Humans may be accelerating the rate at which organic matter decomposes in rivers and streams on a global scale, according to a new study from the University of Georgia, Oakland University and Kent State University. That could pose a threat to biodiversity in waterways around the world and increase the amount of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere, potentially exacerbating climate change. Published in Science, the study is the first to combine a global experiment and predictive modeling to illustrate how human impacts to waterways may contribute to the global climate crisis. “Everyone in the world needs water,” ...

Factual yet misleading vaccine content was 46 times more effective at driving vaccine hesitancy than flagged misinformation, reports a new study exploring real-world impacts of misinformation exposure. A second study aiming to better understand the characteristics of “supersharers” – a small group of individuals increasingly found to spread misinformation – reports that just over 2,000 supersharers on X (formally Twitter) spread 80% of the fake news during the 2020 US presidential election; the study involved a sample of more than 660,000 voters on X and uncovered that the supersharers were mainly middle-aged Republican women in conservative states.   Misinformation, ...

Cuckoos – which lay their eggs in nests of other birds – have higher speciation rates when they lay their eggs in a broader range of host bird species’ nests, a new study reports. This higher speciation rate is driven by host rejection and cuckoo selection for mimetic nestling traits. How new species arise is a fundamental question in biology. Coevolution between closely interacting species is thought to increase biodiversity and potentially explain the vast number of distinctly specialized species. However, evidence linking macroevolutionary patterns to microevolutionary ...

Coupling skin bacteria-laden hydrogel and electronics, researchers have introduced the ABLE platform, a bioelectronics system that can deliver management and adaptive treatment of skin inflammation. They test this approach in a mouse model of psoriasis. The findings demonstrate the potential for clinical application of bioelectronics devices that promote drug-free therapeutic effects through a living hydrogel interface. “This amalgamation of living and synthetic components is a notable advance toward ...

Integrating big data and a coordinated global field experiment, researchers have developed a model that can predict the decomposition rate of organic matter in rivers worldwide. The global model estimates decomposition rates in rivers across vast understudied areas of Earth, revealing rapid decomposition across continental-scale areas dominated by human activities. Earth's terrestrial ecosystems generate over 100 billion tons of plant detritus annually, with its fate – long-term storage, mineralization to greenhouse gasses, or incorporation into food webs – determined by decomposition rates. This organic material is continually added to rivers ...

Negating an adjective by placing ‘not’ in front of it affects the way our brains interpret its meaning, mitigating but not entirely inverting our interpretation of its definition. In a study published May 23rd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, Arianna Zuanazzi at New York University, US, and colleagues offer insight into how the brain represents changes of meaning over time and offer new methods for further linguistic research. The way the brain processes negated adjectives — ‘not bad’ or ‘not ...

Researchers have developed a novel version of a key CRISPR gene-editing protein that shows efficient editing activity and is small enough to be packaged within a non-pathogenic virus that can deliver it to target cells. Hongjian Wang and colleagues at Wuhan University, China, present these findings May 23rd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Recent years have seen an explosion of research attempting to harness CRISPR gene-editing systems—which are found naturally in many bacteria as a defense against viruses—so they can be used as potential treatments for human disease. These systems rely on so-called CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins, with Cas9 and Cas12a being ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 30, 2024 – Since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, fake news on social media has been widely blamed for low vaccine uptake in the United States — but research by MIT Sloan School of Management PhD candidate Jennifer Allen and Professor David Rand finds that the blame lies elsewhere.  In a new paper published in Science and co-authored by Duncan J. Watts of the University of Pennsylvania, the researchers introduce a new methodology for measuring social media content’s causal impact at scale. They show that misleading content from mainstream news sources — rather than outright misinformation or “fake news” ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — A great armada entered the North Atlantic, launched from the cold shores of North America. But rather than ships off to war, this force was a fleet of icebergs. And the havoc it wrought was to the ocean current itself. This scene describes a Heinrich Event, or a period of rapid iceberg discharge from the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum. These episodes greatly weakened the system of ocean currents that circulates water within the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC for short, brings warm surface water ...

What threatens public health more, a deliberately false Facebook post about tracking microchips in the COVID-19 vaccine that is flagged as misinformation, or an unflagged, factual article about the rare case of a young, healthy person who died after receiving the vaccine? According to Duncan J. Watts, Stevens University Professor in Computer and Information Science at Penn Engineering and Director of the Computational Social Science (CSS) Lab, along with David G. Rand, Erwin H. Schell Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, and Jennifer Allen, 2024 MIT Sloan School of Management Ph.D. graduate ...

Zebrafish in the pet trade are asymptomatic carriers of previously undescribed microbes, including a novel virus that causes hemorrhaging in infected laboratory fish, Marlen Rice from the University of Utah, US, and colleagues report in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, publishing May 23rd. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a common laboratory research animal, and they are also widely available as pets. In research laboratories, they are kept in specialized aquaculture facilities to prevent infectious disease, but zebrafish are occasionally ...

The theory of coevolution says that when closely interacting species drive evolutionary changes in each other this can lead to speciation - the evolution of new species. But until now, real-world evidence for this has been scarce. Now a team of researchers has found evidence that coevolution is linked to speciation by studying the evolutionary arms race between cuckoos and the host birds they exploit. Bronze-cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of small songbirds. Soon after the cuckoo chick hatches, it pushes the host’s eggs out of the nest. The host not only loses all its own eggs, but spends several ...

A new study from the UC Davis School of Medicine found striking differences at the cellular level between male and female mice with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The findings could determine how HFpEF is treated in women compared to men. With HFpEF, the heart muscle contracts normally but the heart is unable to fully relax and refill properly between beats. This condition is known as diastolic dysfunction. It can occur if the heart is too stiff or if the contraction process doesn’t shut off quickly enough between ...

Amphetamine is a psychostimulant that has been used to treat a variety of brain dysfunctions. However, it is a highly abused drug. In fact, amphetamine and amphetamine-derived compounds such as methamphetamine (Meth) are among the most abused psychostimulants in the world. The neurological effects caused by acute or chronic use of amphetamine have been broadly investigated and several studies have shown that proteins involved in the synthesis, storage, release and reuptake of dopamine (DA), a neurotransmitter that plays a role as in ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have found in a public health emergency, most people pick out and click on accurate information during internet searches. Though higher-ranked results are clicked more often, they are not more trusted. And the presence of misinformation does not damage trust in accurate results that appear on the same page. However, banners at the top of the search results page warning about misinformation decrease trust in accurate information, according to the research published in Scientific Reports. The relationship between ...

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has become a shareholder of five new companies recently set up and promoted by different researchers: Applied Innovative Methods, Hiili, Persei Space, Seevia Technologies and 60Nd. UC3M participates in the share capital of its spin-offs in order to contribute to their business development. This minority and temporary shareholding is articulated in accordance with the regulations for the creation of knowledge-based university companies. AI Methods, S.L., led by Manuel Soler ...

University of Illinois Chicago engineers have helped design a new method to make hydrogen gas from water using only solar power and agricultural waste, such as manure or husks. The method reduces the energy needed to extract hydrogen from water by 600%, creating new opportunities for sustainable, climate-friendly chemical production. Hydrogen-based fuels are one of the most promising sources of clean energy. But producing pure hydrogen gas is an energy-intensive process that often requires coal or natural gas and large amounts of electricity.   In a paper for Cell Reports Physical Science, a multi-institutional ...

 “The price on emitting carbon that is harmful to the climate has risen sharply in the past; basically, it roughly increased tenfold over the last five years and two policy reforms. Our analysis implies that besides directly changing the ETS rules, the reforms also increased the long-term credibility of the EU ETS and thereby made firms more farsighted, aligning their market behaviour with long-term climate targets,” explains Joanna Sitarz, PIK scientist and first author of the study published in Nature Energy. “In ...

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Borrowing a page from the dairy industry, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station found that a slow-growth diet meant more piglets and healthier and longer-lived momma pigs. Slowing weight gain for female pigs before breeding showed improvements in performance throughout four breeding cycles, according to Charles Maxwell, professor of animal science for the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “Scientists have done a wonderful job of increasing litter size and milk production so that our sow lines are essentially ...

Philadelphia, May 30, 2024 – Researchers from The Possibilities Project and Clinical Futures at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) developed, implemented and successfully tested a nutrition screener to improve access to healthy resources for families eligible for federally funded food benefits. The findings were published this week in the journal Annals of Family Medicine. Many low-income families rely on the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 30, 2024 —When NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew past the tiny main belt asteroid Dinkinesh last November, the Southwest Research Institute-led mission discovered a trough and ridge structure on the main asteroid as well as the first-ever-encountered contact binary satellite. The flyby data of this half-mile-wide object revealed a dramatic history of sudden breakups and transformation. Scientists think a big chunk of Dinkinesh suddenly shifted, excavating the trough and flinging debris into its vicinity. Some materials fell back to the asteroid body, forming the ridge, ...

Osaka, Japan - Natural killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in the first line of host defense by eliminating bacteria, viruses, and mutated cells that might become cancer cells. While the interferon-gamma (IFN-γ ) typically plays a pivotal role in the function of NK cells, the detailed mechanisms of its regulation have not been fully elucidated. In clinical cancer treatment, particularly in anti-tumor immunotherapy, the challenge lies in regulating the effective infiltration of NK cells and T cells into tumor tissues, activating them, and retaining them within the tumor for more effective cancer therapy. Performing single-cell ...

About The Study: In this study, 10 years after diagnosis, 49% of men remained free of progression or treatment, less than 2% developed metastatic disease, and less than 1% died of their disease. Later progression and treatment during surveillance were not associated with worse outcomes. These results demonstrate active surveillance as an effective management strategy for patients diagnosed with favorable-risk prostate cancer.  Quote from corresponding author Lisa F. Newcomb, Ph.D.: “Our ...

About The Study: In this secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial, patients who received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose after acute coronary syndromes had similar rates of the primary composite end point and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) compared with unvaccinated patients. However, retrospective studies have demonstrated a short-term reduction in MACE risk after COVID-19 vaccination.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Henrique Andrade R. Fonseca, Ph.D., email henrique.fonseca@einstein.br. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.13946) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this serial cross-sectional study including a national sample of U.S. college students, researchers found a notable increase in the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute stress disorder, rising by 4.1 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points from 2017 to 2022, respectively. These trends highlight the escalating mental health challenges among college students, which is consistent with recent research reporting a surge in psychiatric diagnoses. Factors contributing to this rise may include pandemic-related stressors (e.g., loss of loved ones) and the effect of traumatic events (e.g., campus shootings, racial trauma).  Corresponding ...