DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2024 annual meeting found that it is common for foster caregivers to give melatonin to their child, and these children who have taken melatonin have worse sleep and more daytime behavioral problems. Results show that 48% of foster caregivers reported administering melatonin to their child. Children given melatonin had poorer overall sleep quality compared to children not given melatonin, yet even after adjustment for sleep quality and other potential confounders, melatonin use was associated with increased severity of daytime behavioral problems in foster ...

Bronze cauldrons were used by the inhabitants of the Mongolian steppe around 2,700 years ago to process animal blood and milk. This is shown by a protein analysis of archaeological finds from this period. Scattered across the Eurasian steppe, archaeologists repeatedly come across metal cauldrons from the Bronze Age during excavations. However, it was previously unclear exactly what they were used for. Now, an international study led by researchers at the University of Basel and published in the journal Scientific Reports reveals their secret: Mongolian nomads collected blood ...

Scientists have discovered genetic clues to the cause of restless leg syndrome, a condition common among older adults. The discovery could help identify those individuals at greatest risk of the condition and point to potential ways to treat it. Restless leg syndrome can cause an unpleasant crawling sensation in the legs and an overwhelming urge to move them. Some people experience the symptoms only occasionally, while others get symptoms every day. Symptoms are usually worse in the evening or at night-time and can severely impair sleep. Despite the condition ...

Scientists have detected what they believe to be a neutron star spinning at an unprecedentedly slow rate —slower than any of the more than 3,000 radio emitting neutron stars measured to date. Neutron stars - the ultra-dense remains of a dead star - typically rotate at mind-bendingly fast speeds, taking just seconds or even a fraction of a second to fully spin on their axis. However, the neutron star, newly discovered by an international team of astronomers, defies this rule, emitting radio signals on a comparatively ...

Even widespread species could be genomically vulnerable to the climate crisis, scientists warn. By studying the DNA of puddle frogs living in central African rainforests, the scientists found that areas of high environmental variation foster high genetic variation. If these varied habitats and the frogs that live there are lost, genetic variants that could have allowed the species to evolve to survive the climate crisis could be lost too. Meanwhile, populations with low genetic variation could become extinct quickly, unable to adapt. “Generally, the more genomic variation within ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — June 5, 2024 — Concerns over the potential insolvency of Medicare among those under 65 have risen, with 73% now expressing worry that it won’t be available when they need it, up from 67% in 2022, according to the new West Health-Gallup 2024 Survey on Aging in America. Worry rose most amongst those aged 50 to 64, up 13 percentage points to 74%. Higher percentages of adult’s express concern about the future of Social Security, with 80% of people under 62 and 86% of people aged 40 to 49 fearing it will not be around once they are eligible. According ...

doi.org/10.1002/adom.202400699When chiral(1) gold nanoparticles(2) are irradiated with near-infrared(3) femtosecond pulses(4), visible emission of luminescence is observed. In this study, this luminescence was found to yield high selectivity for left- or right-handed circularly polarized(5) light, depending on the chirality of the nanoparticles, with a dissymmetry factor(6) of approximately 0.7. This finding suggests the potential to elevate various applications using circularly polarized light to practical levels. Abstruct The research group led by Project Assistant Professor Dr. Hyo-Yong AHN, ...

More than 3.4 million people in the US and 65 million people worldwide have epilepsy, a neurological disorder that affects the nervous system and causes seizures. One in 26 people will develop epilepsy at some point in their lives, and 1 out of 1000 people with epilepsy die from unexpected deaths each year. Like many conditions, epilepsy treatment starts with early detection. The World Health Organization estimates that 70% of people with epilepsy could live seizure-free if adequately diagnosed and treated. Over the years, ...

Niigata, Japan - Human society includes various minority groups. However, it is often difficult to know whether someone is a minority member simply by looking at the person, as minority traits may not be visually apparent (e.g., sexual orientation, color vision deficiency). In addition, minorities may hide their minority traits or identities. Consequently, we may have been unaware of the presence of minorities in daily life. Probabilistic thinking is critical in such uncertain situations. The people with whom we interact in our daily lives are typically a group of several dozen individuals (e.g., a school class). How do we judge the probability of including at least one minority ...

DALLAS, June 4, 2024 — According to the American Heart Association, when someone suffers a cardiac arrest, immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is critical and can double or triple a person’s chance of survival. More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the United States each year. Of those, 90% will not survive, according to the Association, which is working to turn more bystanders into lifesavers who can use CPR in an emergency. The American Heart Association, celebrating one hundred years of lifesaving service as a global ...

FORT COLLINS, Colo., June 4, 2024 — Dr. Erin Belval, a research forester at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, was awarded the Early Career Scientist Award in Fire Science from the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF). She received the honor last month at the 2024 International Wildland Fire Conference in Boise, Idaho. The award recognizes promising early-career professionals who demonstrate outstanding ability in any field of wildland fire science. Belval was nominated by colleagues and peers for her outstanding contributions. “The award is particularly meaningful because ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Thirty by thirty. It’s an ambitious answer to growing calls for protecting more of our planet’s surface. The goal is to conserve 30% of the Earth’s oceans, lands and freshwaters by 2030. While this may seem a lofty aim, the diversity and coverage of conservation areas today might be greater than what’s currently recognized by global tracking systems. An international team of conservation researchers and practitioners, led by scientists at UC Santa Barbara and The Nature Conservancy, has developed an inclusive inventory approach for tracking ...

SUMMARY Researchers have identified a significant change in composition and abundance of bacteria in study participants’ oral microbiomes after using a popular brand of alcohol-based mouthwash. The oral microbiome is the community of bacteria that live in the mouth, they help us digest our food and keep our mouth healthy. Researchers found that two species of opportunistic bacteria were significantly more abundant in the mouth after daily use of the alcohol-based mouthwash, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Streptococcus anginosus. ...

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – While cervical spine injuries (CSI) are uncommon in children, they can be potentially devastating, resulting in quadriplegia – paralysis below the neck affecting both arms and both legs. Detecting CSIs in a clinical setting often requires imaging such as X-rays and computed tomography (CT) scans, both of which expose children to radiation, which can cause other health issues over time. In a study published today in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, researchers in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) – led by Julie Leonard, MD, MPH at Nationwide Children’s Hospital –created a highly accurate ...

University of Leeds press release UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00.01 UK BST, 5 JUNE 2024 (19.01 US ET, 4 JUNE 2024)   The second annual Indicators of Global Climate Change report, which is led by the University of Leeds, reveals that human-induced warming has risen to 1.19 °C over the past decade (2014-2023) – an increase from the 1.14 °C seen in 2013-2022 (set out in last year’s report). Looking at 2023 in isolation, warming caused by human activity reached 1.3 °C. This ...

Housing associations are being urged to step out of their traditional role to deliver change in deprived areas and help people into work or entrepreneurship. The call comes in a whitepaper published today by the University of East Anglia (UEA), written in response to how the UK levelling up policy agenda has so far failed to deliver results for constituents in the communities it is designed to help. It follows a £10.8M Increase Valorisation Sociale (INCREASE VS) project, which showed how housing associations can go ...

Participants reacted quicker and made fewer errors during menstruation, despite believing their performance would be worse, according to new research from UCL and the Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health (ISEH). The study, published in Neuropsychologia, is the first to assess sport-related cognition during the menstrual cycle and is part of a larger research project supported by the FIFA Research Scholarship. The findings act as a proof-of-principle that specific types of cognition fluctuate throughout the ...

Large Language Models behind popular generative AI platforms like ChatGPT gave different answers when asked to respond to the same reasoning test and didn’t improve when given additional context, finds a new study from researchers at UCL. The study, published in Royal Society Open Science, tested the most advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) using cognitive psychology tests to gauge their capacity for reasoning. The results highlight the importance of understanding how these AIs ‘think’ before entrusting them with tasks, particularly those involving decision-making. In recent years, the LLMs ...

June 4, 2024   UMass Amherst to Join $90M US National Science Foundation large-scale research infrastructure for education Platform brings together institutions, digital learning and a world-class team to enable research studies to inform efficacy, improvement and innovation in teaching and learning AMHERST, Mass. – The Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has joined the newly announced U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) SafeInsights, a five-year, $90 million research and development infrastructure for inclusive education ...

For the first time, researchers have identified a group of neurons deep in the brain that are associated directly with compulsive eating and food craving. The discovery is reported in an article published in Nature Communications by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States and the Federal University of the ABC (UFABC) in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo state (Brazil).  The neurons are located in the periaqueductal gray, a region of the midbrain at the top of the brainstem, and are known as vesicular ...

College Park, Md. — Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have developed a model that combines machine learning and collaborative robotics to overcome challenges in the design of materials used in wearable green tech. Led by Po-Yen Chen, assistant professor in UMD's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the accelerated method to create aerogel materials used in wearable heating applications – published June 1 in the journal Nature Communications – could automate design processes for new materials. Similar to water-based ...

A group of researchers at University of California San Diego has identified the cause of a “short-circuit” in cellular pathways, a discovery that sheds new light on the genesis of a number of human diseases. The recent study, published in the journal Science Signaling, explores the biochemical mechanism that can interrupt the cellular communication chain — a disruptive interaction that Pradipta Ghosh, M.D., likens to a game-ending “buzzer.” Ghosh, a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine ...

URBANA, Ill. – Talking to their parents about daily stressors can help adolescents deal with their problems. This is particularly important during the transition to middle school, when youth often are faced with new peer and academic challenges. But does it matter where these conversations take place? That’s the topic of a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “We were interested in the environmental settings for mother-youth conversations. Where do they typically happen, and what are the preferred locations? We wanted to get the perspectives of both the youth and their ...

Immunotherapy is based on harnessing a person’s own immune system to attack cancer cells. However, patients with certain tumors do not respond to these therapies and it remains unclear why. “The full impact of anti-cancer immunotherapy has not been realized, especially for some solid tumors,” says Kevin Tharp, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys. Researchers presume that part of the reason why these therapies fail is due to tumor-associated fibrosis, the creation of a thick layer of fibrous collagen (like scar tissue) that acts as a barrier ...

The linear consumption model of raw material extraction, production, use, and disposal dominates the global economy, but it’s led to serious unintended global consequences: from resource use to pollution including negative impacts on environmental and human health that disproportionately affect the Global South.  In contrast, circular economy – a model where products and materials are by design kept in continual use – aims to decouple economic growth from resource consumption. While approaches ...