ROCHESTER, Minn. — A new study from Mayo Clinic finds that socially isolated people are more likely to show signs of being biologically older than their age and more likely to die from a variety of causes. The research, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Advances, suggests that social connection plays an important role in overall physical health and longevity, and it should be addressed as a necessary part of the social determinants of health. To investigate the role of social contact in biological aging, the ...

Broadband plays a critical role in most aspects of modern-day life, yet over 42 million Americans still lack access to high-speed Internet. This digital divide is driven by “digital redlining”—discriminatory disinvestment in broadband infrastructure that disproportionately affects people of color, low-income communities, and rural populations, worsening disparities in access to healthcare, social services, education, and employment for these populations. Addressing digital redlining and the digital divide is imperative for ...

ANN ARBOR, Michigan — Prostate cancer patients receiving care at hospitals that are part of a special drug-pricing program were more likely to stick to their prescription drug therapy than patients at other hospitals, according to a study from researchers at the University of Michigan’s Rogel Cancer Center and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.   The 340B Drug Pricing Program is a federal program that requires the pharmaceutical industry to provide a discount on the cost of drugs to participating hospitals who serve a disproportionate number of Medicare and Medicaid patients. The program was started to enable hospitals to stretch scarce resources, ...

Embargoed for release: Wednesday, March 20, 5:00 PM ET Key points: In a study of 4.3 million pregnant women and their children, prenatal exposure to topiramate, an antiseizure medication used to treat epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and migraines, was not associated with additional risk of the children developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Consistent with previous research, the study also found that prenatal exposure to valproate and lamotrigine—two other antiseizure medications—were associated with ...

An investigational gene therapy for a rare neurodegenerative disease that begins in early childhood, known as giant axonal neuropathy (GAN), was well tolerated and showed signs of therapeutic benefit in a clinical trial led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Currently, there is no treatment for GAN and the disease is usually fatal by 30 years of age. Fourteen children with GAN, ages 6 to 14 years, were treated with gene transfer therapy at the NIH Clinical Center and then followed for about six years to assess safety. Results ...

Lithium metal batteries (LMBs) can provide nearly 10 times higher energy density compared to the present Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and hence are identified as one of the potential future storage systems. However, LMBs pose certain safety concerns and cannot be used for fast-charging applications. Uncontrolled dendrite formation, leading to excessive heating and battery short circuit is one of the critical challenges of its advancement. Researchers have previously attempted to address the safety concerns in LMBs but with methods that were laboursome and money/time intensive. T. N. Narayanan’s lab at the Tata Institute ...

IRVINE, CA, March 20, 2024 --The Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF), a nonprofit focused on transforming pediatric cancer care by funding research breakthroughs, today announced the expansion of its leadership team. Executive Director Jeri Wilson, who has led the organization for 12 years, will step into the newly created role of Vice President of Development, Principal Gifts.  Danielle Fragalla, a known nonprofit leader in California, will become Chief Executive Officer. In the 12 years Ms. Wilson has led the Foundation, it has grown from a grassroots ...

“These results suggest strong potential for clinical use of the assay in ctDNA monitoring of solid tumor cancers.” BUFFALO, NY- March 20, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on March 14, 2024, entitled, “Analytical validation of NeXT Personal®, an ultra-sensitive personalized circulating tumor DNA assay.” In this new study, researchers Josette Northcott, Gabor Bartha, Jason Harris, Conan Li, Fabio C.P. Navarro, Rachel Marty Pyke, Manqing Hong, Qi Zhang, Shuyuan Ma, Tina X. Chen, Janet Lai, Nitin Udar, Juan-Sebastian Saldivar, Erin Ayash, ...

The turbulent motion of a tumbling river or the outflow from a jet engine is chaotic: that is, it contains no obvious pattern. But according to a new study, regular patterns can emerge from the turbulent motion of fluids. What you need is an intriguing property called “odd viscosity” that arises under certain conditions,  such as when the particles in the fluid all spin in the same direction. Though it’s a specialized circumstance, there are many contexts in nature where a version of this effect may exist, such as in the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Treating anxiety and depression significantly reduced emergency room visits and rehospitalizations among people with heart disease, according to a study by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  “For patients hospitalized for coronary artery disease or heart failure and who had diagnoses of anxiety or depression, treatment with psychotherapy, medication or both was associated with as much as a 75% reduction in hospitalizations or emergency room visits. In some cases, there was a reduction in death,” said lead study author Philip Binkley, MD, executive ...

A study led by University of Oklahoma researchers has been selected for a 2023 best paper award in the Advanced Formation Evaluation technical program theme from the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference. The study examined how clay and kerogen, two different components within rocks, respond to nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, a technique used to assess the amount of fluids within rocks. Many fluids found within rocks contain hydrogen, and knowing whether and how much hydrogen is available in the subsurface is an important facet of oil and gas exploration. Researchers found that higher NMR frequencies improved data acquisition efficiency. As a result of this study, a ...

“This discovery unveils a potential novel molecular target for therapeutic strategies against hepatic steatosis during the aging process [...]” BUFFALO, NY- March 20, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 5, entitled, “FoxO6-mediated ApoC3 upregulation promotes hepatic steatosis and hyperlipidemia in aged rats fed a high-fat diet.” FoxO6, an identified factor, induces hyperlipidemia and hepatic steatosis during aging by activating hepatic ...

Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem awarded the Israel Prize in the field of Solidarity (Arvut Hadadit) for her tireless work to raise awareness and acknowledgement to the crimes committed by Hamas on and following October 7th against Israeli women, children, men and families. Elkayam-Levy established the “Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children”, aimed at giving voice to the victims and their families and raising awareness of the concerning developments in war crimes against women, children, men and families on and after October 7th and raising support for this cause. Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy: ...

A new study from the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) has found that national elections have a greater impact on consumer sentiment and spending intentions than previously thought, especially during transitions of power between political parties. Led by Hector Sandoval, director of the Economic Analysis Program and research assistant professor at BEBR, the study draws on years of meticulous observation and analysis of monthly sentiments data collected by the UF Survey Research Center. Despite the wealth of data available ...

Artificial intelligence can spot COVID-19 in lung ultrasound images much like facial recognition software can spot a face in a crowd, new research shows. The findings boost AI-driven medical diagnostics and bring health care professionals closer to being able to quickly diagnose patients with COVID-19 and other pulmonary diseases with algorithms that comb through ultrasound images to identify signs of disease. The findings, newly published in Communications Medicine, culminate an effort that started early in the pandemic when clinicians needed tools to rapidly assess legions of patients in overwhelmed emergency rooms. “We developed ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People who have an influenza infection are more likely to need medical care for neurologic disorders within the next year than people who have a COVID-19 infection, according to a study published in the March 20, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study, funded by the American Academy of Neurology, looked at people who were hospitalized with either influenza or COVID-19. The study did not look specifically at outcomes ...

The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new elements across the universe. The iron running in your veins and the calcium in your teeth and the sodium powering your thoughts were all born in the heart of a long-dead star.  No one has been able to find one of those first generation of stars, but scientists have announced a unique finding: a star from the second generation that originally formed in a different galaxy from ours. “This ...

Researchers have incorporated a swept illumination source into an open-top light-sheet microscope to enable improved optical sectioning over a larger area of view. The advance makes the technique more practical for nondestructive 3D pathology. 3D pathology is being explored as an alternative to traditional slide-based histology because it can provide detailed 3D insights into pathological structures and cellular interactions without altering the tissue. This approach makes it possible to analyze complex 3D tissue structures and to image thick tissues, which is not possible with slide-based methods. The researchers used their improved open-top ...

In a new Nature study, Columbia Engineering researchers have built a photonic chip that is able to produce high-quality, ultra-low-noise microwave signals using only a single laser. The compact device — a chip so small, it could fit on a sharp pencil point — results in the lowest microwave noise ever observed in an integrated photonics platform. The achievement provides a promising pathway towards small-footprint ultra-low-noise microwave generation for applications such as high-speed communication, atomic clocks, and autonomous vehicles. The challenge Electronic devices for global navigation, wireless communications, radar, and ...

SAN DIEGO—A wave of innovation is hitting California as the Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC) gears up to showcase the latest breakthroughs in optical communications and networking. OFC will take place at the San Diego Convention Center from 24 to 28 March 2024 drawing industry leaders, experts, academia, media, analysts and students from around the world to explore the latest in optical technology. Innovative advancements in industrial technologies, as well as research in 800ZR, Coherent PON, Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO), multicore fiber, AI and ...

Killer whales foraging in deep submarine canyons off the coast of California represent a distinct subpopulation that uses specialized hunting techniques to catch marine mammals, Josh McInnes at the University of British Columbia and colleagues report March 20 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are found in oceans around the world, but they form separate populations, or ‘ecotypes’, that have their own social structure, food preferences and hunting behaviors. One ecotype, known as transient killer whales, specialize in hunting marine ...

More than 7,000 years ago, people navigated the Mediterranean Sea using technologically sophisticated boats, according to a study published March 20, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Juan F. Gibaja of the Spanish National Research Council, Barcelona and colleagues. Many of the most important civilizations in Europe originated on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. During the Neolithic, communities clearly traveled and traded across the water, as evidenced by watercraft in the archeological record and the presence ...

Robotic exoskeletons designed to help humans with walking or physically demanding work have been the stuff of sci-fi lore for decades. Remember Ellen Ripley in that Power Loader in Alien? Or the crazy mobile platform George McFly wore in 2015 in Back to the Future, Part II because he threw his back out? Researchers are working on real-life robotic assistance that could protect workers from painful injuries and help stroke patients regain their mobility. So far, they have required extensive calibration and context-specific tuning, which keeps them largely limited to research labs. Mechanical engineers at Georgia Tech ...

Societal acceptance of autism varies considerably across different countries, with lowest levels of acceptance found in Japan and Belgium, new research shows. A survey of 306 autistic individuals from eight countries revealed that around three quarters of respondents do not feel accepted, or only sometimes feel accepted, as an autistic person. Among these countries, participants in Japan and Belgium reported the lowest levels of acceptance, while those in Canada, the UK, and South Africa reported comparatively higher levels. The study, published in PLOS ONE, is the ...

Whether it’s a powered prosthesis to assist a person who has lost a limb or an independent robot navigating the outside world, we are asking machines to perform increasingly complex, dynamic tasks. But the standard electric motor was designed for steady, ongoing activities like running a compressor or spinning a conveyor belt – even updated designs waste a lot of energy when making more complicated movements. Researchers at Stanford University have invented a way to augment electric motors to make them much more efficient at performing dynamic ...