Thousands of years ago, early hunter-gatherers returned regularly to Tagua Tagua Lake in Chile to hunt ancient elephants and take advantage of other local resources, according to a study published May 22, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rafael Labarca of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and colleagues. Multiple archaeological sites are known from the region of Tagua Tagua Lake in central Chile, representing some of the earliest known human settlements in the Americas. In this study, Labarca and colleagues report ...

Twitter may be overlooking misinformation "superspreaders" - political pundits, low-credibility media outlets, and influencers who use more toxic language than the typical misinformation spreader ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0302201 Article Title: Identifying and characterizing superspreaders of low-credibility content on Twitter Author Countries: USA, UK Funding: This work was supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the National Science Foundation (grant ACI-1548562). The funders had no role in study design, data ...

Populations of canola plants genetically engineered to be resistant to herbicides can survive outside of farms, but may be gradually losing their engineered genes, reports a new study led by Cynthia Sagers of Arizona State University, US, published May 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. The hypothesis has been put forward that if any genetically engineered crop plants escape farm fields, they will be short-lived. This would make them unlikely to take over wild areas or spread their inserted genes, called transgenes, to wild populations ...

A famous Mycenaean suit of armor was not just ceremonial, but suitable for extended combat, according to a study published May 22, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andreas Flouris of the University of Thessaly, Greece and colleagues. One of the oldest known suits of European armor is a 3500-year-old suit found near the village of Dendra, a few kilometers away from ancient Mycenae. Since its discovery in 1960, it has been unclear if this was a ceremonial suit or if it was suitable for battle. This question has important implications for understanding ...

Breastmilk can promote equitable child health and save healthcare costs by reducing childhood illnesses and healthcare utilization in the early years, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Tomi Ajetunmobi of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, Scotland, and colleagues. Breastfeeding has previously been found to promote development and prevent disease among infants. In Scotland – as well as other developed countries – low rates of breastfeeding in more economically deprived areas are thought to contribute to inequalities in early childhood health. However, government policies ...

An interview-based study in San Francisco, CA, highlights individual experiences and local trends around fentanyl smoking, deepening understanding of this growing practice. Daniel Ciccarone of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 22, 2024. Use of illicitly manufactured fentanyl is associated with high risk of addiction, health issues, and exceptionally high overdose risk. Fentanyl significantly contributes to the escalating rate of drug ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – For people with paralysis or amputation, neuroprosthetic systems that artificially stimulate muscle contraction with electrical current can help them regain limb function. However, despite many years of research, this type of prosthesis is not widely used because it leads to rapid muscle fatigue and poor control. MIT researchers have developed a new approach that they hope could someday offer better muscle control with less fatigue. Instead of using electricity to stimulate muscles, they used ...

Now that smoking has replaced injecting as the most common way to consume fentanyl, UCSF researchers have uncovered an increased risk of fatal overdose from the residue that accumulates in smoking equipment. The researchers found that people both shared fentanyl resin and consumed it accidentally. This may be increasing the risk of overdose, especially among those who use the equipment to smoke other drugs, like methamphetamine, and have not developed tolerance to opioids like fentanyl. “The risk of overdose when sharing smoking devices with fentanyl resin could be seen as analogous to the risk of shared injection ...

A 3,500-year-old suit of Mycenaean armour may have been used in battle - and not just for ceremonial purposes as previously thought – new research reveals. Researchers worked with a group of Greek military volunteers who wore a replica of the Dendra armour during extended simulations of the rigours of battle. One of the best and most complete examples of Mycenaean-era full-body armour, the bronze panoply was discovered in a tomb in the Greek village of Dendra, by Greek and Swedish archaeologists in the 1960s. But since its discovery, the question has remained ...

Having extra chromosomes is typically an issue for an organism and can disrupt development or cause disease. But some cells benefit instead: For example, cancer cells or pathogenic yeasts can use extra chromosomes to escape treatment and become drug-resistant. A team of researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin has now deciphered how yeasts manage to compensate for the genetic imbalance. Their findings, published in the journal Nature,* could yield new approaches to dealing ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 22, 2024 — Southwest Research Institute will share the latest developments from its ongoing NEXTCAR Phase II project at the 2024 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Dallas (May 22-24). The Institute’s NEXTCAR Program aims to reduce vehicular energy consumption by more than 30% using next generation connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology. “We are demonstrating real-world next-generation automated driving technology that puts SwRI’s ongoing NEXTCAR energy efficiency research into practice,” said SwRI’s Scott R. Hotz, P.E., director of the Powertrain ...

Background and Aims Three-dimensional power Doppler (3DPD) ultrasound has been used for assessing adnexal masses, and in this study, we aimed to perform a meta-analysis to evaluate its role in the differential diagnosis of adnexal masses.   Methods A search for primary studies assessing the diagnostic performance of 3DPD in discriminating benign from malignant masses carried out between January 1990 and May 2023 was performed in Medline (PubMed), Scopus, and Web of Science databases with study quality evaluated ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 12:01 a.m. EST Wednesday, May 22, 2024 Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## During extreme rain or rapid snowmelt, the high volume of water that enters sewer systems can cause untreated sewage to flow into waterways in US cities that have combined wastewater and stormwater sewer systems, including the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers has found that residents living in the downstream communities that ...

Scientists have uncovered the properties of a rare earth element that was first discovered 80 years ago at the very same laboratory, opening a new pathway for the exploration of elements critical in modern technology, from medicine to space travel. Promethium was discovered in 1945 at Clinton Laboratories, now the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and continues to be produced at ORNL in minute quantities. Some of its properties have remained elusive despite the rare earth element’s ...

We’ve been told, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” Well, windows work two ways. Our eyes are also our windows to the world. What we see and how we see it help determine how we move through the world. In other words, our vision helps guide our actions, including social behaviors. Now, a young Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientist has uncovered a major clue into how this works. He did it by building a special AI model of the common fruit fly brain. CSHL Assistant Professor Benjamin Cowley and his team honed their AI model through a technique they developed called “knockout training.” ...

Metals get softer when they are heated, which is how blacksmiths can form iron into complex shapes by heating it red hot. And anyone who compares a copper wire with a steel coat hanger will quickly discern that copper is much more pliable than steel.  But scientists at MIT have discovered that when metal is struck by an object moving at a super high velocity, the opposite happens: The hotter the metal, the stronger it is. Under those conditions, which put extreme stress on the metal, copper can actually be just ...

About The Study: In this study, death by firearm homicide was concentrated among Black individuals ages 15 to 24 before, during, and subsequent to the COVID-19 pandemic, implying that there are likely to be social and structural conditions that contribute to these racial disparities.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Alex R. Piquero, Ph.D., email axp1954@miami.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.12946) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that mental disorders might be transmitted within adolescent peer networks. More research is required to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the possible transmission of mental disorders.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jussi Alho, Ph.D., email jussi.alho@helsinki.fi. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.1126) Editor’s Note: Please see the article ...

A landmark longitudinal study of LGBTQ+ youths has found that transitioning gender identities is not associated with depression and that about 1 in 3 gender-minority youths change their gender identity more than once. In fact, the study found higher rates of depression among transgender youths are more closely associated with bullying and victimization. The findings from a team of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and in Brazil are outlined in a paper in JAMA Network Open. The study followed 366 LGBTQ+ young people ages 15-21 in two U.S. cities from 2011 to 2015 and measured depressive symptoms ...

BOSTON--In new research, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) show that the 100-year-old Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, originally developed to prevent tuberculosis, protects individuals with type 1 diabetes from severe COVID-19 disease and other infectious diseases. Two back-to-back randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trials found that the BCG vaccine provided continuous protection for nearly the entire COVID-19 pandemic in the US, regardless of the viral variant. “Individuals with type 1 diabetes are highly susceptible to infectious diseases and had worse outcomes when they were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” ...

Cell division is fundamental to life, enabling growth, reproduction, and survival across all organisms, from single-celled bacteria to complex multicellular animals. While animals and fungi share a common eukaryotic ancestry, their mechanisms of cell division, particularly mitosis, have diverged significantly, raising intriguing evolutionary questions. Animals typically undergo open mitosis, where the nuclear envelope disassembles during cell division, while fungi exhibit closed mitosis, maintaining an intact nuclear envelope. The evolutionary reasons behind these divergent strategies ...

The inflorescence architecture of crop plants like barley is predominantly regulated by meristem activity and fate, which play a critical role in determining the number of floral structures for grain production. Spikelets are the basic reproductive unit of grass inflorescences. The identity and determinacy of many grass meristems are partially determined by a group of genes expressed specifically at organ boundaries, which can form local signalling centres that regulate adjacent meristem fate and activity. These genes are critical for establishing and ...

According to a study published in Current Biology on May 22, the genetic components of the ancient populations in the western Tibetan Plateau are closest to ancient populations in the southern Tibetan Plateau, and their major genetic components have been maintained over the past 3,500 years. In addition, these ancient populations in the western Tibetan Plateau had complex and frequent interactions with ancient populations inside and outside the plateau. The study was conducted by Prof. FU Qiaomei's team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology ...

Cell division is one of the most fundamental processes of life. From bacteria to blue whales, every living being on Earth relies on cell division for growth, reproduction, and species survival. Yet, there is remarkable diversity in the way different organisms carry out this universal process. A new study from EMBL Heidelberg’s Dey group and their collaborators, recently published in Nature, explores how different modes of cell division evolved in close relatives of fungi and animals, demonstrating, for the first time, the link between an organism’s ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) and Osaka University find that a newly developed modified sugar increases the efficacy and safety of antisense oligonucleotides designed to treat central nervous system disease   Tokyo, Japan – Diseases that affect the brain and spinal cord can be particularly devastating, and finding new and more effective ways to treat these conditions is an important goal for researchers and clinicians alike. Now, a research group from Japan reports that slightly modifying an existing treatment for central nervous system (CNS) disease dramatically increases its ...