A novel molecular pathway to explain how a mutation in the gene ACTA2 can cause individuals in their 30s – with normal cholesterol levels and no other risk factors — to develop coronary artery disease has been identified, according to researchers with UTHealth Houston. The study was published in the European Heart Journal. “The gene ACTA2 codes a specific protein that has nothing to do with cholesterol,” said Dianna Milewicz, MD, PhD, senior author of the study and professor and director of the Division of Medical Genetics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The prevalence of moderate or severe joint pain due to arthritis varies strikingly across American states, ranging from 6.9% of the population in Minnesota to 23.1% in West Virginia, according to a new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher. The paper published in the journal PAIN is providing new insights − through its novel combination of individual- and macro-level measures − into geographic differences in pain and their causes. “The risk of joint pain is over three times higher in some states compared to others, with states in the South, ...

Rockville, MD (July 7, 2023) – Steven A. Abrams, MD, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School has been named the next Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Nutrition. Dr. Abrams is a globally recognized leader in pediatric nutrition whose scientific contributions have helped establish the evidence base on nutrient requirements in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Advances in Nutrition is the American Society for Nutrition’s journal that publishes reviews spanning basic, translational, ...

LONDON, ON – Recently published in The Journal of Translational Medicine, a team at Lawson Health Research Institute has discovered unique patterns of blood plasma proteins in patients with long COVID that could reveal potential drug targets to improve patient outcomes. Currently, 10-20 per cent of people with a confirmed case of COVID-19 will be diagnosed with long COVID. “Those patients experience a wide variety of symptoms, which may include fatigue, brain fog and difficulty breathing,” says Dr. Douglas Fraser, Lawson Scientist ...

Madison ­— A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison finds that ticks can harbor transmissible amounts of the protein particle that causes Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), implicating the parasites as possible agents in the disease’s spread between deer in Wisconsin. Her findings were published in the journal Nature.               CWD is caused by a pathogenic agent called a prion, which can pass from deer-to-deer through contact with things like prion-contaminated soil and infected ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A team of Penn State researchers investigated how seeing frightening news about climate change day after day may shape the way people feel about the phenomenon and how willing they are to take action to address it. Christofer Skurka, Jessica Myrick and graduate student Yin Yang found that seeing bad news about climate change can make people more afraid over time, but it also may encourage audiences to think about what society can do to address the problem. They published the results of two separate studies in an article titled “Fanning the flames or burning out? Testing competing hypotheses ...

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named an asteroid after Pedro Machado, astrophysicist at Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA), at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Along with the nomination of Pedro Machado, there were over a hundred other nominations of asteroids and other small bodies. It is almost three kilometers in diameter and takes four and a half years to complete its orbit around the sun. We’re talking about 2001 QL160, or rather the asteroid 32599 Pedromachado. Pedro Machado has been honored by the Work group for the Nomenclature of Small Bodies (WGSBN 2) of the International Astronomical ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 6, 2023) — Charles “Chipper” Griffith III, M.D., has been named dean of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.  Pending approval from the Board of Trustees, Griffith will begin his appointment July 15, 2023. He has served as acting dean of the college since July 2021.  Through the years, he has played an instrumental role in the health and well-being of Kentuckians, and in the academic success of thousands of students.   “Dr. Griffith understands Kentucky needs the UK College of Medicine,” said Provost Robert ...

Updating pulse oximeters A portable device used to detect blood oxygen levels revolutionized the medical field 50 years ago and is now receiving essential updates Efforts to improve the accuracy of pulse oximetry readings for diverse groups of patients and in multiple settings are underway. Joel Moss, M.D., Ph.D., a senior investigator in NHLBI’s Laboratory of Translational Research, and Bennett Yang, a postbaccalaureate fellow in Dr. Moss’s lab, describe this process and the future of pulse oximetry research. Q: Why are portable pulse ...

The latest issues of three of the American Psychiatric Association’s journals, The American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Services and The American Journal of Psychotherapy are now available online. The July issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry features articles on social determinants of health relevant to racial and ethnic disparities as well as postmortem molecular studies. Highlights include: Recent Advances on Social Determinants of Mental Health: Looking Fast Forward. Differences in Social Determinants of Health Underlie Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Psychological Health and Well-Being: Study of 11,143 Older Adults. The Nature ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell scientists have revealed a new phase of matter in candidate topological superconductors that could have significant consequences for condensed matter physics and for the field of quantum computing and spintronics. Researchers at the Macroscopic Quantum Matter Group at Cornell have discovered and visualized a crystalline yet superconducting state in a new and unusual superconductor, Uranium Ditelluride (UTe2), using one of the world’s most powerful millikelvin Scanned Josephson Tunnelling Microscopes (SJTM). This “spin-triplet electron-pair crystal” is a previously unknown state of topological quantum matter. The findings, ...

LONDON, ON – In a world-first clinical trial published in the journal Nature Medicine, a multi-centre study from Lawson Health Research Institute, the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) and the Jewish General Hospital (JGH) has found fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) from healthy donors are safe and show promise in improving response to immunotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma. Immunotherapy drugs stimulate a person’s immune system to attack and destroy cancer. While they can significantly improve survival outcomes in those with melanoma, they are only ...

To control pandemics like the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), data such as the age, gender, family composition, and medical history of infected individuals are required. While patients themselves may provide this information to medical institutions, these details are highly confidential. If the data is properly handled for privacy protection, it can be shared with researchers worldwide without identifying the infected individual, which can help clarify the state of the pandemic and more accurately predict its progression.   There ...

They published their work on July. 6 in Energy Material Advances. "In 2017, we reported a new family of 2D transition metal borides as analogues to MXenes and coined a catchy name for them, MBenes," said paper author Zhimei Sun, professor of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Beihang University. "Up till now, MBenes have been widely studied as catalysts or substrates of various reactions, including HER, ORR/OER, NRR and CO2RR. Notably, the exploration of electrocatalytic performance for MBenes mainly focuses on those with orthorhombic structures, while there are few studies on applying ...

Scientists have designed an AI tool that can rapidly decode a brain tumor’s DNA to determine its molecular identity during surgery — critical information that under the current approach can take a few days and up to a few weeks. Knowing a tumor’s molecular type enables neurosurgeons to make decisions such as how much brain tissue to remove and whether to place tumor-killing drugs directly into the brain — while the patient is still on the operating table.  A report ...

In males of many species, it pays to identify females that are nearing maturity to be the first in line for mating. Now researchers reporting in the journal iScience on July 7 have found a remarkable example: male spider mites guard and then actively strip off the skin of premature females that are soon to molt and mature to make them accessible for mating sooner. “Our study documents an exceptional male behavior in the animal kingdom, namely that male spider mites strip off the skin of premature females that are close to molting into adulthood,” said Peter Schausberger ...

About The Study: Deaths due to opioid toxicity increased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2021, 1 of every 22 deaths in the U.S. was attributable to unintentional opioid toxicity, underscoring the urgent need to support people at risk of substance-related harm, particularly men, younger adults, and adolescents.  Authors: Tara Gomes, Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.22303) Editor’s Note: Please see the ...

About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, smoke-free legislation was associated with significant reductions in morbidity and mortality related to cardiovascular disease, respiratory system disease, and perinatal outcomes. These findings support the need to accelerate the implementation of smoke-free laws to protect populations against smoking-related harm.  Authors: Ryota Nakamura, Ph.D., of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

Until now, scientific evidence has been inconclusive regarding the ability of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, to replicate in the human placenta. Answering this question, as well as understanding the response of the placenta to other viral infections during pregnancy, is crucial for the development of effective preventive and therapeutic strategies for both the mother and the baby. At Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, researchers have taken a novel approach to shed light on ...

The mucus in the airways is not as sticky, inflammation in the lungs significantly reduced: Triple combination therapy can achieve these positive, lasting effects in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max Delbrück Center have just recently published their findings in the European Respiratory Journal.* According to their research, this form of medication improves the symptoms of CF in many patients. Two years ago, a research ...

This study is led by Dr. Taihua Wang and Dr. Dawen Yang (Tsinghua University), together with experts in the field of both permafrost and glacier including Dr. Tandong Yao, Dr. Xin Li (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Dr. Guodong Cheng and Dr. Huijun Jin (Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences). In a warming climate, the sustainability of cryospheric meltwater on the Tibetan Plateau has raised concerns because of its importance for the fragile ecosystem in the headwater regions and the dense populations in the downstream. Existing studies ...

An apple a day not only keeps the doctor away, it also could save the United States at least $40 billion in medical bills, report Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University researchers in a new study published July 7 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Their modeled implementation of a nationwide produce prescription program—which would provide free or discounted fruits and vegetables to eligible Americans living with diabetes—projected extensive reductions in national rates of cardiovascular disease and associated healthcare ...

A multi-model ensemble (MME) prediction system has been recently developed by a team led by Dr. Dake Chen. This prediction system consists of 5 dynamical coupled models with various complexities, parameterizations, resolutions, initializations, and ensemble strategies, to address various possible uncertainties of ENSO prediction. One long term over past 100 year (1880-2017) ensemble hindcast demonstrated the superiority of the MME over individual models, evaluated by both deterministic and probabilistic skills, and suffered less from ...

In a new study, a group from Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed a concept of ecosystem water stress and comprehensively compared the impacts of high atmospheric vapor pressure deficit and low soil water content on vegetation growth in Eurasian drylands Drought, a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing atmospheric and soil drought, has sparked a lively debate over which type of dryness stress exerts a more significant impact on vegetation growth. "Through our defined concept of ecosystem water stress, we can discern where water-stressed vegetation growth is dominated by ...

One of the main risks posed by climate change is exceeding the thermal limits of the human body. In hot environments, evaporation is considered to be the primary means by which human bodies cool down. However, atmospheric humidity is a crucial factor affecting the efficiency of evaporation, making the combination of hot and humid conditions more physiologically stressful than extreme dry-temperature conditions. Besides the human health impacts, the occurrence of extreme-heat events also has severe socioeconomic impacts. For example, the record-breaking ...