Record-setting storms in 2023 filled California’s major reservoirs to the brim, providing some relief in a decades-long drought, but how much of that record rain trickled underground? Shujuan Mao of Stanford University and her colleagues used a surprising technique to answer this question for the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. They analyzed changes in the velocity of seismic waves traveling through the LA basin, tracking these changes in space and time between January and October 2023. As Mao reported at the Seismological Society of America (SSA)’s 2024 Annual Meeting, ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Pittsburgh studied how the spin information of an electron, called a pure spin current, moves through chiral materials. They found that the direction in which the spins are injected into chiral materials affects their ability to pass through them. These chiral “gateways” could be used to design energy-efficient spintronic devices for data storage, communication and computing. Spintronic devices harness the spin of an electron, rather than its charge, to create current and move information through electronic devices.  “One of the goals in spintronics ...

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth have unveiled a quantum sensing scheme that achieves the pinnacle of quantum sensitivity in measuring the transverse displacement between two interfering photons. This new technique has the potential to enhance superresolution imaging techniques that already employ single-photon sources as probes for the localization and tracking of biological samples, such as single-molecule localization microscopy with quantum dots. Traditionally, achieving ultra-high precision in nanoscopic techniques has been constrained by the limitations of standard imaging methods, such as the diffraction limit ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Reforestation efforts to restock depleted forests are important for addressing climate change and for both capturing and restoring carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere. These types of solutions to mitigate carbon emissions are critical after 2023 proved to be the warmest year on record. However, some models have been found to be inaccurate. New research from Michigan State University has found the carbon removal potential of some reforestation models have been over exaggerated ...

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a type of blood cancer that forms in the soft marrow of the bones, typically attacking cells that would otherwise form the key component of the body’s immunodefense system, white blood cells. In a new study published in Blood Advances, researchers from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s Hubbell Lab created with a novel approach to develop in-situ cancer vaccines that could increase the effectiveness of immunotherapies in AML and other blood ...

East Hanover, NJ – May 3, 2024 – Following a two-month decline, the employment of individuals with disabilities returns to near historic highs reported by nTIDE in late 2023, reaffirming the significance of those prior highs. That’s according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing March 2024 to April 2024) “Following two months of decline, individuals with disabilities are now edging back towards their near ...

“[...] this editorial underscores the complex molecular diagnosis landscape of cancer in the [Latin American] population.” BUFFALO, NY- May 3, 2024 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 11) on April 22, 2024, entitled, “Exploring oncogenic driver molecular alterations in Hispanic/Latin American cancer patients: A call for enhanced molecular understanding.” In this new editorial, researcher Rafael Parra-Medina from Fundación Universitaria de Ciencias de la Salud and Instituto Nacional de Cancerología begins by discussing Latin America’s (LA) population — a heterogeneous mix ...

Dead stars known as white dwarfs, have a mass like the Sun while being similar in size to Earth. They are common in our galaxy, as 97% of stars are white dwarfs. As stars reach the end of their lives, their cores collapse into the dense ball of a white dwarf, making our galaxy seem like an ethereal graveyard.  Despite their prevalence, the chemical makeup of these stellar remnants has been a conundrum for astronomers for years. The presence of heavy metal elements—like silicon, magnesium, and calcium—on the surface of many of these compact objects is a perplexing ...

A new study co-authored by Sophie Janicke-Bowles, associate professor in Chapman University’s School of Communication, sheds light on the role that new and traditional media play in promoting and affecting character development, emotions, prosocial behavior and well-being (aka happiness) in youth.  Her research and teaching focus on positive psychology, media and new communication technologies, and media and spirituality. The study, published April 13 in Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), investigates how adolescents perceive ...

Researchers at the University of Toronto have found naturally occurring compounds in the gut that can be harnessed to reduce inflammation and other symptoms of digestive issues. This can be achieved by binding the compounds to an important, but poorly understood, nuclear receptor. The gut microbiome hosts bacteria that produce compounds as by-products of feeding on our digestive remnants. The compounds can bind to nuclear receptors, which help transcribe DNA to produce proteins and non-coding RNA segments. By identifying ...

HOUSTON – (May 3, 2024) – A team of chemists and bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Houston have achieved a significant milestone in their work to create a biomaterial that can be used to grow biological tissues outside the human body. The development of a novel fabrication process to create aligned nanofiber hydrogels could offer new possibilities for tissue regeneration after injury and provide a way to test therapeutic drug candidates without the use of animals. The research team, led by Jeffrey Hartgerink, professor of chemistry and bioengineering, has developed peptide-based hydrogels that mimic the aligned structure of muscle and ...

Victims of financial abuse from their partner in England and Wales are being failed by an “inadequate” legal response, new research warns. Coerced debt causes considerable harm. People often live with the effects of being forced to give money or take out loans or credit cards long after the abusive relationship has ended. Using the law to tackle it is more complex than other forms of abuse because to be free of the harmful effects of the abuse people’s contractual liability for the debt may need to be set aside. The law often favours lenders, who have little obligation to ensure that transactions are free from coercion. New research recommends ...

According to Rutgers Health researchers, training correctional officers in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) for adults, a 7.5-hour national education program from the National Council of Mental Wellbeing, may help provide them with the necessary skills to effectively identify signs and symptoms of mental distress and advocate for incarcerated individuals facing mental health crises.   Led by Pamela Valera, an assistant professor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at Rutgers School of Public Health, ...

Research led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated that small changes in the isotopic content of thin semiconductor materials can influence their optical and electronic properties, possibly opening the way to new and advanced designs with the semiconductors. Partly because of semiconductors, electronic devices and systems become more advanced and sophisticated every day. That’s why for decades researchers have studied ways to improve semiconductor compounds to influence how they carry electrical current. One approach is to use isotopes to ...

Through a quirk of anatomy, women are especially prone to urinary tract infections, with almost half dealing with one at some point in their lives.  Scientists have been trying to figure out for decades how bacteria gain a foothold in otherwise healthy people, examining everything from how the microbes move inside and stick to the inside of the bladder to how they deploy their toxins to produce uncomfortable and often painful symptoms. Research published in PNAS examines how the bacteria Escherichia coli, or E. coli—responsible for most UTIs—is able to use host nutrients to reproduce at an extraordinarily rapid pace during ...

Households with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a study of air pollution in U.S. homes found. “I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there for hours after the stove is turned off,” said Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Professor Rob Jackson, senior author of the May 3 study in Science Advances. Pollution from gas and propane stoves isn’t just an issue for cooks or people in the kitchen, ...

Most people have heard the famous phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Now, Northwestern University researchers have used statistical physics to confirm the theory that underlies this famous axiom. The study will be published on May 3 in the journal Science Advances. In the 1940s, Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider introduced social balance theory, which explains how humans innately strive to find harmony in their social circles. According to the theory, four rules — an enemy of an enemy is a friend, a friend of a ...

The outbreak of a deadly disease called stony coral tissue loss disease is destroying susceptible species of coral in the Caribbean while helping other, “weedier” organisms thrive — at least for now — according to a new study published today in Science Advances. Researchers say the drastic change in the region’s population of corals is sure to disrupt the delicate balance of the ecosystem and threaten marine biodiversity and coastal economies. “Some fast-growing organisms, like algae, ...

Activated T cells that carry a certain marker protein on their surface are controlled by natural killer (NK) cells, another cell type of the immune system. In this way, the body presumably curbs destructive immune reactions. Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University Medical Center Mannheim (UMM) now discovered that NK cells can impair the effect of cancer therapies with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in this way. They could also be responsible for the rapid decline of therapeutic CAR-T cells. Interventions in this mechanism could ...

PHILADELPHIA — (May 3, 2024) — The Wistar Institute assistant professor Filippo Veglia, Ph.D., and team, have discovered a key mechanism of how glioblastoma — a serious and often fatal brain cancer — suppresses the immune system so that the tumor can grow unimpeded by the body’s defenses. The lab’s discovery was published in the paper, “Glucose-driven histone lactylation promotes the immunosuppressive activity of monocyte-derived macrophages in glioblastoma,” in the journal Immunity. “Our study shows that the cellular mechanisms of cancer’s self-preservation, when sufficiently understood, can be used against the disease very effectively,” ...

Cambridge, Mass., – ADA Forsyth Institute (AFI) researchers received just under $10 million funding from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) during the federal fiscal year 2023, placing 4th nationally on NIDCR’s ranking list. “We have ranked in the top 5 dental institutions in 9 out of the past 10 years,” said Wenyuan Shi, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of AFI. “We have placed in the top 10 nationally every year since the ranking system began in 2002, despite having one of the smallest faculty ...

May 3, 2024—CHICAGO—The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is pleased to announce Judit K. Szabo, Ph.D., as the incoming editor-in-chief for its top-ranked journal, Ornithological Applications. Beginning on May 1, 2024, Szabo will work in partnership with the journal’s current editor-in-chief, Catherine Lindell, Ph.D., until June 30, 2024, and will take on full responsibility as editor-in-chief beginning on July 1, 2024. “With her international interest and network, conservation experience, and thoughtful approach ...

Long Beach, Calif. – May 3, 2024 – New data from the Acute Pulmonary Embolism Extraction Trial with the AlphaVac System (APEX-AX) demonstrated that catheter-directed mechanical thrombectomy is safe and effective in patients with acute intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism (PE) with significant improvement in the right ventricle (RV) function and minimal major adverse events. The safety and efficacy results from the prospective trial were presented today as late-breaking science at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2024 Scientific Sessions.   Pulmonary embolism (PE), a blood clot that blocks and stops ...

Long Beach, Calif. – May 3, 2024 – Late-breaking data from the ENGULF trial showed that a novel dual-action thrombectomy device was effective and safe in treating acute pulmonary embolism (PE). The safety and effectiveness results were presented today as late-breaking science at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2024 Scientific Sessions and simultaneously published in JSCAI.   PE is a serious cardiovascular event where a blood clot causes issues with blood flow and oxygen levels in the lungs. It can be ...

Long Beach, Calif. – May 3, 2024 – Recent findings from a study on a transcatheter heart valve (THV) system, which includes a new class of transcatheter aortic valve, showed positive results in the device's ability to function as a healthy and natural aortic valve in patients with aortic stenosis (AS). The late-breaking data will be presented today at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2024 Scientific Sessions.   AS is a thickening and narrowing of the aortic valve that can reduce blood flow to ...