PHILADELPHIA – A gene encoding a protein linked to tau production—tripartite motif protein 11 (TRIM11)—was found to suppress deterioration in small animal models of neurodegenerative diseases similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), while improving cognitive and motor abilities, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, TRIM11 was identified as playing a key role in removing the protein tangles that cause neurodegenerative diseases, like AD. The findings are published today in Science. ...

Cognitive and computer scientists at the University of Toronto, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies have found child language development and the historical evolution of the world’s languages share a common cognitive foundation—a core knowledge base where patterns of children’s language innovation can predict patterns of language evolution, and vice versa. Published today in Science, the paper is a first-of-its-kind step toward a unified theory of the lexicon and the mind examined across timescales. The result may also help predict how a word’s meaning may change ...

People often debate whether social media creates "echo chambers" by showing users content that matches their politics and in turn increases polarization. A new study published today in the journal Nature reports that reducing Facebook users' exposure to content from politically "like-minded" sources had no measurable effect on their political beliefs or attitudes during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The findings are part of a broader research project examining the role of ...

Australia’s rich and diverse fauna never fails to surprise us, as a new spider species has been documented from the continent. The novel species, a blind daddy long-legs, was found in boreholes in the arid Pilbara of Western Australia. It is the first cave-adapted daddy long-legs spider reported from the continent, with other blind species of its genus so far only found in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. “It represents a subfamily that was previously thought to be restricted to the tropical north and east of the continent,” says Bernhard Huber, one of the authors of a recent study published ...

27 July 2023 Geological Society of America Release No. 23-28 Contact: Justin Samuel +1-303-357-1026 jsamuel@geosociety.org Boulder, Colo., USA: GSA is pleased to welcome three exceptional new Fellows who will join us in our mission to advance geoscience knowledge and discovery through excellent writing, research, and advocacy. GSA’s 2023–2024 Science Communication Fellow is Arianna Soldati. Soldati is an assistant professor of volcanology at North Carolina State University. Her lab group works on a variety of topics, ranging from effusive eruptions to critical minerals. She received her Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of ...

New Haven, Conn. — In a promising form of immunotherapy known as CAR T-cell (chimeric antigen receptor) therapy, the patient’s T cells are engineered to better recognize and attack antigens on the surface of cancer cells. In treatments currently approved for use in battling lymphoma and leukemia, however, the therapy has a drawback: Amidst the cancer-killing frenzy, many engineered T cells become tainted with the remnants of cancer antigens, which causes them to turn on other T cells. This eventually depletes the body of cancer-fighting cells ...

Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) has chosen Symplectic Grant Tracker from Digital Science’s suite of flagship products to advance its aims of providing catalytic funding for innovative scientific research and the development of academic scientists.  RCSA joins the 50+ foundations, charities and funders worldwide who manage their end-to-end grant lifecycle using Symplectic Grant Tracker. Designed from the outset to meet research funding needs, Grant Tracker includes features to assist applicants, reviewers, committees and ...

PHILADELPHIA (July 27, 2023) – Two decades ago, the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index was published to measure the nursing practice environment. Although the instrument's use has resulted in advances in science and quality improvement efforts, its potential may be limited by the availability and quality of translations into different languages. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) investigated published translations of the instrument and have identified ...

Philadelphia, July 27, 2023 – Approximately one-third of young adults in Victoria, Australia, who experienced sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs) outside of a hospital setting from April 2019 to April 2021 used illegal drugs prior to their fatal events, reports a new study in Heart Rhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, and the Pediatric & Congenital Electrophysiology Society, published by Elsevier. The analysis of data on substance abuse, revealed through positive toxicology reports and patient histories and recorded in one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive SCD registries, ...

In a new study funded by a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), University of Missouri researcher Kiho Lee, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, will use gene editing to investigate the building blocks of disease. His ultimate goal — to discover clinically significant explanations for human diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and infertility, while working on solutions to global food insecurity. Common diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, are widespread in humans, plaguing an estimated 11% or 6.7 million Americans over age 65, according to The ...

Spiders are often maligned for being creepy critters, but they are some of the most environmentally friendly pest regulators. Because they actively feed on flies, moths, mosquitoes and roaches, spiders eliminate parasites and many other vectors of disease—protecting both humans and plants from harm.  A new University of Maryland-led study published online in the journal Ecology found one simple way to take advantage of this natural ecosystem service: give tree-dwelling spiders a more diverse habitat.   “We found that there’s ...

NDIANAPOLIS—Researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine have diagnosed a Sumatran Orangutan at the Indianapolis Zoo with a rare genetic disease called Alkaptonuria. This is the first time the disease has been confirmed molecularly in a primate other than a human. The six-year-old orangutan, named Mila, was born at the Indianapolis Zoo in 2016. Mila had a history of dark urine that turned brown upon standing since birth, but has never shown other symptoms. Researchers from the IU School of Medicine Department of Medical ...

University of Missouri researchers are striving to find solutions to the leading cause of maternal mortality in the world — preeclampsia. For Laura Schulz, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health in the University of Missouri School of Medicine, understanding the root causes of preeclampsia and other complicated, life-threatening maternal conditions is pivotal in advancing women’s health care. Supported by a renewed $3 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Schulz and her team will use ...

Plastic waste is a problem. Most plastics can’t be recycled, and many use finite, polluting petrochemicals as the basic ingredients. But that’s changing. In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, researchers successfully engineered microbes to make biological alternatives for the starting ingredients in an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK. The finding comes from collaboration among experts at three facilities at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab): the Molecular Foundry, the Joint BioEnergy Institute ...

Promising new research suggests a total of just 4.5 minutes of vigorous activity that makes you huff and puff during daily tasks could reduce the risk of some cancers by up to 32 percent.  Published in JAMA Oncology and led by the University of Sydney, Australia, the study used data from wearable devices to track the daily activity of over 22,000 ‘non-exercisers’. Researchers then followed the group’s clinical health records for close to seven years to monitor for cancer. As few as four to five minutes of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity or ‘VILPA’ was associated with a substantially lower cancer risk compared to those who undertook no ...

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) researchers have developed one of the world’s smallest, most intense and fastest refrigeration devices, the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC), and teamed with neuroscientists to help amputees perceive a sense of temperature with their phantom limbs. This advancement, one of the first of its kind, enables a useful new capability for a variety of applications, including improved prostheses, haptics for new modalities in augmented reality (AR) and thermally-modulated therapeutics for applications such as pain management. The technology also has a variety ...

Two leading sequencing techniques are no longer at odds, thanks to an international effort led by scientists at University of California San Diego. In a study published July 27, 2023 in Nature Biotechnology, the researchers debuted a new reference database called Greengenes2, which makes it possible to compare and combine microbiome data derived from either 16S ribosomal RNA gene amplicon (16S) or shotgun metagenomics sequencing techniques.  “This is a significant moment in microbiome research, as we’ve effectively rescued over a decade’s worth of 16S data that might have otherwise become obsolete in the modern world ...

  There’s no doubt that Aussies love a good celebration. We’re all in when it comes to the weekend, and most of us can’t go past a Christmas celebration without a little bit of overindulging. But all this comes at a cost, and it’s taking a massive toll on our waistline.   Now, a world-first study from the University of South Australia exposes the real weight gains of everyday Australians, in a move to tackle overweight and obesity.   Funded by the NHMRC, and published in JAMA Open Network today, the study explored how weight changes across a 12-month period, finding that weight fluctuated throughout the year.   Specifically, ...

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy aim to destroy cancer cells by inducing DNA double-strand breaks – damage that, once inflicted, usually causes the cells to die. But damage to a cell’s genetic material also activates a signaling pathway called IKK/NF-κB that helps prevent cell death, thus limiting the success of these treatments in patients. NF-κB is a family of gene regulators that controls a wide variety of cellular processes – from immune responses to embryonic development – and is activated by the enzyme complex ...

Over the last decade, advances in 3D printing have unlocked new possibilities for bioengineers to build heart tissues and structures. Their goals include creating better in vitro platforms for discovering new therapeutics for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, responsible for about one in every five deaths nationally, and using 3D-printed cardiac tissues to evaluate which treatments might work best in individual patients. A more distant aim is to fabricate implantable tissues that can heal or replace faulty or diseased structures inside a patient’s heart. In a paper published in Nature Materials, researchers ...

QUT researchers have developed a new approach for designing molecular ON-OFF switches based on proteins which can be used in a multitude of biotechnological, biomedical and bioengineering applications. The research team demonstrated that this novel approach allows them to design and build faster and more accurate diagnostic tests for detecting diseases, monitoring water quality and detecting environmental pollutants. Professor Kirill Alexandrov, of the QUT School of Biology and Environmental ...

(Memphis, Tenn. – July 27, 2023) St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital proudly announces that Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., Member of the Department of Computational Biology, has been elected as a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology. Zhang is one of 15 scientists given this distinction in 2023. She’s being honored for the development and application of innovative computational methods, discovering novel targets and accelerating research and genomic data sharing to advance the diagnosis, treatment and surveillance of pediatric cancers and survivors.  “I ...

Dr. Raymond Chan's team from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his collaborators have recently shown that amotivation and anhedonia, rather than expressive dysfunction, play a crucial role in determining the social functioning of schizophrenia patients. The study was published in Nature Mental Health. Negative symptoms refer to the loss of normal functioning, including anhedonia, avolition, alogia, asociality, and affective blunting, and have been shown to be the most important predictors ...

Conventional wisdom holds that storing fat around your belly puts you at increased risk for type 2 diabetes. But surprising new findings from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggest that naturally occurring variations in our genes can lead some people to store fat at the waist but also protect them from diabetes. The unexpected discovery provides a more nuanced view of the role of obesity in diabetes and related health conditions. It also could pave the way for more personalized medicine – treatments tailored to the individual. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – As the next generation of giant, high-powered observatories begin to come online, a new study suggests that their instruments may offer scientists an unparalleled opportunity to discern what weather may be like on far-away exoplanets.  Dubbed the extremely large telescopes (ELTs), these observatories, which include the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), will be some of the largest ground-based telescopes ever built, and their instruments are expected to exceed ...