UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Flathead catfish — native to the Mississippi River basin — were first detected in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the two decades since then, the invasive species has spread throughout the river basin. The impact of the large predator on the waterway’s food webs and ecology was unknown, but now a research team is beginning to understand what Susquehanna flatheads are eating and how their presence is affecting native aquatic species in the river. The findings, which the team said state ...

NORMAN, OKLA. – Alisa Javadi, Ph.D., professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program for research that offers the potential for advancing quantum technology development. Javadi’s research will test the use of cerium oxide as a host for quantum bits, or qubits. Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computing, need an environment free ...

Obesity Medicine Fellowship Created at Pennington Biomedical  Fellowship product of collaboration between Pennington Biomedical Research Center’s Metamor Clinic and Louisiana State University Health New Orleans School of Medicine   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Oct. 22, 2024  BATON ROUGE – A new Obesity Medicine Fellowship at Pennington Biomedical Research Center is now open for candidate applications. The one-year program is the result of a collaboration between Pennington Biomedical and Louisiana State University Health ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The viruses that infect bacteria are the most abundant biological entities on the planet. For example, a recent simple study of 92 showerheads and 36 toothbrushes from American bathrooms found more than 600 types of bacterial viruses, commonly called bacteriophages or phages. A teaspoon of coastal seawater has about 50 million phages. While largely unnoticed, phages do not harm humans. On the contrary, these viruses are gaining increasing popularity as biomedicines to eradicate pathogenic ...

A Ukrainian researcher has developed a new digital tool for detecting autism and developmental delay in children. Her research has been published in Cambridge University Press journal Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health. The tool incorporates the basic principles of the Kids’ Development Diagnosis and Determining the Risk of Autism (KiDD) methodology, for children aged 1.5 to 6 years old, into mobile app form. It has the potential to help diagnose children more swiftly and efficiently, which could have major positive ...

Texas Accounting Chair Steven Kachelmeier Garners Coveted Award for Scholarship AUSTIN, Texas — The American Accounting Association (AAA) presented its Lifetime Achievement Award for Behavioral Accounting Research to Steven Kachelmeier, a professor and chair of the Department of Accounting at The University of Texas McCombs School of Business. Kachelmeier, the Thomas O. Hicks Endowed Chair in Business, accepted this prestigious award during the weekend at the association’s 2024 Accounting ...

TORONTO, Oct. 22, 2024 – Today, the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), powered by Baycrest launched Ignite, its new funding program to support Canadian innovators designing solutions for older persons. As Canada’s aging population rapidly grows – with nearly 20 per cent of people above the age of 65 – so too will the need for innovations that enhance the lives of older persons, including those impacted by dementia. Canadian early-stage innovators – including researchers, point-of-care staff, and companies – are developing ...

A new artificial intelligence-based system can accurately assess the chromosomal status of in vitro-fertilized (IVF) embryos using only time-lapse video images of the embryos and maternal age, according to a study from investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine. The new system, called "BELA,” and described in a paper published Sept. 5 in Nature Communications, is the team’s latest AI-based platform for assessing whether an embryo has a normal (euploid) or abnormal (aneuploid) number of chromosomes—a key determinant of IVF success. Unlike prior AI-based approaches, BELA does not need to  consider embryologists' subjective assessments of embryos. ...

“This study represents one of the first to evaluate the impact of senolytic agents D+Q on the clinical development of pelvic organ prolapse and expression of proteins associated with cellular senescence in a mouse model.” BUFFALO, NY- October 22, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science), Volume 16, Issue 19 on September 26, 2024, entitled, “Use of the senolytics dasatinib and quercetin for prevention of pelvic organ prolapse in a mouse animal model.” Pelvic organ prolapse is a common condition among women ...

The UCLA Urology department has been awarded $6 million from the California Department of Health Care Services to continue providing vital care and critical services to underinsured and uninsured Californians diagnosed with prostate cancer. For the next two years, the additional funding will support the 23-year-old IMPACT program—which stands for Improving Access, Counseling, and Treatment for Californians with Prostate Cancer—and extend the program’s reach and duration, ensuring continued support for California’s most vulnerable populations. Led ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Dangling from a weather balloon 80,000 feet above New Mexico, a pair of antennas sticks out from a Styrofoam cooler. From that height, the blackness of space presses against Earth’s blue skies. But the antennas are not captivated by the breathtaking view. Instead, they listen for signals that could make air travel safer. Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and Ohio State University are taking experimental navigation technology to the skies, pioneering a backup system to keep an airplane on course when it cannot rely on global positioning system satellites. More than 15 miles below the floating cooler, cell phone ...

The interaction between humans and artificial intelligence is shaping a new thinking system, a new cognitive scheme, external to the human mind, but capable of enhancing its cognitive abilities. This is called System 0, which operates alongside the two models of human thought: System 1, characterized by intuitive, fast, and automatic thinking, and System 2, a more analytical and reflective type of thinking. However, System 0 introduces an additional level of complexity, radically altering the cognitive landscape in which ...

UPTON, N.Y. — Chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new theoretical framework for more accurately predicting the behavior of catalysts. These collections of atoms lower the energy needed for countless chemical reactions. The study reveals how conditions such as temperature and pressure can change a catalyst’s structure, efficiency, and even the products it makes. The findings are published in the journal Chem Catalysis. “Our results highlight the significant impact ...

When X (formerly Twitter) changed its verification system in 2022, many foresaw its potential to impact the spread of political opinions on the platform. In a modeling study publishing October 22 in the Cell Press journal iScience, researchers show that having verified users whose posts are prioritized by the platform’s algorithms can result in increased polarization and trigger the formation of echo chambers. Because X’s new verification system allows almost anybody to become verified, this side effect could be taken advantage of by users wishing to manipulate others’ opinions, the researchers say. “Our findings confirm ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2024 – Disc golf is a sport growing in popularity, but there hasn’t been much research into the best techniques – until now. Researcher Zachary Lindsey and his team studied professional and amateur disc golf players in Georgia to analyze the effect of thumb grip on disc-throwing. “Participants were eager and excited to engage in the study, as there is clearly a thirst for scientific evidence and data to drive progress in the sport so that disc golf enthusiasts can improve their game in recreational and competitive contexts,” ...

About The Study: In this population-based cohort study including 392,000 mothers and 649,000 offspring, offspring from mothers with an eating disorder history or pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) outside normal weight were at higher risk of psychiatric disorders. The results differed somewhat between the 2 exposures with regard to which offspring diagnoses had associations, and effect sizes were typically larger for maternal eating disorders vs BMI. These findings suggest a need to consider these 2 exposures clinically to help prevent offspring mental illness. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ida A. K. Nilsson, PhD, email ida.nilsson@ki.se. To ...

The noses of many mammals, such as dogs, ferrets and cows, feature grooves forming a multitude of polygons.  A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has analyzed in detail how these patterns form in the embryo using 3D imaging techniques and computer simulations. The researchers discovered that differential growth of the skin tissue layers leads to the formation of domes, which are mechanically supported by the underlying blood vessels. This work describes for the first time this morphogenetic process, which could help explain the formation of other biological structures ...

New Haven, Conn. — Whether we’re staring at our phones, the page of a book, or the person across the table, the objects of our focus never stand in isolation; there are always other objects or people in our field of vision. How that visual “clutter” affects visual processing in the brain, however, is not well understood. In a new study published Oct. 22 in the journal Neuron, Yale researchers show that this clutter alters how information flows in the brain, as does the precise location of that clutter within the wider field of vision. The findings ...

A difficult-to-describe nanoscale object called the magnetic skyrmion might one day yield new microelectronic devices that can do much more — for example, massive data storage — all while consuming much less power.  But researchers need a more detailed understanding of skyrmions if they are ever to be used reliably in computational devices, including quantum computers. Peter Fischer, a senior researcher at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can spare many patients with rectal cancer from invasive surgery that can carry lifelong side effects, new research indicates. The findings, from UVA Cancer Center’s Arun Krishnaraj, MD, MPH, and collaborators, indicate that MRI can predict patient outcomes and the risk of the tumor reccurring or spreading for patients who have undergone chemotherapy and radiation.  That information could be extremely useful in determining the best course of treatment and deciding whether a patient can ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 18, 2024—An invited Guest Editorial entitled “Give Cas a Chance,” by Fyodor Urnov, PhD, Director of Technology & Translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), anchors the October 2024 special issue of The CRISPR Journal on “CRISPR Trials.”   As guest editor of the special issue, Dr. Urnov has penned an extraordinary editorial that emphatically defines the magnitude of the crisis in the genome editing arena and offers a path forward. The inherently programmable nature of CRISPR gene editing that makes it ...

WASHINGTON—Adults with type 2 diabetes on a low-carbohydrate diet may see benefits to their beta-cell function allowing them to better manage their disease and possibly discontinue medication, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Beta-cells are endocrine cells in the pancreas that produce and release insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels. More than 38 million Americans have diabetes, and over 90% of them have ...

Exposure to higher levels of air pollution as a baby is linked to having a peanut allergy throughout childhood, according to a new study. And policies aimed at tackling poor air quality could potentially reduce the prevalence and persistence of peanut allergies, it stated. The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the University of Melbourne, found being exposed to higher levels of air pollution from infancy was associated with increased odds of developing a peanut allergy and having the allergy persist across the first 10 years of life. However, the same association was not seen for egg allergy or eczema. Published ...

The metaverse, a space where the lines between physical and digital realities blur, is rising among younger populations. As of March, 33% of teens own a virtual reality (VR) device and 13% use it weekly. With the metaverse offering richer emotional experiences, youth may be particularly vulnerable to significant harm in these immersive spaces, underscoring the need to explore potential risks. Unfortunately, research of online victimization in the metaverse is sorely lacking. A new study by Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, is one of the first to examine the ...

The Energy Transition Vulnerability Index (ETVI) quantifies the vulnerability of nations to adverse impacts of transitioning away from fossil fuels. The COP28 agreement has called for all countries to wind down use of fossil fuels to combat climate change—but the agreement stipulates that these transitions should not disproportionately harm historically marginalized and vulnerable stakeholders. Xunpeng Shi and colleagues create a method of quantifying energy transition vulnerability for 135 countries from 2010 to 2020. The indicator focuses on exposure—which captures the magnitude of the changes required—, ...