A vast number of microbes colonizes the human body to form an ecological community known as the microbiota. Microbiota are made up of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea. These microbes are closely associated with the physiology and function of the human body. The gut microbiota has received tremendous research attention with the recent advance in metagenomic sequencing.  Under normal conditions, the gut microbiota is maintained in homeostasis, yet it is readily affected by various environmental factors, including diet and use of ...

The longer a person has type 2 diabetes, the more likely they may be to experience changes in brain structure, a Michigan Medicine study finds. Researchers analyzing data from 51 middle-aged Pima American Indians living with type 2 diabetes used a series of memory and language tests developed by the National Institutes of Health, called the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery, as well as MRI, to determine the relationship between diabetes, cognition and makeup of the brain. Brain imaging suggested that study participants with longer durations of type 2 diabetes had decreased mean cortical thickness ...

Developing new materials requires significant time and labor, but some chemists are now hopeful that artificial intelligence (AI) could one day shoulder much of this burden. In a new study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a team prompted a popular AI model, ChatGPT, to perform one particularly time-consuming task: searching scientific literature. With that data, they built a second tool, a model to predict experimental results.    Reports from previous studies offer a vast trove of information that chemists need, but finding and parsing the most relevant details can be laborious. ...

Québec City, August 10, 2023 - Scientists at Université Laval and the University of Lethbridge have succeeded in reversing certain cognitive manifestations associated with Alzheimer's disease in an animal model of the disease. Their results have been published in the scientific journal Brain.    "Although this has yet to be demonstrated in humans, we believe that the mechanism we have uncovered constitutes a very interesting therapeutic target, because it not only slows down the progression of the disease but also partially restores certain cognitive functions," ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Platelets, or thrombocytes, are specialized cellular fragments that form blood clots when we get scrapes and traumatic injuries. Viral infections, autoimmune disease, and other conditions can cause platelet levels to drop throughout the body, termed thrombocytopenia. After a robust clinical and research collaboration, Stephan Moll, MD, and Jacquelyn Baskin-Miller, MD, both in the UNC School of Medicine, have linked adenovirus infection with a rare blood clotting disorder. This is the first time that the common ...

HOUSTON – (Aug. 10, 2023) Rice University chemist Carolyn Nichol has won a competitive Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Institutes of Health to address race-based cancer health disparities by increasing underrepresented minority student populations’ engagement and participation in biosciences education. The 5-year, $1,038,544 award will support Nichol’s Cancer Health Activism Network for Greater Equity (CHANGE) project in bringing together cutting-edge cancer research with insight on race-based healthcare disparities from the social sciences in a series of transformative high school biology lessons aligned with both ...

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Restaurants can persuade patrons to choose healthier foods by adjusting the font size of numbers attached to nutritional information on menus, according to a study headed by a Washington State University researcher. Lead researcher Ruiying Cai, an assistant professor in the WSU School of Hospitality Business Management, said U.S. restaurants with more than 20 locations are already required to show the calorie content of food on their menus. By representing these values incongruously — using physically larger numbers on the page when they’re attached to ...

A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have published the first detailed description of the interplay between two cell types that allow lizards to regenerate their tails. This research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published on August 10 in Nature Communications, focused on lizards’ unusual ability to rebuild cartilage, which replaces bone as the main structural tissue in regenerated tails after tail loss.  The discovery could provide insight for researchers studying how to rebuild cartilage damaged by osteoarthritis in humans, a degenerative and debilitating disease that affects about 32.5 million adults ...

After a successful test phase, the Satellite Orbit DecAy (SODA) service, which was jointly developed by TU Graz and the University of Graz, officially became part of the ESA’s Space Safety Programme in mid-July. SODA provides accurate forecasts of the effects of solar storms on low Earth orbiting satellites. This makes TU Graz only the third Austrian institution contributing to this ESA programme. Seibersdorf Laboratories, and the University of Graz, through the Kanzelhöhe Observatory and the Institute of Physics, ...

Each year, more than 200 million people fall sick with malaria and more than half a million of these infections lead to death. The World Health Organization recommends parasite-based diagnosis before starting treatment for the disease caused by Plasmodium parasites. There are various diagnostic methods, including conventional light microscopy, rapid diagnostic tests and PCR. The standard for malaria diagnosis, however, remains manual light microscopy, during which a specialist examines blood films with a microscope to confirm the presence of malaria parasites. ...

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a novel technique to self-assemble a thin layer of amino acids with ordered orientation over a large area that demonstrates high piezoelectric strength, making the manufacturing of biocompatible and biodegradable medical microdevices, such as pacemaker and implantable biosensor, in the near future possible. The generation of bioelectricity from the piezoelectric effect – reversible conversion between mechanical and electrical energies – has physiological significance in living systems. ...

Acquiring real-time spectral information in point-of-care diagnosis, internet-of-thing, and other lab-on-chip applications require spectrometers with hetero-integration capability and miniaturized feature. Compared to conventional semiconductors integrated by heteroepitaxy, solution-processable semiconductors provide a much-flexible integration platform due to their solution-processability, and, therefore, more suitable for the multi-material integrated system. However, solution-processable semiconductors are usually incompatible with the micro-fabrication processes, making them far from practical use in various lab-on-chip applications. In a new paper published ...

Immunothrombosis, or the formation of microscopic blood clots during inflammation, is a major cause of morbidity among patients with sepsis or severe COVID-19. A key enzyme in this process is thrombin. To date, no method exists for early detection of immunothrombosis in a living organism.  A team of investigators led by Ali Hafezi-Moghadam, MD, PhD, director of the Molecular Biomarkers Nano-Imaging Laboratory (MBNI) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of Mass General Brigham healthcare system, and an associate professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, developed a novel technology to diagnose immunothrombosis by measuring ...

TUCSON, Ariz., August 9, 2023 — Critical Path Institute (C-Path) announced today that Sanofi, a global leader in immunology and diabetes care, has joined its Type 1 Diabetes Consortium (T1DC). Sanofi joins T1DC as part of its commitment to push the boundaries of innovation to improve the lives of those with diabetes. T1DC was established in 2017 with the goal to significantly advance the drug development landscape for T1D prevention and treatment. The consortium achieves this by fostering ...

Researchers are developing a way to incorporate one of the most human of characteristics – uncertainty – into machine learning systems. Human error and uncertainty are concepts that many artificial intelligence systems fail to grasp, particularly in systems where a human provides feedback to a machine learning model. Many of these systems are programmed to assume that humans are always certain and correct, but real-world decision-making includes occasional mistakes and uncertainty. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, along with The Alan Turing Institute, Princeton, and Google DeepMind, have been attempting ...

People with low levels of vitamin K in their blood are more likely to have poor lung function and to say they suffer with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and wheezing, according to a study published today (Thursday) in ERJ Open Research [1].   Vitamin K is found in leafy green vegetables, vegetable oils and cereal grains. It plays a role in blood clotting, and so helps the body to heal wounds, but researchers know very little about its role in lung health.   Researchers say their new findings do not alter the current advice on vitamin K intake, but they do support further research to ...

Sanford Burnham Prebys’ Cancer Center has received a rare and prestigious Merit Extension Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), recognizing and rewarding its earlier accomplishments as well as current research plans. The award extends the center’s current 5-year Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) for an additional two years. There are only seven Basic Laboratory Cancer Centers in the NCI’s national network. These centers focus primarily on laboratory research: developing, conducting, translating and advancing fundamental discoveries to clinical testing and, ultimately, ...

In the ongoing search for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, a burgeoning branch of medicine is bringing new hope. Stem cell therapies are already being used to treat various cancers and disorders of the blood and immune system. In a new proof-of-concept study, scientists at University of California San Diego show stem cell transplants may also be a promising therapeutic against Alzheimer’s.  In the study, publishing this month in Cell Reports, the researchers demonstrate that transplanting hematopoietic ...

PHILADELPHIA—Trying to finish your homework while the big game is on TV? “Visual-movement” neurons in the front of your brain can help you stay focused, according to a new study from neuroscientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In the study, published recently in Neuron, the scientists sought to illuminate the neural mechanism that helps the brain decide whether to focus visual attention on a rewarding task or an alluring distraction. By analyzing neuron activity in animal models as they faced this kind of attentional ...

Scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have developed a novel way to model whether the populations of more than 500 bird species are increasing or decreasing. The method solves a nagging statistical problem by accounting for year-to-year changes in the behavior of people collecting the data. The result is detailed trend maps for each species down to an eight-mile radius--a major boost for local conservation efforts. Scientists used an approach called Double Machine Learning. Details are published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. “Changing human behavior presents a problem for statistical analysis ...

“[...] CDK9 inhibitors could play a role in future treatments of hematological diseases and could be a great ally when combined with other therapeutic approaches.”  BUFFALO, NY- August 9, 2023 – A new research perspective was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on August 7, 2023, entitled, “CDK9 INHIBITORS: a promising combination partner in the treatment of hematological malignancies.” In their new perspective, researchers Daniel Morillo, Gala Vega and Victor Moreno from Hospital Fundación Jiménez Díaz discuss Cyclin-dependent ...

“We argue that in multicellular organisms, neighbouring cells are in constant competition.” BUFFALO, NY- August 9, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 14, entitled, “A novel theory of ageing independent of damage accumulation.” The underlying cause or causes of aging are an enduring mystery, but in 1977 Kirkwood postulated that organisms might gain a fitness advantage by reducing investment in somatic maintenance if this allowed them to invest more resources in more crucial ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People who take acid reflux medications called proton pump inhibitors for four-and-a-half years or more may have a higher risk of dementia compared to people who do not take these medications, according to new research published in the August 9, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This study does not prove that acid reflux drugs cause dementia; it only shows an association. Acid reflux is when stomach acid flows into the esophagus, usually after a meal or when lying down. People with acid reflux may experience heartburn and ulcers. People ...

Research from experts at Michigan Medicine, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine is breaking ground on new ways of treating blood disorders, such as sickle cell anemia, through gene therapy.  To cure blood disorders, patients must undergo high dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation. This requires a match between the recipient and donor immune system, but ~30% of patients do not have a match. Even when they do the donor immune system can attack the patient, graft versus host disease. Gene therapy corrects the mutation in a patient’s own cells ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Despite broad scientific consensus that climate change has more serious consequences for some groups – particularly those already socially or economically disadvantaged – a large swath of people in the U.S. doesn’t see it that way. A new national survey study found that just over one-third of U.S. adults believe climate change is impacting some groups more than others. Nearly half feel that climate change impacts all groups about equally. And when the question referenced race in climate impacts, even fewer people believed some groups are more adversely affected than others. “Our earlier research showed that ...