Early in pregnancy, something strange happens in the uterus: Cells from the fetal side of the developing placenta invade the uterine endometrium and work with the mother’s immune system to remodel the arteries.   “When I first read about it, I thought, ‘This is so bizarre,’” said Stanford Medicine pathologist Michael Angelo, MD, PhD.   Humans’ immune systems usually attack unfamiliar cells, which would theoretically pose a problem for a developing pregnancy. But on the mother’s side of the growing placenta, the arteries incorporate cells that genetically match the embryo, just one of ...

When you think about your ideal neighborhood, perhaps you think of tree-lined streets or a close-knit community of people who help each other. You probably don’t think about your digestive system. But maybe you should. According to a team of scientists led by researchers at Stanford Medicine, there are indeed “neighborhoods” of different cell types cooperating to digest your food and protect you from infection, among other things — and a new, ultra-high-resolution map of these neighborhoods proves your intestine is both functionally impressive and visually striking. Just like human neighborhoods, ...

The incidences of teen suicidality including self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts increased nationally between 2016 and 2021; were at seasonal high peaks in April and October; and were at their lowest when schools were shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research at UTHealth Houston.  The study was published this month in JAMA Network Open. It was authored by Youngran Kim, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Management, Policy, and Community Health at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health; Scott D. Lane, PhD, professor and vice chair for research in the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral ...

NASA has awarded funding for three science teams to conduct citizen science investigations as a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America on April 8, 2024. In these experiments, volunteers will help study the Sun and its ethereal outer atmosphere, called the corona, which is revealed when the Moon completely covers the Sun’s bright disk. “During next year’s total eclipse, hundreds of volunteers will capture images of the Sun and its corona to help answer real science question about our star and how it affects us,” said program scientist and eclipse lead at NASA Headquarters, ...

About The Study: This study found that major U.S. cities with higher populations of Black individuals are more likely to be affected by mass shooting events, suggesting that structural racism may have a role in their incidence. Public health initiatives aiming to prevent mass shooting events should target factors associated with structural racism to address gun violence. Authors: Michael Ghio, M.D., of Tulane University in New Orleans, 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/jamasurg.2023.2846) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this study of 73,000 emergency department visits and hospitalizations for suicidality indicated the presence of seasonal patterns and an observed unexpected decrease in suicidality among children and adolescents after COVID-19–related school closures in March 2020, which suggest a potential association between suicidality and the school calendar.  Authors: Scott D. Lane, Ph.D., of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

In a first for white dwarfs, the burnt-out cores of dead stars, astronomers have discovered that at least one member of this cosmic family is two faced. One side of the white dwarf is composed of hydrogen, while the other is made up of helium.   “The surface of the white dwarf completely changes from one side to the other,” says Ilaria Caiazzo, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech who leads a new study on the findings in the journal Nature. “When I show the observations to people, they are blown away.”    White dwarfs are the scalding remains of stars that were once like our sun. As the ...

FROM: James Urton University of Washington 206-543-2580 jurton@uw.edu  (Note: researcher contact information at the end)   Embargoed by Nature For public release at 11 a.m. Eastern Time (8 a.m. Pacific Time; 4 p.m. British Summer Time) on Wednesday, July 19, 2023   Researchers put a new twist on graphite   For decades, scientists have been probing the potential of two-dimensional materials to transform our world. 2D materials are only a single layer of atoms thick. Within them, subatomic particles like electrons can only move in two dimensions. This simple restriction can trigger unusual electron behavior, ...

In our modern era of larger, more destructive, and longer-lasting fires—called the Pyrocene—plants and animals are evolving quickly to survive. By synthesizing the wide body of research about rapid animal evolution in response to fire in a review publishing in Trends in Ecology & Evolution on July 19, a multidisciplinary team of ecology experts hopes to leverage what we already know to help foster evolution-informed conservation plans. In this way, they suggest, we can try to harness the ways in which fire impacts animals to protect vulnerable species—working with evolution instead of against it. In response to climate change and changes in land use, ...

An international team led by astronomers from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) has discovered a new type of stellar object that challenges our understanding of the physics of neutron stars. The object could be an ultra-long period magnetar, a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy. Until recently, all known magnetars released energy at intervals ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes. The newly discovered object emits radio waves every 22 minutes, making it the longest period magnetar ever detected. The research was published ...

Left-tail risk (LT) stocks are those whose returns fall into the extreme end on the left side of the return distribution. In the hopes of mean-reverting to the normal price, investors usually hold on to these stocks. However, contrary to mean-reverting expectations, these stocks that have experienced extreme losses and high tail risks in the past tend to continue declining in the future, resulting in financial losses. This phenomenon, referred to as left-tail momentum (LTM), appears to challenge the traditional notion of a positive relationship between risk and return. To investigate this market anomaly, a team of researchers, led by Prof. Eom from the School of Business at Pusan National ...

A team of scientists, led by the researcher at the IAC and the University of La Laguna (ULL) Sebastién Comerón, has found that the galaxy NGC 1277 does not contain dark matter.This is the first time that a massive galaxy (it has a mass several times that of the Milky Way) does not show evidence for this invisible component of the universe. “This result does not fit in with the currently accepted cosmological models, which include dark matter” explains Comerón. In the current standard model cosmology massive galaxies contain substantial quantities of dark matter, a type of matter which does not interact in the same ...

Finding sustainable and clean fuels is crucial in today’s global energy and climate crisis. One promising candidate that is increasingly gaining relevance is hydrogen. However, today’s industrial hydrogen production still has a considerable CO2 footprint, especially considering processes like steam reforming or non-sustainable electrolysis. A team led by Prof. Dominik Eder from the Institute of Materials Chemistry (TU Wien) is therefore focusing on the development of environmentally friendly processes for obtaining hydrogen, for example by photocatalysis. This process enables the conversion of ...

Biomass, mainly composed of lignocellulose and vegetable oil, has been acclaimed as one of the most promising sustainable sources of raw carbon material for the synthesis of transport fuels and value-added chemicals. The catalytic conversion of lignocellulose/vegetable oil and their related derivatives has attracted great attention in biomass valorization. Many elegant methods including hydrolysis, dehydration, hydrogenation, hydrogenolysis, oxidation, etherification, esterification, amination, aldol condensation, ...

When raindrops fall from the sky, they can produce a small amount of energy that can be harvested and turned into electricity. It is a small-scale version of hydropower, which uses the kinetic energy of moving water to produce electricity. Researchers have proposed that the energy collected from raindrops could be a potential source of clean, renewable power. However, this technology has been difficult to develop on a large scale, which has limited its practical application.   To collect raindrop energy, a device called a triboelectric ...

Homologous recombination (HR) is an important process that plays multiple crucial roles during meiosis, a type of cell cycle dedicated to sexual reproduction. During HR, homologous DNA molecules exchange their genetic material. During the meiotic prophase, DNA are clipped throughout the genome, forming numerous DNA double-strand breaks. Such DNA breaks attract homologous recombination enzymes, which promote pairing of homologous chromosomes. Dmc1 is one such meiosis-specific recombinase in eukaryotes (organisms that have a clearly defined nucleus), ...

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are versatile materials composed of interconnected organic molecules held together by covalent bonds. These frameworks can be constructed in two-dimensional or three-dimensional (3D) forms which possess a unique combination of low density, high surface area, and easily tunable properties. Among the various types of COFs, imine-linked COFs have garnered considerable attention owing to their exceptional thermal and chemical stability as well as their broad scope of monomeric starting materials. However, traditional bulk synthetic methods for COFs often yield powders that are insoluble ...

As necessary as cooling technologies are, we’re still operating on an outdated technology that can be considered a significant contributor to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, vapor compression cycle-based cooling (VCC) is the standard for reliable cooling of air conditioning and refrigeration, but by switching to electrocaloric cooling (EC) researchers are hoping to create a more environmentally friendly, scalable and compressor-free method of cooling to benefit businesses, families and the environment.   The researchers published their work in iEnergy on ...

(Toronto July 19, 2023) Fully open access publisher JMIR Publications has acquired the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics (OJPHI), expanding its portfolio to 35 gold open access journals. This acquisition marks an open access milestone in JMIR Publications’ continued mission to keep openness at the heart of what it does. Indexed in PubMed Central, OJPHI has been delivering the latest developments in the emerging field of public health informatics since 2009. The journal publishes research articles, book reviews, technology reviews, working papers, interviews, commentaries, and handpicked student capstone projects.  All ...

JMIR Medical Education (2023 Impact Factor 5.2) and Guest Editors: Amir Tal, PhD, and Oren Asman, LLD welcome submissions to a special theme issue examining "Responsible Design, Integration, and Use of Generative AI in Mental Health" This special theme issue aims to unite various stakeholders in exploring the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) within the mental health domain. The goal is to curate a collection of articles that examine the advantages, challenges, and potential risks associated with deploying GAI models ...

Prof Sei-ichi Tsujimura of the Nagoya City University and Prof Su-Ling Yeh of National Taiwan University and Kagoshima University, have discovered that our visual acuity (contrast sensitivity) can be improved by using a light with a special spectrum that can selectively stimulate melanopsin cells in the retina. Background The retina of our eye contains cone photoreceptor cells, which identify colors in bright environment, and rod photoreceptor cells, which work in the dark. It has long been thought that humans see and identify objects by these two types of photoreceptor cells alone. ...

Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams are the world's dominant river ecosystem, yet monitoring and management typically focus on rivers that flow year round. Writing in BioScience, Amélie Truchy of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (INRAE) and colleagues describe the problem, as well as a potential solution: citizen science.                 The authors discuss the results from a new app, DRYRivERS, which allows scientist and nonscientist users alike to record data on ephemeral streams and intermittent ...

For millions of Americans who have heart surgery or experience cardiovascular complications, like heart attack or heart failure, they may be encouraged to participate in cardiac rehabilitation. The medically supervised program combines lifestyle changes, education and physical activity to help patients recover and reduce their risk of future problems. A Michigan Medicine study now finds that people who participate in cardiac rehabilitation have a decreased risk of death years after surgery, with a trend towards better outcomes in patients who attend more sessions. “Time and time again, cardiac rehabilitation has been shown to ...

As life expectancy increases worldwide, age-associated diseases such as osteoporosis are having an increasing impact. Although early detection could help physicians intervene as soon as possible — when treatment might offer the greatest benefit — this type of detection is not yet possible with current osteoporosis diagnostic tests. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have developed a biosensor that could someday help identify those most at risk for osteoporosis using less than a drop of blood. Early intervention is critical to reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with osteoporosis, a condition characterized by an elevated ...

Whether enjoyed on its own or mixed into a latte, Americano or even a martini, espresso provides an ultra-concentrated jolt of caffeine to coffee lovers. But it might do more than just wake you up. Research now published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry shows that, in preliminary in vitro laboratory tests, espresso compounds can inhibit tau protein aggregation — a process that is believed to be involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Roughly half of all Americans drink coffee every day, and espresso is a popular way to consume ...