Chestnut Hill, Mass. (8/7/2023) - The Pacific Ocean’s western boundary current, which forms a critical regulator of sea surface temperature and weather patterns, has significantly strengthened as the planet warms, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The study provides the first evidence that the western boundary current in the South Pacific has significantly strengthened during the 20th century in response to global warming, contributing to an intensified equatorial undercurrent, according to Boston College Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Xingchen (Tony) Wang, a co-author ...

Academic performance has long been linked to how supported students feel at school. Now, a Rutgers study suggests this sentiment is also essential to preventing suicides.   A Rutgers researcher found that having a strong sense of school belonging – the subjective feeling of being accepted, valued, included and encouraged in the school community – could mitigate suicidal tendencies among Black adolescents.   “Having a supportive teacher or other nonparent adult can change a child’s life because they will want to go to school,” said Adrian Gale, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work and co-author of the study ...

LA JOLLA, CA—An antibody in single-chain fragment variable (scFv) format that binds to the powerful opioid carfentanil was shown to reverse signs of carfentanil overdose in preclinical tests conducted by scientists at Scripps Research. Carfentanil is a variant of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, and about 100 times as potent as its chemical cousin. Along with fentanyl and other fentanyl variants, it is commonly mixed with illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine to enhance their euphoric effects, resulting in many fatal overdoses. In the study, published in ACS ...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the renewal of the Midwest Integrated Center for Computational Materials (MICCoM) for another three years at $3 million per year. Founded in 2015, the Center is headquartered at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. Partnering universities include the University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame and University of California, Davis. “The MICCoM team has been at the forefront of developing simulation methods and codes and solving cutting-edge materials science problems,” said Center director Giulia Galli. She is also a senior scientist in Argonne’s Materials Science division and professor in the ...

Key Takeaways A new method derived from standard blood pressure assessments can improve monitoring of critically ill patients with circulatory shock The method accurately predicts risk of death, length of hospital stay, and blood lactate levels (an indicator of tissue perfusion and oxygenation). BOSTON – Critically ill patients with circulatory shock—when the heart cannot pump enough blood and oxygen to the rest of the body, often as a result of heart failure, sepsis, or hemorrhage—require close monitoring and treatment, especially to maintain adequate blood pressure to prevent injury to important organs. ...

Researchers have successfully grown bacterial cells in potential sand-based construction materials, as detailed in a paper published by Research Directions: Biotechnology Design, a new journal from Cambridge University Press. This achievement marks a substantial contribution to the field of biodesign, which seeks to incorporate living organisms into building materials as a means of making architecture more sustainable. It is effectively a fusion of biological and architectural expertise, with the shared goal of building better. Cyanobacteria could enable the solidification of inorganic materials such as CO2, ...

WASHINGTON  –  The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) will launch ComPair aboard a high-altitude balloon from Fort. Sumner, New Mexico Aug. 10.   The ComPair mission instrument measures and detects gamma-ray emissions from astrophysical objects. The NRL instrument is one of the four subsystem instruments led by NASA GSFC. The mission name – ComPair – is inspired by the mechanisms by which gamma rays interact with matter.   “They do so via three dominant processes – photoelectric effect, ...

Losing long-lasting flockmates may drive a golden-crowned sparrow to stray from its favorite overwintering spot, a new study says, suggesting that friendly, familiar faces help anchor it to familiar spaces. Led by ecologists at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the study found that a golden-crowned sparrow returning to California after a winter migration — one that can stretch as many as 3,000 miles — resettled an average of just 90 feet away from the center of its previous year’s range. But golden-crowned sparrows appearing for at least their third consecutive winter began ...

Amarda Shehu, Associate Vice President of Research, Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA); Associate Dean for AI Innovation (CEC); Professor, Computer Science, received funding for the project: "Collaborative Research: IIBR: Innovation: Bioinformatics: Linking Chemical and Biological Space: Deep Learning and Experimentation for Property-Controlled Molecule Generation."  This project advances property-controlled molecule generation. A key insight propelling property-controlled molecule generation is that machine learning models need to be situated in biological data and knowledge.   The research activities for this project ...

Mary L. Cummings, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical & Computer, Computer Science, received funding for the project: "Synthesizing temporal logic and human performance models for deception mitigation." Deception is a key element in attacks on military and civilian cyber-physical systems. With increasing use of automation and autonomy in such systems, such vulnerabilities to deception are growing, with catastrophic outcomes, as evidenced by recent major breaches in cybersecurity across the U.S. Department of Defense.  There is a pressing need to understand long-term adversarial strategies where one hostile action is largely harmless ...

Antonios Anastasopoulos, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, received funding from the National Science Foundation for: "CCRI: Planning-C: Facilitating Language Technologies for Crisis Response."    This CISE Computing Research Infrastructure (CCRI) planning grant will lay out a concrete path for using language technologies for crisis/disaster response that will be useful for everyone. This requires developing crucial infrastructure to support research toward technological solutions that enable and support communications ...

·  Cardiovascular health and social determinants of health explain racial differences  ·  Premature babies have more cardiovascular disease as adults ·  Being born early is linked to neurodevelopment deficits   CHICAGO --- Non-Hispanic Black individuals have a significantly higher rate of pre-term births than non-Hispanic white individuals, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.  In 2019, nearly 12% of non-Hispanic Black individuals experienced preterm births compared with 7% of non-Hispanic white individuals. “This is important because this ...

About The Study: Despite guidelines recommending medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), approximately 1 in 5 adults with past-year opioid use disorder received any MOUD, according to data from a 2021 nationally representative  survey. Furthermore, some groups were substantially less likely to receive MOUD, in particular Black adults, women, those unemployed, and those in nonmetropolitan areas. Addressing disparities in MOUD uptake should be prioritized in program, policy, and clinical initiatives.  Authors: Christopher ...

About The Study: The results of this study of 18.4 million patients in the U.S. with overweight and obesity indicate that the annual probability of 5% or greater weight loss was low (1 in 10) despite the known benefits of clinically meaningful weight loss, but 5% or greater weight loss was more likely than body mass index (BMI) reduction to the healthy weight category, especially for patients with the highest initial BMIs.   Authors: Lyudmyla Kompaniyets, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.  To ...

About The Study: Using a regular blood pressure (BP) cuff size for all individuals regardless of arm size resulted in strikingly inaccurate BP readings with an automated device in this randomized crossover trial including 195 adults. This is particularly concerning for settings where one regular BP cuff size is routinely used in all individuals, regardless of arm size. A renewed emphasis on individualized BP cuff selection is warranted.  Authors: Tammy M. Brady, M.D., Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, 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/jamainternmed.2023.3264) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This study of 500,000 participants demonstrated that balanced levels of moderate aerobic physical activity, vigorous aerobic physical activity, and muscle strengthening activity combined may be associated with optimal reductions of mortality risk. Higher-than-recommended levels of moderate aerobic physical activity and vigorous aerobic physical activity may further lower the risk of cancer and all-cause mortality, respectively.  Authors: Rubén López-Bueno, Ph.D., of the University of Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have unveiled an artificial intelligence-based model for computational imaging and microscopy without training with experimental objects or real data.  In a recent paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence, UCLA’s Volgenau Professor for Engineering Innovation Aydogan Ozcan and his research team introduced a self-supervised AI model nicknamed GedankenNet that learns from physics laws and thought experiments.  Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the imaging process across ...

Heliconius butterflies are capable of spatial learning, scientists have discovered.   The results provide the first experimental evidence of spatial learning in any butterfly or moth species.   The findings, published today in Current Biology, also suggest Heliconius butterflies may be able to learn spatial information at large scales, consistent with the apparent importance of long-range spatial learning for traplining, which involves foraging within a home range of a few hundred square metres.  Spatial learning is known in insects, but much of the research has focused on ant and bee species which live socially ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- For a small percentage of cancer patients, doctors are unable to determine where their cancer originated. This makes it much more difficult to choose a treatment for those patients, because many cancer drugs are typically developed for specific cancer types. A new approach developed by researchers at MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute may make it easier to identify the sites of origin for those enigmatic cancers. Using machine learning, the researchers created a computational model that ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA The Covid-19 pandemic created a global increase in domestic violence against women. Now, an MIT-led experiment designed with that fact in mind shows that some forms of social media can increase awareness among women about where to find resources and support for addressing domestic violence. In the randomized experiment, set in Egypt, women recruited via Facebook were sent videos via social media as well as reminders to watch television programming from a well-known Egyptian human rights lawyer focused on gender norms and violence. The study found that receiving the videos or reminders increased consumption of media content about the issue, increased knowledge ...

BOSTON – Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have created an AI-based tool that uses tumor gene sequencing data to predict the primary source of a patient’s cancer. The study, published in in Nature Medicine, suggests that this predictive tool, called OncoNPC, could help guide treatment of cancer and improve outcomes in difficult to diagnose cases. The primary source of cancer is traditionally diagnosed by a standardized diagnostic work-up, including radiology and pathology assessments based on slides of cells taken from a tumor biopsy. In 3-5% of cancer ...

A remarkable breakthrough, a collaborative team of researchers, led by Professor Yaakov Nahmias from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Tissue Dynamics Ltd., has unveiled a miniature human heart model that could potentially transform drug testing and cardiovascular research. This study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, introduces a self-paced multi-chambered human heart model, no larger than a grain of rice, which promises to revolutionize the way we study the heart and its functions. Cardiovascular ...

As Canadian wildfire smoke continues to impact large swaths of the United States, resulting in poor air quality and negative health outcomes for millions of Americans, more people than ever are feeling the effects of longer fire seasons and a changing climate. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered that wildfires may have even bigger climate impacts than previously thought. In a new study published Aug. 7 in Nature Geoscience, researchers led by Rajan Chakrabarty, the Harold D. Jolley Career Development Associate Professor in the ...

Most individuals diagnosed with opioid use disorder are not on recommended medications and even fewer remain in care, according to a research letter published today in JAMA Internal Medicine by lead author Ashley Leech, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC).   In 2021, there were more than 100,000 overdose deaths in the United States, with the highest rates among those ages 25-54.    Just 22% of the 40,000 individuals with opioid use disorder studied by VUMC researchers continuously used ...

[Jerusalem, Israel] Study reveals an important discovery in the realm of nanomachines within living systems. Prof. Sason Shaik from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Kshatresh Dutta Dubey from Shiv Nadar University, conducted molecular-dynamics simulations of Cytochromes P450 (CYP450s) enzymes, revealing that these enzymes exhibit unique soft-robotic properties. Cytochromes P450 (CYP450s) are enzymes found in living organisms and play a crucial role in various biological processes, particularly in the metabolism of drugs and xenobiotics. The researchers' simulations demonstrated that CYP450s possess a fourth dimension - the ability to sense and respond to ...