Embargoed until 11am ET USA/4pm GMT UK on Friday 2 February (Current Biology embargo) -With pictures- Fruit flies have provided scientists with new insight into the genetic basis for the rapid evolution of male external genitalia driven by sexual selection. Secondary sexual characteristics such as peacocks’ tails and the male external genitalia of insects are known to be among the fastest evolving animal body parts. It is thought that this is driven by sexual selection including through female choice and the different evolutionary needs of each sex to find the right mate and maximise their fitness. Now scientists at Durham University and Oxford ...

About The Study: The findings of this study of 1,404 mental health treatment facilities indicate that there were no differences in the availability of mental telehealth services based on the prospective patient’s clinical condition, perceived race or ethnicity, or sex; however, differences were found at the facility-, county-, and state-level. These findings suggest widespread disparities in who has access to which telehealth services throughout the U.S.  Authors: Jonathan Cantor, Ph.D., of the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

About The Study: This study including 432,000 patients who underwent major surgery for eight cancer types found an increased rate of venous thromboembolism associated with cancer surgery. The risk persisted for about two to four months postoperatively but varied between cancer types. The increased rate is likely explained by the underlying cancer disease and adjuvant treatments. The results highlight the need for individualized venous thromboembolism risk evaluation and prophylaxis regimens for patients undergoing different surgery for different cancers. Authors: Johan ...

Telehealth availability for mental health care varies significantly across states -- from less than half of treatment facilities contacted in states like Mississippi and South Carolina to every facility contacted in states like Maine and Oregon, according to a new RAND study.   Researchers found there were differences in services offered depending on whether a mental health treatment facility was located in in a rural or metropolitan area.   The types of services offered -- and the types of telehealth modalities available -- also varied widely among ...

About The Study: The results of this study of 89,000 adults suggest that wellness visits and preventive health screenings in the U.S. have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Screening rates for blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, and common cancers were lower in 2021 versus 2019, and varied across racial and ethnic groups, with Asian adults experiencing the most pronounced declines. These findings support the need for public health efforts to increase the use of preventive health screenings among eligible adults.  Authors: Rishi K. Wadhera, ...

A team of researchers from the Badalona Applied Research Group in Oncology (B·ARGO) and the Urologic Tumours Unit of the Institut Català d'Oncologia (ICO) and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) have found a new therapeutic strategy for patients with a specific subtype of metastatic prostate cancer resistant to standard chemotherapy treatment with docetaxel. In this study, published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology, they propose a new treatment based on a combination of kinase inhibitors in patients who inevitably stop responding to docetaxel. The team found that resistance to this drug is associated with the hyperactivation ...

The aim of this clinical trial, which has just received approval in France, is to assess the safety and efficacy of a new gene therapy drug in children aged between 6 and 31 months with profound hearing loss. Audiogene was developed by a French consortium composed of teams from the Hearing Institute, an Institut Pasteur research center; the ENT Department and Pediatric Audiology Research Center at Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital (AP-HP); Sensorion and Fondation Pour l'Audition. The trial has also been submitted to other European countries and is currently undergoing assessment. Audiogene is the first clinical trial in France to test a gene therapy drug, SENS-501, ...

A new vaccine shows encouraging early results as a potential off-the-shelf treatment for certain patients with pancreatic or colorectal cancer, according to a study co-led by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). The vaccine targets tumors with mutations (or changes) in the KRAS gene, a driving force in many cancers. This cancer vaccine is different from another type of pancreatic cancer vaccine, which is custom-made for each patient using messenger RNA (mRNA). Both are therapeutic vaccines given after surgery ...

There has been significant progress in the field of quantum computing. Big global players, such as Google and IBM, are already offering cloud-based quantum computing services. However, quantum computers cannot yet help with problems that occur when standard computers reach the limits of their capacities because the availability of qubits or quantum bits, i.e., the basic units of quantum information, is still insufficient. One of the reasons for this is that bare qubits are not of immediate use for running a quantum algorithm. While the binary bits of customary computers store information in the form of fixed values of either 0 or 1, qubits can represent 0 and ...

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) in Brazil have developed a sustainable sensor that can be placed directly on the surface of a vegetable or fruit to detect the presence of pesticides. Known for this reason as “plant-wearable”, it is made of cellulose acetate, a material derived from wood pulp. The device has the potential to help assure food safety in a world that increasingly suffers from a shortage of food and the environmental and health problems caused ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — As demand for food from restaurants soars in the U.S., so does the importance in understanding the impacts of foodborne illness outbreaks. A new paper co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert in food marketing and food policy finds that outbreaks spanning multiple states bring swift financial losses, increased media attention and a public-relations hit that makes smaller outbreaks more financially damaging.  In the U.S., more than 60% of foodborne illness outbreaks occur at restaurants, and the vast majority of those outbreaks are confined ...

As the effectiveness of radiotherapy varies greatly between tumours, finding gene signatures to predict the radiation response could better guide the clinicians to personalize treatment plans. Professor Venkata Manem, affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval and the Centre de recherche CHU de Québec - Université Laval, has made a promising step to advance pre-clinical research in the field of precision radiation oncology. Currently, doctors use a “one-size-fits-all” paradigm for radiotherapy, with a given dose and frequency ...

Sudden impacts or jolts to the head can cause skull fractures and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). TBIs can cause bleeding, unconsciousness, and potential changes to the brain leading to memory loss, mood and personality changes and lack of concentration - sometimes many years after the initial injury.    However, very little research has been done to ascertain the extent and mechanism by which turbans might mitigate impacts to the head during cycling incidents.    Now, researchers from Imperial and the Sikh Scientists Network have studied the performance of turban styles ...

Who hasn't seen it before: the view through the microscope in which a sperm penetrates an egg cell and fertilises it. This fundamental step in procreation happens dynamically and seemingly without problems. However, if you zoom in on the processes that take place during fertilisation at a molecular level, it becomes highly complex and it is thus not surprising that 15 percent of couples worldwide struggle to conceive. No microscope, however modern, can illuminate the countless interactions between the proteins involved. Therefore, the exact trigger for the fertilisation process and the molecular events that transpire just before the fusion of the sperm and egg have ...

Some immune cells in our bodies see their ‘killer instinct’ restricted after entering solid tumours, according to new research.   In a new paper published in Nature Communications, a team led by researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Cambridge found how immune cells called natural killer cells (NK cells) rapidly lose their functionality when entering and residing in tumours.   Using tumour cells grown from mice models, the team established that NK cells adopt a dormant state when entering solid tumours through the loss of production of key effector mechanisms used to promote immune ...

For their study in Science Advances, the researchers reconstructed temperatures and precipitation for the period from 200 BC to 600 AD, with a resolution of three years. This means that two data points cover a period of three years – an extremely high resolution for paleoclimate researchers. The period extends from the so-called Roman Climatic Optimum to the Late Antique Little Ice Age. This period also includes three major pandemics known from historians’ records: the Antonine Plague (around 165 to 180 AD), the Cyprian Plague (around 251 to 266) and the Justinian ...

As a result, TUD ranks second overall in the number of calls for proposals in the current competition nationwide. This is according to today’s joint announcement (February 2, 2024) by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Science and Humanities Council (WR). An international panel of experts appointed by the DFG and the WR through the Joint Science Conference (GWK) has assessed a total of 143 draft proposals over the last few days and selected 41 as valuable funding opportunities. In addition, TUD's three existing Clusters of Excellence have expressed their intent to the DFG that they wish to continue their outstanding research work. TUD, therefore, ...

Clinical trials and medical research have been historically lacking in diversity among all groups. But recent trends have been turning the tide at least a little bit toward equity and inclusivity, according to a new meta-analysis published by a team of investigators from the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine (HMSOM) and the Hackensack Meridian Health Research Institute (HMHRI). The meta-analysis of clinical trials which included New Jersey patients from 2017 to 2022 show a snapshot of more diverse representation - and better reporting of race and ethnicity factors, according to the new paper in the Elsevier ...

Highlights Laboratory research led by MSK and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory demonstrates the potential for CAR T cells to improve “healthspan” by eliminating senescent cells associated with aging-related diseases. Not only was the treatment able to improve the metabolic function of aging mice and mice fed a high-fat diet, but it also proved protective against metabolic decline when given to younger mice. The CAR T cell-based approach offers a powerful alternative to more traditional small-molecule drugs target senescent cells, supported by its long-lasting effects and the potential to fine-tune ...

New York, NY (February 2, 2024) – Clinique and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai today announced a philanthropic partnership to establish the Mount Sinai-Clinique Healthy Skin Dermatology Center. The Center will develop forward-thinking research in dermatology, exploring the biological underpinnings of how skin ages, skin allergies and inflammatory or eczematous skin conditions, including eczema (or atopic dermatitis) and contact dermatitis. Rooted in a shared mission to conduct dermatological research that improves patients’ lives, the partnership will focus on applicable scientific discovery and leading-edge innovation to modernize allergy science in order to ...

Electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered as an effective strategy for mitigating the energy crisis and the greenhouse effect. Among the multiple reduction products, CO is regarded as having the highest market value as it is a crucial feedstock for Fischer-Tropsch process which can synthesize high-value long-chain hydrocarbons. Since the carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR) has complex intermediates and multiple proton-coupled electron transfer processes, improving the reaction activity and products selectivity remain two great challenges. Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have the advantages of high atom utilization, tunable coordination structure ...

In a study published today in Marine Policy, researchers have unveiled striking evidence that fisheries management decisions such as spatial fisheries restrictions can increase greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by a team of scientists led by postdoctoral researcher Kim Scherrer at the University of Bergen, sheds light on the unforeseen consequences of policy changes on fishing fleets and their carbon footprint. In the North Atlantic, international agreements often allow fleets to follow the fish across national borders. This allows fishers to catch the fish where it is most efficient. But when the UK left the EU (Brexit), ...

University of Sydney researchers have shown it is possible to shield plants from the hungry maws of herbivorous mammals by fooling them with the smell of a variety they typically avoid. Findings from the study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution show tree seedlings planted next to the decoy smell solution were 20 times less likely to be eaten by animals. “This is equivalent to the seedlings being surrounded by actual plants that are unpalatable to the herbivore. In most cases it does trick the animals into leaving the plants alone,” said PhD student Patrick ...

Do climate change deniers bend the facts to avoid having to modify their environmentally harmful behavior? Researchers from the University of Bonn and the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) ran an online experiment involving 4,000 US adults, and found no evidence to support this idea. The authors of the study were themselves surprised by the results. Whether they are good or bad news for the fight against global heating remains to be seen. The study is being published in the journal Nature Climate Change. STRICTLY EMBARGOED: Do not publish before Friday, February 02, 11 a.m. CET! A surprisingly large number of people ...

Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Heidelberg University investigated in mice how spreading tumor cells behave at the site of metastasis: Some tumor cells immediately start to form metastases. Others leave the blood vessel and may then enter a long period of dormancy. What determines which path the cancer cells take is their epigenetic status. This was also confirmed in experiments with human tumor cells. The results of the study could pave the way for novel diagnostic and therapeutic applications. What makes cancer so dangerous? ...