(WASHINGTON, July 18, 2024) – In female patients living with sickle cell disease (SCD), hydroxyurea had no effect on ovarian reserve, suggesting that fertility preservation measures prior to treatment may be unnecessary, according to a study published in Blood Advances. SCD is the most common inherited red blood cell disorder in the United States, affecting an estimated 100,000 people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), SCD affects one out of every 365 Black or African American births and one out ...

CHICAGO — July 18, 2024  — The 65th Supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s (AOS’s) Check-list of North American Birds, published today in Ornithology, includes several updates to the classifications of bird species found in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.  A few highlights from this year’s supplement, detailed below, include species splits for Troglodytes aedon (House Wren) and Tyto alba (Barn Owl); a lumping of Acanthis flammea (Common Redpoll), Acanthis ...

Rockville, MD – July 18, 2024 The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) announced new Board of Directors members today who both have been long-term supporters of the organization: Silas Deane, Vice President, Tyler Technologies, and Dr. Padmakumar Kaimal, previous Vice President of Technology Alliance & Business Development at Suven Life Sciences. The areas of expertise and leadership they bring to NFCR signify a pivotal moment for the organization working to advance the mission of providing new areas of hope and solutions for cancer patients worldwide. Silas Deane has extended expertise in technology, healthcare, government relations, ...

Fukuoka, Japan — On 17 July 2024, the British Academy held its Annual General Meeting, where Koji Mizoguchi, Professor of Archaeology at Kyushu University's Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies, was elected as an International Fellow. He is the first Japanese archaeologist and the first researcher from Kyushu University to receive this honor. Founded in 1902, the British Academy aims to deepen and share understanding of people, societies, and cultures across time and place, enabling ...

A naturally occurring peptide called PEPITEM could potentially rejuvenate the immune response in older individuals and protect against 'inflammageing', which is widely believed to be the root cause of many age-related diseases. The study, published today in the journal npj Aging, raises the exciting possibility of a protective agent that could dampen age-related inflammation and restore normal immune function in older adults. PEPITEM (Peptide Inhibitor of Trans-Endothelial Migration) was initially identified at the University ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- A group of small, freshwater animals protect themselves from infections using antibiotic recipes “stolen” from bacteria, according to new research  by a team from the University of Oxford, the University of Stirling and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole.  The tiny creatures are called bdelloid rotifers, which means ‘crawling wheel-animals’. They have a head, mouth, gut, muscles and nerves like other animals, though they are smaller than a hair’s breadth. When these rotifers are exposed to fungal infection, the study found, ...

In a report published in Nature Cell Biology, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, the University of Manitoba and collaborating institutions revealed an unexpected way in which the protein OTX2 drives the progression of medulloblastoma – the most common aggressive childhood brain cancer. The findings suggest that targeting OTX2 or its effects can have therapeutic relevance. “We see medulloblastoma stem cells as the root of the disease. The tumors develop from these cells early during development of the cerebellum, the brain region ...

Deliveries are getting faster than ever in the U.S., but the faster movement of goods is undercutting the country’s climate progress.  In a new study published July 18 in the journal Nature Energy, a CU Boulder researcher and his collaborator estimate that federal regulations aimed at enhancing heavy-duty trucks’ energy efficiency could be as much as 20% less effective than policymakers initially anticipated.  That’s because the regulations make trucking cheaper. As a result, more shippers will likely switch from using less energy-intensive rail transportation to using more energy-intensive trucks to ship goods.   “We ...

Northwestern University-led researchers have discovered a new way that nature cycles phosphorus, a finding that uncovers a missing piece of Earth’s puzzling phosphorus cycle. The research will be published on Thursday (July 18) in the journal Nature Communications. A critical nutrient for plant growth, phosphorus is a non-negotiable component of fertilizers. Without it, farmers cannot ensure plant health and boost crop yields. Understanding Earth’s phosphorus cycle, therefore, is important for protecting the global food supply. Although ...

Milano, 18 luglio 2024 – A new study published in the journal PNAS Nexus reveals how social media algorithms favor politically sponsored content from certain parties given the same investment budget. The research, a collaboration between the Politecnico di Milano, LMU – Ludwig Maximilians Universität of Munich, and the CENTAI institute of Turin, analyzed over 80,000 political ads on Facebook and Instagram before the 2021 German federal elections. These ads were placed by parties across the political spectrum and generated over 1.1 billion impressions during an election with more than 60 million eligible voters. Investigating ...

IOP Publishing (IOPP) is launching the world’s first series of open access journals dedicated to the application and development of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) for the sciences. The new multidisciplinary Machine Learning series will collectively cover applications of ML and AI across the physical sciences, engineering, biomedicine and health, and environmental and earth science.  Building on the successful launch of Machine Learning: Science and Technology in 2019, IOPP’s Machine Learning series will expand to include three new ...

Humans see the world through the five senses, but how and when the ability to integrate across the senses arises is debated. Research shows that humans combine sensory information together, particularly when one sense is not able to produce a sufficient response alone. Studies also show that infants may use multisensory cues to perceive their environments more efficiently. A new Child Development study by researchers at the Université de Bourgogne, University of Hamburg, Université de Lyon, Institut Universitaire de France, Université de Lorraine, Centre Hospitalier de Nancy, and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique ...

Relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a so-called blood cancer, has an extremely poor prognosis because of resistance to anti-cancer drugs and frailty of the patient’s organ functions. A type of anti-tumor immunotherapy called allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation, which can exert anti-cancer effect accompanied by severe toxicity, is often performed for patients who are hard to treat with chemotherapy, but relapse still remains. The hematopoietic cell transplant team in ...

Almost 2,000 years ago, Pliny the Younger wrote letters describing a shaking ground as Vesuvius erupted. Now, a collaborative study led by researchers from the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and Pompeii Archaeological Park has shed light on the effects of seismicity associated with the 79CE eruption. The study is the first to tackle the complex task of reporting on the effects of co-occurring earthquakes. This is tricky due to the possibility of volcanic and seismic effects happening concurrently or in quick succession, meaning volcanic effects can overshadow effects caused by earthquakes and vice versa. “These ...

18 July 2024: Britain’s largest ever study of egg freezing which followed up the outcome of almost 30,000 eggs frozen at the London Women’s Clinic shows that success rates are comparable to those achieved by routine IVF and subject to the same variables of female age and embryo quality.(1) When seen alongside other similar large-scale egg-freezing studies from other countries, the results of this study add to a pattern of success which is consistent, predictable and reliable. The study, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online, analysed the outcomes of treatment ...

With the promotion of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking goals, the construction of low-carbon cities and related quantitative assessments have become hot topics in the field of urban planning and design. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points out that the net emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases have continued to rise over the past decade, with the average annual emissions higher than any previous decade. Without additional climate change mitigation policies, global warming could lead to a temperature increase of 3.5°C ...

A pioneering study led by Baylor University biologist Sarah Kienle, Ph.D., and published in the journal Polar Biology has unveiled the first paired observations of sexual behavior and vocalizations in wild leopard seals. Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Kienle and her team’s third published study on the mysterious leopard seal represents a major advance in understanding the behavior of one of the most difficult apex predators to study on Earth. Key findings from the study Kienle and her team observed a two-hour courtship interaction between a male and female leopard seal in Laguna San Rafael, Chile, and documented a range of behaviors ...

Globally, around 2.6 million children and adolescents are currently living with HIV, the majority of them in Africa. These young people are much more likely to experience treatment failure than adults. Experts long assumed that testing for viral drug resistance could improve treatment in cases where treatment has failed. However, a research team led by the University of Basel, Switzerland, now shows that it is much more important to support patients in taking their medication regularly. The fight against HIV has made great strides over the past few decades. Antiretroviral drugs keep the virus at bay, preventing ...

The number of adults in England who report vaping for more than six months has increased substantially from around one in 80 in 2013 to one in 10 in 2023, finds a study published by The BMJ today. Much of this increase has occurred since 2021, coinciding with the rapid rise in popularity of disposable e-cigarettes, especially among young adults, including those who had never regularly smoked, the results show. It was already established that vaping rates have increased substantially in England since new disposable e-cigarettes became ...

Neither covid-19 infection nor vaccination during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with increased risk of major birth defects, finds a study from Scandinavia published by The BMJ today. It’s well known that women who experience covid-19 infection during pregnancy are at increased risk of severe illness and have a higher risk of complications, including preterm birth and stillbirth. Less clear is the risk of birth defects (congenital anomalies) after infection with or vaccination against covid-19 as it has only recently become ...

Some of the UK’s most recognisable TV doctors are increasingly being “deepfaked” in videos to sell scam products across social media, finds The BMJ today. Trusted names including Hilary Jones, Michael Mosley and Rangan Chatterjee are being used to promote products claiming to fix high blood pressure and diabetes, and to sell hemp gummies, explains journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. Deepfaking is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to map a digital likeness of a real-life human being onto a video of a body that isn’t theirs. Reliable evidence on how ...

A new collaboration between researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Chieti explores the neural substrates of blushing in a MRI scanner. Most of us know what it feels like to blush. The face becomes warm and red, and we experience self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment, shyness, shame, and pride. It is perhaps no wonder that Charles Darwin referred to it as “the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions”. But why do we blush, and what ...

The introduction of new data protection rules significantly reduced breaches by firms but negatively impacted their market value, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Texas. Researchers looked at what happened when the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) started being enforced in 2018. Using its extraterritorial reach, the authors explore variation in US firms’ exposure to the EU GDPR to see how stricter data privacy laws affected their value, ...

A landmark study from researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (the U), the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the U, and Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine found that women with severe endometriosis are 10 times more likely to get ovarian cancer, compared to women who do not have the disease. Prior studies have shown a causal connection between endometriosis and ovarian cancer. But in using the Utah Population Database—a repository of linked health records housed at Huntsman ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Peter Lichtenberg, PhD, ABPP, FGSA, of Wayne State University as the 2024 recipient of the Donald P. Kent Award. This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member who best exemplifies the highest standards for professional leadership in gerontology through teaching, service, and interpretation of gerontology to the larger society. It was established in 1973 in memory of Donald P. Kent, PhD, for his outstanding leadership in translating research findings ...