Butterflies, bees, and even bats are celebrated as pollinators: creatures that travel from flower to flower to feed, and in the process, help fertilize the plants by spreading pollen. But some of nature’s most diverse pollinators often go unnoticed, even by scientists: long-snouted beetles called weevils. A new study in the journal Peer Community in Ecology provides a deep dive into the more than 600 species of weevils, including ones whose entire life cycles are interwoven with a specific plant that they help pollinate. “Even people who work on pollination don't usually consider weevils as one of the main pollinators, and people who ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 million hospital emergency department (ED) visits took place annually in the U.S. In two studies, Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist Sharmistha Dev, M.D., MPH, and colleagues characterize an ED visit as part of a continuum of care, exploring how an ED visit is a valuable arena to support care beyond the issue that motivated the visit. “Many people view a patient’s ED visit as a moment of acute care and a moment of dealing with just one issue and then the patient is either admitted or discharged. But ...

Teen girls who have greater difficulty effectively solving interpersonal problems when they experience social stress, and who experience more interpersonal stress in their lives, are at greater risk of suicidal behavior, suggests research published by the American Psychological Association. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among teens, and rates of suicidal behavior are particularly high among girls. Previous research has found that interpersonal stressors – such as conflict with peers, friends and family – are related to suicidal behavior. Some theories of ...

May 25, 2023   Saving Our Soil: How to Extend US Breadbasket Fertility for Centuries New research from UMass Amherst shows that the rapid and unsustainable rate of topsoil erosion can be drastically reduced with no-till agricultural methods already in practice AMHERST, Mass. – The Midwestern United States has lost 57.6 billion tons of topsoil due to farming practices over the past 160 years, and the rate of erosion, even following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s guidelines, is still 25 times higher than the rate at which topsoil ...

Aging often is accompanied by cognitive decline. Among the first structures of the brain affected are the hippocampus and adjacent cortices, areas essential for learning and memory. Deficits in cognitive ability are associated with reduced hippocampal volume and degradation of synaptic connectivity between the hippocampus and the (peri)-entorhinal cortex.  Increasing evidence indicates that physical activity can delay or prevent these structural and functional reductions in older adults. A new study by Florida Atlantic University and CINVESTAV, Mexico City, Mexico, provides novel insight into the benefits of exercise, which should motivate ...

Over 37 million Americans have diabetes, and 90-95% of that population are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Lifestyle interventions, such as a healthy diet and a regular physical activity program, are methods to manage diabetes. A new study from a collaboration of investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, and Joslin Diabetes Center, part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, uses data from the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study, a randomized controlled trial that compared an intensive lifestyle intervention with diabetes support and education in patients diagnosed ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The mental distress of cognitive dissonance – encountering information that conflicts with how we act or what we believe – can lead to added pressure on the neck and low back during lifting and lowering tasks, new research suggests. When study participants were told they were performing poorly in a precision lowering experiment in the lab, after initially being told they were doing well, their movements were linked to increased loads on vertebrae in their neck and low back. Results showed that the higher the cognitive dissonance score, the greater the extent of loading on the upper ...

The George Institute for Global Health today announced data from the phase III INTERACT3 study demonstrating that a new combination of treatments for stroke due to intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) significantly improves the chances of surviving without major disability. Results were presented today at the European Stroke Organisation Conference in Munich, Germany, and simultaneously published in The Lancet. The INTERACT3 study is the first-ever randomised controlled trial to show a clearly positive outcome for the treatment of ICH. Timely administration of the new treatment protocol – known as a Care Bundle – centred on the rapid control of ...

In the past, it was considered unprofitable to electrify heavy goods vehicles that transport cargo over long distances. But now researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have shown that it can be cheaper to run heavy goods vehicles on electricity than on diesel. ‘I myself am surprised by the results and hope that more haulage companies and heavy goods vehicle manufacturers will be willing to invest in electrification now that we have shown that it can be cost-effective,’ says Johannes Karlsson, Doctoral student in Automatic Control Engineering at Chalmers. The transition ...

The Tokyo Tech InfoSyEnergy Research and Education Consortium, the Tokyo Tech Academy of Energy and Informatics (Head of Consortium and Academy Director Manabu Ihara, Prof.), and several companies such as Toshiba Corporation and Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation are jointly developing a platform "100 kW hydrogen fuel cell - digital twin" for optimizing the design and control of a 100 kw hydrogen fuel cell that seeks to balance carbon neutrality and economic advantage by mixing renewable energy hydrogen/waste ...

A new study published in the journal Child Development from researchers at Boston College in Massachusetts, USA and the University of Queensland in Australia explores whether four- to nine-year-old-children consider past choices when making moral judgements of others. The findings showed that from the age of six, children considered what characters could have done when making judgement of how nice or mean they are behaving and that four and five- year-olds’ moral judgements were influenced only by ...

New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) shows an association between type 2 diabetes (T2D) and developing dementia in later life – with the risk of dementia increasing the earlier a person develops T2D. The study is by PhD student Jiaqi Hu and Professor Elizabeth Selvin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA, and colleagues. Their study investigated the association between prediabetes and dementia. Prediabetes is an intermediate stage of high blood sugar, where blood sugar is high but has not yet crossed the threshold for T2D. Prediabetes ...

Avocado oil has become a popular choice for many people in recent years because of its heart-healthy benefits and versatility in cooking. However, not all avocado oil products on store shelves are created equal. Some products are labeled as “pure” avocado oil when they contain other oils or additives. No enforceable standards defining the chemical and physical characteristics of avocado oil exist yet. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, analyzed samples of 36 private label avocado oil products and graded them based on quality and purity. Private label products are made by a third-party processor and sold under a grocery store or retailer brand label. Their ...

A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham has found that subanesthetic intravenous ketamine was effective and not inferior to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for the treatment of non-psychotic, treatment-resistant depression. Their results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “ECT has been the gold standard for treating severe depression for over 80 years,” said Amit Anand, MD, director of Psychiatry Translational Clinical Trials at Mass General Brigham and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “But it is also a controversial treatment because it can cause memory ...

Animals using the most of efficient methods of searching for resources may well pay with their lives, scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered. The findings, published today in Behavioural Ecology, reveal why animals may not always use a searching strategy that maximises results. How animals move through their habitat, particularly in search for food, is a major question in biology, and has application in how animals will respond to environmental change. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a special kind of movement, known as Lévy motion, increases the ability to find resources because it includes long-distance moves ...

EMBARGO:  00.01 BST (London time) on THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2023 / 19.01 US EDT on WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2023 Heavy drinkers risk muscle loss, new study finds Peer reviewed – observational study - humans Heavy drinkers could be putting themselves at risk of muscle loss and frailty in later life, according to new research from the University of East Anglia. A new study published today shows with statistical modelling that people with the lowest amount of muscle were drinking 10 units or more a day – about ...

Vegetarian and vegan diets are linked to lower levels of cholesterol and fats in your blood, according to an analysis of all the evidence from randomised trials published since 1982.   The authors of the study, which is published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Thursday), say this means that plant-based diets can play a significant role in reducing blocked arteries, thereby lowering the risk of heart and blood vessel diseases, such as stroke and heart attacks.   The researchers looked at 30 randomised trials with a total of 2,372 participants, published between 1982 and 2022, that quantified the effect of vegetarian or vegan diets versus omnivorous diets on levels ...

Key points Wireless electronics that have been used thus far in next-generation mobile communications using terahertz waves may reach their technical limit (namely, upper limit of frequency for wireless electronics). Terahertz wireless communication in the 560-GHz band was achieved by optical-to-electrical conversion of ultra-high-frequency photonic RF signals in near-infrared micro-resonator soliton comb. Adding the low-phase noise that is characteristic of micro-resonator soliton comb to terahertz waves makes it possible to achieve ultra-high-speed ...

Sudden infant death syndrome is a case where the death of an apparently healthy infant before their first birthday remains unexplained even after thorough investigation. Death generally seems to occur when infants are sleeping. While rare, it is the leading post-neonatal infant death in the United States today, occurring in 103 out of 100,000 live births a year. Despite the initial success of national public health campaigns promoting safe sleep environments and healthier sleep positions in infants in the 1990s in the ...

Richmond, Va. (May 23, 2023) — New research is shedding light on global disparities in mortality rates from late-stage liver disease, also called cirrhosis. The study, published Monday in Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, revealed that the risk of death for hospitalized cirrhosis patients was more than twice as high in lower-or lower-middle income countries compared to high-income countries, largely because of limited access to diagnostic and therapeutic resources. Liver disease occurs when a person’s liver experiences chronic inflammation, often due to obesity, excessive alcohol use, viral hepatitis or a combination. ...

Toronto, ON - The US Surgeon General issued an advisory on social media and youth mental health a week after the American Psychological Association issued a health advisory on social media use in adolescence. Both advisories note potential links between social media use and poor sleep quality in teens. Given these concerns, what specific actions can teens and parents take to optimize sleep? A new national study, published in Sleep Health, offers insights into screen habits linked with better sleep. “Getting enough sleep is crucial ...

EL PASO, Texas (May 24, 2023) – Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have successfully mapped specific regions in the brain that are activated in association with changes in blood sugar — also known as glucose — providing fundamental location information that could ultimately lead to more targeted therapies for people who struggle with conditions like diabetes. The landmark 13-year study, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, describes how the team used careful microscopic analysis to pinpoint specific cell populations ...

“Recent findings suggest that neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases may have overlapping etiologies [...]” BUFFALO, NY- May 24, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 9, entitled, “Exogenous exposures shape genetic predisposition to lipids, Alzheimer’s, and coronary heart disease in the MLXIPL gene locus.” In this new study, researchers Yury Loika, Elena Loiko, Fan ...

A UBC Okanagan researcher is cautioning that a person’s poor eating habits established during post-secondary studies can contribute to future health issues including obesity, respiratory illnesses and depression. Dr. Joan Bottorff, a Professor with UBCO’s School of Nursing, is one of several international researchers who published a multi-site study looking at the eating habits of university students. Almost 12,000 medical students from 31 universities in China participated in the study that aimed to determine the association between eating behaviours, obesity and various diseases. The point, ...

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today announced that Aayush Jain receives the 2022 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation “Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Well-Studied Assumptions,” which established the feasibility of mathematically rigorous software obfuscation from well-studied hardness conjectures. The central goal of software obfuscation is to transform source code to make it unintelligible without altering what it computes.  Additional conditions may be added, such as requiring the transformed code to perform ...