The first comprehensive analysis of the relationship between campaign donations and the issues legislators prioritize with congressional speech is published in the open access journal PLOS ONE this week. While prior research reaches mixed conclusions on associations between political donations in the US and voting patterns of legislators, this research suggests there are substantial associations between donations and policy priorities expressed in congressional speeches, and marks language use as an interesting and viable arena for looking at the impact political donors may have on congressional behavior. Publicly traded corporations and labor unions in the US routinely raise funds ...

Job ads which use masculine rather than gender-inclusive language are perceived by women as sexist, leading them to feel ostracized, demotivated, and as though they don't belong at work ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0290709 Article Title: The impact of gender-exclusive language on women’s anticipated ostracism: A preregistered replication of Stout and Dasgupta (2011) Author Countries: USA Funding: Miami University Committee on Faculty Research, Heather M. Claypool Miami University College of Arts and Science, Heather M. Claypool. END ...

Only 1% of US kids who are obese in elementary school transition to a healthy weight within two years, although 1 in 4 overweight children progress to a healthy weight range ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0290565 Article Title: Weight trajectories and obesity remission among school-aged children Author Countries: USA Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes And Digestive And Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of ...

The commonly-held belief that attempting to suppress negative thoughts is bad for our mental health could be wrong, a new study from scientists at the University of Cambridge suggests. Researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit trained 120 volunteers worldwide to suppress thoughts about negative events that worried them, and found that not only did these become less vivid, but that the participants’ mental health also improved. “We’re all familiar with the Freudian idea that if we suppress our feelings or thoughts, then these thoughts remain in our unconscious, influencing our behaviour and wellbeing ...

The Amazon river basin is known for its immense and lush tropical forests, so one might assume that the Amazon’s land is equally rich. In fact, the soils underlying the forested vegetation, particularly in the hilly uplands, are surprisingly infertile. Much of the Amazon’s soil is acidic and low in nutrients, making it notoriously difficult to farm.  But over the years, archaeologists have dug up mysteriously black and fertile patches of ancient soils in hundreds of sites across the Amazon. This “dark earth” has been found in and around human settlements dating ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today broke ground on a 600,000-square-foot facility intended to anchor the institution’s expansive south campus research park. The building was purposefully built to enable collaborative science and impactful breakthrough discoveries that will accelerate efforts to end cancer. A $668 million institutional investment will support the construction of MD Anderson’s South Campus Research Building 5 (SCRB5), a 7-story building designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects with state-of-the-art research facilities and inspiring public spaces to facilitate exceptional science. ...

Researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and colleagues reported for the first time that a genetic biomarker may be able to help predict the severity of food allergy reactions. Currently there is no reliable or readily available clinical biomarker that accurately distinguishes patients with food allergies who are at risk for severe life-threatening reactions versus more mild symptoms. Findings were published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Dr. Lang and colleagues found that the presence of an enzyme isoform called α-tryptase, ...

For decades, wildlife biologists have dreamt of a “smart” camera alerting system capable of detecting tigers and other endangered species on the prowl. Legacy camera-trap technology, while valuable for many research applications, has historically been hindered by false positives and an inability to facilitate rapid responses.             Writing in BioScience, Jeremy Dertien of Clemson University and colleagues announce that for the first time ever, wild tigers and elephants have been detected by an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, cryptic camera-alert system, TrailGuard AI, that transmits images to the ...

The first use of a novel method of analyzing Mars’ gravitational force supports the idea that the planet once had an extensive northern ocean. In doing so, the method defines the scope of what scientists refer to as the northern Martian paleo-ocean in more detail. The work was published in July in the journal Icarus, which is affiliated with the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. The research was led by Jaroslav Klokočník, professor emeritus at the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Gunther ...

Researchers have developed a method of “wiring up” graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), a class of one-dimensional materials that are of interest in the scaling of microelectronic devices. Using a direct-write scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) based process, the nanometer-scale metal contacts were fabricated on individual GNRs and could control the electronic character of the GNRs. The researchers say that this is the first demonstration of making metal contacts to specific GNRs with certainty and that those contacts induce device functionality needed for transistor function. The results of this research, led by electrical and computer engineering (ECE) professor Joseph Lyding, along ...

A new type of regulation is needed to support and encourage organisations to comply with equality and human rights law because enforcement alone is ineffective, a new study says. The introduction of the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Human Rights Act were intended to establish an equality and human rights culture within public authorities. The research highlights how this culture has failed to take hold. An alternative is needed to the current model of regulation (the enforcement pyramid) under which penalties increasingly progress until noncompliers comply. The study says the current model cannot recognise innovation, ...

Materials are often considered to be one phase, but many engineering materials contain two or more phases, improving their properties and performance. These two-phase materials have inclusions, called precipitates, embedded in the microstructure. Alloys, a combination of two or more types of metals, are used in many applications, like turbines for jet engines and light-weight alloys for automotive applications, because they have very good mechanical properties due to those embedded precipitates. The average precipitate size, however, tends to increase ...

Using a novel deep brain stimulation (DBS) device capable of recording brain signals, researchers have identified a pattern of brain activity or “biomarker” related to clinical signs of recovery from treatment-resistant depression. The findings from this small study are an important step towards using brain data to understand a patient’s response to DBS treatment. The study was published in Nature and supported by the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research Through Advancing ...

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development awarded $3.1 million to the University of Arkansas to study a spectrum of pediatric mitochondrial disorders caused by mutations in the mitochondria. These disorders often impact different organs requiring energy and can lead to mitochondria-induced multiple organ disorder syndromes, or MIMODS. Shilpa Iyer, an associate professor of biological sciences, will serve as the principal investigator on the five-year award. Iyer and her team conduct research on mitochondrial diseases and have received grants from Arkansas ...

Craniosynostosis, the premature fusion of the top of the skull in infants, is caused by an abnormal excess of a previously unknown type of bone-forming stem cell, according to a preclinical study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. Craniosynostosis arises from one of several possible gene mutations, and occurs in about one in 2,500 babies. By constricting brain growth, it can lead to abnormal brain development if not corrected surgically. In complex cases, multiple surgeries are needed. In the study, which appears Sept. 20 in Nature, the researchers examined in detail what happens in the skull of mice with one of the most common mutations found in human ...

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023, NEW YORK – In exploring an aspect of how killer T cells generate the raw materials required for their proliferation, a Ludwig Cancer Research study has uncovered an unexpected link between the immune cells’ metabolism, regulation of gene expression, persistence and functional efficacy that could be exploited using existing drugs to improve cancer immunotherapy. Researchers led by Ludwig Lausanne’s Alison Jaccard and Ping-Chih Ho along with their University of Lausanne colleagues Mathias Wenes and Pedro Romero were exploring how proliferating T cells in the low-oxygen environment of tumors make citrate, a molecule essential to manufacturing membranes, which ...

How do our muscles respond at the molecular level to exercise? Researchers at Helmholtz Munich and the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE) have unraveled the cellular basis and signaling pathways responsible for the positive impact of physical activity on our overall health. Regulatory T cells, a type of immune cell, play a critical role in ensuring proper muscle function. These novel insights are paving the path towards precision medicines targeting metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes, as well as muscle-related illnesses. Their discoveries are published in Cell Metabolism. Obesity and type ...

Scientists have revealed the molecular structure of a type of receptor that’s crucial to brain development and function. Known as Type A GABA receptors, these receptors are already targeted by pharmaceutical anesthetics, sedatives and antidepressants because of their important role in brain function. The discovery, published today in the journal Nature, reveals the dominant assemblies and states of the GABA receptor, a finding that could enable the development of new compounds that more specifically target a range of medical disorders. “It is the main player that balances excitation and inhibition in the ...

Imagine if France, Germany, and Spain were completely blanketed in forests — and then all those trees were quickly chopped down. That’s nearly the amount of deforestation that occurred globally between 2001 and 2020, with profound consequences.  Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, producing between 6 and 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2009 study. Meanwhile, because trees also absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere, they help keep the Earth cooler. ...

You’re looking at a truck. You’re with a young child and he follows your gaze. He’s interested in the object you’re looking at without you pointing at it. This is called joint attention and it is one of the primary ways children learn to connect words with objects and acquire language. Lack of joint attention is a core feature of autism. Until now, it was thought that stimulating joint attention in people with autism would help them express themselves verbally. But a meta-analysis of 71 studies on autism challenges this assumption and suggests that people with autism spectrum disorders may acquire language differently. The study – by Laurent Mottron, ...

Upgrading, or retrofitting, the world's iron and steel processing plants early could reduce carbon emissions by up to 70 gigatonnes by 2050, roughly equivalent to two years' worth of net global carbon emissions, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. Published in the journal Nature, the researchers found that by upgrading the world’s iron and steel production facilities, carbon emissions can be reduced by 58.7 gigatonnes between 2020 and 2050, roughly equivalent to two years’ worth of net global carbon emissions. ...

One proven method for tracking down the genetic causes of diseases is to knock out a single gene in animals and study the consequences this has for the organism. The problem is that for many diseases, the pathology is determined by multiple genes. This makes it extremely difficult for scientists to determine the extent to which any one of the genes is involved in the disease. To do this, they would have to perform many animal experiments – one for each desired gene modification. Researchers led by Randall Platt, Professor of Biological Engineering at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel, have now developed a method that will greatly ...

About The Study: The results of this study showed sociodemographic-based disparities in geographic clustering of COVID-19 therapeutic drugs, highlighting disparities in access to these drugs. With the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, these findings highlight an important gap in treatment access.  Authors: Kosuke Tamura, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, 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.2023.34763) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that greater ultraprocessed food (UPF; i.e., energy-dense, palatable, and ready-to-eat items) intake, particularly artificial sweeteners and artificially sweetened beverages, is associated with increased risk of depression. Although the mechanism associating UPF to depression is unknown, recent experimental data suggests that artificial sweeteners elicit purinergic transmission in the brain, which may be involved in the etiopathogenesis of depression.  Authors: Raaj S. Mehta, ...

About The Study: Waist-to-hip ratio had the strongest and most consistent association with mortality irrespective of body mass index in this study consisting of 387,000 UK adult participants from the UK Biobank. Clinical recommendations should consider focusing on adiposity distribution compared with mass.  Authors: Guillaume Pare, M.D., M.Sc., of the Vascular and Stroke Research Institute in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 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.2023.34836) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional ...