Drugs developed to combat HIV and AIDS are being trialled for the first time in patients with multiple brain tumours. Scientists at the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at the University of Plymouth are conducting a clinical trial to see whether using anti-retroviral medications, Ritonavir and Lopinavir, could help people with Neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2). The rare inherited genetic condition causes tumours such as schwannoma (which include acoustic neuroma), ependymoma and meningioma which develop ...

Groundbreaking research has revealed a new way to measure incredibly minute forces at the nanoscale in water, pushing the boundaries of what scientists know about the microscopic world. The significant nanotechnology advance was achieved by researchers from Beihang University in China with RMIT University and other leading institutions including the Australian National University and University of Technology Sydney.  The new technique, involving a super-resolved photonic force microscope (SRPFM), is capable of detecting forces in water as small as 108.2 attonewtons—a scale so minute that it compares to measuring the weight of a virus. Lead ...

Imagine a close basketball game that comes down to the final shot. The probability of the ball going through the hoop might be fairly low, but it would dramatically increase if the player were afforded the opportunity to shoot it over and over. A similar idea is at play in the scientific field of membrane separations, a key process central to industries that include everything from biotechnology to petrochemicals to water treatment to food and beverage. “Separations lie at the heart of so many of the products we use in our everyday lives,” said Seth Darling, head of the Advanced Materials for Energy Water Systems (AMEWS) Center at the U.S. Department of ...

​ Oh, the joy of inflicting pain upon others. The Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude, meaning “malicious pleasure.” And tapping into its sentiment properly can, ironically, do a lot of good by raising money for charity. In a groundbreaking paper published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, UC Riverside School of Business marketing professor and associate dean Thomas Kramer and co-authors articulate and quantify the appeal of schadenfreude (pronounced Sha-den-froid-e) through the lens of marketing psychology. Through a series of behavioral scenario studies, their paper provides insights ...

The Lancet: Managing gestational diabetes much earlier in pregnancy can prevent complications and improve long-term health outcomes, experts say Speaking at the American Diabetes Association 84th Scientific Sessions, authors of a new Lancet Series challenge current approaches to managing gestational diabetes (a type of diabetes that can be diagnosed during pregnancy) and call for initiating treatment much earlier to prevent complications during pregnancy and beyond. [1].  Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), commonly referred to as gestational diabetes, is the most common ...

A popular and widely-promoted claim that dinosaur fossils inspired the legend of the griffin, the mythological creature with a raptorial bird head and wings on a lion body, has been challenged in a new study. The specific link between dinosaur fossils and griffin mythology was proposed over 30 years ago in a series of papers and books written by folklorist Adrienne Mayor. These started with the 1989 Cryptozoology paper entitled ‘Paleocryptozoology: a call for collaboration between classicists and cryptozoologists’, and was cemented in the seminal 2000 ...

BOSTON (MA), June 20, 2024 – NASA astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg will deliver a keynote address at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC) in Boston on Thursday, August 1, 2024. Hoburg has close ties to Boston as a graduate and former assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Hoburg’s address will focus on his six-month science expedition on the space station and the importance of shaping the future workforce ...

Policing is a profession that features shift work and long hours, both of which can lead to insufficient sleep and fatigue. Because of the unique demands of the job, fatigue raises risks related to decision making, impulse control, driving, and other aspects of work. In a new study, researchers tested the effect of a fatigue-management program on the sleep, mental health, well-being, and safety of police employees in Seattle. The training improved sleep duration as well as various aspects of employees’ safety and well-being. The study, by researchers at Washington State University (WSU) and the Seattle Police Department, ...

What actually happens to the human body in space? While scientists and researchers have heavily researched how various factors impact the human body here on Earth, the amount of information available about changes that occur in the body in space is not as well-known. Scientists, including OHIO’s Nate Szewczyk and several of his trainees, have been studying for years how the body, specifically on the molecular side, changes in space. Recently, a new package of papers has been published in “Nature” journals depicting how the modern tools of molecular biology and precision medicine can help guide humanity into more challenging missions beyond where we’ve already been. The ...

A $1.58 million grant will support work by a health communication scholar at the University of Tennessee (UT) Health Science Center’s College of Nursing and a medical oncologist at West Cancer Center and Research Institute (WCCRI) to identify sociocultural and structural factors that are root causes of cancer health disparities for Black women in the Mid-South. Assistant Professor Janeane Anderson, PhD, MPH, is a social scientist and health communication scholar at the College of Nursing whose research focuses on how interpersonal factors affect ...

A team of researchers from the University of Ottawa’s Nexus for Quantum Technologies Institute (NexQT), led by Dr. Francesco Di Colandreanorth_eastexternal link, under the supervision of Professor Ebrahim Karimi, associate professor of physics, has developed an innovative technique for evaluating the performance of quantum circuits. This significant advancement, recently published in the prestigious journal npj Quantum Information, represents a substantial leap forward in the field of quantum computing. In the rapidly evolving landscape of quantum technologies, ...

(Boston)— A community-support model for providing health resources and education is a way to continuously engage unhoused people and other underserved groups who are particularly vulnerable during health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. “Having a stable system for bringing health information to unhoused people and connecting them to providers at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP), is a pathway for addressing a number of health issues they experience,” said Kareem King, Jr., research program manager at Boston University’s Clinical & Translational Science ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 20, 2024–The latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Health Equity features a pivotal roundtable discussion titled “Implications and Insights on Federal Revisions to Race and Ethnicity Collection.” This roundtable assembles leading experts to explore newly revised race and ethnicity data collection standards from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), highlighting the significant impact these changes have on policy and practice. The expanded standards now capture historically marginalized communities, ...

ARLINGTON, Va., June 20, 2024 — The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) announced today that following a nationwide search, Vivek S. Kavadi, MD, MBA, FASTRO will become CEO of the Society effective November 1, 2024. Dr. Kavadi will succeed Laura Thevenot, who previously announced her intent to retire after leading the organization since 2002. Dr. Kavadi, a radiation oncologist and ASTRO member since 1994, ascends to the role from his current position as Chief Radiation Oncology Officer for The ...

  “[...] we found that, in female D. melanogaster, the life-prolonging effect of dietary lithium is dependent on the actual sucrose content of the medium.” BUFFALO, NY- June 19, 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 11, entitled, “Dietary sucrose determines the regulatory activity of lithium on gene expression and lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster.” The amount of dietary sugars and the administration of lithium both impact the lifespan of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. It is noteworthy that lithium ...

“[...] these inexpensive, widely available tests with rapid turnaround times and relatively short half-lives (CEA, CA-125, and CA19-9) are perfectly situated to serve as adjunctive clinical tools in the management of NSCLC.” BUFFALO, NY- June 20, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on June 13, 2024, entitled, “Assessment of serum tumor markers CEA, CA-125, and CA19-9 as adjuncts in non-small cell lung cancer management.” Conventional tumor markers may serve as adjuncts in non-small cell lung cancer ...

Key takeaways Iron meteorites are remnants of the metallic cores of the earliest asteroids in our solar system. Iron meteorites contain refractory metals, such as iridium and platinum, that formed near the sun but were transported to the outer solar system.  New research shows that for this to have happened, the protoplanetary disk of our solar system had to have been doughnut-shaped because the refractory metals could not have crossed the large gaps in a target-shaped disk of concentric rings. The paper suggests that the refractory metals moved outward ...

June 20, 2024 Anti-Trust Regulators Should Consider Their Options Carefully When Start-Ups are Acquired, New Study Suggests Less Blunt Options than Banning Acquisitions May Help Preserve Innovation and Competition Toronto - Promoting a competitive marketplace has been the main focus for regulators concerned with “killer acquisitions” -- when big companies swallow small startups to eliminate a potential rival. But researchers and other observers point out that blocking these purchases puts something else important at risk – innovation. Startups are sometimes driven to come up with a new process or product precisely because ...

Family conditions—specifically, how similar one’s social status and background is to one’s parents’ status—may play a bigger role in determining how easily an individual can shift into a wealthier socioeconomic class than gender inequality, according to a study of 153 countries published June 20, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Khanh Duong from Maynooth University, Ireland. As global inequality increases, researchers have found that countries with higher levels of income inequality tend to experience lower rates of class mobility (in other words, individuals in a lower socioeconomic ...

People with higher weight, and those who have high-quality experiences with higher-weight people, report less weight bias, per social psychology study of US adults ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0305080 Article Title: The role of social norms, intergroup contact, and ingroup favoritism in weight stigma Author Countries: USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Because not all cancer patients respond to a leading type of cancer immunotherapy drug, known as an immune checkpoint inhibitor, scientists explored whether adding janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors – drugs that treat chronic inflammation – could help. In two separate clinical studies, researchers found that adding JAK inhibitors did improve patients’ responses to cancer checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies. “Aside from the exciting findings of the early phase trials reported by [both groups], they provide a great deal of data with complex analyses of immune ...

Airborne observations over California have revealed that biogenic sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – blooming trees and growing plants – dominate summertime air pollutant formation in Los Angeles, in a way that increases with temperature. Future air pollution regulations thus need to consider that only 40% of urban VOC emissions (those not tied to biogenic sources) can be mitigated through regulations, say the authors. Ambient air pollution – the fourth-leading global ...

Analysis of radiocarbon produced during nuclear bomb testing in the 1960s suggests that current Earth system models underestimate carbon uptake into terrestrial vegetation and soils. But, say the study’s authors, this storage is more short-lived than previously thought. The findings suggest that anthropogenic carbon dioxide will not reside as long in the terrestrial biosphere as models currently predict. Accurate climate predictions, crucial for developing effective climate policies, require a robust representation of the global carbon cycle. It’s thought that vegetation and soils account for taking up approximately 30% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) ...

Researchers led by Sophie Bavard at the University of Hamburg, Germany, found that people can infer hidden social preferences by observing how fast others make social decisions. Publishing June 20th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, the study shows that when someone knows the options being considered by another person, and they know how long it takes them to reach their decisions, they can use this information to predict the other person’s preference, even if they do not know what the actual choices were. How do we know what someone’s social preferences ...

A devastating hurricane transformed a monkey society by changing the pros and cons of interacting with others, new research shows. Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, killing more than 3,000 people. It also destroyed 63% of vegetation on Cayo Santiago (also known as Monkey Island), which is home to a population of rhesus macaques. Even now, tree cover remains far below pre-hurricane levels and – in this hot part of the world – that makes shade a scarce and precious resource for the macaques. The new study, led by the universities of Pennsylvania and Exeter and published in the journal Science, shows the storm ...