Four U-M projects funded by the Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy University Partnerships program aim to make nuclear energy safer and more equitable.    The projects are designed to improve the monitoring of nuclear reactors during operation; explore the safety of an advanced modular reactor design; develop a framework for ethical, consent-based siting of nuclear facilities; and upgrade a facility for modeling radiation damage to reactor components.    Real-time radiation effects on optics   How well could optical sensors monitor future advanced nuclear reactors? Funded with $1 million, Igor Jovanovic, a professor of nuclear ...

The University of Texas at Arlington is honoring two faculty for their outstanding contributions to research.   Yuze (Alice) Sun, associate professor of electrical engineering, and Venu Varanasi, associate professor in the Bone Muscle Research Center, are the 2024 recipients of the University Award for Outstanding Research Achievement or Creative Accomplishment. This award recognizes faculty members for achieving significant research or creative accomplishments during the past three years. “Alice and Venu are truly bright stars on the faculty at UT Arlington,” ...

As an undergraduate student in The University of Texas at Arlington’s Honors College, Hannah Selvarathinam knew she wanted to conduct research. Near the end of her first year at UTA, the Keller native reached out to the lab of biology Assistant Professor Piya Ghose. “Hannah has been a very impressive scholar from Day 1,” Ghose said. “She had the foresight to reach out for research opportunities very early on.” Ghose brought Selvarathinam in to work on one of the lab’s core projects ...

Nothing lives forever, but compared to other cells in the body, hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are remarkably long-lived. HSCs are blood-forming cells – they give rise to rapidly dividing progenitor cells, which in turn generate hundreds of billions of cells to fulfill the daily demand of oxygen-delivering red blood cells, disease-fighting white blood cells and clot-forming platelets. HSCs typically remain dormant within the bone marrow, yet they possess the ability to activate and replenish blood cells continuously, maintaining a relatively youthful profile throughout the life of an organism. What is the secret of ...

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania published a new Journal of Marketing study that examines online educational platforms and the question of whether they should release content through a scheduled format that resembles a traditional university course or use an on-demand release strategy. The study, forthcoming in Journal of Marketing, is titled “More Likely to Pay but Less Engaged: The Effects of Switching Online Courses from Scheduled to On-Demand Release on User Behavior” and ...

Black drivers are more frequently searched during traffic stops without finding contraband than white drivers, according to a University of Michigan study.   Institute for Social Research scientists Maggie Meyer and Richard Gonzalez analyzed data from 98 million traffic stops, and showed that innocent Black drivers were likely to be searched about 3.4 to 4.5 percent of the time while innocent white drivers were likely to be searched about 1.9 to 2.7 percent of the time. Their results are published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.   "We show that there's ...

The Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce its 2024 Fellows. The Society’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research, communication, education, management and policy. This year, the ESA Governing Board has confirmed nine new Fellows and ten new Early Career Fellows. Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted to, those that advance or apply ecological knowledge in academics, ...

Currently, most therapies for allergic diseases require lifelong treatment. Allergic reactions, characterized by ongoing (type 2) inflammation in response to chronic antigen exposure, underlie many chronic diseases in humans, including asthma, atopic dermatitis, ulcerative colitis and more. T helper 2 (Th2) cells play an important role in the body's immune response, particularly in allergic reactions. Despite their central role, the sustained activity of Th2 cells during allergic reactions, even in the face of constant antigen exposure, has long puzzled researchers. A research team that included authors from Mass General Brigham, including ...

Link to release: https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/04/30/oects/   Researchers who want to bridge the divide between biology and technology spend a lot of time thinking about translating between the two different “languages” of those realms. “Our digital technology operates through a series of electronic on-off switches that control the flow of current and voltage,” said Rajiv Giridharagopal, a research scientist at the University of Washington. “But our bodies operate on chemistry. In our brains, neurons ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (April 30, 2024) – Newly updated guidelines on neuroendocrine tumors developed by an expert at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and collaborators provide clinicians with the latest recommendations for staging and management of these rare but increasingly diagnosed tumors. The guidelines, developed for the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) and summarized today in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, highlight recent changes for treating these tumors and offer a snapshot of this rapidly evolving ...

Around 6,200 BCE, the climate changed. Global temperatures dropped, sea levels rose and the southern Levant, including modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, southern Syria and the Sinai desert, entered a period of drought.  Previously, archaeologists believed that this abrupt shift in global climate, called the 8.2ka event, may have led to the widespread abandonment of coastal settlements in the southern Levant. In a recent study published with the journal Antiquity, researchers at UC San Diego, the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University share new evidence suggesting at least one village formerly thought abandoned not only remained occupied, but ...

“[...] these findings may help to advance our understanding of the pathogenesis of corneal endothelial disease and may lead to the discovery of new therapies targeting senescent cells.” BUFFALO, NY- April 30, 2024 – A new research paper was published on the cover of Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 8, entitled, “Senescent characteristics of human corneal endothelial cells upon ultraviolet-A exposure.” In ...

Common household products containing nanoparticles – grains of engineered material so miniscule they are invisible to the eye – could be contributing to a new form of indoor air pollution, according to a Rutgers study. In a study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, a team of Rutgers researchers found people walking through a space, where a consumer product containing nanoparticles was recently sprayed, stirred residual specks off carpet fibers and floor surfaces, projecting them some three ...

An international team of researchers has successfully used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b. Precise brightness measurements over a broad spectrum of mid-infrared light, combined with 3D climate models and previous observations from other telescopes, suggest the presence of thick, high clouds covering the nightside, clear skies on the dayside, and equatorial winds upwards of 5,000 miles per hour mixing atmospheric gases around the planet. The investigation is just the latest demonstration of the exoplanet science now possible with Webb’s ...

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show the top of the “horse’s mane” or edge of this iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing the region’s complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution. Webb’s new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion (The Hunter), in the western side of a dense region known as the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as ...

Proteins are the workhorses of life. Organisms use them as building blocks, receptors, processors, couriers and catalysts. A protein’s structure is critical to its function. Malformed proteins not only fail to carry out their tasks, they can accumulate and eventually gum up the inner workings of cells. As a result, misfolded proteins cause a variety of degenerative diseases, from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to the blinding disease retinitis pigmentosa. These disorders are currently incurable. A paper out of UC Santa Barbara reveals a new connection between ...

Researchers from the University of California San Diego have revealed new trends in drug consumption that shed light on how people are adapting to the evolving risks associated with unregulated drug use in the United States. The findings could help policymakers and public health officials better tailor interventions to meet the needs of vulnerable populations and reduce the public health burden of substance-related harm. Since the early 2010s, deaths from accidental overdoses have been on the rise ...

Speech is critical to detecting suicidal ideation and a key to understanding the mental and emotional state of people experiencing it. Suicide hotline counsellors are trained to quickly analyze speech variation to better help callers through a crisis. But just as no system is perfect, there is room for error in interpreting a caller’s speech. In order to assist hotline counsellors to properly assess a caller’s condition, Concordia PhD student Alaa Nfissi has developed a model for speech emotion recognition (SER) using artificial intelligence tools. The model analyzes and codes waveform modulations in ...

April 30, 2024, ALEXANDRIA, Virginia —The American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) published the Clinical Practice Guideline: Age-Related Hearing Loss today in Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. This clinical practice guideline (CPG) sheds lights on a global public health problem affecting approximately 466 million people worldwide and identifies quality improvement opportunities and provide clinicians trustworthy, evidence-based recommendations regarding the identification and management of age-related hearing loss (ARHL) in patients 50 years and older. “Age-related ...

The grazing of both domestic and wild animals is shaping landscapes across Europe. It can also contribute to multiple ecosystem services, such as providing habitat for biodiversity. Grazing systems with lower densities of animals and with minimal and only targeted applications of deworming and other medicinal treatments offer benefits for local biodiversity protection and various ecosystem services. However, this type of land management also poses a range of challenges, leading to a constant decline in the number of land users engaged in low-intensity grazing. A team of researchers led by iDiv, UL, and UFZ set out to investigate these ...

Philadelphia, April 30, 2024 – A genetic propensity to higher circulating levels of lipids containing arachidonic acid, an omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid found in eggs, poultry, and seafood, has been found to be linked with a lower risk for bipolar disorder, according to a new study in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier. This new evidence paves the way for potential lifestyle or dietary interventions. Bipolar disorder is a debilitating mood disorder characterized by recurring episodes of mania and depression. Although its etiology is still unclear, previous studies have shown that ...

In an effort to improve early detection of breast cancer and address disparities in outcomes, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued updated breast cancer screening recommendations to now advise all women to undergo routine screening every other year starting at age 40 —representing a significant shift from previous guidelines, which recommended screening starting at age 50 and engaging in individualized decision-making for women aged 40 to 49. The revised guidelines aim to enhance early detection of breast cancer and tackle disparities in breast cancer mortality, particularly among Black women, who are more likely to have aggressive ...

New York (April 30, 2024) – The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) annually honors researchers, clinicians, educators, and emerging health professionals who have made outstanding contributions to high-quality, person-centered care for older adults. This year’s award recipients include 19 leaders representing the breadth of medical disciplines championing care for us all as we age.  Choosing Wisely Champion Award Paras Goel, PT, DPT, Med, MBA, GCS Clinical Student Research Award Elizabeth Margaret Ann Kelly Clinician of the Year Award Joyce Fogel, MD David ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Tai Forest Monkey Project has operated a research field station in west Africa’s Ivory Coast for 30 years, but on the one day since its opening that the site was unstaffed because of conflict in nearby Liberia, poachers took advantage – and killed 18 endangered monkeys. The anecdote is a telling example, scientists say, of how thousands of field stations studying primates in forests around the world not only generate knowledge about these threatened species, but also contribute to ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Environmentalists rejoiced when China announced its commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, but the decarbonization of China – which emits 27% of global carbon dioxide and a third of the world’s greenhouse gases – may come with hidden costs and hard environmental choices, according to new research.  In a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment, Stefano Galelli, associate professor at Cornell University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and colleagues attempt to quantify how decarbonizing the China Southern Power Grid, which provides electricity ...