University of Cambridge media release UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01AM (UK TIME) ON WEDNESDAY 31ST MAY 2023 An unprecedented record of medieval live comedy performance has been identified in a 15th-century manuscript. Raucous texts – mocking kings, priests and peasants; encouraging audiences to get drunk; and shocking them with slapstick – shed new light on Britain’s famous sense of humour and the role played by minstrels in medieval society. The texts contain the earliest recorded use of ‘red herring’ in English, extremely rare forms of medieval literature, as well as a ...

Tiny foxes — each no bigger than a five-pound housecat — inhabiting the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California were saved from extinction in 2016. However, new research reveals that the foxes now face a different threat to their survival. Suzanne Edmands, professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Nicole Adams, who earned her PhD from USC Dornsife in 2019, found that the foxes’ genetic diversity has decreased over time, possibly jeopardizing their survival ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 29, 2023) St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists discovered how the current epizootic H5N1 avian influenza virus (bird flu) gained new genes and greater virulence as it spread west. Researchers showed that the avian virus could severely infect the brains of mammalian research models, a notable departure from previous related strains of the virus. The researchers genetically traced the virus’ expansion across the continent and its establishment in wild waterfowl populations to understand what makes it so different. The study was recently published in Nature Communications.   “We ...

East Hanover, NJ – May 30, 2023 – Annually, New Jersey Health Foundation (NJHF) invites researchers to submit applications for grants aimed at supporting pilot research projects that exhibit promising potential. These grants serve as opportunities for scientists to utilize their initial findings to secure further funding and progress their research. This year, NJHF granted awards to two Kessler Foundation scientists to conduct studies that expand research in upper extremity exercise after stroke ...

A plentiful supply of clean energy is lurking in plain sight. It is the hydrogen we can extract from water (H2O) using renewable energy. Scientists are seeking low-cost methods for producing clean hydrogen from water to replace fossil fuels, as part of the quest to combat climate change. Hydrogen can power vehicles while emitting nothing but water. Hydrogen is also an important chemical for many industrial processes, most notably in steel making and ammonia production. Using cleaner hydrogen is highly desirable in those industries. “By using ...

A New Jersey Institute of Technology research team led by physics professor Wenda Cao at the university’s Center for Solar Terrestrial Research (CSTR) has been awarded a $4.64 million National Science Foundation grant to continue leading explorations of the Sun’s explosive activity at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). The grant marks the largest project that the Solar-Terrestrial Research Program under NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) supports, extending five more years of baseline funding for all science, instrumentation and education activities at BBSO, located at California’s Big Bear Lake. The ...

An extended lymphadenectomy – removal of additional lymph nodes beyond the extent of the standard procedure – in patients undergoing radical cystectomy (removal of bladder and nearby tissues) because of clinically localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer provides no patient benefit as measured by disease-free survival or overall survival times. It does, however, increase the risk of adverse events (side effects) and post-surgical death. These primary results from the phase 3 SWOG S1011 clinical ...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – A Marshall University study found that a virtual sex education tool improved reproductive health knowledge scores and measures of self-efficacy among adolescent girls. The findings, published last month in Sex Education, a leading international journal on sex, sexuality and relationships in education, found that sexual health knowledge scores on a validated scale increased among participants, along with improved measures of self-efficacy regarding birth control, healthy relationships and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention. Notably, ...

American Geophysical Union 25 May 2023 AGU Release No. 22 For Immediate Release This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at:  https://news.agu.org/press-release/no-till-revolution-could-stop-midwest-topsoil-loss-in-its-tracks/ No-till revolution could stop Midwest topsoil loss in its tracks If Midwestern farms all adopted low-intensity tilling practices or stopped tilling entirely, the erosion of critical topsoil could decrease by 95% in the next 100 years, new study finds AGU press contact: Rebecca ...

Less than two percent of the human genome codes for proteins, with the rest being noncoding and likely helping with gene regulation. Mutations in the noncoding genome often trigger trait changes that cause disease or disability by altering gene expression. However, it can be hard for scientists to track down which of numerous variants associated with a disease or other complex trait are the causal ones and to understand the mechanism of their effects. Researchers at the Brigham developed a new computational approach that hones in on small regions of the noncoding genome that genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified ...

With a warmer climate creating more humid conditions in the Northeast, extreme precipitation events — defined as about 1.5 or more inches of heavy rainfall or melted snowfall in a day — are projected to increase in the Northeast by 52% by the end of the century, according to a new Dartmouth study. The findings are published in Climatic Change. "As climate change brings warmer temperatures, you have more water vapor in the atmosphere, which creates the right conditions for extreme precipitation," says first author Christopher J. Picard '23, an earth sciences major and undergraduate researcher in the Applied Hydroclimatology Group ...

A little-known bacterium — a distant cousin of the microbes that cause tuberculosis and leprosy — is emerging as a public health threat capable of causing severe lung infections among vulnerable populations, those with compromised immunity or reduced lung function. Recent research found that various strains of the bacterium, Mycobacterium abscessus, were genetically similar, stoking fears that it was spreading from person to person. But a new study by Harvard Medical School researchers published ...

An experimental “decoy” provided long-term protection from infection by the pandemic virus in mice, a new study finds. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the work is based on how the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, uses its spike protein to attach to a protein on the surface of the cells that line human lungs. Once attached to this cell surface protein, called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the virus spike pulls the cell close, enabling the virus to enter the cell and hijack its machinery to make viral copies.  Earlier in the pandemic, pharmaceutical ...

Plant growth is driven by light and supplied with energy through photosynthesis by green leaves. It is the same for roots that grow in the dark – they receive the products of photosynthesis, in particular sucrose, i.e. sugar, via the central transportation pathways of phloem. Dr. Stefan Kircher and Prof. Dr. Peter Schopfer from the University of Freiburg’s Faculty of Biology have now shown in experiments using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) that the sucrose not only guarantees the supply of carbohydrates to the roots, it also acts as a signal transmitter for ...

One of the primary drivers of climate change is excess greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Mitigating climate change in the coming century will require both decarbonization — electrifying the power grid or reducing fossil fuel-guzzling transportation —  and removing already existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a process called carbon dioxide removal. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Yale University are proposing a novel pathway through which coastal ecosystem restoration can permanently capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Seagrass and mangroves — known as blue carbon ecosystems — naturally capture ...

HOUSTON – (May 30, 2023) – Conventional implantable medical devices designed for brain stimulation are often too rigid and bulky for what is one of the body’s softest and most delicate tissues. To address the problem, Rice University engineers have developed minimally invasive, ultraflexible nanoelectrodes that could serve as an implanted platform for administering long-term, high-resolution stimulation therapy. According to a study published in Cell Reports, the tiny implantable devices formed stable, long-lasting and seamless tissue-electrode ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at SLEEP 2023 found that teens with greater variability in their sleep patterns have a higher risk for school-related problems. Results show that the teens with greater night-to-night variability in the time they fell asleep were 42% more likely to have been suspended or expelled in the past two years, 29% more likely to have received a D or F in any course, and 26% more likely to have ever failed a course. The likelihood of suspension or expulsion was also 31% higher in teens with greater variability in sleep duration. “Variability in sleep duration and later sleep ...

Today’s substance use prevention efforts ignore individual genetic risk, but Rutgers research suggests DNA test results may eventually enhance prevention and treatment and improve outcomes. Investigators recruited 325 college students, provided them with varying levels of information about alcohol use disorder and how genetics affect addiction risk and asked them how they would react to learning they had high, medium and low genetic tendencies toward alcoholism. The results provided two significant supports for eventually using real genetic risk scores in actual addiction prevention efforts. First, participants understood what those scores indicated; they recognized that higher ...

Transportation accounts for roughly one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and adoption of electric vehicles are seen by many experts in government and the private sector as a vital tool in efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Roughly a decade ago, EVs accounted for a tiny fraction of overall car sales. As of March 2023, they make up 7% of new sales “What changed between then and now?” asks Kenneth Gillingham, professor of environmental and energy economics at the Yale School of the Environment. ...

DARIEN, IL – Cortisol levels in late pregnancy can predict the sleep of infants, according to a new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2023 annual meeting.  Results show that newborns with higher levels of cortisol in their hair samples took longer to fall asleep at 7 months of age. Neonatal hair cortisol is a measure of fetal cortisol in the last trimester of pregnancy.  “Although increases in cortisol across pregnancy are normal and important for preparing the fetus for birth, our findings ...

May 30, 2023 That’s Not Nuts: Almond Milk Yogurt Packs an Overall Greater  Nutritional Punch than Dairy-Based UMass Amherst food science major completes comparison of 612 plant-based and dairy yogurts AMHERST, Mass. – In a nutritional comparison of plant-based and dairy yogurts, almond milk yogurt came out on top, according to research led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst food science major. “Plant-based yogurts overall have less total sugar, less sodium and more fiber than dairy, but they have less protein, calcium and potassium than dairy yogurt,” ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While it can take years for the pharmaceutical industry to create medicines capable of treating or curing human disease, a new study suggests that using generative artificial intelligence could vastly accelerate the drug-development process.  Today, most drug discovery is carried out by human chemists who rely on their knowledge and experience to select and synthesize the right molecules needed to become the safe and efficient medicines we depend on. To identify the synthesis paths, scientists often employ a technique called retrosynthesis – a method for creating potential drugs by working backward from the wanted molecules and searching for chemical reactions ...

May 30, 2023, Mountain View, CA – Akshay Suresh, a graduate student at Cornell University, spearheads an extraordinary scientific endeavor -- a groundbreaking mission to uncover periodic signals emanating from the core of the Milky Way called the Breakthrough Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals (BLIPSS). Such repetitive patterns could be the key to unlocking the mysteries of extraterrestrial intelligence in our galaxy. Suresh and his co-authors detail the project’s results thus far in a paper accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, “A 4–8 GHz Galactic Center Search for Periodic Technosignatures.” BLIPSS ...

“In this study, we present novel transcriptional dependencies between MALAT1 and MAPK-pathway-associated genes in melanoma.” BUFFALO, NY- May 30, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on May 26, 2023, entitled, “Deconstructing the role of MALAT1 in MAPK-signaling in melanoma: insights from antisense oligonucleotide treatment.” The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) MALAT1 is a regulator of oncogenesis and cancer progression. MAPK-pathway upregulation is the main event in the development and progression of human cancer, including melanoma and recent studies have shown that MALAT1 has a significant impact on the ...

The low blood oxygen levels of obstructive sleep apnea cause widespread changes in gene activity throughout the day, according to a new study in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by David Smith of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, US, and colleagues. The finding may lead to tools for earlier diagnosis and tracking of the disorder. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) occurs when the airway becomes blocked (usually by soft tissue, associated with snoring and interrupted breathing during the night), resulting in intermittent hypoxia (low blood oxygen) and disrupted sleep. ...