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Medicine20 Jun 2024

Grant supports research to identify barriers to health care for Black women

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 ...

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Technology20 Jun 2024

Scientists at uOttawa develop innovative method to validate quantum photonics circuits performance

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, ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

New report on community-centered approach to providing vaccine education and resources to persons experiencing homelessness during COVID-19

(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 ...

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Science20 Jun 2024

Government updates race and ethnicity data collection standards: implications and insights

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, ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

Dr. Vivek S. Kavadi named CEO of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)

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 ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

Dietary sucrose determines activity of lithium on gene expression and lifespan in drosophila melanogaster

“[...] 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 ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

Assessment of CEA, CA-125, and CA19-9 as adjuncts in non-small cell lung cancer management

“[...] 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 ...

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Environment20 Jun 2024

Iron meteorites hint that our infant solar system was more doughnut than dartboard

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 ...

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Science20 Jun 2024

Anti-trust regulators should consider their options carefully when start-ups are acquired, new study suggests

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 ...

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Social Science20 Jun 2024

Family conditions may have more of an impact on upward social mobility than gender inequality

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 ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

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

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 ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

In two separate clinical studies, combined immunotherapy approach enhances cancer patient response

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 ...

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Technology20 Jun 2024

Airborne mapping reveals roles for biogenic sources and temperature in air pollution emissions in Los Angeles

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 ...

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Environment20 Jun 2024

Old bombs reveal new insights: Plants store more carbon, but for a shorter time frame, than we thought

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) ...

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Science20 Jun 2024

The time it takes a person to decide can predict their preference

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 ...

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Environment20 Jun 2024

Hurricane changed ‘rules of the game’ in monkey society

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 ...

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Social Science20 Jun 2024

Researchers widely observe yet seldom publish about same-sex sexual behavior in primates and other mammals - often because it is perceived to be rare

Researchers widely observe yet seldom publish about same-sex sexual behavior in primates and other mammals - often because it is perceived to be rare ### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304885 Article Title: Same-sex sexual behaviour among mammals is widely observed, yet seldomly reported: Evidence from an online expert survey Author Countries: Canada, USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

Wild chimpanzees seek out medicinal plants to treat illness and injuries

Chimpanzees appear to consume plants with medicinal properties to treat their ailments, according to a study publishing on June 20 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Elodie Freymann from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues. Many plants produce compounds that have medicinal effects on humans and other animals. Wild chimpanzees eat a variety of plant matter, including some that is nutritionally poor but may treat or lessen the symptoms of illness. However, it is hard to determine whether chimpanzees self-medicate, by intentionally seeking out plants with properties that help their specific ailments, or passively consume plants ...

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Environment20 Jun 2024

New catalyst unveils the hidden power of water for green hydrogen generation

Hydrogen is a promising chemical and energy vector to decarbonize our society. Unlike conventional fuels, hydrogen utilization as a fuel does not generate carbon dioxide in return. Unfortunately, today, most of the hydrogen that is produced in our society comes from methane, a fossil fuel. It does so in a process (methane reforming) that leads to substantial carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, the production of green hydrogen requires scalable alternatives to this process. Water electrolysis offers a path to generate green hydrogen which can be ...

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Space20 Jun 2024

Supermassive black hole appears to grow like a baby star

Supermassive black holes pose unanswered questions for astronomers around the world, not least “How do they grow so big?” Now, an international team of astronomers, including researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, has discovered a powerful rotating, magnetic wind that they believe is helping a galaxy’s central supermassive black hole to grow. The swirling wind, revealed with the help of the ALMA telescope in nearby galaxy ESO320-G030, suggests that similar processes are involved both in black hole growth and the birth of stars. Most galaxies, including our own Milky Way have a supermassive black hole at their centre. How ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

Early detection crucial in bile duct cancer for patients with rare liver disease

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a rare progressive liver disease that damages bile ducts and significantly increases the risk of bile duct cancer, particularly a type called cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). This cancer is aggressive, and curative surgery is uncommon. Liver transplantation is a potential treatment option for some PSC-CCA patients, especially if the cancer is caught early. Early diagnosis is essential for successful treatment. PSC can affect people of all ages but primarily strikes men in their 30s and 40s. It is often accompanied by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The disease can progress to liver failure and increase the risk of colorectal cancer ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

BCMA-CD19 bispecific CAR-T therapy in refractory chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy

This study is led by Professor Junnian Zheng and Ming Shi from the Cancer Institute of Xuzhou Medical University, together with the team of Professor Guiyun Cui and Wei Zhang from the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University. The team reported for the first time using BCMA-CD19 bispecific CAR T cells for treating relapsed/refractory CIDP. Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) is an uncommon condition with sudden onset symptoms, including nerve damage affecting movement, sensation, speech, breathing, and heart rate. ...

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Science20 Jun 2024

Embryo and organoid models do not threaten the definition of personhood, bioethicist says

Advances in organoids and embryonic models of human development have the potential to prompt social and existential questions—e.g., what defines human individuality? However, bioethicist Insoo Hyun of Harvard Medical School and the Museum of Science in Boston says that these models have the potential to strengthen rather than weaken the concept of human individuality when considered within the philosophical frameworks of “personhood” and sentience. In a commentary publishing June 20 in the journal Cell, Hyun argues that despite huge advances, we are a long way off from developing technologies that would ...

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Science20 Jun 2024

Great British Bake Off finalist Josh Smalley discusses the parallels between chemistry and baking

Last year on a Friday evening, chemical biology researcher Josh Smalley was in the lab when he received a call inviting him to appear on the 14th and latest season of The Great British Bake Off. Starting as one of a group of 12 amateur bakers, Smalley made it all the way to the final round, where the top 3 contestants compete for the winning spot. In an essay published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology on June 20, Smalley describes the overlap between chemistry and baking and how his training in one ...

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Medicine20 Jun 2024

New genetic cause of obesity could help guide treatment

Scientists have discovered a new cause of why people who lack a specific blood group are genetically predisposed to be overweight or obese. A team of international researchers, led by the University of Exeter, discovered that people with a genetic variant that disables the SMIM1 gene have higher body weight because they expend less energy when at rest. SMIM1 was only identified 10 years ago, whilst searching for the gene encoding a specific blood group, known as Vel. One in 5,000 people lack both copies of the gene, making them Vel-negative. The findings from the new research suggest that this group is also more likely to be overweight, a conclusion ...

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