Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In a study published today in the Journal of Human Evolution of the timing of puberty in Pleistocene teens, researchers are addressing a knowledge gap about how early humans grew up. Found in the bones of 13 ancient humans between 10 and 20 years old is evidence of puberty stages. Co-led by University of Victoria (UVic) paleoanthropologist April Nowell, researchers found specific markers in the bones that allowed them to assess the progress of adolescence. “By analyzing specific areas of the skeleton, we inferred things like menstruation ...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), encompassing Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract that significantly impacts the quality of life of patients. With an incidence of approximately one in 200 individuals in developed countries and a rising trend in developing and newly industrialized nations, IBD poses a substantial burden on healthcare systems. Due to the nonspecific nature of its clinical manifestations and the lack of a gold-standard diagnostic test, managing IBD effectively remains a challenge. Therefore, reliable and widely available biomarkers ...

Researchers in Germany can harvest protein and vitamin B9 from microbes by feeding them nothing much more than hydrogen, oxygen, and CO2. The technology, published September 12 in the Cell Press journal Trends in Biotechnology, runs on renewable energy to produce a sustainable, micronutrient-enriched protein alternative that may one day make it to our plates. “This is a fermentation process similar to how you make beer, but instead of giving the microbes sugar, we gave them gas and acetate,” says corresponding author Largus Angenent of the University of Tübingen, Germany. “We knew that yeast could produce vitamin B9 on their own with sugar, however, we didn’t ...

Neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders (NPD) including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and depression are detrimental to individuals, their families and society as a whole, and in many cases still lack effective treatments. It’s becoming more and more clear that genetic mutations in certain genes can increase the likelihood of developing NPD, and several hundreds of those “risk genes” have been identified to date, but their role related to NPD remains a mystery. “Very little is known about the basic function of most of these genes, and what we do know ...

About The Study: This case report describes a woman who presented with bilateral blurry vision a few days after dyeing her hair with hair dye containing aromatic amines.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nicolas Chirpaz, MD, email nicolas.chirpaz@chu-lyon.fr. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2024.3453) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial ...

About The Study: This study found that certain social determinants of health affected monitoring for diabetic retinopathy similarly for Black and white patients with diabetes while others affected them differently. Patients living in rural communities, Black patients with preexisting diabetic retinopathy, and Hispanic white patients were not receiving eye care in accordance with clinical practice guidelines, which may contribute to worse outcomes.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Dustin D. French, PhD, email dustin.french@northwestern.edu. To access the embargoed ...

About The Study: This single-center cohort study identified substantial overall survival disparity and differing frequencies of driver gene variations by race and ethnicity. Socioeconomic status had the largest contribution but accounted for less than one-third of the disparity, with substantial contribution from tumor molecular features. Further study of the associations of genetic ancestry and the molecular pathogenesis of colorectal cancer with chemotherapy response is needed.  Corresponding ...

City of Hope and Biopharmaceutical Research Company announce first patient has received BRC-001, a first-in-class cannabinoid therapeutic, in a clinical trial investigating supportive care in breast cancer Researchers will evaluate whether the cannabinoid therapeutic candidate can address joint pain resulting from cancer treatment using aromatase inhibitors  This side effect has caused many breast cancer patients to discontinue treatment  LOS ANGELES and MONTEREY, Calif. — City of Hope®, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, and Biopharmaceutical Research ...

Connecticut, U.S.A -- Some chemicals create environmental problems; others, fortunately, can help clean them up.   Chemists from Yale University and their colleagues have developed an electrochemical catalyst and membrane that offers an efficient and sustainable way to treat water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), a common and persistent environmental pollutant. Their findings highlight the potential for advanced electrochemical treatments in environmental remediation and open the door for further innovations in the field.   Their results were published in Carbon Future ...

Fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) have been the primary choice for radome materials in hypersonic vehicles due to their high toughness, strength, and other advantageous properties. However, oxidation by oxygen in the atmospheric environment at elevated temperatures remains a significant obstacle to their further development. Thermal protection coatings offer a crucial avenue to mitigate this issue. Nonetheless, inherent material differences or fiber orientations within CMCs can lead to disparate thermal expansion rates between the matrix and fibers during temperature variations, inevitably ...

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [September 12, 2024] — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®)—an alliance of leading cancer centers—and the NCCN Foundation® proudly announce plans to make every book in the library of NCCN Guidelines for Patients® available in Spanish; with select editions available in additional languages as well. NCCN publishes the NCCN Guidelines for Patients library through funding from the NCCN Foundation. It now features more than 70 books with easy-to-understand information about prevention, ...

One of the primary drivers of climate change, CO2 emissions, have reached over 35 million tons worldwide. With global annual temperatures still rising, reducing CO2 emissions has become a necessity. To turn this necessity into an opportunity, researchers have been working to find ways to capture the CO2, thereby reducing emissions and then converting that CO2 into valuable chemicals and fuels.    One of the difficulties in working with CO2 is that it is very thermodynamically stable. To overcome this, additional ...

Gastric cancer remains a formidable adversary, ranking as the fifth most common cancer and the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with over 1,000,000 new cases and close to 770,000 deaths each year. In Singapore, gastric cancer ranks among the top 10 causes of cancer-related deaths and claims about 300 lives each year.   The peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity, is frequently involved in advanced-stage cancers, including gastric, colon, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers. For gastric cancer, the peritoneum ...

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers and collaborators have found that being a carrier for sickle cell disease, known as having sickle cell trait, increases the risk of blood clots, a risk that is the same among diverse human populations that may not traditionally be associated with sickle cell disease. The study provides estimated clinical risks for people with sickle cell trait, which can inform clinical practice guidelines. Researchers examined the largest and most diverse set of people ...

(WASHINGTON – September 12, 2024) The risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots, in individuals with sickle cell trait (SCT) is higher than in individuals without the trait. However, the risk is lower than for those with heterozygous factor V Leiden (FVL), according to a study published today in Blood Advances that analyzed genetic data from 23andMe research participants. More than 100 million people worldwide and approximately 7% of Black individuals in the United States have SCT. Unlike sickle cell disease, ...

A research paper by scientists at Purdue University presented a deep learning method that enables the customization of complex strain fields according to specific requirements. The new research paper, published on Aug. 14 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, used a deep learning method based on image regression and achieved to predict and customize complex strain fields. Traditional bioreactors, powered by pneumatic actuators or motors, struggle to generate complex strain fields due to limited control over individual actuators. However, fields like cardiovascular biomechanics and tissue engineering require more advanced customization. “In the field of biomechanics, customizing ...

Highlights: Diastatic yeasts can spoil craft beer through hyperattenuation, which boosts the alcohol content and causes bottles to explode. Killer toxins, which are produced by other yeast strains, hint at a remedy. In a proof-of-concept study, researchers found that killer toxins inhibited up to 95% of diastatic yeasts. More work is needed to fine tune the recipe, but killer yeasts may help brewers remedy potentially contaminated beers. Washington, D.C. — Sept. 12, 2024 — When diastatic strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ...

DALLAS, September 12, 2024 — The American Heart Association, celebrating 100 years of lifesaving service in 2024, is recognizing 21 students, educators and elementary, middle and high schools from across the country who are making a bold impact in the battle against cardiovascular disease – the nation’s leading cause of death. These exceptional individuals and institutions were honored for their unwavering commitment to the Association’s in-school programs, Kids Heart Challenge™ ...

A new study has revealed for the first time how different synthesis methods can profoundly impact the structural and functional properties of high entropy oxides, a class of materials with applications in everyday electronic devices. The study was published this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.   “The specific material that we’ve studied here is a high entropy oxide with a spinel crystal structure, which is a mixture of five different transition metal oxides. A lot of the excitement that we ...

Less than half of Americans can name most of the rights protected under the First Amendment and under two-thirds can name the three branches of government, according to the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey, released annually since 2014. The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s nationally representative survey, conducted in May 2024 with about 1,600 U.S. adults, finds levels of public knowledge largely unchanged from 2023. As was true last year, most Americans could name only a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, provided by nearly 3 in 4 respondents. The survey also found strong public support for ...

NEW YORK, September 12, 2024  – For the second time, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences named three women scientists as Laureates of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Each will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to America’s most promising, faculty-level scientific researchers under 42. Three independent juries – one each for life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences & engineering – composed of some of America’s most distinguished scientists selected the three winning Laureates. An additional 15 Finalists will each receive ...

After more than a decade of research growth and recruiting efforts to build strong, collaborative research programs, the Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy in Amarillo has developed the Brain Drug Discovery Center, the newest Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) research center. Created from two existing pharmacy school centers — the Center for Blood-Brain Barrier Research and the Cancer Biology Research Center — the Brain Drug Discovery Center will focus on ...

A QB3-led team uniting researchers from the University of California campuses at Berkeley, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz was awarded a $12 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to investigate the origins of autism using sophisticated cellular models called “neural organoids.” This grant is the first funding brought in by QB3’s Collaborative Research initiative, which was recently created to address major challenges in human health by leveraging research talent and resources across the UC campuses served by QB3.  "We are grateful for the support provided by the CIRM team to craft a highly successful application ...

Whether they’re using it for recreational or medical reasons, a sizable percentage of people in their 50s and older have smoked, eaten, drunk or applied to their skin at least one form of cannabis in the past year, a new poll shows. In all, 21% of people age 50 and older said they used a form of cannabis that contains the psychoactive compound THC at least once in the past year, according to new findings from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging. The poll report focuses on use of cannabis ...

Mill Valley, CA – September 12, 2024 – The SynGAP Research Fund 501(c)(3) announces a $128,888 grant to Dr. Baptiste Lacoste at the uOttawa Brain and Mind Research Institute (uOBMRI) and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI). This grant supports Dr. Lacoste's pioneering research project aimed at exploring the role of vascular and metabolic dysfunction in SYNGAP1-Related Non-Syndromic Intellectual Disability (SYNGAP1-NSID), also known as SYNGAP1-Related Disorders (SRD). With elevated energy demands and a limited capacity to store ...