COLUMBUS, Ohio – Therapeutic nanocarriers engineered from adult skin cells can curb inflammation and tissue injury in damaged mouse lungs, new research shows, hinting at the promise of a treatment for lungs severely injured by infection or trauma. Researchers conducted experiments in cell cultures and mice to demonstrate the therapeutic potential of these nanoparticles, which are extracellular vesicles similar to the ones circulating in humans’ bloodstream and biological fluids that carry messages between cells. The hope is that a drop of solution containing these nanocarriers, delivered to the ...

Animals can defend themselves against their natural enemies in various ways. Well-defended species often share conspicuous body colors with other well-defended or undefended species, forming mimetic interactions. Bombardier beetles eject toxic chemicals at a temperature of 100°C to repel enemies such as frogs, and many have warning body colors that function to deter enemies. An assassin bug, Sirthenea flavipes, exhibits a conspicuous body color similar to the bombardier beetle Pheropsophus occipitalis jessoensis which coexist with the assassin bug in the same habitat in Japan (Fig. 1). The assassin bug can stab with its proboscis, ...

New York, NY, June 6, 2023 — The Vilcek Foundation and The Arnold P. Gold Foundation have announced they will bestow the 2023 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare on Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) meeting in Seattle on November 4, 2023. The Vilcek-Gold Award is a shared initiative of the Vilcek Foundation and the Gold Foundation that embodies the missions of both organizations. The award recognizes an outstanding immigrant healthcare professional ...

A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has developed a new superconducting diode, a key component in electronic devices, that could help scale up quantum computers for industry use and improve the performance of artificial intelligence systems. Compared to other superconducting diodes, the researchers’ device is more energy efficient; can process multiple electrical signals at a time; and contains a series of gates to control the flow of energy, a feature that has never before been integrated into a superconducting diode. The paper is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed scientific journal ...

A doctoral thesis has demonstrated that motor skills and physical activity practice can support the cognitive and early academic skills of preschoolers, particularly when the activities include motor skills practice, or when motor skills or physical activity practice is combined with the subject to be learnt. In recent years, concerns have been raised about children and adolescents being less physically active and having weaker motor skills than previous generations. A further cause of concern is the decline of for instance mathematical and language skills, with an increasing number of children ...

New York, NY (June 6, 2023) – Mount Sinai researchers have developed an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) model for electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis that allows for the interpretation of ECGs as language. This approach can enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of ECG-related diagnoses, especially for cardiac conditions where limited data is available on which to train. In a study published in the June 6 online issue of npj Digital Medicine DOI: 10.1038/s41746-023-00840-9, the team reported that its new deep learning model, known as HeartBEiT, forms a foundation upon which specialized diagnostic models can be created. The team noted that in comparison ...

The discovery of Ba2LuAlO5 as a promising proton conductor paints a bright future for protonic ceramic fuel cells, report scientists from Tokyo Tech. Experiments show that this novel material has a remarkably high proton conductivity even without any additional chemical modifications, and molecular dynamics simulations reveal the underlying reasons. These new insights may pave the way to safer and more efficient energy technologies.   When talking about sustainability, the ways in which a society ...

Scientists from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a new method to bioprint miniature tumor organoids that are designed to mimic the function and architecture of real tumors. The improved process allows researchers to use an advanced imaging method to study and analyze individual organoids in great detail, which can help researchers identify personalized treatments for people with rare or hard-to-treat cancers. The method is described in the journal Nature Communications. “Tumor organoids have become fundamental tools to ...

The addition of ‘trust’ and ‘distrust’ buttons on social media, alongside standard ‘like’ buttons, could help to reduce the spread of misinformation, finds a new experimental study led by UCL researchers. Incentivising accuracy cut in half the reach of false posts, according to the findings published in eLife. Co-lead author, Professor Tali Sharot (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences, Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology) said: “Over the past few years, the spread of misinformation, or ‘fake news’, has skyrocketed, ...

One of the challenges in treating burn victims is the frequency of dressing changes, which can be extremely painful.  To bring relief to this and other problems, University of Waterloo researchers have created a new type of wound dressing material using advanced polymers. This new dressing could enhance the healing process for burn patients and have potential applications for drug delivery in cancer treatment as well as in the cosmetic industry. "To treat burn victims, we can customize the shape using a 3D printer, secondly, the material has fine-tuned surface adhesion, which is a key feature", said Dr. Boxin Zhao, a professor in Waterloo's Department of ...

Chatbots are increasingly becoming a part of health care around the world, but do they encourage bias? That’s what University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers are asking as they dig into patients’ experiences with the artificial intelligence (AI) programs that simulate conversation. “Sometimes overlooked is what a chatbot looks like – its avatar,” the researchers write in a new paper published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “Current chatbot ...

An international research team from Tanzania and Japan created a smartphone app and conducted a pilot study of how the app might be used to improve midwives’ knowledge and skills in Tanzania. Their study focused on the app’s potential effects on the learning outcomes of midwives and birth preparedness of pregnant women in Tanzania. The team’s work is published in the journal PLOS ONE on March 31, 2023. “The smartphone app for midwives showed significant improvements in their learning outcomes, leading to better birth preparations for pregnant women in Tanzania. This study highlights the potential of leveraging technology ...

An international team of astronomers has detected complex organic molecules in the most distant galaxy to date using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The discovery of the molecules, which are familiar on Earth in smoke, soot and smog, demonstrates the power of Webb to help understand the complex chemistry that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of new stars even in the earliest periods of the universe’s history. At least for galaxies, the new findings cast doubt on the old adage that where there’s smoke, there’s ...

Children who are breastfed for longer appear to be more likely to gain slightly better results in their school GSCEs at age 16 compared with non-breastfed children, suggests a study published online in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. The evidence of improved educational outcomes is still apparent even when various factors are taken into account such as people’s socio-economic status and their parents’ intelligence. Previous studies have suggested that children breastfed for longer have improved educational outcomes later in life. However these are relatively scarce, and ...

A method of care involving skin-to-skin contact between a mother and her prematurely born or low birth weight baby appears to impact the child’s chances of survival significantly, suggests a study published online in the journal BMJ Global Health. Starting the intervention within 24 hours of birth and carrying it out for at least eight hours a day both appear to make the approach even more effective in reducing mortality and infection, researchers found. The method of care known as ‘Kangaroo mother care’ (KMC) involves an infant being carried, usually by the mother, in a sling with skin-to-skin contact ...

Defibrillators are being used in just one in ten cardiac arrests where the lifesaving devices are available, according to new research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society Conference in Manchester.   The research drew upon data from the East of England Ambulance Service and The Circuit, the national defibrillator network developed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF). The Circuit maps the location of defibrillators across the whole of the UK, so that emergency services can direct bystanders to the nearest defibrillator in the event of ...

Patients with heart disease could benefit from less extensive interventions thanks to cutting-edge technology that creates 3D computer models of blood flow through the heart's arteries, according to research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society in Manchester. When the research team trialled the VIRTUHeartTM technology with doctors treating heart attack patients, they found that using it would have changed the treatment of more than 20 per cent of patients. In many cases, it would have led to fewer patients undergoing an invasive procedure such ...

 The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) today released the ISSCR Standards for Human Stem Cell Use in Research, an international collaboration aimed at enhancing rigor in preclinical research and ultimately strengthening the pipeline of therapies for patients. “This nearly two-year initiative is groundbreaking for the global stem cell research community,” said Haifan Lin, ISSCR president. “The international standards will make a big difference in the quality of science that is performed and published worldwide.” The ISSCR is the preeminent international stem cell research society with a reputation ...

Have you ever wanted to convey a feeling but just couldn’t find the right words? Millions of people struggle with a personality trait known as alexithymia, which means “no words for feelings.” Individuals with alexithymia have difficulty identifying and describing their emotions. This trait can harm their social and intimate relationships. They are likely to miss social cues and thus fail to recognize or understand the feelings of others. Past research has suggested that a history of child maltreatment could play a role in developing adult alexithymia. A new meta-analysis published this month in Psychological Bulletin, led by Stanford ...

Patients infected with beta and delta COVID-19 variants, and those who required hospital stays for COVID-19 infection, were more likely to experience heart issues associated with long COVID, according to a recent Houston Methodist study published in the European Heart Journal – Cardiovascular Imaging. Patients recovering from the omicron variant were least likely to have microvascular involvement. “This new data expands our understanding of myocardial flow reserve as an important prognostic marker in general and specifically in COVID-19,” said Mouaz Al-Mallah, M.D., corresponding author of the study and director of cardiovascular ...

Contact: Clare Leahy clare.leahy@hdruk.ac.uk 07748016062 Event registration for press: https://bit.ly/45rIQBr Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) is launching its Health Data Science Black Internship Programme for the third year running at its Opening Ceremony on Wednesday 21 June from 12-5pm at the Curzon Building in Birmingham City University. The programme, run in partnership with the UK Health Data Research Alliance and 10,000 Black Interns is helping to tackle the underrepresentation of Black people within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ...

DARIEN, IL – Sleep researcher Dayna A. Johnson is the recipient of the 2023 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leadership Award from the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, a joint initiative of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to sleep medicine or sleep and circadian science through their work to increase the diversity, equity, and inclusion of sleep medicine providers, or to develop educational programs, research, or clinical work aimed at reducing disparities. The award presentation occurred Monday, June 5, during the plenary session of the ...

Patents from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) are a measure of novel inventions, but each also tells a story of a relevant idea with warfighting impact. NPS Department of Physics Associate Professor Ray Gamache and his former graduate student, NPS alumnus U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Chris Phifer, developed and recently patented a new polymer-based, self-sealing fuel line capable of withstanding a .50 caliber bullet without losing so much as a single drop. “We’re not just a physics department, we’re the applied physics department,” Gamache said. “While ...

1. A supervised hospital walking program may reduce nursing facility admissions for older adults Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3679 URL goes live when the embargo lifts A randomized trial of older veterans found that hospitalized persons enrolled in a supervised walking program known as STRIDE (AssiSTed EaRly MobIlity for HospitalizeD VEterans) were less likely to be discharged to a skilled nursing facility. However, the authors noted that participation in the program was low and there was no change associated with length of hospital stay or inpatient falls. The study is ...

Tirzepatide is a recently approved treatment for type-2 diabetes. Treatment with tirzepatide decreases body weight while improving glucose metabolism in patients with obesity and type-2 diabetes. Although the drug is designed to activate receptors for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), the contribution of activating the GIP receptor in the overall efficacy of tirzepatide is not fully understood. A team of researchers demonstrated for the first time that tirzepatide stimulates insulin secretion in the human pancreas via the GIP receptor. These results contrast with findings in ...