NEW YORK, July 26, 2023 – The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences announced today the 2023 laureates of the  Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.   Each will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific award for America’s most innovative, faculty-ranked scientists and engineers who are under the age of 42. The winners and their distinguished research: 2023 Laureate in Life Sciences: William Anderegg, Ph.D., The University of Utah (Ecology & Evolutionary ...

Lymph nodes are one of the body’s first lines of defense against disease. Immune cells are dispatched from these biological police stations to fight off intruders. But somehow, lymph nodes are also the first stop for most metastatic cancers. “It’s paradoxical,” Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Semir Beyaz says. “The cancer goes right in, but the immune cells aren’t doing anything. It’s important to understand what’s going on because this is how cancer takes the whole body hostage.” Beyaz joined with collaborators from Massachusetts General Hospital to investigate. They ...

Researchers from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, University of Bonn, and FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines how consumers respond to new products co-developed with universities and the unique marketing opportunities for these products. Firms often collaborate with universities to access novel scientific knowledge and technological expertise with an aim to develop superior new products. For example, Italian start-up Angles90 co-developed the first dynamic training grips with the faculty of Strength Training Ergonomics at the Technical University of ...

PULLMAN, Wash. –Sexual health, diet and exercise are the three topics that steal the show when it comes to popular health-related videos on TikTok. Unfortunately, there’s little else in terms of engaging health-related content on the video sharing platform, a Washington State University study found.  The social media platform’s mostly young audience also seems to prefer health-related videos featuring popular influencers’ role model appeals, such as their diet or exercise routine, rather than expert medical advice, ...

PARAMUS, N.J., July 26, 2023 – Octapharma USA today announced that Balfaxar® (prothrombin complex concentrate, human-lans; marketed in Europe and Canada as octaplex®) has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the urgent reversal of acquired coagulation factor deficiency induced by vitamin K antagonist (VKA, e.g., warfarin) therapy in adult patients with need for urgent surgery or invasive procedures. Balfaxar® helps restore blood coagulation by replenishing the levels of clotting factors that are deficient due to warfarin therapy. Balfaxar® ...

HOUSTON, GOLDEN, Colo. and WATERTOWN, Mass. ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Nexo Therapeutics today announced a multi-year strategic collaboration that aligns the innovative technology and capabilities of each organization at the earliest stages of drug discovery and development to rapidly advance impactful new cancer therapies against previously undruggable targets. The agreement brings together Nexo’s unique drug discovery platform, which combines innovative covalent chemistry and chemical biology, with the translational research and drug development expertise ...

Scientists have discovered the honey produced by Australian ants possesses unique anti-microbial activity against bacteria and fungi that could make the liquid useful medicinally. The research, published today in PeerJ, was led by Andrew Dong and Dr Kenya Fernandes from the University of Sydney’s Carter Lab, which is led by Professor Dee Carter from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences and Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases. The team studied the Australian honeypot ant, Camponotus inflatus, which is found throughout desert areas mainly in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Among ...

Aurora, Colo. (July 26, 2023) – Children’s Hospital Colorado (Children’s Colorado) today announced the launch of the Precision Medicine Institute, which will allow experts to more efficiently integrate precision medicine into care provided to patients throughout the hospital. The Precision Medicine Institute uses innovative technology to integrate big data, including genomic data, into each individual patient's care plan to determine the best treatment for each patient. Precision medicine, also known as personalized medicine or genomic medicine, uses the most up-to-date technology ...

Research Highlights: Despite similar rates of bystander CPR after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, Asian adults in the U.S. were 8% less likely to survive to hospital discharge and 15% less likely to have favorable neurological outcomes compared to white adults, according to an analysis of nearly 279,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. The study is believed to be the first research comparing bystander CPR and survival rates between Asian and white adults in the U.S. after cardiac arrest. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, July 26, 2023 DALLAS, July 26, 2023 — Despite similar rates of bystander CPR after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, Asian ...

Arctic terns – which fly on the longest migrations of any animal on Earth – may be able to navigate the dangers posed by climate change, new research suggests. The birds live in near-perpetual daylight, breeding in the north of our planet and flying to Antarctica for the Southern Hemisphere summer, covering enough distance in their lifetime to travel to the moon three times. The new study, led by the University of Exeter and the Met Office, examined the likely impacts of climate change on arctic terns outside of ...

Osaka, Japan – The way that water molecules behave in proton conducting materials is very important for understanding—and making the most of—their properties. This means being able to look at very rapid snapshots to catch changes in the water motion. Researchers from Osaka University have taken a close look at semiclathrate hydrate crystals using quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS). Their findings are published in Applied Physics Letters. Semiclathrate hydrates have water molecule frameworks that house other molecules or ions as ‘guests’ in their structures. The overall properties of the framework can therefore be controlled and tailored to particular ...

The near-infrared (NIR) spectrum contains characteristic vibrational absorption bands of numerous organic functional groups. NIR phosphor-converted light-emitting diodes (pc-LEDs) have gathered increasing interests in fields including non-destructive testing and night vision. In 2016, Osram reported the first NIR pc-LED, SFH4735, while with low output power (16 mW @ 350 mA) and limited wavelengths. Furthermore, luminescent contrast agents operating within the second biological imaging window (1000-1800 nm) exhibit lower tissue absorption and scattering coefficients in contrast to the traditional first window (750-950 nm), thereby ...

Results of an innovative clinical trial led by Perth researchers have shown that the drug interferon could help reduce the spread of COVID-19 from a positive person to their household contacts, with the study helping to inform treatment options for a future pandemic. The trial - CONCORD-19 - tracked 1,172 participants in 341 households in Santiago, Chile where there was a positive COVID-19 case between December 2020 and June 2021. Researchers tested the effectiveness of treating the infected people and their uninfected household contacts with interferon, with the aim of evaluating whether this drug reduces the severity of the disease and the spread of COVID-19 within ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Over the last several years, the residents of Santa Monica, a coastal city on the edge of Los Angeles, saw something neither they, their parents, or perhaps even their grandparents had ever seen before: a three-foot-tall dune system rising gently from the flat, groomed expanse of one of the world’s most famous urban beaches. It’s a six year alliance between sand, wind and vegetation, and, according to UC Santa Barbara researchers, it’s one way to enlist nature to help protect the coast from the impacts of climate change. “The project was really to assess whether we could naturally grow dunes on a heavily ...

Sophia Antipolis, 26 July 2023:  Childhood is a window of opportunity to tackle obesity before the damage it causes is irreversible, according to a scientific statement by experts on heart disease and childhood obesity published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The document was produced by the Task Force for Childhood Health of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC) of the ESC and the European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG). Childhood obesity is on the rise. According to the World Health Organization, while less than 1% of children and adolescents aged 5-19 were obese in 1975, ...

Static isometric exercises—the sort that involve engaging muscles without movement, such as wall sits and planks—are best for lowering blood pressure, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence from clinical trials, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. But ‘cardio’ (aerobic exercise); dynamic resistance training, such as squats, press-ups, and weights; high intensity interval training or HIIT for short (episodic short bouts of high intensity exercise ...

The cumulative health and economic consequences of the premature loss of a parent may be greater for boys than for girls, suggest the findings of a large long term study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Experiencing the death of a parent before the age of 21, however, is strongly linked to poor mental health and lower earnings/unemployment in adulthood for both sexes, the data indicate. Previously published research has pointed to a link between premature parental death and the child’s subsequent health and prosperity. But no studies have drawn ...

More than half of patients with auto-immune conditions experience mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety, yet the majority are rarely or never asked in clinic about mental health symptoms, according to new research from the University of Cambridge and King’s College London. In a study published today in Rheumatology, researchers found that over half of the patients had rarely or never reported their mental health symptoms to a clinician, and that the range of possible mental health and neurological symptoms is much wider than has been previously reported. The team surveyed neurological and psychiatric symptoms amongst 1,853 patients with systemic auto-immune ...

Images and paper available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mPYnFKIEArlXUAaFk5H7YTepezntqerj?usp=sharing African cuckoos may have met their match with the fork-tailed drongo, which scientists predict can detect and reject cuckoo eggs from their nest on almost every occasion, despite them on average looking almost identical to drongo eggs. Fork-tailed drongos, belligerent birds from sub-Saharan Africa, lay eggs with a staggering diversity of colours and patterns. All these colours and patterns are forged by the African cuckoo. African cuckoos lay their eggs in drongos’ nests to avoid rearing their chick themselves (an example of so-called ...

Dr. Amir Asadi, an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University, is making groundbreaking strides in the field of composite materials. His research explores embedding patterned nanostructures composed of multiple materials into high-performance composites to achieve the desired multifunctionality without sacrificing any other properties. This could lead to advancements in various fields, including electronics, energy storage, transportation and consumer products.   Asadi's work has significant implications, as it addresses the challenge of simultaneously enhancing two properties — multifunctionality ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Shifting from a high-pressure mindset to a curious one improves people’s memory. New research from Duke found that people who imagined being a thief scouting a virtual art museum in preparation for a heist were better at remembering the paintings they saw, compared to people who played the same computer game while imagining that they were executing the heist in-the-moment. These subtle differences in motivation — urgent, immediate goal-seeking versus curious exploration for a future goal — have big potential for framing real-world challenges such as encouraging people ...

  The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded a $13.7 million, five-year grant to a team of researchers to investigate multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs) in nursing homes throughout the United States. The multidisciplinary research team includes CUNY Graduate School of Public Health (CUNY SPH) Professor Bruce Y. Lee and is led by University of California, Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine infectious diseases expert Dr. Susan Huang. Using one of the world’s largest compilations of specimens from healthcare facilities, the team will study six antibiotic-resistant organisms deemed as serious and urgent ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced quality of life, obesity is on the rise in the United States. Currently, more than 30% of American adults are classified as obese. A risk factor for several diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and COVID-19, obesity is an important and growing public health concern. Using a mouse model of high fat diet-induced obesity, a team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has found that, compared to males, female mice are protected against obesity and inflammation because they secrete more of an immune protein called RELMalpha. “Our ...

Precise control of light is a crucial requirement in optical imaging, sensing, and communication. Traditional lenses employed for the purpose have limitations, necessitating more precise and compact solutions. To address this need, researchers have developed metalenses, ultrathin lenses constructed from nanomaterials that are smaller in size than the wavelength of light. These sub-wavelength elements provide the means to manipulate light waves with exceptional precision, facilitating a precise control of the amplitude, phase, polarization, and direction of light waves. Moreover, compared to bulky lenses, metalenses are ...

SAN ANTONIO (July 25, 2023) — Alcohol consumption is a major cause of chronic liver disease. The disease, which has devastating consequences, progresses through stages of hepatitis (inflammation), fibrosis (scarring) and cirrhosis (severe scarring). Advanced disease increases the risk of developing liver cancer, and some individuals may require a liver transplant to live. Despite a tremendous need for new treatments, the specific biological factors that determine when and how rapidly liver cells deteriorate remain largely unknown. In a study published May 3 in the journal Hepatology, a research team at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San ...