(Boston) – More than 40% of Americans are considered obese, and the trend continues to grow. The treatments or preventive options for obesity and obesity-associated diseases are limited. It is a major national healthcare and public health burden significantly increasing the risk of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer and is linked to the severity of COVID-19. A research team from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has identified a novel druggable signaling molecule involved in obesity, a previously unknown protein (MINAR2) discovered in 2020 in the laboratory of Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Nader Rahimi, ...

University of Cincinnati researchers are presenting abstracts at the European Stroke Organization Conference (ESOC) 2023, May 24-26 in Munich, Germany, including the results of the first large-scale assessment of radiological brain health in stroke patients in a population.  Extensive research has helped pinpoint risk factors for initial stroke, but there is limited understanding about what the brains of stroke patients look like on a population level, according to UC’s Achala Vagal, MD, professor of neuroradiology.  “Imaging can be an objective manifestation of the presence ...

Infections caused by fungi, such as Candida albicans, pose a significant global health risk due to their resistance to existing treatments, so much so that the World Health Organization has highlighted this as a priority issue. Although nanomaterials show promise as antifungal agents, current iterations lack the potency and specificity needed for quick and targeted treatment, leading to prolonged treatment times and potential off-target effects and drug resistance. Now, in a groundbreaking development with far-reaching implications for global ...

Earth’s magnetic field, generated by the flow of molten iron in the planet’s inner core, extends out into space and protects us from cosmic radiation emitted by the Sun. It is also, remarkably, used by animals like salmon, sea turtles and migratory birds for navigation.    But how? And why? A new study from researchers at Western’s Advanced Facility for Avian Research (AFAR), home to the world’s first hypobaric climatic wind tunnel for bird flight, explores a brain region called cluster N that migratory birds use to perceive Earth’s magnetic field. The team discovered the region is activated very ...

Foodservice companies have long struggled with the challenge of what to do with all of their food waste. But researchers at the University of Houston Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership are shedding light on how clean technology can help those companies reduce waste and establish long-term sustainability goals.  In a study published in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Tiffany S. Legendre, an associate professor at Hilton College, and her team, interviewed 17 leaders of the country’s largest on-site foodservice providers (e.g., Aramark, Compass and Sodexo), ...

CHICAGO—May 26, 2023—Illinois Institute of Technology is one of 14 institutions chosen as an enrollment site for the National Institute of Health’s landmark initiative to advance nutrition research. Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH), powered by the All of Us Research Program, is working to engage 10,000 participants from diverse backgrounds across the United States with the aim of learning about how our bodies respond differently to food. NPH will use artificial intelligence–based ...

Talk by one of the leading lights in optical communications Dr. Ming-Jun Li is currently a corporate fellow at Corning Incorporated He discussed installed optical fibres for ultra-wideband transmission systems.   26 May 2023 | Birmingham, UK Aston University has hosted one of the leading lights in optical communications and speciality optical fibres at its second international photonics workshop.   Dr. Ming-Jun Li is currently a corporate fellow at Corning Incorporated in the USA and headed ...

A new study from Swansea University and the University of Cape Town provides the first documented evidence of a cessation in urban space use by a female baboon after giving birth: another example of how wild animals are adaptively responding to urbanisation. The study, recently published in the journal Ecology & Evolution, used GPS collars to track the movements of 13 chacma baboons in Cape Town, South Africa. The data revealed that when one collared female gave birth, she stopped using urban space without any significant change in daily distance travelled or social interactions that would be expected with general risk-sensitive behaviour during this ...

Islands of trees in oil palm plantations can significantly increase biodiversity within five years without reducing productivity. This has been shown by an experiment, which has been running for over ten years in Indonesia as part of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) "EFForTS" at the University of Göttingen. An international team of researchers led by Göttingen planted experimental islands of trees in plantations on the island of Sumatra to counteract the species loss caused by the ...

For patients with solid cancers, endoscopic surgery is one of the primary treatment options to remove tumors. However, there is a high risk of cancer recurrence if even a small number of cancerous cells are left behind after surgical resection. To prevent this from happening, researchers developed fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS). In FGS, patients are injected with a fluorescent probe that preferentially binds to tumor cells, enabling surgeons to easily identify lesions with the help of specialized endoscopes that emit the necessary excitation light. Unfortunately, tumors can be highly heterogeneous, ...

Philadelphia, May 26, 2023—IgA deficiency is the most common primary immune deficiency worldwide, but its presentation has puzzled physcians and researchers. Some with the disorder present with symptoms like recurrent infections, autoimmune disease, or allergies, whereas others have no symptoms at all and only become aware of their IgA-deficient status through an incidental finding on a blood test. This variability has raised the question among researchers: Why aren’t many of those with IgA deficiency sicker? A new study by researchers at Children’s ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — The first protein-based nano-computing agent that functions as a circuit has been created by Penn State researchers. The milestone puts them one step closer to developing next-generation cell-based therapies to treat diseases like diabetes and cancer. Traditional synthetic biology approaches for cell-based therapies, such as ones that destroy cancer cells or encourage tissue regeneration after injury, rely on the expression or suppression of proteins that produce a desired action within a cell. This approach can take time (for proteins ...

By 2050, one in 10 individuals are expected to live with some form of hearing loss. Of the hundreds of millions of cases of hearing loss affecting individuals worldwide, genetic hearing loss is often the most difficult to treat. While hearing aids and cochlear implants offer limited relief, no available treatment can reverse or prevent this group of genetic conditions, prompting scientists to evaluate gene therapies for alternative solutions. One of the most promising tools used in these therapies—adeno associated virus (AAV) vectors—has galvanized the hearing-loss community in recent years. ...

Sensory cells in the vagus nerve can detect and locate food in the esophagus. Their signals help transport the food onward to the stomach. Signal failure leads to swallowing disorders, say a team led by Carmen Birchmeier at the Max Delbrück Center. They have published their findings in “Neuron.” Swallowing disorders can have many causes, and they occur more frequently in older people. But neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, and certain medications, can also prevent food moving normally from mouth to stomach. Possible consequences include malnutrition, weight loss, and dehydration. Now a team led ...

Over thousands of years some animals have specialised to live in environments where the sun never shines: giant squid with eyes the size of volleyballs see even in the darkest depths while others, like cave-dwelling olms, have lost the functionality of their eyes completely. But for animals that do not live in these extremes, how do species manage a world that suddenly becomes dark? Lakes that become turbid from algal blooms, agricultural run-off, or other environmental pollutants represent common examples of environmental disturbances that can impact the visual scene that ...

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have, collaborating with the University of Münster and Ruhr-Universität Bochum, developed new technology capable of processing the enormous amounts of information quantum systems generate. Deterministic single photon light sources, creating quantum bits at extreme rates and speed are now coupled to specially designed, integrated photonic circuits, capable of processing quantum information with adequate speed and quality without degrading the susceptible quantum states. This means that the first steps have been taken towards the development of photonic quantum devices that can, for example, ...

UPTON, NY—Physicists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have published the first observation of directed flow of hypernuclei. These short-lived, rare nuclei contain at least one “hyperon” in addition to ordinary protons and neutrons. Hyperons contain at least one “strange” quark in place of one of the up or down quarks that make up ordinary nucleons (the collective name for protons and neutrons). Such strange matter is thought to be abundant in the hearts of neutron stars, which are among the densest, most exotic objects in the universe. While blasting off to neutron stars to study ...

FRANKFURT. A tangle of pockets, tubes and sac-like membrane structures runs through the cells of humans, animals, plants and fungi: the endoplasmic reticulum, or ER for short. In the ER, proteins are manufactured, folded into their three-dimensional structure and modified, lipids and hormones are produced and calcium concentrations in the cell are controlled. In addition, the ER forms the basis for the cellular transport system, feeds misfolded proteins to intracellular disposal and renders toxins that have entered the cell harmless. In ...

The U.S. Army has awarded more than $5.7 million for two projects led by Michael Hatridge, associate professor of physics and astronomy in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. Both projects bring together a diverse group of researchers to overcome roadblocks in the field of quantum computing. A four-year, $2.67 million grant is aimed at the next generation of modular quantum computing systems. Hatridge and co-principal investigators Robert Schoelkopf of Yale University have each developed unique ...

Solvated dielectrons are the subject of many hypotheses among scientists, but have never been directly observed. They are described as a pair of electrons that is dissolved in liquids such as water or liquid ammonia. To make space for the electrons a cavity forms in the liquid, which the two electrons occupy. An international research team around Dr. Sebastian Hartweg, initially at Synchrotron SOLEIL (France), now at the Institute of Physics at the University of Freiburg and Prof. Dr. Ruth Signorell from ETH Zurich, including scientists ...

A study on canine brain networks reveals that during mammalian brain evolution, the role of the cingulate cortex, a bilateral structure located deep in the cerebral cortex, was partly taken over by the lateral frontal lobes, which control problem-solving, task-switching, and goal-directed behavior. The study relies on a new canine resting state fMRI brain atlas, which can aid in the analysis of diseases characterized by dysfunctional integration and communication among brain areas. Researchers interested in how dogs think can not only deduce it from their behavior, but they can also investigate their brain activity using fMRI (functional ...

Excitations in solids can also be represented mathematically as quasiparticles; for example, lattice vibrations that increase with temperature can be well described as phonons. Mathematically, also quasiparticles can be described that have never been observed in a material before. If such "theoretical" quasiparticles have interesting talents, then it is worth taking a closer look. Take fractons, for example. Perfect storage of information Fractons are fractions of spin excitations and are not allowed to possess kinetic energy. As a consequence, they are completely stationary and immobile. This makes fractons new candidates for perfectly secure information storage. Especially since ...

Defence lawyers face numerous challenges accessing and reviewing evidence from phones and computers, a new study shows. Solicitors and barristers have reported their use of digital evidence can be restricted by limited or late access, large volumes of material, and tight turnaround times to secure legal aid funding and choose and instruct independent experts. The research calls for more clarity and transparency around the collection and analysis of digital evidence and the streamlining of the format and presentation of information. The current volume and diversity of digital evidence available escalates tensions, delays access to digital ...

In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden, together with colleagues from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, have investigated the impact that a barren living environment for sows leaves on the next generation. The pigs in the study were bred in Brazil and kept according to breeding standards in that country. The sows’ uncomfortable and unstimulating environment brought with it several different types of changes in the epigenome of their offspring. In many parts of the world, sows are kept confined in concrete stalls while they are pregnant. This is a bad environment for the pigs, both in terms ...

A prototype quantum sensor with potential applications in GPS-free navigation, developed at Imperial College London, has been tested in collaboration with the Royal Navy. The test marks an important step in bringing new quantum technologies out of the lab and into real-world settings. Many navigation systems today rely on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as GPS, which uses signals from satellites orbiting the Earth. However, GPS navigation is not always accessible, obstacles like tall buildings can easily block the satellite signals, and they are also susceptible ...