SRI International announced today it is spinning off Synfini, a biosciences platform that accelerates the process by which pharmaceutical and other companies can design, synthesize, and bring to market molecules for drug development. The technology brings together a suite of software and hardware solutions developed at SRI through a significant, multi-year development effort. The suite includes a neuro-symbolic AI molecule designer, a computational synthetic planning tool, a high-throughput automated chemistry system, and a flow chemistry hardware platform that reliably performs multi-step synthesis. “At SRI we are always tremendously excited to ...

When we wash our face with a cleanser, our skin can start to feel tight. With the application of a favorite moisturizer, that feeling often goes away. This perception of our skin might seem subjective, but researchers at Stanford recently revealed the mechanism behind these feelings. Their work, published this week in PNAS Nexus, demonstrates how mechanical changes at the outer surface of our skin translate into sensations and provides a quantitative approach for determining how people will perceive their skin after using a moisturizer or cleanser. “This work provides ...

The Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — already the world’s most powerful accelerator-based neutron source — will be on a planned hiatus through June 2024 as crews work to upgrade the facility.  Much of the work — part of the facility’s Proton Power Upgrade project — will involve building a connector between the accelerator and the planned Second Target Station at SNS. When complete, the PPU project will bring the accelerator up to 2.8 megawatts from its current record-breaking ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Lava worlds, massive exoplanets home to sparkling skies and roiling volcanic seas called magma oceans, are distinctly unlike the planets in our solar system.   To date, nearly 50% of all rocky exoplanets yet discovered have been found capable of maintaining magma on their surfaces, likely because these planets are so close to their host stars they orbit in fewer than 10 days. Being so close causes the planet to be bombarded by harsh weather and forces surface temperatures to the extreme, making it all but completely inhospitable to life as we know it today.  Now, in a new study, scientists have ...

Philadelphia, September 26, 2023 – In four articles in the Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics, published by Elsevier, leading nutrition experts describe and evaluate the latest versions of the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), issued to correspond to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). For the first time, there are two new HEIs, one for children and adults 2 years and older, and one for young children aged 12 through 23 months. The Call to Action of the ninth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is “Make Every Bite Count.” These guidelines form the basis of nutrition policy ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (09/26/2023) — Published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, University of Minnesota Medical School researchers examined homicide rates of health professionals in the United States to inform prevention interventions and strategies. The research team used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) to collect data on the number of homicides among ten types of health professionals, including doctors, psychologists, nurses, social workers and pharmacists.  The study found rates of homicides ...

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has awarded $45 million to rapidly develop sense-and-respond implant technology that could slash U.S. cancer-related deaths by more than 50%. The award to a team of researchers from seven states, led by Rice University, will fast-track development and testing of a first-of-its-kind approach to cancer treatment that aims to dramatically improve immunotherapy outcomes for patients with ovarian, pancreatic and other difficult-to-treat cancers. Weiyi Peng, assistant professor ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (09/26/2023) — The University of Minnesota Medical School received a $16 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative to support the groundbreaking project of unraveling the mysteries of the brain's ‘wiring diagram.’ Using cutting-edge techniques, this research aims to discover how the brain's neurons are connected and communicate with each other. The project aims to better understand how complex neural ...

Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent on Sept. 19, 2023, making it the sixth-lowest year in the satellite record, according to researchers at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest maximum extent on record on Sept. 10 at a time when the ice cover should have been growing at a much faster pace during the darkest and coldest months.   Scientists track the seasonal and annual fluctuations because sea ice shapes Earth’s polar ecosystems and plays a significant role in global climate. Researchers at NSIDC ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Sept. 26, 2023) — Van Andel Institute has appointed Eric Swindell, Ph.D., as dean and chief academic officer of Van Andel Institute Graduate School, effective Dec. 4, 2023. Swindell joins the Institute after a distinguished 25-year career in scientific research, with the past several years dedicated to leadership positions in biomedical graduate education. He brings a proven track record as a dynamic, energetic and motivational team builder who possesses a deep understanding of science graduate education and a robust commitment to collaboration and inclusiveness. “I am excited to join Van Andel Institute and honored to ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — Non-Hispanic and Hispanic Black bisexual women who live in rural areas have the highest prevalence of experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors, according to a Penn State-led study. The researchers said this “first-of-its-kind study,” published in JAMA Psychiatry, revealed how various demographic factors intersect to affect a person’s risk of having suicidal thoughts and behaviors. An estimated 12 million adults in the United States think about suicide every year, with nearly two million ...

A research team at the University of Liverpool has developed a new material that captures coronavirus particles and could transform the efficiency of face masks and other filter equipment to stop the spread of COVID-19 and other viruses. In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the team showed that the new material used in a conventional face mask was approximately 93% more efficient at capturing proteins, including coronavirus proteins, with little impact on breathability. The Liverpool scientists behind the new material are Professor Peter Myers, a research leader in chromatography, and Dr Simon Maher, a mass spectrometry expert. They had ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 26, 2023—A special focus issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Neurotrauma highlights the latest findings of the North American Clinical Trials Network (NACTN), aimed at improving outcomes for individuals with acute spinal cord injury (SCI). Click here to read the issue now. Led by Guest Editor Michael Fehlings, MD, PhD, from Toronto Western Hospital, the focus issue includes an article on the history and accomplishments of the NACTN, which is a consortium of translational clinical research centers with the overarching aim to translate scientific discoveries in the realm of SCI neuroprotection and neuroregeneration while ...

The term model is employed quite widely in science and technology. Researchers in disciplines such as biology, computing, engineering and mathematics each have their own understanding and meaning of what a model is meant to be. In a timely paper published in the journal Cancers, City, University of London Biomedical Imaging academic, Dr Constantino Carlos Reyes Aldasoro, reviews the use of the word model as it relates to cancer research and the specific area of the microenvironment surrounding a cancer tumour. He then groups different definitions ...

How are environmental changes, loss of biodiversity, and the spread of pathogens connected? The answer is a puzzle. Scientists from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in cooperation with the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) have now described one piece of that puzzle in the journal “eLife”, showing that the destruction of tropical rainforests harms the diversity of mosquito species. At the same time, more resilient species of mosquitoes become more prevalent – which also means the viruses they carry are more abundant. If there are many individuals of a given ...

With a variety of flavors and widespread perceptions of safety, e-cigarettes appeal to an array of users and especially to adolescents. E-cigarette use, however, is linked to increased alcohol consumption, as well as the use of other substances and drugs. The health effects of such combinations remain almost entirely unknown. Now, with new funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University hope ...

About The Study: From a nationally representative cohort of approximately 1.84 million employed adults observed from 2008 through 2019, relative to non–health care workers, registered nurses, health technicians, and health care support workers in the U.S. were at increased risk of suicide. New programmatic efforts are needed to protect the mental health of these U.S. health care workers. Authors: Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University in New York, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

About The Study: In this study of working-age adults with multiple sclerosis (MS), premorbid income, education, and marital status correlated with disability and symptom severity in relapse onset and progressive-onset MS, independent of treatment. These findings suggest that socioeconomic status may reflect both structural and individual determinants of health in MS. Authors: Anna He, M.B.B.S., of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our ...

About The Study: In this study of 69,000 adults with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, there was no difference in sustained virologic response across alcohol use categories, even for patients with high-risk consumption or alcohol use disorder, after adjusting for potential confounding variables. These findings suggest that restricting access to direct-acting antiviral therapy on the basis of alcohol use creates an unnecessary barrier for patients and challenges HCV elimination goals. Authors: Emily J. Cartwright, M.D., of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, ...

Earthworms are important drivers of global food production, contributing to approximately 6.5% of grain yield and 2.3% of legumes produced worldwide each year, according to new work published by Colorado State University scientists in the journal Nature Communications.     These new estimates from a trio of CSU researchers mean earthworms may account for as much as 140 million metric tons of food produced annually — roughly comparative to the amount of cereal grains (rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, maize and millet) ...

Leipzig. The decline in invertebrates also affects the functioning of ecosystems, including two critical ecosystem services: aboveground pest control and belowground decomposition of organic material, according to a new study published in Current Biology and led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University. The study provides evidence that loss of invertebrates leads to a reduction in important ecosystem services and to the decoupling of ecosystem processes, making immediate protection measures necessary. Invertebrates, such as insects and also ...

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth, but the overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture is not sustainable. In a review article publishing in the journal Trends in Microbiology on September 26, a team of bacteriologists and plant scientists discuss the possibility of using genetic engineering to facilitate mutualistic relationships between plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes called “diazotrophs.” These engineered associations would help crops acquire nitrogen from the air by mimicking the mutualisms between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. “Engineering associative diazotrophs to provide nitrogen ...

A new study finds that consanguinity – unions between close relatives - may increase the risk of common diseases such as type 2 diabetes and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators at Queen Mary University of London analysed the genomic data of diverse groups to investigate the relationship between autozygosity - a measure of genetic relatedness between an individual’s parents - and the prevalence of common diseases, with a novel method that reduces confounding due to sociocultural factors. They focused ...

Redefining Global Health Security: A Novel Framework Sheds Light on Equity and Decolonial Approaches Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and London, UK – 25 September 2023 In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new policy paper titled "Global Health Security and the Health-Security Nexus: Principles, Politics and Praxis" in the journal BMJ Global Health, warns of dangers and potential pitfalls associated with the increased attention paid to ‘global health security’ and the growing interaction between public health and security actors. According to the authors, the prevailing ...

"Of all the subspecies of reindeer found in the high north, the Svalbard reindeer has the most inbreeding and the lowest genetic diversity," says Nicolas Dussex, a postdoc at Norwegian University of Science and Technology´s (NTNU) Department of Natural History. It was only 7000-8000 years ago that the first reindeer migrated to Svalbard, most likely from Russia via Novaya Zemlya and the islands of Franz Josef Land. Perhaps there were no more than a few animals that established themselves on the arctic ...