PHILADELPHIA – Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have invented a new way to map specific DNA markings called 5-methylcytosine (5mC) which regulate gene expression and have key roles in health and disease. The innovative technique allows for scientists to profile DNA using very small samples and without damaging the sample which means it can potentially be used in liquid biopsies (testing for cancer markers in the bloodstream) and early cancer detection. Additionally, unlike ...

American Geophysical Union 15 June 2023 Release No. 23-25 For Immediate Release This press release is available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/weve-pumped-so-much-groundwater-that-weve-nudged-the-earths-spin AGU press contact: Rebecca Dzombak, news@agu.org (UTC-4 hours) Contact information for the researchers: Ki-Weon Seo, Seoul National University, seokiweon@snu.ac.kr (UTC+9 hours) WASHINGTON — By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, ...

Women living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) experience greater body image concerns than individuals without the condition, according to research being presented Saturday at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago, Ill. PCOS affects 7% to 10% of women and is the most common cause of infertility. It is also linked to metabolic health problems such as diabetes, cardiovascular health conditions, and mental health conditions including depression and anxiety. “Although PCOS, depression and anxiety have a substantial correlation, ...

People with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have a 47% increased risk for death at a younger age compared with those without the condition, according to research being presented on Sunday at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago, Ill. PCOS is a common cause of infertility in women, and it occurs in 7% to 10% of women of reproductive age. Women with PCOS may have higher than normal levels of testosterone and other reproductive hormones called androgens, irregular periods, and/or cysts on the ovaries. The condition raises the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular conditions. “The results highlight the need ...

Major fungal infections have become more common across the globe, and one unexpected phenomenon among the rise of fungi is life-threatening infections as a result of a complication of certain immunotherapies and small molecule kinase inhibitors.    A scientist at the Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) has identified the specific mechanistic cause of one such phenomenon, which will likely save lives into the future, via a new publication.    The paper “C5a-licensed phagocytes drive sterilizing immunity during systemic fungal infection” appeared in the journal Cell ...

– By Dan Mullen Wildfires have become increasingly frequent due to climate change, with record occurrences in areas not historically prone to them. In California, wildfires and regional power shutoffs have cost billions and taken lives. For some 46 million Americans living next to forests – at what scientists call the “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) – the risks of wildfire can be especially acute. Microgrids can build resilience in vulnerable communities. By using small-scale, local energy sources and disconnecting from regional grids during emergencies, they can deliver essential services to keep homes and communities ...

In a paper published in Nature Photonics, the research team from the Center for Quantum Information and Communication – Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles of Université libre de Bruxelles, has found an unexpected counter-example to common knowledge on photon bunching. One of the cornerstones of quantum physics is Niels Bohr's complementarity principle, roughly speaking the fact that objects may behave either like particles or like waves. These two mutually exclusive descriptions are well illustrated in the iconic double-slit experiment, ...

The new biotech venture PHIOGEN is a spin-off company from Baylor College of Medicine’s TAILOR Labs, one of the United States only academic phage therapy cores with a decade’s worth of revolutionary research related to bacteriophages, viruses that infect and destroy bacteria. The company made its debut at the 6th World Conference on Targeting Phage Therapy in Paris, June 1-2, 2023. PHIOGEN’s R&D efforts are led by phage researcher Dr. Anthony ...

Washington, DC—As the world heats up due to climate change, how much can we continue to depend on plants and soils to help alleviate some of our self-inflicted damage by removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere? New work led by Carnegie’s Wu Sun and Anna Michalak tackles this key question by deploying a bold new approach for inferring the temperature sensitivity of ecosystem respiration—which represents one side of the equation balancing carbon dioxide uptake and carbon dioxide output in terrestrial environments. Their findings are published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. “Right now, plants in the terrestrial ...

Giving schools the right resources and training to teach pupils about mental health really can have a positive impact on young people’s wellbeing. New research by Welsh academics has just been published demonstrating the benefits of improving pupils’ mental health literacy and reducing the stigma around mental health issues at a crucial stage in a young person’s life. Most mental health problems start in the teenage years with a recent survey identifying that two in five young people report mental health symptoms. However, due to poor knowledge ...

Healthy cells work hard to maintain the integrity of our DNA, but occasionally, a chromosome can get separated from the others and break apart during cell division. The tiny fragments of DNA then get reassembled in random order in the new cell, sometimes producing cancerous gene mutations.  This chromosomal shattering and rearranging is called “chromothripsis” and occurs in the majority of human cancers, especially cancers of the bones, brain and fatty tissue. Chromothripsis was first ...

It’s not easy to distinguish between the dozens of subtypes of limb girdle muscular dystrophy — a rare, genetic muscle disease characterized by weakness in the hips and shoulders that causes difficulty walking and lifting the arms. Until now, determining the subtype has not been critical in caring for patients, because no specific treatments have been available. But gene therapies are on the horizon, and such therapies are targeted to specific genetic variants, so pinpointing the genetic roots of each patient’s disease has taken on a new importance. In new research, a team at Washington University ...

About The Study: In this retrospective cohort study, large proportions of disparities in time to first tooth decay associated with race and ethnicity were explained by insurance type and dental procedure types among children and adolescents. These findings can be applied to develop targeted strategies to reduce oral health disparities.  Authors: Sung Eun Choi, S.M., Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in Boston, 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/jamanetworkopen.2023.18425) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In 2021, it is estimated that 9.6 million people in the U.S. (26% of those with diabetes) had diabetic retinopathy and 1.84 million people (5% of those with diabetes) had vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy. There was marked variation in prevalence across states and the number of people living with diabetes-related eye disease grew substantially since prevalence was last estimated in 2004 and may grow in the coming decades due to the increasing burden of diabetes among youth and adults. Authors: Elizabeth A. Lundeen, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, is the corresponding author. To access ...

About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 studies and 1,900 participants, interventions that used wearable activity trackers with patients who are hospitalized were associated with higher physical activity levels, less sedentary behavior, and better physical functioning compared with usual care.   Authors: Carol Maher, Ph.D., of the University of South Australia in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: ...

As the world faces more climate variability and extremes in the face of global warming, sudden environmental changes add an extra layer of stress to food production in the United States and around the world. It is critical, then, to figure out how the areas in which crops are planted and harvested respond to these stressors, which can bring on ‘shocks’ in production – or, put differently, sudden and statistically significant crop declines.  These production shocks are a big concern in terms of food stability and many crops in the United States—such as corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat — are all experiencing more frequent production reductions ...

The Geminids meteoroids light up the sky as they race past Earth each winter, producing one of the most intense meteor showers in our night sky. Mysteries surrounding the origin of this meteoroid stream have long fascinated scientists because, while most meteor showers are created when a comet emits a tail of ice and dust, the Geminids stem from an asteroid — a chunk of rock that normally does not produce a tail. Until recently, the Geminids had only been studied from Earth.  Now, Princeton researchers used observations from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission to deduce that it was likely a violent, ...

Key Takeaways Banned since 1968, the legacy of redlining persists: There continue to be instances of discrimination affecting people in these historically redlined areas. Redlining was associated with lower odds of hitting screening targets for all three types of cancer: 24% lower odds in breast cancer, 64% lower odds in colorectal, and 79% lower odds in cervical cancer, compared with non-redlined areas. Actionable initiatives to improve cancer screening rates: Questionnaires to determine barriers to cancer screening, mobile cancer screening ...

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), including chondroitin sulfate (CS), heparan sulfate (HS), heparin, and hyaluronan are linear and acidic polysaccharides found in the extracellular matrix of all animal tissues. GAGs are widely used as functional ingredients in health products, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, and are prepared from biological samples such as shark cartilage and porcine intestinal mucosa. Consequently, the demand for new sources of GAGs is ever-present. For example, the supply source of the anticoagulant heparin—generally prepared from porcine intestinal mucosa in China—was threatened by African swine fever in 2018. GAGs derived from marine invertebrates—animals ...

A treatment for a rare cancer-like lung disease found in women of childbearing age may have been discovered by University of Cincinnati researchers. The rare lung disease is called lymphangioleiomyomatosis or LAM, and the cause of it is unknown with no cure established. New UC research, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, discovered that two existing drugs show signs of being effective in treating LAM and could lead to the development of a cure. The study was published in Science Advances, “The exact number of women with LAM is unknown but it is estimated that for every 1 million women in the world, three to seven ...

Clinical stage generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”) has announced a new multimodal transformer-based aging clock that is capable of processing diverse data sets and providing insights into biomarkers for aging, mapping them to genes relevant to both aging and disease, and discovering new therapeutic targets designed to slow or reverse both aging and aging-related diseases. The company calls the aging clock Precious1GPT, in a nod to the powerful “One Ring” in Lord of the Rings. The findings were published in the June 13 issue of the journal Aging.  Insilico has been ...

An international group of researchers led by the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, LKS Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), and including Douglas P Kiel, MD, MPH, Director Musculoskeletal Research Center, Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife, and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, evaluated the secular trends in hip fracture incidence, treatment patterns following a hip fracture, and all-cause mortality in 19 countries and regions from 2005 to 2018. While the age- and sex-standardised hip fracture incidence rates decreased ...

From August 2022 until October 2022, interviews with 25 experts from the selected countries were conducted and then analyzed trough a Ground Theory approach. From this, a model emerged, showing how factors and actors at different societal levels - mega, macro, meso and micro - interact to shape adult learning and education in different contexts. Mega level comparisons show that overarching issues such as war and conflict, historical and systemic discrimination, disease and extreme poverty as well as political authoritarianism act both as an impetus and as barriers to ALE activities. Comparative analysis shows that at the macro level, with ...

Researchers have discovered a mechanism for COVID-19 susceptibility using a newly created tool. The tool, GASPACHO, captures dynamic changes in gene expression along the innate immune response, allowing researchers to identify genes and molecular pathways associated with disease risk that have previously been too complex to detect or interpret.  Using GASPACHO (GAuSsian Processes for Association mapping leveraging Cell HeterOgeneity), researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the National Center for Child Health and Development in Japan, Tel Aviv University and their collaborators have identified a gene variant that affects COVID-19 susceptibility. ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – The U.S. Department of Energy has selected Craig Ferguson to lead the Thomas Jefferson Site Office (TJSO) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va. As TJSO manager, Ferguson will lead in the oversight and contract management of Jefferson Lab. Additionally, Donté Davis has been confirmed as TJSO deputy manager, a role he first stepped into earlier this year. Ferguson is familiar with Jefferson Lab and its mission, having already served in a leadership role at the lab. In 2005-2008, he was the lab’s associate director for environment, safety, health & quality. “I am excited to return ...