma and normalisation of pain, argue gynaecologists in a linked editorial.  Heavy ...

A high level of troponin—a protein normally used to exclude the possibility of a heart attack in patients with chest pain—may signal a heightened risk of death from any cause within the next couple of years, even in the absence of known or suspected cardiovascular disease, suggests research published online in the journal Heart. The finding prompts the researchers to suggest that troponin may therefore have a role as a more general indicator of medium term survival. High cardiac troponin levels are often seen in hospital patients who don’t have ...

Peer-reviewed / Observational and modelling study  Curbing levels of harmful air pollution could help reduce antibiotic resistance, according to the first in-depth global analysis of possible links between the two, published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal.  Findings from the study highlight that controlling air pollution could greatly reduce deaths and economic costs stemming from antibiotic-resistant infections.  The analysis indicates that increased air pollution is potentially linked with a higher risk of antibiotic resistance across global regions. It also indicates that the relationship between the two has strengthened over time, ...

  Current efforts to protect and restore native biodiversity is being threatened by difficulties in identifying wild and domestic cats, and categorisation is likely to remain fraught for the foreseeable future, experts have warned. Efforts to restore the native wildcat (Felis sivestris) are ongoing in Britain and conservationists in New Zealand are also trying to protect native species. Domestic cats pose a threat to other species in both countries.  The study shows New Zealanders are much less sentimental about pest management to protect native species. As a result domestic cats are treated very differently in the two countries. Dr Alexandra Palmer, ...

Cambridge scientists have shown that the hypothalamus, a key region of the brain involved in controlling appetite, is different in the brains of people who are overweight and people with obesity when compared to people who are a healthy weight. The researchers say their findings add further evidence to the relevance of brain structure to weight and food consumption. Current estimations suggest that over 1.9 billion people worldwide are either overweight or obese. In the UK, according to the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, almost two-thirds ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Tumor cells are known to be fickle sleeper agents, often lying dormant in distant tissues for years before reactivating and forming metastasis. Numerous factors have been studied to understand why the activation occurs, from cells and molecules to other components in the so-called tissue microenvironment. Now, an interdisciplinary Cornell team has identified a new mechanism regulating tumor growth in the skeleton, the primary site of breast cancer metastasis: mineralization of the bone matrix, a fibrous mesh of organic and inorganic components that determines the unique biochemical and biomechanical properties of our skeleton. The ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — She’s heading to The Hill! Alexandra Phillips, science communication and policy officer at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), goes to Washington, D.C., this month to begin a yearlong congressional fellowship, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The first-ever AAAS Legislative Branch Fellow in Climate Science, Phillips hopes to use her own ocean science background to help inform policy and shed light on emerging climate-related ...

Social media helped contribute to the UPND’s impressive victory in the 2021 Zambia elections, new analysis shows.   The party’s online messaging resonated more with users compared to their rivals, helping to portray Hakainde Hichilema as an electorally viable alternative to President Edgar Lungu from the PF. Both parties invested heavily in social media.   The study shows the election was not won online. Instead, social media helped to facilitate the flow of information across a heavily controlled media ecosystem in which face-to-face communication remained key.   While President Edgar Lungu ...

Results from a new study conducted by a team of researchers at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, and published in the August issue of Health Affairs, show that a substantial portion—nearly half—of low-value care received by Medicare beneficiaries happens outside of their health systems.    The study also revealed that factors such as ...

Consumers should have more visual information about terms and conditions when making purchases online, experts have said. Making information more accessible and transparent helps improve understanding and memory, a new study shows. Researchers have found people are more interested in and more likely to read legalities if they were given this information after their purchase. Pre-purchase reading times were only about half as long as post-purchase reading times, evidencing the lack of attention and interest in disclosures pre-purchase. Shifting the obligation for companies to give more information after purchase could help to alleviate the current information apathy. Asking people ...

WASHINGTON, D.C.  — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $37 million in funding for 52 projects to 44 institutions to build research capacity, infrastructure, and expertise at institutions historically underrepresented in DOE’s Office of Science portfolio, including Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs). Through the Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR) initiative, the Office of Science is supporting mutually beneficial relationships between MSIs/ERIs and partnering institutions to perform basic research in applied mathematics, biology, chemistry, ...

Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet     @Annalsofim    Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.      ----------------------------   1. ...

Lawrence Pfeffer, PhD, Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, recently was awarded $2.56 million from the National Cancer Institute over the next five years to identify and target molecular pathways that will enhance glioblastoma’s sensitivity to currently approved drug therapies. Dr. Pfeffer has spent the better part of 20 years trying to improve treatments for glioblastoma, the most common malignancy of the brain and the most lethal. ...

DURHAM , N.C. -- Two out of five homes worldwide have at least one smart device that is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Soon, that new smart TV or robot vacuum you’ve been considering for your home will come with a label that helps you gauge whether the device is secure and protected from bad actors trying to spy on you or sell your data. In July, the White House announced plans to roll out voluntary labeling for internet-connected devices like refrigerators, thermostats and baby monitors that meet certain cybersecurity standards, such as requiring data de-identification and automatic security ...

Defects often limit the performance of devices such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The mechanisms by which defects annihilate charge carriers are well understood in materials that emit light at red or green wavelengths, but an explanation has been lacking for such loss in shorter-wavelength (blue or ultraviolet) emitters.  Researchers in the Department of Materials at UC Santa Barbara, however, recently uncovered the crucial role of the Auger-Meitner effect, a mechanism that allows an electron to lose energy by kicking another electron up to a higher-energy state. “It is well known that defects or ...

ST. LOUIS - Research from Saint Louis University School of Medicine finds that among patients 65 and older, a diagnosis of anxiety was significantly associated with an increased risk of dementia diagnosis, and benzodiazepine exposure was associated with a 28% increased risk of dementia. However, when benzodiazepines were prescribed to patients with an anxiety disorder, there was no significant association between these medications and incident dementia. The study, “Anxiety Disorders, Benzodiazepine Prescription ...

The decision by a global bioethics association to hold its 2024 congress in Qatar, a nation with laws against LGBTQ+ people, provoked controversy, including objections from some of its own members. The outcry motivated the organization’s president and colleagues to draft an ethics framework to guide future site selection. The framework, published today in The American Journal of Bioethics, might also help global organizations make decisions about ethically appropriate conference sites. [The paper is available in PDF by request.] “Many organizations around the world are addressing these questions,” ...

A team of researchers led by Brent Sumerlin, the George B. Butler Professor in the University of Florida Department of Chemistry, has made a breakthrough with the potential to transform how we recycle plastics. Their innovative approach to working with polymers has led them to develop a new method for recycling that promises to lower the energy requirement without sacrificing the quality of the plastic. It’s no secret that the U.S. and the Earth at large have a pressing plastic problem. Despite a meteoric rise in usage over the past few decades, only about 10% of our plastic currently ends up getting recycled. “Our work is a response ...

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [August 7, 2023] — New research in the August 2023 issue of JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network evaluates how an important analysis on local-regionally advanced colon cancer adjuvant chemotherapy impacted prescribing patterns. The IDEA collaboration included more than 12,000 patients with Stage III colon cancer across 6 randomized phase 3 trials in a planned pooled analysis, to determine how three or six months of post-surgery chemotherapy—either a combination of capecitabine/oxaliplatin (CAPOX) or fluorouracil/leucovorin/oxaliplatin ...

DALLAS, August 7, 2023 — Nancy Brown, chief executive officer of the American Heart Association, has again been recognized for elite leadership in the 26th annual listing of The NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50. For more than three decades, The NonProfit Times has been a leading trade publication providing news, information and insight into nonprofit management. Brown, who is now appearing for the 8th time on this list, was recognized specifically for her leadership as a champion for equitable health. The NonProfit ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $4.7 million in funding for five new research projects in computational biology. These projects will develop new software and analytical tools to manage the growing quantities of genomics and other data stemming from the study of microbes and other biological systems. “The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Genomic Science program is at the forefront of using genome-enabled approaches to identify the basic principles that drive biological systems underlying functional processes of organisms,” said Todd Anderson, DOE Acting Associate Director for BER. “To gain ...