A team of paleontologists working near Rangely, Colorado, has uncovered a new (or, more accurately, very old) state resident—a fossil mammal about the size of a muskrat that may have scurried through swamps during the Age of Dinosaurs.  The researchers, led by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Jaelyn Eberle, published their findings Oct. 23 in the journal PLOS ONE. Eberle and her colleagues named their discovery, which they identified from a piece of jawbone and three molar teeth, Heleocola piceanus. The animal lived in Colorado roughly 70 to 75 million years ago—a time when a vast inland sea covered ...

Ghent, October 24, 2024 – During the COVID pandemic, many of us have received multiple mRNA vaccines. New work by researchers at the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research, Ghent University, and University Hospital Ghent, among others, has found that such repeated vaccinations lead to the presence of mucosal antibodies, for example, inside the nose. Their work appears in Science Translational Medicine. Protective booster shots Part of the global response strategy against the COVID pandemic involves the administration of booster shots, or ‘vaccine updates’ to ensure ...

HOUSTON ― As part of its ongoing commitment to patient comfort and healing, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced a new focus on art to support the revitalization and expansion of its clinical facilities. This initiative will include the creation of a multisensory healing environment in both public spaces and patient care areas that are designed to prevent disease, promote health and foster well-being. This transformative project aims to enhance every aspect of the patient experience, reinforcing MD Anderson's dedication to comprehensive ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – There are 45.3 million African Americans living in the United States and they represent 13.6 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But only 5.7 percent of physicians in the United States self-identify as Black, despite multiple efforts over many years to increase the number of Black doctors. A new study led by Jasmine Weiss, MD, MHS, FAAP, assistant professor of pediatrics in the UNC School of Medicine, describes the barriers to medical school admission that students at Historically Black Colleges and ...

Coral reefs rank among the most biodiverse habitats on Earth and are often referred to as the rainforests of the sea. Modern reef building corals evolved in the Triassic Period around 250 million years ago. They can live in symbiosis with tiny organisms, often algae, that can carry out photosynthesis. This photosymbiosis is particularly beneficial in nutrient-poor waters because it helps the corals to recycle scarce nutrients. Geological evidence reveals that corals already existed in the Devonian period, over 385 million ...

Almost a ubiquitous presence in landscapes across Southwest Virginia, the invasive autumn olive thrives. But it’s not supposed to be here. Autumn olive is known for its nitrogen-fixing ability, allowing it to thrive in poor soils and outcompete native plants. The shrub’s berries are edible, rich in antioxidants such as lycopene, and have a tart-sweet flavor. While its berries are beneficial for wildlife, the plant's aggressive spread disrupts local ecosystems, reducing biodiversity. With a one-year grant from the Powell River ...

Early detection is critical when it comes to curing diseases like cancer, but not everyone has easy access to screening tools. For problems in the genitourinary (GU) tract (which includes the kidneys, prostate, and bladder), health providers usually use a combination of screening tools, including blood tests, imaging, and physical examinations. Scientists are now working on an even simpler tool for screening illnesses before they become a problem – urine analysis. According to a new study from scientists at The University of Texas at Arlington, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub, and Stanford University, ...

A Rutgers Health study has found that people who took multiple courses of penicillin antibiotics had a modestly lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease, a surprising finding that researchers say highlights the complex relationship between bacteria in the digestive tract and brain health. The study, published in Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, analyzed medical records from more than 93,000 people in the United Kingdom. Researchers found that those who received five or more courses of penicillin antibiotics in the five years before diagnosis had about a 15% lower risk of Parkinson's compared with those ...

Nightmares affect 30-40% of patients with narcolepsy, but are often overlooked Treatment can transform patients’ sleep and their daytime mood in a matter of weeks Study found overall reduction in nightmare severity and frequency in six patients CHICAGO --- A new Northwestern Medicine study has demonstrated a new way to treat narcolepsy-related nightmares. The scientists combined cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and lucid dreaming to help patients in a small clinical trial. “We had them imagine what they’d like to dream instead of their nightmare, almost like they’re writing a movie script,” said corresponding author ...

Mass General Brigham has been selected by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) as an awardee of the Sprint for Women’s Health to address critical unmet challenges in women’s health, champion transformative innovations, and tackle health conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women. Mass General Brigham will receive $3.29 million in funding over two years through the Sprint for Women’s Health spark track for early-stage research efforts. Understanding and improving sleep is especially important for women, who face a higher risk of neurodegenerative diseases ...

Speaking, singing, coughing, laughing, yelling, yawning, chewing—we use our jaws for many purposes. Each action requires a complex coordination of muscles whose activity is managed by neurons in the brain. But it turns out that the neural circuit behind the jaw movement most essential to survival—eating—is surprisingly simple, as researchers from Rockefeller University recently described in a new paper in Nature. Christin Kosse and other scientists from the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, headed by Jeffrey M. Friedman, have identified a three-neuron circuit that connects a hunger-signaling hormone to the jaw movements of chewing. ...

Woods Hole, Mass. – Coral reefs worldwide are in trouble. These ecosystems support a billion people and more than a quarter of marine species. Still, many have been damaged by unsustainable fishing and tourism, coastal construction, nutrient runoff, and climate change. Now, researchers have shown that broadcasting the sounds of healthy reefs is a way to encourage larval corals to repopulate degraded sites and help revitalize them. A recent study done by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) showed that golfball coral larvae can be encouraged to settle when they hear the sounds of a vibrant, healthy reef. This is the second coral species ...

An international research team led by NYU Tandon School of Engineering and KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) has pioneered a new technique to identify and characterize atomic-scale defects in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), a two-dimensional (2D) material often dubbed "white graphene" for its remarkable properties.  This advance could accelerate the development of next-generation electronics and quantum technologies. The team reported that it was able to detect the presence of individual carbon atoms replacing boron atoms in hBN crystals. This discovery was made possible by listening to ...

Animals not only need sufficient calories to function, but also essential nutrients — including omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). Insects and arachnids are an important source of these essential fatty acids for birds, hedgehogs, lizards and the like. However, the content depends on the specific types of insects and spiders consumed. Aquatic insects, such as caddisflies or dragonflies, contain significantly more omega-3 long-chain (LC) PUFA than terrestrial insects because omega-3- LC-PUFA rich algae form the base of the food chain in aquatic ecosystems. The ...

PHILADELPHIA — Donald E. Arnold, M.D., FACHE, FASA, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, Mercy Hospital in St. Louis and member of the board of directors of Western Anesthesiology Associates, Inc., in Ballwin, Missouri, was today named president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the nation’s largest organization of anesthesiologists. Dr. Arnold assumed office at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2024 annual meeting and will serve for one year. “I’m honored to be named president of ASA and committed to serving our members, supporting the Society’s mission to advance the specialty, preserving physician-led anesthesia care, and above ...

Wealth is one of the strongest indicators of social status, acting as a key indicator of social inequality and influencing access to education, health care and professional success. In a study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, the University of Cologne, GESIS and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health examined how financial wealth changes related to various generational transitions within families. The study used data from Norwegian registries and focused on people born in 1953. Investigating changes in wealth within the ...

Seeps on the deep seafloor naturally emit alkanes, which are pollutants that are potentially dangerous to life and act on global warming. Fortunately, the sediments around the seeps host microbes that act as a biological filter: They consume most of the alkanes before their release into the oceans and our atmosphere. This so-called anaerobic oxidation of alkanes is an important yet poorly understood microbial process. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, now ...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched a proof-of-concept precision medicine clinical trial to test new treatment combinations targeting specific genetic changes in the cancer cells of people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). The trial, funded by NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), aims to accelerate the discovery of more tailored treatments for these aggressive cancers of the blood and bone marrow. “AML and MDS are a heterogeneous group of cancers that can progress very quickly. Treatment advances depend in part on the ability to rapidly identify which subtype of cancer each patient has so that treatments can be tested for ...

New York, NY, October 23, 2024 — Scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in collaboration with colleagues in the field, have developed an innovative antibody platform aimed at tackling one of the greatest challenges in treating rapidly evolving viruses like SARS-CoV-2: their ability to mutate and evade existing vaccines and therapies. Their findings, including preclinical studies in mice, introduce the Adaptive Multi-Epitope Targeting and Avidity-Enhanced (AMETA) Nanobody Platform, a new antibody approach for addressing how viruses like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, evolve to evade vaccines and treatments. Details on the results were published October 23 ...

Four leading cancer research organizations in the United States and Canada announce the opening of patient enrollment to myeloMATCH, a unique portfolio of clinical trials to test precision medicine treatments for adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, Canadian Cancer Trials Group, ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, and SWOG Cancer Research Network are collaborating within the National Cancer Institute (NCI) National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) to design and lead the trials. They expect to open ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of 14,000 insured adults, individual-level social determinants of health were significantly associated with U.S. health care expenditures by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. These findings may inform health insurers and policymakers to incorporate social determinants of health in their decision-making practices to identify and control health care expenditures, advancing health equity.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Giridhar Mohan, MPH, email gmohan1@jhu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.40467) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, distinct forms of traumatic and adverse childhood experiences differentially moderated developmental changes in psychiatric risk and cognitive ability in different ways, offering the possibility for precision-based prediction of risk for youth. Such findings could be used in targeted early prevention and intervention strategies for at-risk youth.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Justin D. Russell, PhD, email jdrussell3@wisc.edu To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.3231) Editor’s ...

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that a type of immunotherapy — similar to that approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat inflammatory conditions such as arthritis — also may be an effective treatment strategy for heart failure. The study is published Oct. 23 in the journal Nature. After a heart attack, viral infection or other injury to the heart, scar tissue often forms in the heart muscle, where it interferes with the heart’s normal contractions and plays a leading role in heart failure, the progressive loss of the heart’s ...

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers have discovered a mechanism that ovarian tumors use to cripple immune cells and impede their attack—blocking the energy supply T cells depend on. The work, published Oct. 23 in Nature, points toward a promising new immunotherapy approach for ovarian cancer, which is notoriously aggressive and hard to treat. A significant obstacle in treating ovarian cancer is the tumor microenvironment—the complex ecosystem of cells, molecules and blood vessels that shields cancer cells from the immune system. Within this hostile environment, T cells lose their ability to take up the lipid (fat) molecules, which are necessary for energy to mount ...

Many black holes detected to date appear to be part of a pair. These binary systems comprise a black hole and a secondary object — such as a star, a much denser neutron star, or another black hole — that spiral around each other, drawn together by the black hole’s gravity to form a tight orbital pair.  Now a surprising discovery is expanding the picture of black holes, the objects they can host, and the way they form.  In a study appearing in Nature, physicists at MIT and Caltech report that they have observed a “black hole triple” for the first time. The new system holds a central black hole in the act of consuming a small star ...