Leuven, 7 August 2024—The mechanisms underlying intellectual disabilities or autism remain largely unknown. Researchers in the labs of Prof. Pierre Vanderhaeghen and Prof. Vincent Bonin at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research and NERF have discovered that mutations in a gene called SYNGAP1 disrupt the prolonged development of human neurons, which is thought to be essential for normal cognitive function. Their work has interesting implications for our understanding and treatment ...

**EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL AUG. 6 AT 11 A.M. ET** A protein called Meteorin-like (METRNL) in the tumor microenvironment saps energy from T cells, thereby severely limiting their ability to fight cancer, according to new research directed by investigators at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Finding ways to block the effects of METRNL signaling on tumor-infiltrating T cells may allow these immune cells to regain the energy necessary to eliminate tumors.     A report about the work was published Aug. 6 in the journal Immunity.  METRNL ...

Everyone wants to live to a ripe old age, but no one wants to be decrepit. Now, University of Connecticut researchers have demonstrated a treatment that could lengthen life—and vigor—up to the very end. Even as human lifespans have lengthened over the past century, most people in old age suffer a serious health decline in the last decade of life. Chronic illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease may begin, followed by frailty. Many interventions can prolong life, but not necessarily good health. And nobody wants to spend the last ...

In materials science, substances are often classified based on defining factors such as their elemental composition or crystalline structure. This classification is crucial for advances in materials discovery, as it allows researchers to identify promising classes of materials and explore new ones with similar functions and properties. A recent Advanced Intelligent Systems study led by Researcher Nobuya Sato and Assistant Professor Akira Takahashi from Tokyo Institute of Technology developed a new machine learning-powered clustering technique. This technique groups similar materials by taking into account both their ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Analysis of CT scans in people who undergo imaging for health screening can identify individuals at risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a study published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Researchers said the findings underscore CT’s value in opportunistic imaging—the use of information from routine imaging examinations to learn more about a patient’s overall health. For the new study, researchers evaluated the ability of automated CT-derived markers ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – A deep learning model performs at the level of an abdominal radiologist in the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer on MRI, according to a study published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The researchers hope the model can be used as an adjunct to radiologists to improve prostate cancer detection. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide. Radiologists typically use a technique that combines different MRI sequences (called multiparametric MRI) to diagnose clinically significant prostate cancer. ...

CHICAGO – Nearly 100 wildfires are currently raging throughout the country, burning more than 2 million acres. The rising frequency of these fires poses a special concern for anesthesiologists – the potential for increased rates of adverse outcomes from anesthesia and surgery among patients exposed to wildfire smoke, according to a special article in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). "Wildfire smoke causes inflammation and is known to worsen heart and lung disease and pregnancy outcomes," said senior author Vijay Krishnamoorthy, M.D., M.P.H., Ph. D., chief of the Critical Care ...

A new study by an international team of collaborators led by researchers at the University of Vienna, and in collaboration with the Dom Museum Wien, aimed to address the questions of whether art exhibitions can make us more empathic or even change our attitudes and behaviors? The researchers were able to show that, indeed, looking through the exhibition reduced xenophobia and increased acceptance of immigration. Even more, by employing a new cellphone-based experience sampling method, they could track how long ...

Some believe the future of fusion in the U.S. lies in compact, spherical fusion vessels. A smaller tokamak, it is thought, could offer a more economical fusion option. The trick is squeezing everything into a small space. New research suggests eliminating one major component used to heat the plasma, freeing up much-needed space. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), the private company Tokamak Energy and Kyushu University in Japan have proposed a design for a compact, spherical fusion pilot plant ...

One popular strategy to motivate people to get vaccinated is the nudge—a message designed to take advantage of human tendencies to conform to social norms, seek to protect loved ones or community, and to prefer treatments with high efficacy rates. Jiseon Chang and colleagues sought to assess the efficacy of such nudges in real world contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors paid for ads to appear on Facebook between October 2021 and January 2022, reaching almost 15 million users in Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, ...

More than 1 in 4 people age 50 and older helps take care of at least one family member or friend who has a health problem or disability, a new poll finds. And among those caregivers, the new results from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging reveal a lot about who they are and who they’re caring for. In all, 30% of all people in their 50s and early 60s provide care to at least one person with a health issue or disability, compared with 23% of people over 65. And 1 in 10 caregivers in their 50s and early 60s are juggling taking care of three or more people. In ...

To Predict Tax Revenue, Look at Corporate Earnings States can make more accurate budget forecasts and avoid midyear cuts if they include growth in corporate earnings AUSTIN, Texas -- In the complex task of building a state budget, much rides on the accuracy of its fiscal crystal ball: its forecast of how much tax revenue will come in to fund services during the year ahead. Forecasting errors have increased since 2001 due to revenue volatility, such as wider swings in personal income and consumer spending. New research from Texas ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (08/06/2024) — Researchers at the University of Minnesota, have developed a new visual diagnostic technique that can be used to advance early detection for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease and similar diseases that affect animals, including Chronic Wasting Disease in deer.  The research is published in npj Biosensing, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature.  Named Cap-QuIC (Capillary-enhanced Quaking-Induced Conversion), researchers will now be able to distinguish infected samples with the naked eye, which makes testing ...

People with higher levels of metals found in their blood and urine may be more likely to be diagnosed with — and die from — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a University of Michigan-led study suggests. Researchers have known that ALS, a rare but fatal neurodegenerative condition, is influenced by genetic and environmental factors, including exposure to pesticides and metals. This latest study examined the levels of metals in the blood and urine of people with and without ALS, finding that exposure to individual and mixtures of metals is associated with a greater risk for ALS and shorter survival. The ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – It may be possible to turn anxiety into a superpower in some scenarios, recent research with entrepreneurs indicates.   A Washington State University-led study found that if entrepreneurs preparing to make a funding pitch connected their pitch anxiety to their passion for their venture, judges ranked their performance higher. Perhaps even more importantly, the judges were also more likely to recommend them for funding. This emotion reframing involved the entrepreneurs recognizing that they were feeling anxious partly because the project means so much to them. Entrepreneurs who tried other strategies ...

The findings of the randomized crossover clinical trial, available online now and slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Nutrition, reveal simply swapping in foods made from refined corn flour + corn bran can lower LDL cholesterol concentrations by anywhere from 5% - 13.3% in just four weeks. The trial compared the impact of whole-grain corn meal, refined corn meal, and a blend (refined corn meal plus corn bran) and found that 70% of the participants saw significant reductions in LDL cholesterol concentrations when consuming the blend. For the other corn flours, participants did not see a decrease in their LDL or total cholesterol ...

Markings on a stone pillar at a 12,000 year-old archaeological site in Turkey likely represent the world’s oldest solar calendar, created as a memorial to a devastating comet strike, experts suggest. The markings at Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey – an ancient complex of temple-like enclosures adorned with intricately carved symbols – could record an astronomical event that triggered a key shift in human civilisation, researchers say.  The research suggests ancient people were able to record their observations of the sun, moon and constellations in ...

In brief: The chemical messenger orexin and the orexin neurons in the brain mediate the decision between exercise and snacking. Researchers at ETH Zurich made this discovery in mice. The results are likely to be transferable to humans. In the experiment, mice with a blocked orexin system opted more frequently for the milkshake offered them and less for exercise. These results could help in researching and developing new strategies to promote physical activity in people. Should I go and exercise, or would I rather go to the café ...

To protect the Amazon and support the wellbeing of its people, its economy needs to shift from environmentally harmful production to a model built around the diversity of indigenous and rural communities, and standing forests. A group of conservationists from Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, the US and the UK say that current conservation and development efforts will never sustain or scale without systemic changes in how economies are designed. Despite extensive destruction of the Amazon in the name of economic development, Amazonian communities have seen little improvement in income, life expectancy, and education. The researchers have ...

Scientists at Nagoya University in Japan have made a significant breakthrough in treating lipid disorders. They have developed a new compound, ZTA-261, which selectively binds to the thyroid hormone receptor beta (THRβ). THRβ plays an important role in the regulation of lipid metabolism, which affects lipid levels in the blood. Mice administered the drug showed decreased lipid levels in the liver and blood, with fewer side effects in the liver, heart, and bones compared to existing compounds. These findings, published in Communications Medicine, suggest that ZTA-261 ...

Nicholas A. Marston, MD, MPH, of the TIMI Study Group and Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the corresponding author of a paper published in Nature Medicine, “Clonal hematopoiesis, cardiovascular events and treatment benefit in 63,700 individuals from five TIMI randomized trials.” How would you summarize your study for a lay audience? Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) is a condition that promotes the multiplication of blood stem cells in the body and increases the ...

Gold does not readily lend itself to being turned into long, thin threads. But researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have now managed to create gold nanowires and develop soft electrodes that can be connected to the nervous system. The electrodes are soft as nerves, stretchable and electrically conductive, and are projected to last for a long time in the body.   Some people have a “heart of gold”, so why not “nerves of gold”? In the future, it may be possible to use this precious metal in soft interfaces to connect electronics to the nervous system for medical ...

Accelerating global change continues to threaten Earth’s vast biodiversity, including in the oceans, which remain largely unexplored. To date, only a small fraction of an estimated two million total living marine species have been named and described. A major challenge is the time it takes to scientifically describe and publish a new species, which is a crucial step in studying and protecting these species. The current scientific and publishing landscape often results in decade-long delays (20-40 years) from the discovery of a new species to its official description. As an ...

The 18th Q-Bio Conference on Quantitative Biology was held at the Guangming Yungu International Conference Center in Shenzhen from July 26 to 29, 2024. Organized by the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology (iSynBio), and Peking University, the conference drew over 230 global researchers from countries including the U.S., U.K., France, India, Japan, Chile, and China. Themed "Predictive Modeling and Quantitative Principles in Complex Biological Systems," the event explored future prospects in quantitative and synthetic biology. Under ...

Philadelphia, August 6, 2024 – Doctors recommend making fruits and vegetables a foundational part of the treatment of patients with hypertension. Diets high in fruits and vegetables are found to lower blood pressure, reduce cardiovascular risk, and improve kidney health due to their base-producing effects. A new study in The American Journal of Medicine, published by Elsevier, details the findings from a five-year interventional randomized control trial. Despite ongoing efforts to improve hypertension treatment and reduce its adverse outcomes with pharmacological strategies, hypertension-related chronic kidney disease and its cardiovascular mortality are increasing. Heart disease ...