With the European Parliament elections now underway, millions of EU citizens are finalizing their decisions about which political party best represents their views. But anyone using LlamaChat, one of the major new AI chatbots, is very likely to be confronted with biased answers. It turns out that the large language model developed by Meta, upon which LlamaChat is based, has clear political leanings. This has been demonstrated in a new study from the University of Copenhagen in which Department of Computer Science researchers examined the language model's knowledge of political groups in the European Parliament. Moreover, they tested LlamaChat’s ...

Philadelphia, June 6, 2024 – 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, examined the potential dangers of consuming energy drinks for patients with genetic heart diseases. A cohort of 144 sudden cardiac arrest survivors was examined at Mayo Clinic, of which seven patients (5%) had consumed one or more energy drinks in close proximity to their cardiac ...

A review of research to-date reveals the complex nature of revealing a diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) to a partner ahead of engaging in sexual activity. With individuals experiencing a variety of feelings and emotions related to the prospect of disclosure, the research shows that only around half or fewer individuals felt able to disclose their diagnosis to a partner before sexual engagement. Peer-reviewed results, published today in The Journal of Sex Research, also show a similar number of people believed they should have to disclose having a STI to a partner prior to engaging in sexual intercourse. In order ...

Australia’s ski industry is at risk of major disruptions and shorter seasons if the current level of climate pollution continues, according to new modelling from Protect Our Winters Australia (POW) and The Australian National University (ANU).  The report found the average ski season across all resorts in Australia will be 44 days shorter by 2050 under a mid-greenhouse gas emissions scenario and 55 days shorter under a high-emissions scenario.   It also shows that despite a dramatic decline in snowfall under mid- and high-emissions scenarios, the ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The early worm gets the arachnid, fossil research by an Oregon State University scientist has shown. In a parasitic first, a Baltic amber specimen has revealed that millions of years ago tiny worms known as nematodes were living inside of and feeding on the outer protective layer of pseudoscorpions. “This is very strange,” said George Poinar Jr., who has a courtesy appointment in the OSU College of Science. “No other invertebrate-associated nematodes are known to have this detailed habit.” Findings were published in Historical Biology. Pseudoscorpions are a highly diverse lineage of arachnid, said Poinar, an international expert in ...

Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have been around for years, but they’ve recently been making headlines due to a rise in popularity as weight loss agents. They all belong to a class of drugs known as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), which mimic a hormone (GLP-1) in the body that helps control insulin and blood glucose levels and promotes feelings of satiety. These drugs are extremely effective for blood glucose control and weight management, which, combined with their relatively limited side effect profile, makes them ...

Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) are channels composed of multiple proteins that ferry molecules in and out of the nucleus, regulating many critical cellular functions, such as gene expression, chromatin organization and RNA processes that influence cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation. In recent years, new studies, including work by Maximiliano D’Angelo, Ph.D., associate professor in the Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, have noted that NPCs in cancer cells are different, but how ...

A drug approved to treat eczema provided significant improvement in the symptoms of patients with severe itching diseases that currently have no targeted treatments, according to a new study published in JAMA Dermatology. The drug, abrocitinib, was found to cause minimal side effects during a small 12-week study led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers. It was beneficial for those with an itching disease called prurigo nodularis as well as for those with chronic pruritus of unknown origin, a condition that causes chronic unexplainable itching symptoms. “Very ...

“Approximately one in seventy working people in the United States are employed by either the police or departments of corrections.” In recent years, and in particular, in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, activists have focused renewed attention on the role of prisons in the United States. Thinkers like Angela Davis have articulated the ways in which the prison-industrial complex serves the interest of an oppressive state by reinforcing race and class hierarchies and extracting value from its incarcerated population. But despite this surge of interest ...

Peer-reviewed / Systematic review & meta-analysis / People   Embargoed access to the paper and linked comment and contact details for authors are available in Notes to Editors at the end of the release.     The first meta-analysis on the incidence of antidepressant discontinuation symptoms includes data from over 20,000 patients gathered from 79 randomised controlled trials and observational studies.  Overall, approximately one in three patients reported a discontinuation ...

Joint press release from Charité & University Hospital Cologne How hard is it to stop taking antidepressants? If countless Internet posts and a number of scientific studies are to be believed, discontinuing these medications is highly problematic, and doctors often underestimate the difficulties involved. But it is unclear how common discontinuation symptoms actually are. Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and University Hospital Cologne have now conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. In their article in The Lancet ...

Limited understanding of basic ocean processes is hindering progress in marine carbon dioxide removal, with the on-going commercialisation of some approaches “premature and misguided”. In a new paper, scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA), the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, review the climatic effectiveness of four 'nature-based' techniques using marine biological processes. These involve shellfish cultivation, seaweed ...

Minimum pricing can be very effective in reducing demand for cheap high-strength alcohol amid concerns about affordability fuelling problematic drinking - according to a study on the impact of the measure during the COVID lockdown. The research, led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), examined the efficacy of minimum unit pricing (MUP) to help curb excessive consumption following the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. As a flat-rate form of minimum prices applying to all alcohol products based on their ...

Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London have investigated the feasibility of a new home-administered treatment for binge eating disorder. The new treatment combines a gentle brain stimulation technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with a training programme that targets unhelpful patterns of attention around food. The findings, published in BJPsychOpen, indicate that this might be a welcome new avenue for treatment. Binge eating disorder (BED) is a serious mental illness that can affect anyone of any age, gender, ethnicity or background. People ...

Reston, VA—The field of nuclear medicine is in the spotlight this season on the TV documentary Jobs of Tomorrow. The series, hosted by Kristin Marand, explores how technology and innovation drive the changing job market and impact the workforce. Six episodes of this season of Jobs of Tomorrow highlight the many facets of nuclear medicine and the Society for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) members currently working in the profession. Nuclear medicine is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses physicians, chemists, physicists, pharmacists, and technologists—all ...

“The findings of the present study reveal that aging is linked to a decline in serine racemase protein levels across various brain regions [...]” BUFFALO, NY- June 5, 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 10, entitled, “Serine racemase expression profile in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampal subregions during aging in male and female rats.” Aging is associated with a decrease in N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor ...

Food is many things. It nourishes our bodies, delights our senses, and gives us something to gather around. Food is also a powerful cultural symbol, reflecting traditions, values, and histories of communities around the world. But for a researcher in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, food is also medicine. Bailey Houghtaling Ph.D. ’19, a registered dietician, is working to promote overall wellness among low-income individuals experiencing food insecurity, aiming to prevent or treat diet-related diseases. “Access to enough nutritious food is essential for individual well-being,” ...

Trustees of the William T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation and the Bezos Family Foundation have approved funding for the winners of the 2024 Institutional Challenge Grant competition. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Cherokee Health Systems will receive $650,000 to grow their unique research-practice partnership — and to learn how to implement community-engaged scholarship that results in ongoing positive outcomes. UT has a long history of working with CHS, a federally qualified ...

Phenotyping, which involves assessing observable plant characteristics, is crucial for understanding plant development and response to environmental stresses. Traditional methods are often cumbersome, costly, and destructive, limiting research scope and scale. A new system of affordable, mobile, and high-throughput phenotyping tools is making the technology accessible to a wider range of users. The "all-in-one" solution, developed by a team at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), includes low-cost hardware designs, data processing pipelines, and a user-friendly data analysis ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 5, 2024 CONTACT: Faith James fjames@vancomm.com or 202-248-5450   Multiple Randomized Trials Prove More Stroke Patients Can Benefit from Thrombectomy Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery issues update to standards and guidelines following research in favor of minimally invasive procedure for deadly type of stroke   FAIRFAX, Va. — Access to thrombectomy should be expanded to include patients who experience basilar artery occlusion (BAO), a deadly type ...

June 5, 2024   Researchers Led by UMass Amherst Solve 2,000-Year-Old Mystery of the Shipworm Secret of the world’s most destructive and intriguing mollusk has implications for everything from climate change to human health   AMHERST, Mass. – They bedeviled ancient Greek navies, helped shipwreck Christopher Columbus, aided in the sinking of the Spanish Armada and caused the wharves in San Francisco Bay to collapse into the sea, but until now, scientists have been unable to pinpoint exactly ...

A short course of immunotherapy was found to be highly effective in a subset of patients with colon cancer. The treatment, which consisted of two cycles of immunotherapy prior to surgery, was effective in almost all patients. In two third of patients, there were no longer any live tumor cells at the time of surgery. The patients’ immune system had cleaned up the cancer cells. These groundbreaking discoveries were made as part of the NICHE-2 trial at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Patients with colon cancer with ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Preliminary clinical data for glioblastoma multiforme patients enrolled in a Phase 1 clinical trial at the University of Alabama at Birmingham demonstrated that 92 percent of evaluable patients treated with INB-200 exceeded a median progression-free survival of seven months with concomitant temozolomide chemotherapy. The median follow-up was 11.7 months. This survival data along with radiographic improvements are indicative of positive treatment effects, which highlights the potential of IN8bio’s genetically modified, chemotherapy-resistant gamma-delta T cells ...

New Haven, Conn. — Negative early life experiences, such as attending segregated schools, contribute significantly to cognitive decline and cognition disparities between older Black and white Americans, according to a new study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is the first to look at the impact of school segregation upon later life cognition using a large representative sample of the U.S. population, said lead author Xi Chen, associate professor of public ...

After an extensive national search, Jessica Snowden, MD, MS, FAAP, MHPTT, a nationally recognized pediatric infectious disease specialist and researcher, has been named the new vice chancellor for Research at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, effective September 1. She will also serve as a professor in the College of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. Currently the vice dean for Research and chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Dr. Snowden is known as a dedicated mentor and a leader in integrating clinical, research, and academic efforts to advance the understanding ...