New Haven, Conn. — Whereas humans have one receptor on their tongues that can detect all sorts of sweet things, from real sugar to artificial sweeteners like aspartame, insects have many receptors that each detect specific types of sugars. Yale researchers have now uncovered one way insect receptors are able to be so selective, an insight they say will help us understand how animals decipher the chemical world and how we might mimic that ability in the future. They reported their findings in a study published March 6 in Nature. Sugar is important to animals ...

It’s not hard to find out what NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes have observed in the past. Barely a week goes by without news of a cosmic discovery made possible using images, spectra, and other data captured by NASA’s prolific astronomical observatories.  But what are Hubble and Webb looking at right this minute? A shadowy pillar harboring nascent stars? A pair of colliding galaxies? The atmosphere of a distant planet? Galactic light, stretched and distorted on a 13-billion-year journey across ...

DARIEN, IL – Medical malpractice incidents are more severe during the months of the year when daylight saving time is observed in the U.S., according to a new study that examined three decades of malpractice claims. Results show that both medical malpractice incident severity and payment decisions were higher during the months of daylight saving time compared with the months of standard time, after controlling for whether states observe daylight saving time. Payment decisions also were higher, but medical incidents were not more severe, during the one week following the spring transition to daylight saving time. “The spring daylight saving shift ...

If you’ve ever wondered why some folks never catch the office or school cold, where they’re sitting might be keeping them from the path of pathogens, according to new UBC Okanagan research. Using a working UBCO classroom as their test lab, the team found that accounting for airflow dynamics reduced pathogens in the classroom by 85 per cent. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the advice was often just to increase ventilation to the maximum,” says Mojtaba Zabihi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering ...

Understanding product life cycles plays an important role in the innovation arms race, helping to define firm growth and market competition. Products experience a substantial decline in sales after an initial period of growth, a trend that is consistent across various industries and product types. “By examining the life cycle of a wide cross-section of products, we can see the role product performance plays in shaping firm and economic growth,” said Munseob Lee, assistant professor of economics at the University of California San Diego School of Global Policy ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – Dementia may be three times more common among people with essential tremor, a movement disorder that causes involuntary shaking, than the general population, according to research released today, March 6, 2024. The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 76th Annual Meeting taking place April 13–18, 2024, in person in Denver and online. Essential tremor is the most common tremor disorder, more common than Parkinson’s disease. In addition to arm and ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Genetic testing has become a more common way to diagnose and manage many neurologic conditions including dementia, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, but a new study has found not everyone may have the same level of access to these tests. Black people were half as likely as white people to be evaluated for genetic testing, according to a study published in the March 6, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Genetic testing is crucial for identifying neurologic conditions and has potential to impact treatment and management of symptoms,” said study author Colin A. Ellis, ...

MINNEAPOLIS – The risk of stroke tied to sleep apnea may vary for Black people and white people, according to a study published in the March 6, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found that white people diagnosed with sleep apnea, whether or not they used a continuous positive airway pressure machine (CPAP), were at increased risk for stroke. White people who were at high risk for sleep apnea but had not been diagnosed with the condition were also at increased risk for stroke. The study did not find an ...

New research today uncovers an important discovery in the study of marine mammal health by being the first study to detect Otariid gammaherpesvirus 1 (OtGHV1) in free-ranging South American pinnipeds, as well as a novel herpesvirus Otariid gammaherpesvirus 8 (OtGHV8) in South American sea lions (Otaria byronia) in the Southern Hemisphere. These findings shed new light on the spread and variety of these types of viruses among pinnipeds and underscore the importance of continued research into the impact these emerging, infectious pathogens have on animal health and ecosystem dynamics in this and similar aquatic systems. Veterinarians and researchers at Brookfield Zoo ...

Study: Vaccinated people had lower risk of severe outcomesAmong people who had COVID-19, those who previously received the latest vaccine had a lower risk of having a severe outcome than those who had not, according to new Cleveland Clinic research published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. Coupled with antiviral treatments such as nirmatrelvir and molnupiravir, updated versions of Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines significantly lowered the likelihood of hospitalization and death from currently ...

DURHAM, N.H.—It can be challenging to gauge the quality of online news—questioning if it is real or if it is fake. When it comes to health news and press releases about medical treatments and procedures the issue can be even more complex, especially if the story is not complete and still doesn’t necessarily fall into the category of fake news. To help identify the stories with inflated claims, inaccuracies and possible associated risks, researchers at the University of New Hampshire developed a new machine learning model, an application of artificial intelligence, that news services, like social media outlets, could easily use to better screen ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A surge of a neural-specific protein in the brain is the earliest-yet biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, report University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers studying a mouse model of the disease. Furthermore, the increased protein activity leads to the seizures associated with the earliest stages of neurodegeneration, and inhibiting the protein in the mice slowed the onset and progression of seizure activity.  The neural-specific protein, PSD-95, could pose a new target ...

Getting climate models to mimic real-time observations when it comes to warming is critical – small discrepancies can lead to misunderstandings about the rate of global warming as the climate changes. A new study from North Carolina State University and Duke University finds that when modeling warming trends in the Pacific Ocean, there is still a missing piece to the modeling puzzle: the effect of wind on ocean currents in the equatorial Pacific. “The Pacific Ocean can act like a thermostat for the global climate,” says Sarah Larson, assistant professor of marine, ...

Replacing long-acting with immediate-release opioids after total knee replacement surgery resulted in comparable pain management but less nausea-medication usage and less need for residential rehabilitation after hospital discharge. The results of this small study, a Rutgers Nursing doctoral program project for lead author Anoush Kalachian, support a broader trend toward better management of prescription opioids – which directly resulted in the deaths of nearly 17,000 Americans in 2021 and can spur the use of illegal opioids. Widespread changes in opioid use patterns for knee replacement patients would have a significant impact on ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Combining two treatments could be a promising option for people, especially military veterans, whose lives are negatively affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study shows. In a clinical trial conducted among U.S. military veterans at the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center, participants who received brain stimulation with a low electrical current during sessions of virtual reality exposure reported a significant reduction in PTSD symptom severity. The results ...

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of six research articles published in March issues across its six esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA's journals consistently feature innovative and impactful studies. The compilation of papers delves into beetle energetics, the interplay between wildfire and climate change, salamander conservation and more, showcasing the Society's commitment to promoting cutting-edge research ...

The support for the hypothesis of Spinosaurus as an aquatic pursuit predator may have had fundamental flaws, according to Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures, US and colleagues, in a study published March 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Paleontologists generally agree that the famous Spinosaurus was a fish-eater, but exactly how these dinosaurs caught their prey is the subject of lively debate, with some researchers suggesting that they hunted on the shore, some that they waded or swam in the shallows, and others that they were aquatic pursuit predators. One recent study provided support for the latter hypothesis using a fairly new ...

Certain factors associated with developing age-related hearing loss differ by sex, including weight, smoking behavior, and hormone exposure, according to a study published on March 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Dong Woo Nam from Chungbuk National University Hospital, South Korea, and colleagues. Age-related hearing loss (ARHL), slowly-advancing difficulty in hearing high-frequency sounds, makes spoken communication more challenging, often leading to loneliness and depression. Roughly 1 in 5 people around the world suffer ...

Higher BMI is significantly associated with worse mental health, especially in women, per study of middle-aged and older adults which adjusted for lifestyle and demographic factors ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299029 Article Title: Associations between adiposity measures and depression and well-being scores: A cross-sectional analysis of middle- to older-aged adults Author Countries: Ireland Funding: This research was funded by the Irish Health Research Board, grant number: HRC/2007/13. The funder had no role in the ...

An injectable hydrogel can mitigate damage to the right ventricle of the heart with chronic pressure overload, according to a new study published March 6 in Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Basic to Translational Science.  The study, by a research team from the University of California San Diego, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, was conducted in rodents. In 2019, this same hydrogel was shown to be safe in humans through an FDA-approved Phase 1 trial in people who suffered a heart attack. As a result of the new preclinical ...

For years, controversy has swirled around how a Cretaceous-era, sail-backed dinosaur—the giant Spinosaurus aegyptiacus—hunted its prey. Spinosaurus was among the largest predators ever to prowl the Earth and one of the most adapted to water, but was it an aquatic denizen of the seas, diving deep to chase down its meals, or a semiaquatic wader that snatched prey from the shallows close to shore? A new analysis led by paleontologists from the University of Chicago reexamines the density ...

Greg Rouse, a marine biologist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and other researchers have discovered a new species of deep-sea worm living near a methane seep some 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Rouse, curator of the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection, co-authored a study describing the new species in the journal PLOS ONE that was published on March 6.  The worm, named Pectinereis strickrotti, has an elongated body that is flanked by a row of feathery, gill-tipped appendages called ...

The high-tech double-barrel nanopipette, developed by University of Leeds scientists, and applied to the global medical challenge of cancer, has - for the first time - enabled researchers to see how individual living cancer cells react to treatment and change over time – providing vital understanding that could help doctors develop more effective cancer medication.     The tool has two nanoscopic needles, meaning it can simultaneously inject and extract a sample from the same cell, expanding its potential uses. And the platform’s high level of semi-automation has sped ...

New research finds around a quarter of Labrador retriever dogs face a double-whammy of feeling hungry all the time and burning fewer calories due to a genetic mutation. This obesity-driving combination means that dog owners must be particularly strict with feeding and exercising their Labradors to keep them slim. The mutation is in a gene called POMC, which plays a critical role in hunger and energy use. Around 25% of Labradors and 66% of flatcoated retriever dogs have the POMC mutation, which researchers previously showed causes increased interest in food ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Many vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis B and whooping cough, consist of fragments of viral or bacterial proteins. These vaccines often include other molecules called adjuvants, which help to boost the immune system’s response to the protein. Most of these adjuvants consist of aluminum salts or other molecules that provoke a nonspecific immune response. A team of MIT researchers has now shown that a type of nanoparticle called a metal organic framework (MOF) can also provoke a strong immune response, by activating the innate immune system — the body’s first line of defense against ...