Experiencing negatively-perceived emotions might prompt people to withdraw from a social group - specifically, shame for individualistic societies, but anger for more collectivistic cultures ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289918 Article Title: Shame and anger differentially predict disidentification between collectivistic and individualistic societies Author Countries: Germany, Japan, Canada Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

In 2019, an ESPN report explored the reasons so many football wide receivers prefer to wear jersey numbers between 10 and 19. The story found that many of the athletes simply believed the lower numbers made them look faster and slimmer than the higher numbers traditionally assigned to their position. Ladan Shams, a UCLA professor of psychology and neuroscience, was quoted in the story and offered a psychological explanation for the phenomenon. But she emphasized that there was no scientific research on the topic. Now there is. A new UCLA study published in the journal PLOS ONE reveals that those wide receivers were onto ...

In an analysis of samples from patients with rheumatic diseases, researchers from across Mass General Brigham found evidence that prior infection with a pre-pandemic coronavirus that causes the common cold may help set the stage for the development of long COVID The study points to a potential marker of long COVID, which could inform clinical trials and may help explain why some patients develop long COVID A patient population at increased risk for severe COVID-19 may help researchers understand why some people develop long-term, persistent symptoms (long COVID) while others do not. Rheumatologists from Brigham and ...

The shape and size of a grain of rice, the new device can conduct dozens of experiments at once to study the effects of new treatments on some of the hardest-to-treat brain cancers. Researchers  from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, have designed a device that can help test treatments in patients with gliomas, a type of tumor that originates in the brain or spinal cord. The device, which is designed to be used during standard of care surgery, provides unprecedented insight into the effects of drugs on glioma ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - As the Earth’s human population grows, greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s food system are on track to expand. A new study demonstrates that state-of-the-art agricultural technology and management can not only reduce that growth, but eliminate it altogether by generating net negative emissions – reducing more greenhouse gas than food systems add. In fact, employing additional agricultural technology could result in more than 13 billion tons of net negative greenhouse gas emissions each year, as the world seeks to avoid dangerous climate extremes, according to research published Sept. 6 in PLOS Climate. The work was led by Benjamin ...

Remembering the order of information is central for a person when participating in conversations, planning everyday life, or undergoing an education. A new study, published in the scientific journal PLoS One, shows that this ability is probably human unique. Even the closest relatives of humans, such as bonobos, do not learn order in the same way. “The study contributes another piece of the puzzle to the question of how the mental abilities of humans and other animals differ, and why only humans speak languages, plan space travel, and have learned to exploit the earth so efficiently that we now pose a serious ...

Footballers wearing jerseys featuring small numbers are rated as more slender than those wearing big numbers, in experiments indicating how visual perception may be influenced by cognition ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287474 Article Title: Big number, big body: Jersey numbers alter body size perception Author Countries: USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Jimmy Jiang envisions a future where every house is powered by renewable energy stored in batteries. In his chemistry lab, Jiang and his students at the University of Cincinnati have created a new battery that could have profound implications for the large-scale energy storage needed by wind and solar farms. Innovations such as UC’s will have profound effects on green energy, Jiang said. Batteries store renewable energy for when it’s needed, not just when it’s produced. This is crucial for getting the most out of wind and solar power, he said. “Energy ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — This summer, viral misinformation claimed that the Amish did not vaccinate against COVID-19 and, as a result, had a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of the United States. Now, a Penn State study is the first to provide geographically broad and population-wide evidence that while the Amish-populated counties across the nation tend to have lower vaccination rates than other populations, they are not entirely unvaccinated.  The research was published recently in the journal Population Research and Policy Review. The Amish are a distinctive Christian subculture that traces its roots to the 16th century Protestant ...

A recent article published in Volume 3 of the journal Psychoradiology, researchers from Sichuan Normal University introduced an innovative Three-Choice BIC paradigm that merges the GNG and two-choice oddball (TCO) tasks. This study engaged 48 college students who responded to varied stimuli using designated keys and restrained responses to no-go stimuli. Employing functional neuroimaging coupled with conjunction and ROI analyses, the researchers sought to unveil unique neural pathways linked to BIC ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The treadmill exercise test with electrocardiogram (ECG), also known as an exercise stress test, is one of the most familiar tests in medicine. While exercise testing typically is focused on diagnosing coronary artery disease, a recent study from Mayo Clinic finds that exercise test abnormalities, such as low functional aerobic capacity, predicted non-cardiovascular causes of death such as cancer in addition to cardiovascular-related deaths. These new findings are published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The exercise stress test is noninvasive, easily available and provides important diagnostic information. In addition to the ECG itself, ...

DENVER/Sept. 6, 2023 — A newly funded study will evaluate both the frequency and major risk factors for cancer in golden retrievers, a breed commonly affected by the disease.   The study will use data from Morris Animal Foundation’s Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, which is one of the largest and most comprehensive canine health studies in the world. The study will also incorporate data from Veterinary Companion Animal Surveillance System (VetCompass), a not-for-profit research project based at the Royal Veterinary College ...

LA JOLLA, CA—A good night’s sleep has many proven health benefits, and a new Scripps Research study suggests one more: preventing opioid relapse. In the new study, published online in Neuropharmacology on August 12, 2023, scientists gave an experimental insomnia treatment to rats experiencing oxycodone withdrawal. The researchers found that the animals were far less likely to seek out drugs again in the future—even after ending the treatment. These findings could eventually lead to therapies to help prevent opioid addiction or relapse in humans. “These results are very encouraging,” says Rémi Martin-Fardon, PhD, associate professor of molecular medicine ...

The researchers studied birds given a simulated bacterial infection in order to stimulate their immune system. The birds were then compared with birds whose immune system was not stimulated – and their activity was measured for several weeks using miniature data loggers. “We found that the birds whose immune system was stimulated had reduced activity for three weeks, which is much longer than we expected. We could also see that the "sick" blackbirds stopped their activities ...

The 2023 edition of the António Champalimaud Vision Award recognizes the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group (SJEHG) for its work supporting hundreds of thousands of people living in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, helping in the fight against blindness while providing access to essential health services in a region marked by conflict and instability. The SJEHG has been developing its activity at the centre of three major world religions. The ongoing conflict in the region has had a severe impact on health care access and delivery. Without the intervention of the SJEHG, the rate of blindness would be rampant, increasing ...

Precisive real-time prediction of the movement of nearby vehicles or the future trajectory of pedestrians is essential for safe autonomous driving. A research team led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) recently developed a novel AI system that improves predictive accuracy amid dense traffic and increases computational efficiency by over 85%, offering great potential for enhancing the safety of autonomous vehicles. Professor Wang Jianping, in the Department of Computer Science (CS) at CityU, who led the study, explained the critical importance ...

Study Title: Being Breastfed in Infancy and Risk of Colorectal Cancer and Precursor Lesions Publication: Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology: https://www.cghjournal.org/article/S1542-3565(23)00673-0/fulltext Dana-Farber Cancer Institute authors include Chen Yuan, ScD, first author; Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, senior author Summary: Rates of young-onset colorectal cancer have been on the rise since the early 1990s. This study, led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, investigated potential links between being breastfed as an infant and having colorectal cancer later in life. The team evaluated data collected by the Nurses’ Health Study ...

Studies have shown that intermittent fasting can help people lose weight and may be easier to follow than counting calories to lose weight, such as traditional calorie restriction. Exciting new research in animals suggests that intermittent fasting slows aging and helps animals live longer. Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the University of Alabama at Birmingham are conducting a study to see if eating for 8 hours and fasting for 16 each day can slow the aging process in people and are looking for healthy adults aged 25-49 to participate. In this study, called DiAL-Health, researchers will ...

[Bethesda, Maryland, USA  -- September 6] The new Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund (CIEIF, www.cieif.org) begins operations today, with the goal of helping kickstart new approaches to restoring Earth’s climate in the face of rapid deterioration.  CIEF makes direct grants to investigators worldwide working to stop and reverse global warming. The grants are focused on predictive environmental impact assessments, impact modeling studies, and stakeholder engagement for proposed small-scale field tests of innovative climate intervention technologies. CIEIF also offers investigators expert advice on ...

INDIANAPOLIS—A groundbreaking study led by experts from Indiana University School of Medicine has shed new light on the genetic underpinnings of Alzheimer's disease. The team's research, rooted in human genetics studies, has unearthed a critical mutation within a key gene operating in the brain's immune cells, potentially elevating the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The research team included several IU investigators within Stark Neurosciences Research Institute—Gary Landreth, PhD, the Martin Professor of Alzheimer’s Research; Bruce Lamb, PhD, executive director of Stark Neuroscience Research Institute; Stephanie Bissel, PhD, assistant ...

New “hypervirulent” strains of the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae have emerged in healthy people in community settings, prompting a National Institutes of Health research group to investigate how the human immune system defends against infection. After exposing the strains to components of the human immune system in a laboratory “test tube” setting, scientists found that some strains were more likely to survive in blood and serum than others, and that neutrophils (white blood cells) are more likely to ingest and kill some strains than others. The study, published in mBio, was led by researchers at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “This ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- It came as a surprise to Professor David Lo and his graduate student Diana Del Castillo when they were recently consulted by researchers in Israel for their expertise on specialized cells called Microfold cells, or M cells, which are mostly known for their presence in the intestinal epithelium. The Israeli group had identified similar cells in the thymus, an organ located just above the heart that makes lymphocytes — white blood cells that play an important role in the immune system and protect the body against infection. Lo, a distinguished professor of biomedical sciences in the UC Riverside School of Medicine, and Del Castillo, ...

MIT researchers have demonstrated the first system for ultra-low-power underwater networking and communication, which can transmit signals across kilometer-scale distances. This technique, which the researchers began developing several years ago, uses about one-millionth the power that existing underwater communication methods use. By expanding their battery-free system’s communication range, the researchers have made the technology more feasible for applications such as aquaculture, coastal hurricane prediction, and climate change modeling. “What started as a very exciting ...

September 6, 2023 — Among African American and other Black cisgender women, a beauty salon–based intervention improved knowledge and awareness of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against HIV and increased trust in it, according to a pilot study published in the September issue of The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC), the official journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care. JANAC is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  However, most study participants did not self-identify as requiring PrEP or having risk factors for HIV. "Like ...

Pumping liquids may seem like a solved problem but optimizing the process is still an area of active research. Any pumping application—from industrial scales to heating systems at home—would benefit from a reduction in energy demands. Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now showed how pulsed pumping can reduce both friction from and energy consumption of pumping. For this, they took inspiration from a pumping system intimately familiar to everyone: the human heart. According to an international study, nearly twenty percent of global electric power are used for pumping liquids around—ranging from industrial applications ...