UT-Battelle, LLC, has appointed Stephen K. Streiffer to be the next director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He currently serves as interim director at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and will join ORNL in October. “Stephen is a proven leader with diverse experience and a commitment to mission-driven research and development,” said Lou Von Thaer, CEO of Battelle and chair of UT-Battelle, which operates ORNL for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). “Throughout his career, Stephen has leveraged existing strengths to create new opportunities and partnerships that strengthen our nation’s ability to innovate ...

Researchers at NYU College of Dentistry’s Pain Research Center have developed a gene therapy that treats chronic pain by indirectly regulating a specific sodium ion channel, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).   The innovative therapy, tested in cells and animals, is made possible by the discovery of the precise region where a regulatory protein binds to the NaV1.7 sodium ion channel to control its activity.   “Our study represents a major step forward in understanding the underlying biology of the NaV1.7 sodium ion channel, which can be harnessed to provide relief from chronic pain,” said Rajesh ...

At first glance, the hexagonal cells build by honey bees and social wasps may seem similar, but they are significantly different. Honey bees build using wax, whereas wasps use paper. Honey bees build their double-sided combs vertically, whereas wasps build single-sided comb horizontally (i.e., the opening of each cell faces downward). Indeed, the hexagonal cells built by these two groups have independent evolutionary origins. Just like sharks and whales have similar body plans due to their watery environment, bees and wasps build hexagonal cells because the shape maximizes strength and storage area, while minimizing building materials. But what happens when perfectly ...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments changed rules and procedures related to Medicaid enrollment. These changes decreased many of the burdens eligible people face when signing up for programs and contributed to a 30 percent increase in Medicaid enrollment. However, the end of public health emergency declarations brings an end to these pandemic policies, which many fear could lead to eligible people losing public health insurance simply because they are unable to fulfill administrative requirements such as accurately filling out and submitting forms, renewing their enrollment ...

New research shows the importance of long-term commitment to the MIND diet for reaping the greatest benefit to brain health. “The benefits within the new study’s three-year clinical trial weren’t as impressive as we’ve seen with the MIND diet observational studies in the past, but there were improvements in cognition in the short-term, consistent with the longer-term observational data,” said lead study author Lisa Barnes, PhD, associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at RUSH. Results from the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed that within a three-year period, there was no significant ...

July 27, 2023 – Race/ethnicity is not an independent predictor of hospital readmission in patients undergoing breast reconstruction surgery, reports a study in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. Among patients who have unplanned hospitalizations after breast reconstruction, costs are substantially higher for Black or Hispanic patients, according to the new research by ASPS ...

A soil nematode reanimated from Siberian permafrost had laid dormant for approximately 46,000 years, according to a study publishing July 27, 2023 in the open access journal PLOS Genetics by Anastasia Shatilovich at the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science RAS in Russia, Vamshidhar Gade at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany, and colleagues. Some animals, such as tardigrades, rotifers, and nematodes, can survive harsh conditions by entering a dormant state known as “cryptobiosis”. Previously, nematode individuals were reanimated from samples collected from a fossilized burrow in silt deposits ...

For over two hundred years, the origin of the Indo-European languages has been disputed. Two main theories have recently dominated this debate: the ‘Steppe’ hypothesis, which proposes an origin in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe around 6000 years ago, and the ‘Anatolian’ or ‘farming’ hypothesis, suggesting an older origin tied to early agriculture around 9000 years ago. Previous phylogenetic analyses of Indo-European languages have come to conflicting conclusions about the age of the family, due to the combined effects of inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the datasets they used and limitations in the way that phylogenetic methods analyzed ...

Some organisms, such as tardigrades, rotifers, and nematodes, can survive harsh conditions by entering a dormant state known as “cryptobiosis.” In 2018, researchers from the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science RAS in Russia found two roundworms (nematode) species in the Siberian Permafrost. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the nematode individuals have remained in cryptobiosis since the late Pleistocene, about 46,000 years ago. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in ...

PHILADELPHIA – A gene encoding a protein linked to tau production—tripartite motif protein 11 (TRIM11)—was found to suppress deterioration in small animal models of neurodegenerative diseases similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), while improving cognitive and motor abilities, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, TRIM11 was identified as playing a key role in removing the protein tangles that cause neurodegenerative diseases, like AD. The findings are published today in Science. ...

Cognitive and computer scientists at the University of Toronto, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies have found child language development and the historical evolution of the world’s languages share a common cognitive foundation—a core knowledge base where patterns of children’s language innovation can predict patterns of language evolution, and vice versa. Published today in Science, the paper is a first-of-its-kind step toward a unified theory of the lexicon and the mind examined across timescales. The result may also help predict how a word’s meaning may change ...

People often debate whether social media creates "echo chambers" by showing users content that matches their politics and in turn increases polarization. A new study published today in the journal Nature reports that reducing Facebook users' exposure to content from politically "like-minded" sources had no measurable effect on their political beliefs or attitudes during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The findings are part of a broader research project examining the role of ...

Australia’s rich and diverse fauna never fails to surprise us, as a new spider species has been documented from the continent. The novel species, a blind daddy long-legs, was found in boreholes in the arid Pilbara of Western Australia. It is the first cave-adapted daddy long-legs spider reported from the continent, with other blind species of its genus so far only found in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. “It represents a subfamily that was previously thought to be restricted to the tropical north and east of the continent,” says Bernhard Huber, one of the authors of a recent study published ...

27 July 2023 Geological Society of America Release No. 23-28 Contact: Justin Samuel +1-303-357-1026 jsamuel@geosociety.org Boulder, Colo., USA: GSA is pleased to welcome three exceptional new Fellows who will join us in our mission to advance geoscience knowledge and discovery through excellent writing, research, and advocacy. GSA’s 2023–2024 Science Communication Fellow is Arianna Soldati. Soldati is an assistant professor of volcanology at North Carolina State University. Her lab group works on a variety of topics, ranging from effusive eruptions to critical minerals. She received her Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of ...

New Haven, Conn. — In a promising form of immunotherapy known as CAR T-cell (chimeric antigen receptor) therapy, the patient’s T cells are engineered to better recognize and attack antigens on the surface of cancer cells. In treatments currently approved for use in battling lymphoma and leukemia, however, the therapy has a drawback: Amidst the cancer-killing frenzy, many engineered T cells become tainted with the remnants of cancer antigens, which causes them to turn on other T cells. This eventually depletes the body of cancer-fighting cells ...

Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) has chosen Symplectic Grant Tracker from Digital Science’s suite of flagship products to advance its aims of providing catalytic funding for innovative scientific research and the development of academic scientists.  RCSA joins the 50+ foundations, charities and funders worldwide who manage their end-to-end grant lifecycle using Symplectic Grant Tracker. Designed from the outset to meet research funding needs, Grant Tracker includes features to assist applicants, reviewers, committees and ...

PHILADELPHIA (July 27, 2023) – Two decades ago, the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index was published to measure the nursing practice environment. Although the instrument's use has resulted in advances in science and quality improvement efforts, its potential may be limited by the availability and quality of translations into different languages. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) investigated published translations of the instrument and have identified ...

Philadelphia, July 27, 2023 – Approximately one-third of young adults in Victoria, Australia, who experienced sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs) outside of a hospital setting from April 2019 to April 2021 used illegal drugs prior to their fatal events, reports a new study in Heart Rhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, and the Pediatric & Congenital Electrophysiology Society, published by Elsevier. The analysis of data on substance abuse, revealed through positive toxicology reports and patient histories and recorded in one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive SCD registries, ...

In a new study funded by a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), University of Missouri researcher Kiho Lee, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, will use gene editing to investigate the building blocks of disease. His ultimate goal — to discover clinically significant explanations for human diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and infertility, while working on solutions to global food insecurity. Common diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, are widespread in humans, plaguing an estimated 11% or 6.7 million Americans over age 65, according to The ...

Spiders are often maligned for being creepy critters, but they are some of the most environmentally friendly pest regulators. Because they actively feed on flies, moths, mosquitoes and roaches, spiders eliminate parasites and many other vectors of disease—protecting both humans and plants from harm.  A new University of Maryland-led study published online in the journal Ecology found one simple way to take advantage of this natural ecosystem service: give tree-dwelling spiders a more diverse habitat.   “We found that there’s ...

NDIANAPOLIS—Researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine have diagnosed a Sumatran Orangutan at the Indianapolis Zoo with a rare genetic disease called Alkaptonuria. This is the first time the disease has been confirmed molecularly in a primate other than a human. The six-year-old orangutan, named Mila, was born at the Indianapolis Zoo in 2016. Mila had a history of dark urine that turned brown upon standing since birth, but has never shown other symptoms. Researchers from the IU School of Medicine Department of Medical ...

University of Missouri researchers are striving to find solutions to the leading cause of maternal mortality in the world — preeclampsia. For Laura Schulz, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health in the University of Missouri School of Medicine, understanding the root causes of preeclampsia and other complicated, life-threatening maternal conditions is pivotal in advancing women’s health care. Supported by a renewed $3 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Schulz and her team will use ...

Plastic waste is a problem. Most plastics can’t be recycled, and many use finite, polluting petrochemicals as the basic ingredients. But that’s changing. In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, researchers successfully engineered microbes to make biological alternatives for the starting ingredients in an infinitely recyclable plastic known as poly(diketoenamine), or PDK. The finding comes from collaboration among experts at three facilities at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab): the Molecular Foundry, the Joint BioEnergy Institute ...

Promising new research suggests a total of just 4.5 minutes of vigorous activity that makes you huff and puff during daily tasks could reduce the risk of some cancers by up to 32 percent.  Published in JAMA Oncology and led by the University of Sydney, Australia, the study used data from wearable devices to track the daily activity of over 22,000 ‘non-exercisers’. Researchers then followed the group’s clinical health records for close to seven years to monitor for cancer. As few as four to five minutes of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity or ‘VILPA’ was associated with a substantially lower cancer risk compared to those who undertook no ...

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) researchers have developed one of the world’s smallest, most intense and fastest refrigeration devices, the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC), and teamed with neuroscientists to help amputees perceive a sense of temperature with their phantom limbs. This advancement, one of the first of its kind, enables a useful new capability for a variety of applications, including improved prostheses, haptics for new modalities in augmented reality (AR) and thermally-modulated therapeutics for applications such as pain management. The technology also has a variety ...