Opioid dependence in Scotland remains high but largely stable, according to a new University of Bristol-led analysis published in Addiction today [18 April] and by Public Health Scotland. The study is the first to estimate the number of people dependent on opioid drugs (such as heroin), and who are in or could benefit from drug treatment, among Scotland’s population since 2015/2016 estimates were published. Scotland has one of the highest rates of drug-related deaths in Europe, with the number of these more than doubling between 2011 and 2020. At 250-300 per million population in 2021-22, Scotland’s rate of drug-related deaths was ...

LA JOLLA (April 17, 2024)—One in every 10 individuals above the age of 65 develops an age-related neurological disorder like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, yet treatment options remain sparse for this population. Scientists have begun exploring whether cannabinoids—compounds derived from the cannabis plant, like well-known THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol)—may offer a solution. A third, lesser-known cannabinoid called CBN (cannabinol) has recently piqued the interest of researchers, who have begun exploring the clinical potential of the milder, less ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State researchers may have uncovered another layer of complexity in the mystery of how diet impacts aging. A new study led by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development examined how a person’s telomeres — sections of genetic bases that function like protective caps at the ends of chromosomes — were affected by caloric restriction. The team published their results in Aging Cell. Analyzing data from a two-year study of caloric restriction in humans, the researchers found that people who restricted their calories lost telomeres at different rates ...

Silicon-based electronics are approaching their physical limitations and new materials are needed to keep up with current technological demands. Two-dimensional (2D) materials have a rich array of properties, including superconductivity and magnetism, and are promising candidates for use in electronic systems, such as transistors. However, precisely controlling the properties of these materials is extraordinarily difficult. In an effort to understand how and why 2D interfaces take on the structures they do, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a method ...

Soft skin coverings and touch sensors have emerged as a promising feature for robots that are both safer and more intuitive for human interaction, but they are expensive and difficult to make. A recent study demonstrates that soft skin pads doubling as sensors made from thermoplastic urethane can be efficiently manufactured using 3D printers. “Robotic hardware can involve large forces and torques, so it needs to be made quite safe if it’s going to either directly interact with humans or be used in human environments,” said project lead Joohyung Kim, a professor of electrical & computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. ...

HOUSTON – (April 17, 2024) – Rice University alumna Minjung Kim is one of 30 recipients of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a merit-based graduate school program for immigrants and children of immigrants. The highly selective award recognizes fellows “for accomplishments that show creativity, originality and initiative [and for] the potential to make meaningful contributions to the United States” in their field of study. Each awardee receives up to $90,000 in funding to support their graduate studies at institutions across the U.S. “This fellowship is a unique experience from the very start — not only did it require me to think ...

A consortium made up of researchers from more than ten countries, including Brazil, the United States and some European nations, is running simulations of the past and future climate in South America with unprecedented resolution. The aim is to create a computer visualization model that more accurately represents the hydroclimatic processes that occur in the region to help decision-makers implement more effective measures to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The work was presented at a panel discussion on climate on April 10, during FAPESP Week Illinois, in Chicago (United States). “We’re ...

Key Takeaways Peripartum cardiomyopathy is a rare form of heart failure that occurs in women during late pregnancy or early postpartum, and one in which the cause remains largely unknown In a new study, Mass General researchers and colleagues show that elevated levels of proteins related to cellular senescence, or aging, in the blood and the placenta are linked to this form of heart failure Targeting aging-related placental proteins improved heart function in a lab model of peripartum cardiomyopathy, suggesting a potential new approach for therapeutic development BOSTON—A form of heart failure that occurs during late pregnancy ...

Coffee beans in a jar and piles of rice or sand are examples of granular matter: materials composed of large numbers of macroscopic—rather than atomic scale—particles. Although granular matter is extremely familiar in everyday life, it represents an unexpected frontier in fundamental physics: Very little is understood about it. In a new study published recently in the European Physical Journal E, Onuttom Narayan and Harsh Mathur, theoretical physicists at the University of California at Santa Cruz and Case Western Reserve University, respectively, shed some light on the propagation of sound through granular materials ...

The world’s top prize in forestry research has been awarded to University of Wisconsin–Madison biochemistry professor John Ralph for work that has led to new uses for one of the world’s most abundant natural resources. The Marcus Wallenberg Foundation on Wednesday awarded the 2024 Marcus Wallenberg Prize to Ralph and collaborator Wout Boerjan, a professor at Ghent University in Belgium, for their groundbreaking research on the molecular structure of lignin, one of the main components of plant cell walls. Dubbed ...

Reston, VA—A novel SPECT/CT acquisition method can accurately detect radiopharmaceutical biodistribution in a convenient manner for prostate cancer patients, opening the door for more personalized treatment. Utilizing lead-212 (212Pb), the new imaging technique has the potential to change practice and increase access for patients around the world. The first-in-human images from this method were published in the April issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. There is significant interest in the development of 212Pb-PSMA–based ...

Autism spectrum disorder has yet to be linked to a single cause, due to the wide range of its symptoms and severity. However, a study by University of Virginia researchers suggests a promising new approach to finding answers, one that could lead to advances in the study of other neurological diseases and disorders. Current approaches to autism research involve observing and understanding the disorder through the study of its behavioral consequences, using techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging ...

Understanding how proteins interact with each other is crucial for developing new treatments and understanding diseases. Thanks to computational advances, a team of researchers led by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Alberto Perez has developed a groundbreaking algorithm to identify these molecular interactions. Perez’s research team included two graduate students from UF, Arup Mondal and Bhumika Singh, and a handful of researchers from Rutgers University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The team published their findings in Angewandte Chemie, a leading ...

Wind power is a source of energy that is both affordable and renewable. However, decision-makers have been reluctant to invest in wind energy due to a perception that wind farms require a lot of land compared to electric power plants driven by fossil fuels. Research led by McGill University and based on the assessment of the land-use of close to 320 wind farms in the U.S. (the largest study of its kind) paints a very different picture. Misplaced preconceptions about the land use of gas-fuelled electricity The study, which was published recently in Environmental Science and Technology, shows that, when ...

In 1969, the recently independent Republic of Congo discovered an enormous oil field off its coast. The find represented both a rare opportunity for the burgeoning nation, and a potential threat – the revenue generated by oil extraction could either pave the way for a stable socialist society, or doom the country to exploitation much like that it had endured under French colonialism. A new paper in Critical Historical Studies, “Enclosed Futures: Oil Extraction in the Republic of Congo,” demonstrates ...

It could be very informative to observe the pixels on your phone under a microscope, but not if your goal is to understand what a whole video on the screen shows. Cognition is much the same kind of emergent property in the brain. It can only be understood by observing how millions of cells act in coordination, argues a trio of MIT neuroscientists. In a new article, they lay out a framework for understanding how thought arises from the coordination of neural activity driven by oscillating electric fields—also known ...

Recent strides in interdisciplinary archaeological research in Arabia have unveiled new insights into the evolution and historical development of regional human populations, as well as the dynamic patterns of cultural change, migration, and adaptation to environmental fluctuations.  Despite the challenges posed by limited preservation of archaeological assemblages and organic remains in arid environments, these discoveries are reshaping our understanding of the region's rich cultural heritage.  One such breakthrough led by Griffith University’s Australian ...

The US saw a 22% decline in rates of prescription-opioid overdose related emergency department (ED) visits in children 17 and younger between 2008 and 2019, but an uptick in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Henry Xiang of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, US, and colleagues. The authors also note that rates of pediatric opioid overdoses remain high in many populations. Opioid overdose has been declared a public health emergency in the United States but much of the focus has been on adults. In the new study, researchers analyzed overdoses ...

From a survey of about 12,000 adolescents from Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the US, and the UK, about 17 percent of respondents reported experiencing weight-related bullying online, especially users of Twitter and Twitch, according to a study published April 17, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Kyle Ganson from University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues. Screen time and social media use are common among adolescents—and people in general—for entertainment and social connection, though many cons exist, including cyberbullying. Here, Ganson and colleagues investigated weight-related bullying in adolescents across different ...

A large lava tube in Saudia Arabia provided valuable shelter for humans herding livestock over at least the past 7,000 years, according to a study published April 17, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mathew Stewart of Griffith University, Brisbane and colleagues. Research in northern Arabia over the last decade has highlighted a diverse Holocene archaeological record. However, the timing of human occupations and their connections with the nearby Levant remain poorly understood, primarily due to poor preservation of organic remains in the region’s arid conditions. To circumvent this problem, Stewart ...

Watching a video could change your attitude to rattlesnakes - though results varied by age, gender, religion and rattlesnake experience ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298737 Article Title: Effects of relational and instrumental messaging on human perception of rattlesnakes Author Countries: USA Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

The clinical knowledge and reasoning skills of GPT-4 are approaching the level of specialist eye doctors, a study led by the University of Cambridge has found. GPT-4 - a ‘large language model’ - was tested against doctors at different stages in their careers, including unspecialised junior doctors, and trainee and expert eye doctors. Each was presented with a series of 87 patient scenarios involving a specific eye problem, and asked to give a diagnosis or advise on treatment by selecting from four options. GPT-4 scored significantly better in the ...

As carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, the Earth will get hotter. But exactly how much warming will result from a certain increase in CO2 is under study. The relationship between CO2 and warming, known as climate sensitivity, determines what future we should expect as CO2 levels continue to climb. New research led by the University of Washington analyzes the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, to better understand the relationship between CO2 and global temperature. It finds that while most future warming ...

Researchers at the American Museum of Natural History have found that over the last 120 years, the porosity—or small-scale holes—in mussel shells along the East Coast of the United States has increased, potentially due to warming waters. The study, which analyzed modern mussel shells in comparison to specimens in the Museum’s historic collection, was published today in the journal PLOS ONE. “Mussels are important on so many levels: they provide habitats on reefs, they filter water, they protect coasts during storms, and they are important commercially as well—I love mussels and I know many other people do, too,” said Leanne Melbourne, ...

The fossilised remains of a second gigantic jawbone measuring more than two metres long has been found on a beach in Somerset, UK. Experts have identified the bones as belonging to the jaws of a new species of enormous ichthyosaur, a type of prehistoric marine reptile. Estimates suggest the oceanic titan would have been more than 25 metres long. Father and daughter, Justin and Ruby Reynolds from Braunton, Devon, found the first pieces of the second jawbone to be found in May 2020, while searching for fossils on the ...