A new publication from Opto-Electronic Science; DOI 10.29026/oes.2024.230036 discusses high-intensity spatial-mode steerable frequency up-converter toward on-chip integration.   Integrated photonic devices consisting of micro-lasers, amplifiers, optical waveguides, frequency converters, and modulators on a single chip, enabling control over photon's spatial modes, frequencies, angular momenta, and phases, are essential for preparing high-dimensional quantum entangled states, high-capacity photon information processing, all-optical communication, and miniaturization of photonic computing. However, ...

In 2016, The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center and at the forefront of cancer research, launched the Maine Cancer Genomics Initiative (MCGI) to bring the latest progress in cancer care to rural Maine patients. Now, after successfully expanding access to genome tumor testing and targeted cancer treatments throughout Maine, the MCGI team provides compelling evidence that genome-matched treatments can provide significant patient benefit. The MCGI report, published recently in npj Precision Oncology, ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The Hulen Place Clinic, which UCR Health, the clinical arm of the School of Medicine (SOM) at the University of California, Riverside, opened in September 2023 to address the health and well-being of the unhoused and underserved populations in the County of Riverside has received a gift of $500,000 from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a sovereign American Indian tribe of Serrano people in San Bernardino County, California. Located about two miles from downtown Riverside and adjacent to an emergency shelter and temporary ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Nonsense-mediated RNA decay, or NMD, is an evolutionarily conserved molecular mechanism in which potentially defective messenger RNAs, or mRNAs (genetic material that instructs the body on how to make proteins), are degraded. Disruption of the NMD pathway can lead to neurological disorders, immune diseases, cancers, and other pathologies. Mutations in human NMD regulators are seen in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and intellectual disability. Why NMD mutations are enriched ...

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and six other Department of Energy national laboratories have developed a United States-based perspective for achieving net-zero carbon emissions. The roadmap was recently published in the journal Nature Reviews Chemistry. The researchers from the DOE laboratories — ORNL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Ames National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory — pooled their diverse expertise to devise a roadmap to “defossilize” portions of the U.S. economy by reducing carbon emissions ...

The Colorado River’s future may be a little brighter than expected, according to a new modeling study from CIRES researchers. Warming temperatures, which deplete water in the river, have raised doubts the Colorado River could recover from a multi-decade drought. The new study fully accounts for both rising temperatures and precipitation in the Colorado’s headwaters, and finds precipitation, not temperature, will likely continue to dictate the flow of the river for the next 25 years.  Precipitation falling in the river’s headwaters region is likely to be more abundant ...

Madagascar is one of the last places where outbreaks of human bubonic plague still happen regularly.  Fleas carrying the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis can spread the disease through their bites. And while a species commonly known as “the rat flea” has been fingered as the main culprit in plague outbreaks, a species known as “the human flea” may play a secondary role. As an investigator during plague outbreaks in rural Madagascar, medical entomologist Adelaide Miarinjara knew that many households were teeming with these human fleas. Miarinjara grew up in the ...

A parasite that not only feeds of its host, but also makes the host change its own metabolism and thus biology. NIOZ microbiologists Su Ding and Joshua Hamm, Nicole Bale, Jaap Damsté and Anja Spang have shown this for the very first time in a specific group of parasitic microbes, so-called DPANN archea. Their study, published in Nature Communications, shows that these archaea are very ‘picky eaters’, which might drive their hosts to change the menu. Archaea are a distinct group of microbes, similar to bacteria [see box]. The team of NIOZ microbiologists studies the so-called ...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from landfills, urban areas and U.S. states, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The researchers combined 2019 satellite observations with an atmospheric transport model to generate a high-resolution map of methane emissions, which was then compared to EPA estimates from the same year. The researchers found: Methane emissions from landfills are 51% higher compared to EPA estimates Methane emissions from 95 urban areas are 39% higher than EPA estimates Methane emissions ...

Amazonia is the home of the largest variety of birds in the world. In such a unique environment, craft cultures have flourished by translating the beauty and creativity of environmental materials like feathers into stunning pieces of art. “The Material Creativity of Affective Artifacts in the Dutch Colonial World,” a new article in Current Anthropology by Stefan Hanß of the University of Manchester, examines artisanal featherwork within the context of early modern colonialism ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers and collaborators have developed a new framework that allows scientists to predict crop yield without the need for enormous amounts of high-quality data – which is often scarce in developing countries, especially those facing heightened food insecurity and climate risk.  In many parts of the world, crop yields are dropping, largely due to the effects of climate change. According to a recent Cornell study, over the last four decades, for every 1 degree Celsius of warming, net farm income decreased by 66%.   Farmers in developed countries can often rely on big datasets ...

Researchers say a machine learning tool can identify many patients with rare, undiagnosed diseases years earlier, potentially improving outcomes and reducing cost and morbidity. The findings, led by researchers at UCLA Health, are described in Science Translational Medicine. “Patients who have rare diseases may face prolonged delays in diagnosis and treatment, resulting in unnecessary testing, progressive illness, psychological stresses, and financial burdens,” said Manish Butte, MD, PhD, a UCLA professor in pediatrics, human genetics, and microbiology/immunology who cares for these patients in his clinic at UCLA. “Machine learning and other artificial intelligence ...

HOUSTON ― Sharon Dent, Ph.D., professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Dent is a global leader in the field of chromatin research whose foundational work has helped define the role of chromatin in cancer growth and development. Dent is one of 120 members and 24 international members elected this year in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The NAS, established in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research. With ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – Children and teens may experience nonmotor seizures for months or years before being seen in an emergency department for a more obvious seizure that includes convulsions, according to a study published in the May 1, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Even then, the history of nonmotor seizures may not be recognized. “Early diagnosis of epilepsy is of the utmost importance because epileptic seizures can lead to injury and even death,” said study author Jacqueline French, MD, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine ...

A subtle type of seizure goes undetected two thirds of the time in pediatric emergency departments, a new study shows. The work focuses on “nonmotor” seizures, which cause children to “zone out” and stare into space or fidget. They may also feel sudden changes in emotions, thoughts, or sensations, as opposed to motor seizures, which cause muscles to move in abrupt, jerking motions. According to the authors, improving recognition of nonmotor seizures may speed up the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy in children, ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 01, 2024) St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have identified specific DNA variants in the non-coding regions of the genome contributing to chemotherapy resistance in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The results guided the team to unravel the mechanism behind a previously unknown contributor to therapeutic resistance. The discovery was enabled by combining new technologies to overcome previous limitations in understanding the non-coding genome, which could be adapted to other ...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine is now accepting applicants for an observational trial focused on fertilized anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Unlike traditional ACL repairs, fertilized ACL surgery uses a biologic concentrate of the patient’s stem cells, bone marrow and autograft bone along with an internal brace with the goal of stabilizing and expediting the healing process. “Past patients of the fertilized ACL have already shown shorter recovery times with no known additional risks to the patient,” said Chad D. Lavender, M.D., ...

New York State is vulnerable to increasing weather-driven power outages, with vulnerable people in the Bronx, Queens and other parts of New York City being disproportionately affected. #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000364 Article Title: Powerless in the storm: Severe weather-driven power outages in New York State, 2017–2020 Author Countries: United States Funding: This work was supported by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) P30 ES009089 ...

Combining time-restricted eating with high-intensity functional training may improve body composition and cardiometabolic parameters more than either alone, according to a study published May 1, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ranya Ameur and Rami Maaloul from the University of Sfax, Tunisia, and colleagues. Changes in diet and exercise are well-known ways to lose weight and improve cardiometabolic health. However, finding the right combination of lifestyle changes to produce sustainable results can be challenging. Prior studies indicate that time-restricted eating (which limits when, but not what, individuals eat) and ...

Simulations of agriculture on Mars using pea, carrot and tomato plants suggest that intercropping, growing different crops mixed together, could boost yields in certain conditions ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0302149 Article Title: Intercropping on Mars: A promising system to optimise fresh food production in future martian colonies Author Countries: The Netherlands Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Earth System Models – complex computer models which describe Earth processes and how they interact – are critical for predicting future climate change. By simulating the response of our land, oceans and atmosphere to manmade greenhouse gas emissions, these models form the foundation for predictions of future extreme weather and climate event scenarios, including those issued by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, climate modellers have long faced a major problem. Because Earth System Models integrate many complicated processes, they cannot immediately run a simulation; they must first ensure that it has reached a stable equilibrium ...

Weather-related power outages in the United States have become nearly twice as common in the last ten years compared to the previous decade. These outages, which can last most of a day, are more than an inconvenience: lack of power and related indoor temperature discomfort can exacerbate health conditions; lack of power also endangers the lives of people who are reliant on electricity-powered medical devices and/or elevators.   A new study led environmental health scientists at Columbia University ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke researchers have opened a new avenue in the attack against influenza viruses by creating a vaccine that encourages the immune system to target a portion of the virus surface that is less variable. Their approach worked well in experiments with mice and ferrets and may lead to more broadly-protective influenza vaccines and less reliance on an annual shot tailored to that year’s versions of the virus. Even with vaccines, influenza kills about a half-million people each year around the world. This new vaccine approach, described May 1 in the journal Science Translational ...

EMBARGOED: Not for Release Until 14:00 U.S. Eastern Time (19:00 UK Time) on Wednesday, 01 May 2024 Mystery behind huge opening in Antarctic sea ice solved Researchers have discovered the missing piece of the puzzle behind a rare opening in the sea ice around Antarctica, which was nearly twice the size of Wales and occurred during the winters of 2016 and 2017. A study published today [1 May 2024] in Science Advances reveals a key process that had eluded scientists as to how the opening, called a polynya, was able to form and persist for ...

Human consciousness requires arousal (i.e., wakefulness) and awareness  Brain imaging studies over the last decade have produced connectivity maps of the cortical networks that sustain awareness, but maps of the subcortical networks that sustain wakefulness are lacking, due to the small size and anatomic complexity of subcortical structures such as the brainstem In a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study that integrated high-resolution structural and functional connectivity data, researchers mapped a subcortical brain network that is believed to integrate arousal and awareness in human consciousness In a paper titled, “Multimodal ...