A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI  10.29026/oes.2024.230053 , discusses forbidden propagation of hyperbolic phonon polaritons and applications in near-field energy transport.   Manipulating photons on the nanoscale to develop integrated and miniaturized optoelectronic devices as well as photonic chips has been a strong pursuit of the nanophotonics community. Among them, phonon polaritons supported by two-dimensional layered van der Waals (vdW) materials, which have emerged in recent years, have attracted much attention by virtue of their ultra-long lifetimes, ultr-low losses, and strong confinement capabilities, ...

For more information, contact: Nicole Fawcett, nfawcett@umich.edu 734-764-2220   For immediate release   ANN ARBOR, Michigan — To understand why some cancers successfully circumvent the immune system to grow unchecked, researchers turned to pregnancy. “In pregnancy, the immune system does not reject the growing fetus, so we know there must be mechanisms active in the placenta. In cancer, it’s the same thing: the growing tumor is not rejected by the immune system. It means the cancer cells have developed strategies to suppress immune rejection, same as in pregnancy,” said Weiping ...

UC San Diego Health is the first health system in San Diego County to offer a new bladder-saving gene therapy to treat localized bladder cancer.  The novel treatment is the first and only FDA-approved gene therapy delivered directly into the bladder for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Called nadofaragene firadenovec (Adstiladrin), the gene therapy addresses an unmet need for patients who are no longer responding to the longstanding first line of defense — bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG), a bacteria-based immunotherapy for cancer management. While BCG is a common first therapy, it can eventually stop working, ultimately leading to complete bladder removal. The American ...

July 8, 2024, Mountain View, CA – Today, the SETI Institute announced the first projects it will fund with a new program to Support Technology, Research, Innovation, Development, and Education programs – or STRIDE. The SETI Institute established the $500K STRIDE fund for SETI Institute researchers and EOC (Education, Outreach, and Communications) professionals to develop innovative research and education proposals. The first five grants awarded will support projects that:  analyze Earth’s colors and climate to create detectors for studying exoplanets  develop a multi-backend capability for ...

The human body’s inability to break down sucralose, an artificial sweetener found in many zero-calorie food and drink products, is well established by scientific research. The compound is so stable that it escapes wastewater treatment processing and is in drinking water and aquatic environments. “We can't break down sucralose, and a lot of microorganisms can't break it down, either, because it's a really tough molecule that doesn't degrade easily. So there are a lot of questions about how it is affecting the environment ...

DNA from fossilised dingo remains going back 2746 years compared with modern dingoes’ Dingos arrived in Australia more than 3000 years ago K’gari dingoes have no domestic dog ancestry – they are pure dingo Co-lead author, paleogeneticist Dr Sally Wasef, from QUT’s School of Biomedical Sciences said this dataset gave a rare glimpse into the pre-colonial genetic landscape of dingoes, free from any mixing with modern dog breeds. “Consequently, are behaviourally, genetically, and anatomically distinct from domestic dogs,” Dr Wasef said. “Modern-day dingoes’ ancestors arrived in Australia more than 3000 years ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, today announced that Kim Sawyer will become the new director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, effective Aug. 2. Sawyer will serve as the lab’s fifth director in its 40-year history. In this role, Sawyer will be responsible for leading all activities in support of the world’s premiere research institution for exploring the nature of matter. “We are pleased that Kim has been selected to lead Jefferson Lab,” said ...

Disparities in cardiovascular disease outcomes between urban and rural areas continue to widen, yet nearly half of U.S. counties do not have a practicing cardiologist. According to a new analysis published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, these counties tend to be more rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged, with a greater burden of cardiovascular disease, thus highlighting deep geographic disparity in access to cardiovascular care. “While cardiologists are not the only determinants of cardiovascular outcomes, the lack of access to cardiologists in areas with ...

Hospital-level care provided in a patient’s own home is appealing to a majority of people for its convenience, comfort and effectiveness, according to a USC Schaeffer Center study. The study, published in JAMA, found that most survey respondents felt they would recover faster if cared for at home, rather than in the hospital, and that they felt safe being treated at home. Researchers say their study provides important insights about patient and family preferences as policymakers weigh whether to extend ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS In a study involving 50,000+ individuals from around the world, higher gut levels of Blastocystis, a single-celled organism commonly found in the digestive system, were linked to more favorable indicators of health. People with a healthy diet had higher levels of Blastocystis. The study, which was conducted by an international team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital, suggests that Blastocystis may play a beneficial role in how diet impacts health. In an analysis of more than 50,000 individuals from around the world, carriers of gut Blastocystis, a single-celled organism that has been ...

David Luther, Associate Professor, Biology, received funding for the project: “Identifying Road Segments that Bisect Predicted Movement Corridors for Small Priority Species in Virginia.”  The purpose of this study is to advance the work of the legislated Wildlife Corridor Action Plan (WCAP) and meet the intent of an awarded Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) grant by identifying road segments that may pose a high risk or impede movement of select small terrestrial and semiaquatic animal species that are ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Organizations using AI to monitor employees’ behavior and productivity can expect them to complain more, be less productive and want to quit more – unless the technology can be framed as supporting their development, Cornell University research finds. Surveillance tools cause people to feel a greater loss of autonomy than oversight by humans, according to the research. Businesses and other organizations using the fast-changing technologies to evaluate employee behaviors should consider their unintended consequences, which may prompt resistance and hurt performance, the researchers say. They also suggest an opportunity to win buy-in, ...

Novel liquid biopsy methodology enables the monitoring of disease evolution in patients with  metastatic prostate cancer   Extracellular vesicles shed by prostate cancer cells to the bloodstream contain tumor-derived material that can be used as biomarkers of therapy response and resistance in patients with metastatic disease.   Published today in the journal Cancer Cell, results of a VHIO-led study show that a newly developed liquid biopsy-based approach can monitor tumor gene expression through RNA contained ...

Zachary Schrag, Professor, History and Art History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), received funding for the project: “Rail Against Sprawl: A History of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project.”  Schrag said, “I am writing the history of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, among the nation’s most ambitious efforts to reshape daily transportation choices. After decades of planning and construction, the project was completed in 2022, extending the Washington ...

A new study led by researchers at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in collaboration with researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Cambridge Health Alliance, has uncovered concerning disparities in boarding rates of children and adolescents with severe mental health symptoms in emergency departments. When reviewing more than 4,900 boarding episodes of youth under 17 years old in Massachusetts over an 18-month period, the researchers found there were numerous racial and gender disparities: Black youth were less likely to be admitted to inpatient psychiatric care than White youth.  Additionally, transgender and nonbinary youth experienced ...

While H5N1 avian influenza virus taken from infected cow’s milk makes mice and ferrets sick when dripped into their noses, airborne transmission of the virus between ferrets — a common model for human transmission — appears to be limited. These and other new findings about the strain of H5N1 circulating among North American dairy cattle this year come from a set of laboratory experiments led by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers, reported today in the journal Nature. Together, they suggest that exposure to raw milk infected with the currently circulating virus poses a real risk of infecting humans, but that the virus may not ...

WHAT: A series of experiments with highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) viruses circulating in infected U.S. dairy cattle found that viruses derived from lactating dairy cattle induced severe disease in mice and ferrets when administered via intranasal inoculation. The virus from the H5N1-infected cows bound to both avian (bird) and human-type cellular receptors, but, importantly, did not transmit efficiently among ferrets exposed via respiratory droplets. The findings, published in Nature, suggest that bovine (cow) ...

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have taken a leap forward in understanding how we might fight back against the potentially deadly MRSA bacterium. They have shown in an animal model that targeting a key suppressive immune molecule (IL-10) during the delivery of a vaccine improves the ability of the vaccine to protect against infection. The bacterium Staphylococcus aureus is one of the leading causes of community- and hospital-acquired bacterial infection, and is associated with over one million deaths worldwide each year. Unfortunately, antibiotics are becoming increasingly less effective against this bacterium with the antibiotic-resistant ...

Sauer Receives Funding For Project Studying Tunable RF Atomic Magnetometer As An Electrically Small Receiver Karen Sauer, Professor, Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, received funding for the project: “Tunable RF Atomic Magnetometer as an Electrically Small Receiver.” Sauer will complete work for this project in three phases. In Phase 1, she will focus on developing and investigating novel bias-field control based on fully atom-based measurements as well as testing the performance ...

RESEARCH SUMMARY Study highlights the importance of infection prevention after CAR-T cell therapy Study Title: A systematic review and meta-analysis of nonrelapse mortality after CAR T cell therapy  Publication: Nature Medicine Dana-Farber Cancer Institute authors: David M. Cordas dos Santos, MD, Irene M. Ghobrial, MD, Jean-Baptiste Alberge, PhD Summary: Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in collaboration with colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York (Dr. Kai Rejeski) and the LMU Hospital in Munich, Germany (Dr. Tobias Tix), have found ...

A revised version of the Sexual Experiences Survey – Victimization (SES-V), the gold standard measurement of sexual exploitation designed for adults over age 18, has been released in a special issue of the Journal of Sex Research. As the first revision since 2007, the new SES-V is an interdisciplinary collaboration among experts across more than 10 U.S. universities and the Kinsey Institute, led and coordinated by Dr. Mary Koss from the University of Arizona. It adopts more inclusive language and ...

An exoplanet infamous for its deadly weather has been hiding another bizarre feature—it reeks of rotten eggs, according to a new Johns Hopkins University study of data from the James Webb Space Telescope. The atmosphere of HD 189733 b,  a Jupiter-sized gas giant, has trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a molecule that not only gives off a stench but also offers scientists new clues about how sulfur, a building block of planets, might influence the insides and atmospheres of gas worlds beyond the solar system. The findings are published today ...

Vaccinating mothers against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during late pregnancy to protect their newborns is not associated with an increased risk of preterm birth or other poor outcomes, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian investigators. Infants are particularly vulnerable to the virus which can cause a serious lower respiratory illness. The study published in JAMA Network Open on July 8 adds real-world evidence to the existing data from clinical trials about the safety of Pfizer’s Abrysvo vaccine. The researchers found that there ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS After implementing a new hospice transition program, 210 out of 388 patients (54.1 percent) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital transitioned to hospice from the emergency department (ED) within 96 hours, compared to 61 of 270 patients (22.1 percent) in the control period. Across all groups, the presence of a Medical Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment plan (MOLST), was independently associated with hospice transition. These findings suggest that hospice transition programs can help improve use of hospice for patients presenting at the ED near the end ...

About The Study: Although total dietary quality scores among U.S. children improved overall during 2005-2020, the increase remained suboptimal: lower than 5 points, a significant threshold for children in this analysis of changes in diet quality. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Yongjun Zhang, Ph.D., M.D., email zhangyongjun@sjtu.edu.cn. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.1880) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, ...