An international team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has discovered that the breakup of tectonic plates is the main driving force behind the generation and eruption of diamond-rich magmas from deep inside the Earth. Their findings could shape the future of the diamond exploration industry, informing where diamonds are most likely to be found. Diamonds, which form under great pressures at depth, are hundreds of millions, or even billions, of years old. They are typically found in a type of volcanic rock known as kimberlite. Kimberlites are found in the oldest, thickest, ...

Aspergillus fumigatus strains that infect humans have a significantly altered metabolism compared to other strains in the environment. At the same time, infection with the fungus leads to an apparent change in the human lung microbiome. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) in Jena, Germany, came to this conclusion after using machine learning models to analyze genome data from about 250 fungal strains and lung microbiome data from 40 patients. The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is widely distributed in the environment, where it performs important ecological functions. ...

Nancy Holincheck, Assistant Professor, Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning, School of Education; Jessica Rosenberg, Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy; Stephanie Dodman, Associate Professor, School of Education; and Benjamin Dreyfus, Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy, received funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "EAGER: Quantum is Elementary: Quantum Teaching & Learning in Elementary Classrooms." The researchers will study learning associated with elementary teachers' engagement in professional learning and elementary students' learning related to quantum science, quantum thinking, and careers. The ...

Although the collapse of hives of European honey bees (Apis mellifera) has gained worldwide attention in recent years, there are massive gaps in knowledge of other bee species, particularly in the Asian region, which contains over half the world’s human population and where food security (in which bees play a key role) remains a major challenge. According to a recent global analysis, only 1% of the global public data on bee distribution comes from Asia, even though 15% of the world’s bee species are thought to live there. In a new paper, “Opportunities and challenges in Asian bee research and conservation”, published in the journal ...

INDIANAPOLIS – Chronic pain is often accompanied by depression and anxiety. In an invited commentary published in JAMA Network Open, Kurt Kroenke, M.D., of Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine, discusses the relationship between pain, the most common symptom for which individuals visit a physician, and depression and anxiety, the two most prevalent mental health conditions worldwide. He highlights the importance of not neglecting psychological symptoms in patients experiencing pain. “One of the reasons for the bi-directional linkage between pain and depression, as well as anxiety, is the existence of a feedback ...

The T. Boone Pickens Foundation, established by the late, Texan innovative energy leader and philanthropist, is donating $20 million to the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine. The gift, announced in 2013, is one of the largest research donations in Wilmer’s history. It will fund vision-saving research and a professorship. Pickens’ interest in the treatment and research of eye conditions developed in the 1980s after his father’s diagnosis of macular degeneration, a progressive condition that disrupts the central field of vision and causes ...

SAN ANTONIO — August 7, 2023 —Southwest Research Institute is helping the freight rail industry assess potential pathways to decarbonization with a new open-source modeling and simulation software known as ALTRIOS. ALTRIOS, the Advanced Locomotive Technology and Rail Infrastructure Optimization System, can simulate the real-world impacts and expenses related to adopting alternative energy locomotive technologies and expanding associated infrastructure. Now publicly available for download, ALTRIOS supports several simulation modes to provide rail industry stakeholders with optimal strategies for implementing ...

Affecting hundreds of millions of people, chronic hepatitis B is a widespread global health problem for which there is as yet no cure. In a preclinical study involving the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Heidelberg University Hospital, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and the US company Vir Biotechnology, the potential of an engineered investigational human monoclonal antibody for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis D has been demonstrated. Based on the results, clinical trials with the monoclonal antibody VIR-3434 are ongoing. Chronic hepatitis B ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — New research shows that a person’s own behavior is the primary driver of how they treat others during brief, zero-sum-game competitions. Generous people tend to reward generous behavior and selfish individuals often punish generosity and reward selfishness – even when it costs them personally. The study found that an individual’s own generous or selfish deeds carry more weight than the attitudes and behaviors of others. The findings are reported in the journal Cognitive Science. Previous research into this arena of human behavior suggested that social norms are the primary factor guiding a person’s decision-making in competitive scenarios, ...

While wrapping oneself in 100% Egyptian cotton bedsheets is a delightful luxury on a warm summer night, cotton provides much more than breathable, soft fabric. In addition to textiles, the cotton plant is grown for food, fuel, and daily-use consumer products—such as coffee filters, currency, and moisturizers. However, a resurging plant disease called bacterial blight is currently threatening cotton production worldwide. Bacterial blight is best controlled through natural, genetic resistance. ...

The spectacled caiman, a species native to Central and South America, has been established in Florida since the 1970s. The pet trade and crocodilian farming industries, escapes and deliberate releases made it possible for caimans to invade the Florida Everglades. They pose a threat to native wildlife occupying the same habitat as our native alligators and crocodiles, competing for food and other resources. Meanwhile, they also prey upon birds, small mammals, fish and other reptiles. In a new University of Florida study, published in the journal Management of Biological Invasions, wildlife ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.—Ten medical schools have been selected to participate in a two-year quality improvement project to refine, implement and assess a competency-based obesity education curriculum, The Obesity Society (TOS) announced today. Nationally and internationally, numerous medical organizations have highlighted the need for more medical school training on the science and practice of obesity care. This program is a first step to fill that need. In addition to having access to 12 curated obesity education ...

NYU Tandon School of Engineering researchers will develop new technologies to secure the “digital legal supply chain” — the processes by which official laws and legal information are recorded, stored, updated and distributed electronically — thanks to a $1.2 million grant just awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).  Justin Cappos, associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at NYU Tandon, heads up the four-year NSF project, “Defending the Supply Chain of Democracy: Towards a Cryptographically ...

Depression and anxiety are thought to increase a person’s risk of developing cancer, but research results have been inconclusive. In an analysis of multiple studies from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Canada, investigators found that depression and anxiety are not linked to higher risks for most types of cancer among this population. The analysis is published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Experts have suspected that depression and anxiety may increase cancer risk by affecting a person’s health-related behaviors or by having biological effects on the body that support cancer development. ...

An international collaboration between researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan, the University of Tokyo, and University College London has demonstrated that self-organization of neurons as they “learn” follows a mathematical theory called the free energy principle. The principle accurately predicted how real neural networks spontaneously reorganize to distinguish incoming information, as well as how altering neural excitability can disrupt the process. The findings thus have implications for building animal-like artificial intelligences and for understanding cases of impaired learning. The study was published August 7 in Nature Communications. When we ...

Advisory Highlights: Risk factors for cardiovascular disease are common among preteens and teens, and the need for preventive care to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease exceeds the supply of health care resources, according to a new American Heart Association science advisory that reports survey results from pediatric cardiovascular health professionals. Current data show that 39% of U.S. youth ages 12-19 meet criteria for obesity or overweight, 53% have high cholesterol, 18% with prediabetes and 15% have high blood pressure. The advisory identifies the need for clinical practice guidelines, collaboration ...

‘We’re not talking about primordial prevention. They’re already at risk for having an early heart attack or stroke’ First comprehensive study in 30 years to examine pediatric preventive cardiology in the U.S., Canada Heart disease is the leading cause of death in U.S. adults CHICAGO --- Today in the U.S., a child with risk factors for heart disease (high blood pressure, overweight, etc.) can wait close to a year to see a cardiologist because of high demand and limited resources. This is precious time that could be spent managing ...

Scientists have worked out how one unusual species of trilobite — an ancient, sea-dwelling relative of spiders and lobsters — was able to defend itself against predators and survive a bumpy ride as Earth’s oxygen levels fluctuated.  The seas were filled with trilobites for nearly 300 million years starting in the Cambrian Period, some 520 million years ago. During their time on Earth, which lasted much longer than the dinosaurs, they survived two major episodes of mass extinctions and dominated ocean floor ecosystems. Their ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – Young men in a recent study who were regular consumers of sports media were more likely to accept rape myths, a set of false and prejudiced beliefs that can serve to excuse or downplay sexual assault. This connection held even after accounting for participants who believed in certain negative “masculine norms,” namely that men should control women or they should be sexually permissive and try to have sex with as many women as possible. “Sports media exposure had a unique contribution, and it was significant,” said Stacey Hust, a professor at Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication and the study’s ...

Osaka, Japan – “Your presence means the world to me” may sound like a wedding invitation cliché, but an Osaka Metropolitan University study has shown that the presence of others while working does generate a state of relaxation and positive brain activity. In psychiatry, occupational therapy encompasses not only the individual-therapist relationship but also occupational activities and group work. In clinical practice, having multiple individuals engage in separate activities within the same room has been deemed effective as part of occupational therapy. ...

The antibiotic cefazolin is an essential drug according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It is usually produced via batch manufacturing, but this multistep process is time-consuming, wasteful and requires very specialized facilities. Now for the first-time, researchers have manufactured cefazolin using the continuous-flow method. This method is cheaper, quicker, less wasteful and more flexible in terms of how much drug can be produced when it’s needed. Improving access to cefazolin is vital for global health and particularly relevant for countries such as Japan, which experienced a shortage in 2019. This study is published in the Bulletin ...

BALTIMORE, August 5, 2023–As artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT find their way into everyday use, physicians will start to see these tools incorporated into their clinical practice to help them make important decisions on diagnosis and treatment of common medical conditions. These tools, called clinical decision support (CDS) algorithms, can be enormously helpful in helping guide health care providers in determining, for example, which antibiotics to prescribe or whether to recommend a risky heart surgery. The success of these new technologies, however, depends largely on how physicians interpret and act upon a tool’s ...

University of Melbourne researchers have developed a fast, inexpensive and scalable method for engineering blood vessels from natural tissue. Co-led by ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor Daniel Heath and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Shanahan Chair in Frontier Medical Solutions Andrea O’Connor, both from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the researchers employed a novel approach to ‘tissue engineering’ blood vessels. By combining multiple materials and fabrication technologies, they developed a method to create blood vessels with complex geometries like native blood ...

By Wynne Parry Much about tiny, swimming rotifers makes them ideal study subjects. Although barely visible to the naked eye, these transparent animals and their innards are readily viewed under a microscope. What’s more, they grow readily in laboratory culture, offering scientists an otherwise difficult-to-obtain perspective from their corner of the animal kingdom. However, while rotifers have been used experimentally for more than a century by many research groups, scientists have so far lacked the ability to readily manipulate rotifers’ genetics, placing a hard limit on the experiments they can run with these animals.  A joint ...

The Ecological Society of America has named Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Ph.D., as the editor-in-chief of the newest title in its portfolio of journals. The international open-access journal, Earth Stewardship, will focus on facilitating collaborations between scientists and society to shape a sustainable future for nature and people. It will be ESA’s first publication focused on integrating the natural and social sciences; the humanities; and technical, local and Indigenous Knowledges. Earth Stewardship will highlight perspectives from the southern ...