Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are growing in adoption, used in devices like smartphones and laptops, electric vehicles, and energy storage systems. But supplies of nickel and cobalt commonly used in the cathodes of these batteries are limited. New research led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) opens up a potential low-cost, safe alternative in manganese, the fifth most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust.  Researchers showed that manganese can be effectively used in emerging cathode materials called disordered rock salts, or DRX. Previous research suggested that to perform well, DRX materials had to be ground down to nanosized ...

Link to Google Drive folder containing images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZTBXkIFqwl_OyIMrUA1se_iv7hqEm_52?usp=sharing   Link to release: https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/09/25/tesla-coil-shark-intestines/   FROM: James Urton University of Washington 206-543-2580 jurton@uw.edu   (Note: researcher contact information at the end)   For immediate release Sept. 25, 2024   To make fluid flow in one direction down a pipe, it helps to be a shark   Flaps perform essential jobs. From pumping hearts to revving engines, flaps help fluid flow in one direction. ...

Rural men are dying earlier than their urban counterparts, and they’re spending fewer of their later years in good health, according to new research from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. Higher rates of smoking, obesity and cardiovascular conditions among rural men are helping fuel a rural-urban divide in illness, and this gap has grown over time, according to the study published this week in the Journal of Rural Health. The findings suggest that by the time rural men reach age 60, there are limited opportunities to fully address this disparity, and earlier interventions may be needed to prevent it from widening ...

Held annually, NY Climate Week is a pivotal event in the global climate change calendar. Bringing together notable leaders, celebrities, climate professionals, and innovators from around the world, the event serves as a critical platform for discussing and advancing climate action. This year’s theme, "It’s Time," underscores the urgency for immediate and ambitious efforts to tackle climate change, and the process could be accelerated with Generative AI and other cutting-edge technologies. Insilico Medicine ...

Young adults who vape show chemical changes in their DNA similar to those found in young adults who smoke — changes known to be linked to the development of cancer — according to a new study just published in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology. A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC measured DNA methylation, a chemical modification of DNA that can effectively turn genes “on” or “off, in the oral cells of young adult vapers, smokers and non-users. DNA methylation is vital to normal cellular ...

DALLAS, Sept. 25, 2024 — The American Heart Association, celebrating 100 years of lifesaving service as the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, is joining with other top cardiovascular research funders around the world to support an international scientific research grant focused on women’s cardiovascular health. Scientific researchers around the world are invited to apply for the award to foster global advancements in understanding and improving the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among women. A 2022 presidential advisory ...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), recently reclassified as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), has become the most prevalent chronic liver disease globally. This reclassification underscores the metabolic dysfunction central to the disease, which spans a spectrum from simple steatosis to more severe forms like steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and cirrhosis. Given the significant overlap between MASLD and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the therapeutic strategies for MASLD have increasingly focused on addressing metabolic derangements. Despite its global prevalence, no specific drugs have been approved for MASLD, highlighting an urgent need ...

September 25, 2024 (Washington, DC)—The Kissick Family Foundation Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) Grant Program, in partnership with the Milken Institute Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and Collaboration (SPARC), today announced six research teams awarded two-year grants to advance scientific understanding of FTD, totaling $3 million in new funding for this disease.  This inaugural cycle of the Kissick Family Foundation FTD Grant Program represents a unique philanthropic strategy that specifically targets basic or early-stage translational research projects that focus on those disease cases ...

Metastatic cancer can be a devastating diagnosis. The cancer is spreading. It may travel to multiple organs in the body. This could mean more pain and ultimately, death. Unfortunately, just how cancer spreads remains unclear. But now, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Adam Siepel and colleagues have a way to better understand that process. New technology developed at Weill Cornell Medicine barcodes cells to track the highways by which prostate cancer spreads throughout the body. The resulting roadmap shows that most cancer cells actually stay put within the tumor. However, ...

Augmented reality (AR) takes digital images and superimposes them onto real-world views. But AR is more than a new way to play video games; it could transform surgery and self-driving cars. To make the technology easier to integrate into common personal devices, researchers report in ACS Photonics how to combine two optical technologies into a single, high-resolution AR display. In an eyeglasses prototype, the researchers enhanced image quality with a computer algorithm that removed distortions. AR systems, like those in bulky goggles and automobile head-up displays, require portable optical components. But shrinking the typical four-lens AR system to the size of eyeglasses or smaller ...

Professor Ron Boschma is the first Dutch person to receive the Prix Vautrin Lud, the highest academic award within the field of geography. The award will be presented in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France on 6 October. Prior to the award ceremony, Prof. Boschma will give an invited lecture at the Sorbonne University in Paris on 4 October. Boschma was nominated for the award in recognition of his scientific contributions to the field of economic geography, especially for laying the foundations of evolutionary economic geography and his research into regional diversification and innovation policy. The European Union’s regional policy is based in part on his ...

Research Highlights Risk to Both Humans and Wildlife, Suggests Need for New Collision Mitigation Strategies A recent article published in PeerJ Life & Environment has uncovered insights into how mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) respond to approaching vehicles, revealing that these common waterbirds are poorly equipped to avoid collisions, particularly at high speeds. The research, which used both simulated and real-world vehicle approaches, highlights the urgent need for improved methods to reduce bird-vehicle collisions—events that are not only financially costly but also dangerous to both humans and wildlife.  The study focused ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial, home-based phototherapy was as effective as office-based phototherapy for plaque or guttate psoriasis in everyday clinical practice and had less burden to patients. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Joel M. Gelfand, MD, email joel.gelfand@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2024.3897) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

Large expansion of carbon capture and storage is necessary to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement. Yet a new study led by Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden and University of Bergen, in Norway, shows that without major efforts, the technology will not expand fast enough to meet the 2°C target and even with major efforts it is unlikely to expand fast enough for the 1.5°C target. The idea behind carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is to capture carbon dioxide then store it deep underground. Some applications of CCS, such ...

An “invisible forest” of phytoplankton is thriving in part of our warming ocean, new research shows. Phytoplankton are tiny drifting organisms that do about half of the planet’s “primary production” (forming living cells by photosynthesis). The new study, by the University of Exeter, examined phytoplankton at the ocean surface and the “subsurface” – a distinct layer of water beneath – to see how climate variability is affecting them. Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the findings show these two communities are reacting differently. Over the last decade, the total “biomass” (living material) of subsurface ...

Whether we are predisposed to particular diseases depends to a large extent on the countless variants in our genome. However, particularly in the case of genetic variants that only rarely occur in the population, the influence on the presentation of certain pathological traits has so far been difficult to determine. Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the Technical University of Munich have introduced an algorithm based on deep learning that can predict the effects of rare genetic variants. The method allows persons with high risk of disease to be distinguished more precisely and facilitates the identification ...

The hype surrounding machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, can make it seem like it is only a matter of time before such techniques are used to solve all scientific problems. While impressive claims are often made, those claims do not always hold up under scrutiny. Machine learning may be useful for solving some problems but falls short for others. In a new paper in Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University performed a systematic review of research comparing machine learning to traditional methods for solving ...

There are more than 7,000 rare and undiagnosed diseases globally. Although each condition occurs in a small number of individuals, collectively these diseases exert a staggering human and economic toll because they affect some 300 million people worldwide. Yet, with a mere 5 to 7 percent of these conditions having an FDA-approved drug, they remain largely untreated or undertreated. Developing new medicines represents a daunting challenge, but a new artificial intelligence tool can propel the discovery of new therapies from existing medicines, offering hope for patients with rare and neglected conditions and for the clinicians who treat them. The AI model, called TxGNN, is the first one ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 10:00hrs BST Wednesday 25 September 2024 Peer reviewed Experimental study Animals Combination treatment improves response to immunotherapy for lung cancer Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, in collaboration with Revolution Medicines, have tested a combination of treatments in mice with lung cancer and shown that these allow immunotherapies to target non-responsive tumours. Their findings show that targeting tumours in ...

Researchers led by Ryuhei Nakamura at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan and The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) of Tokyo Institute of Technology have discovered inorganic nanostructures surrounding deep-ocean hydrothermal vents that are strikingly similar to molecules that make life as we know it possible. These nanostructures are self-organized and act as selective ion channels, which create energy that can be harnessed in the form of electricity. Published Sep. 25 in Nature Communications, the findings impact not only our understanding of how life began, but can also ...

When thinking of animal camouflage, we typically imagine creatures remaining still, blending seamlessly into their surroundings. But remaining motionless isn’t always practical, and many animals are highly mobile, constantly moving through their environment to graze their food. New research suggests that high-contrast patterns on animals’ bodies may serve a dual purpose: offering camouflage when stationary, then creating a ‘motion dazzle’ effect when moving, confusing potential predators into misjudging their location – and helping them avoid being ...

New research published in Advanced Materials reports a novel nasal spray for preventing respiratory infections. The spray works by forming a protective coating on the nasal cavity, which captures airborne respiratory droplets and acts as a physical barrier against viruses and bacteria, while effectively neutralizing them. In studies conducted on mice, the Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Spray (PCANS) demonstrated up to 8 hours of nasal retention. In a severe Influenza A model, a single pre-exposure dose of PCANS resulted in a greater than 99.99% reduction ...

In research published in Brain and Behavior, investigators found increased rates of menstrual irregularities in women living in areas affected by the 2023 earthquake in Turkey. In the study, 309 women of reproductive age living in regions declared as disaster areas completed online forms 9 months after the earthquake. Responses revealed an increase of menstrual irregularities from 14.3% before the earthquake to 44.8% after the earthquake. Risk factors for menstrual irregularities included post-traumatic stress symptoms, chronic diseases, and smoking. The findings reveal that reproductive health ...

During missions into outer space, galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) will penetrate current spacecraft shielding and thus pose a significant risk to human health. Previous studies have shown that GCR can cause short-term cognitive deficits in male rodents. Now a study published in the Journal of Neurochemistry reveals that GCR exposure can also cause long-lasting learning deficits in female rodents. The impact of GCR on cognition was lessened when mice were fed an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compound called CDDO-EA. Beyond ...

Preventive health technologies—such as wrist-worn activity trackers or health and fitness apps—are popular tools for promoting wellbeing, but new research published in the Journal of Consumer Affairs reveals that consumer engagement with these technologies can be considered a double-edged sword. The study, which involved 30 in-depth interviews with users, found that consumers engage with preventive health technologies based on a variety of health goals—for example, to lose weight, improve performance, monitor data of an enjoyable activity, or acquire a healthy routine. These diverse goals led users ...