A new study has revealed that islands are home to around one in three of the world’s plant species, despite covering just over five per cent of the Earth’s land surface. Dr Julian Schrader, from Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences, led a team of a dozen researchers from Australia, Germany, Spain, USA, Greece and Japan in analysing data on more than 304,103 plants – essentially all species known to science worldwide – uncovering a treasure trove of island biodiversity. The team found 94,052 species are native to islands. Of these, 63,280 are endemic –found nowhere else in the world – representing 21 per cent of global plant diversity. The ...

The chemical messenger dopamine is an essential catalyst that fuels activities and behaviors ranging from movement to cognition and learning. However, neuroscientists have long debated whether these functions rely on rapid bursts of dopamine or on the neurochemical’s slower action. A new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School provides an answer.  The work, conducted in mice and published Oct. 16 in Nature, shows that initiating movement doesn’t require a rapid burst of dopamine but instead relies on slow activity of the chemical over time. By contrast, reward-oriented behaviors, related to ...

While marine heatwaves (MHWs) have been studied at the sea surface for more than a decade, new research published today in Nature has found 80 per cent of MHWs below 100 metres are independent of surface events, highlighting a previously overlooked aspect of ocean warming.  The study was conducted by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  MHWs are prolonged temperature events that can cause severe damage to marine habitats, such as impacts to coral reefs and species displacement. These events are becoming more frequent due to global warming, with notable occurrences off Australia’s East ...

In a study published in Nature, Prof. Daniel Falush of the Shanghai Institute of Immunity and Infection (SIII) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Yoshio Yamaoka of Oita University, Japan, and Prof. Kaisa Thorell of Gothenberg University, Sweden uncovered fascinating new details about the long association of humans and our stomach bacteria. Since its discovery in 1983, Helicobacter pylori has become notorious as the cause of around a million cases of stomach cancer a year as well as other life-threatening gastric diseases. The bacterium is ...

Inside cells, it's like in a packed dance club: hundreds are partying. Some keep to themselves, others make their way through the crowd, chatting to everyone they meet. Some just say a quick hello, others stay with their best friends. In this club, there are all kinds of different interactions between party-goers. The same is the case in cells with proteins. Cells are filled with many different types of proteins that interact with each other and often work together in groups. These groups are called complexes ...

In recent years, the excessive use of acetaminophen (APAP) has become a significant human hazard and social burden. Rapid and automated electrochemical detection has emerged as a crucial method for measuring APAP concentration in human urine. This study explores a novel porous cobalt-derived biomass electrocatalyst material prepared from Elaeagnus angustifolia gum and investigates its electrochemical properties as well as its specific detection capability for APAP. Their work is published in the journal Industrial Chemistry & Materials on 18 July 2024. Acetaminophen (APAP) is a commonly used analgesic and antipyretic ...

The 2024 Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology was awarded to F. William Studier of Brookhaven National Laboratory in a ceremony and symposium at the Broad Institute on September 17, 2024. The prize, created by the Merkin Family Foundation and administered by the Broad, recognizes novel technologies that have significantly improved human health and carries a $400,000 award. [Event Video]  Studier was announced as the winner in May for his development, in 1986, of an efficient, scalable method of producing ...

The “São Paulo School of Advanced Science on Structural Safety and its role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the built environment” will be held May 3-16, 2025, in Brazil, at the São Carlos School of Engineering of the University of São Paulo in its São Carlos campus. Reporters are invited to register for the scientific sessions and short courses, which will present state-of-art science and results of new research. This advanced science school will address the main challenges related to Structural Safety ...

October 16, 2024, Mountain View, CA - Scientists at the SETI Institute and partners from Penn State University used the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to search for signs of alien technology in the TRAPPIST-1 star system. The team spent 28 hours scanning the system, looking for radio signals that could indicate extraterrestrial technology. This project marks the longest single-target search for radio signals from TRAPPIST-1. Although they didn’t find any evidence of extraterrestrial technology, their work provided valuable data ...

Fukuoka, Japan—Nager syndrome, or NS, is a rare genetic disease that affects the development of the face and limbs, usually causing anomalies in the bone structures of the jaws, cheeks, and hands. With a prevalence of less than 100 cases ever reported, not much is known about the disease except the fact that mutations in the SF3B4 gene are its primary cause. Now, in a recent study made available online on September 15, 2024 and upcoming in the November issue of International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, researchers from Kyushu University have developed a convenient approach to explore the underlying mechanisms ...

Liquid crystals exist in a phase of their own. They can flow like liquids, but because their molecules are arranged in a somewhat orderly way, they can be easily manipulated to reflect light. This flexibility has made liquid crystals the go-to material for energy-efficient phone, TV, and computer display screens. In a new study in Nature Chemistry, researchers at Dartmouth and Southern Methodist University hint at other applications for liquid crystals that might one day be possible, all powered by natural light. They include liquid crystal ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – This year, the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility celebrates the 40th anniversary of its founding to probe the secrets of the subatomic universe. And for 39 of those years, esteemed physicist Volker D. Burkert has been an important part of its mission. Now, Burkert is being honored for his contributions to advancements in experimental physics with the prestigious Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics. The citation reads: “For exemplary leadership in the development of high-performance instrumentation for large acceptance spectrometers that have enabled breakthroughs in fundamental nuclear ...

A new tactic for overcoming breast cancer drug resistance The most common type of breast cancer, estrogen receptor positive, has been effectively treated with hormone therapy combined with drugs that block cell division called CDK4/6 inhibitors. However, it has been impossible to predict how long people will respond to this drug combination. In some patients, the disease is controlled for years, but in others, the cancer starts progressing again after just a few months. This presents ...

DALLAS, Oct. 16, 2024 — The risk of heart disease increases with age for most people, however, for women that may be even more true. The menopause transition, those years leading up to and through menopause, is a time of increasing heart disease risk, according to an American Heart Association scientific statement published in the flagship journal Circulation in 2020. “While many people think that breast cancer is the leading killer of women in the U.S., in ...

EMBARGO: SYDNEY: 17 October 2024, 00.01 | NEW YORK: 16 October 2024, 09:00 Standing more may not reduce cardiovascular disease risk, could increase circulatory disease Standing has gained popularity among people looking to offset the harms of a sedentary lifestyle often caused by spending long days sitting in front of the computer, television or driving wheel. Standing desks have become a popular option among office workers, and in other industries like retail, workers may opt to stand instead of sit.   However, their efforts may not produce the intended result. New University of Sydney research has shown that over ...

Improving indoor air quality is the goal of a new video series developed by experts at the University of California, Davis in collaboration with the California Department of Public Health. Aimed at building and facility managers, the videos distill the science of air quality into steps building and facility managers can take to remove pollutants, including viruses, from the place we spend most of our time -- indoors.  “The goal is to help people understand the issues around indoor air quality, how it is related to disease, and what managers can do to make it better,” said Professor Chris Cappa, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental ...

In a new study evaluating meditation for chronic lower back pain, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that men and women utilize different biological systems to relieve pain. While men relieve pain by releasing endogenous opioids, the body’s natural painkillers,  women rely instead on other, non-opioid based pathways. Synthetic opioid drugs, such as morphine and fentanyl, are the most powerful class of painkilling drugs available. Women are known to respond poorly to opioid therapies, which use synthetic opioid molecules to bind to the same receptors as naturally-occurring endogenous ...

A joint research team, led by Dr. Sang Yong Park from the National Climate Technology Center at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) and Professor Dong Gu Choi from the Department of Industrial and Management Engineering at POSTECH, has developed an energy system model optimized for Korea's environment and proposed an optimal strategy for utilizing hydrogen energy. Hydrogen is being highlighted as a key resource for achieving the government's "2050 Carbon Neutrality Scenario." It is not only a clean energy source in itself but can also be produced using surplus power from renewable ...

DALLAS, October 16, 2024 — More than half of all people who experiencing sudden cardiac arrest outside of hospital don’t receive immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). As a result, 9 out of 10 times they die[1]. Yet it takes just 90 seconds to learn the fundamentals of Hands-Only CPR to save a life. CPR, especially if performed immediately, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival. To save more lives, the American Heart Association and the National Football League (NFL) are actively putting boots on the ground - cleats on the field - to educate ...

While the vast majority of people over 50 look for health information on the internet, a new poll shows 74% would have very little or no trust in such information if it were generated by artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, 20% of older adults have little or no confidence that they could spot misinformation about a health topic if they came across it.  That percentage was even higher among older adults who say their mental health, physical health or memory is fair or poor, and among those who report having a disability that limits their activities. In other words, those who might ...

With heart attacks, every second counts. A new blood test diagnoses them in minutes rather than hours and could be adapted as a tool for first responders and people at home. “Heart attacks require immediate medical intervention in order to improve patient outcomes, but while early diagnosis is critical, it can also be very challenging—and near impossible outside of a clinical setting,” said lead author Peng Zheng, an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University. “We were able to invent a new technology that can quickly and accurately establish if someone is having a heart attack.” The proof-of-concept work, which can be modified to detect infectious ...

New research published in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases confirms that strokes thought to happen in older adults are possible in the younger (defined as 18-50 years old) population. Large Vessel Occlusion Acute ischemic Strokes (LVO-AIS) are considered to be the most debilitating strokes which occur due to blockage of large cerebral arteries usually from blood clots or plaque build up. LVO-AIS is typically thought to occur in older adults given that older individuals are known to have risk factors for large vessel occlusions. However, new research confirms that the younger population can have risk factors ...

Although all ecosystems are affected by a changing climate, the impacts can take a while to appear. Changes in forest biodiversity, for example, are known to lag behind changes in a habitat's temperature and precipitation. Grasslands, on the other hand, are responding to climate change almost in real time, according to new research by the University of Michigan. Put another way, forests accumulate climate debt while grasslands are paying as they go, said the study's lead authors, Kai Zhu and Yiluan Song. "Climate change does have consequences for our ecosystems. It's going to come sooner or later," said Song, a postdoctoral fellow at the ...

Experts in infection prevention and control at the Mount Sinai Health will present new research and insights at ID Week, the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the HIV Medicine Association, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists in Los Angeles from October 16-19.  Mount Sinai doctors and researchers are also available for comment on breaking health news including the flu, COVID variants, HIV/AIDS, mpox, West Nile virus, measles, and fall vaccinations.   PRESENTATIONS and POSTER SESSIONS *All abstracts and presentations ...

In this age of cloud storage, few people are backing up data on CD-RWs. The technology to rewrite data on compact discs was made possible by phase-change materials altered by the light and heat of lasers, though this had a limit of 1,000 rewrites. Today, scientists investigating photoswitching molecules, which change their properties when irradiated, have been finding possible applications for these materials, ranging from photopharmacology to data storage. Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Engineering student Shota Hamatani, Dr. Daichi Kitagawa, a lecturer, and Professor Seiya Kobatake synthesized aza-diarylethenes, which have nitrogen in place of carbon in a molecular structure ...