1. An international research group consisting of NIMS and the Finnish University of Jyväskylä has discovered through its electrode-electrolyte system research that electron and proton (i.e., hydrogen ion) transfer mechanisms during oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs) on electrode surfaces vary depending on the types of cations dissolved in the electrolytic solution. These results suggest that the energy conversion efficiencies and selectivity of electrochemical systems (e.g., fuel cells and water electrolysis hydrogen production systems) can be improved by selecting optimal reaction pathways and that this could be achieved without using expensive electrode ...

Researchers from Mansoura University and University of Guelph published a new Journal of Marketing study that examines how misaligned contracts can erode innovation outcomes of high-tech firms. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Collaborating to Innovate: Balancing Strategy Dividend and Transactional Efficiencies” and is authored by Nehal Elhelaly and Sourav Ray. When a giant multinational like Unilever partners with one of its major suppliers, such as the industrial enzyme-producer Novozyme, the collaboration can fast-track ...

DENVER/March 5, 2024 – Researchers with the University of Minnesota, funded by Morris Animal Foundation, hope to release highly-specialized parasitic wasps to serve as a biological control method to save Darwin’s finches from a dire threat: the invasive avian vampire fly, Philornis downsi.  This species has been devastating finch populations on the Galapagos Islands by laying eggs in their nests, with the emerging larvae harming the nestlings.   To protect these iconic birds and other endemic species impacted by the fly, ...

The 1986 disaster at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant transformed the surrounding area into the most radioactive landscape on Earth. Humans were evacuated, but many plants and animals continue to live in the region, despite the high levels of radiation that persist nearly four decades later.   A new study led by researchers at New York University finds that exposure to chronic radiation from Chornobyl has not damaged the genomes of microscopic worms living there today—which doesn’t mean that the region is safe, the scientists caution, but suggests that these worms are exceptionally resilient.   In ...

Strategies deployed for the restoration of degraded land have had promising results in Brazil’s semi-arid region, improving the microbial properties of the soil and contributing to a return of native ecosystem services. The techniques include removal of cattle or restriction of their access to specific areas of pasture; cultivation of cover crops; and terracing to control erosion. Recovery of soil microbial properties maintains biodiversity and raises crop yields, contributing to agricultural ...

INFORMS Journal Marketing Science New Study Key Takeaways: Brands that supported BLM on social media during the height of the movement suffered negative impacts on social media. Negative impacts were felt from both Democratic and Republican consumers. The ‘bandwagon effect’ was one of the more significant factors. Some brands with more historical prosocial posting on social media and socially oriented missions suffer less from the negative effects and may even benefit from supporting ...

Out-of-control behavior by CEOs and other powerful people constantly makes headlines – so much so that some might consider impulsivity a pathway to power. New research from the UC San Diego Rady School of Management and Texas A&M University finds that having self-control is often what leads to power. In a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers find that showing self-control influences how powerful an individual is perceived to be by their peers, as well as how much power they are granted by those peers. In a series of seven experiments with roughly 3,500 participants, both students ...

WASHINGTON—Endocrine Society members elected Carol Lange, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn., as its 2025-2026 President. She will serve as President-Elect for a year beginning in June 2024 before becoming President in June 2025. Lange is a Professor of Medicine and Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, holds the Tickle Family Land Grant Endowed Chair of Breast Cancer Research, and is the Associate Director for Basic Science and the Director of the Molecular, Genetic, and Cellular Targets of Cancer Training Program at the University of Minnesota Masonic ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 5, 2024 — The latest issues of two American Psychiatric Association journals, The American Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services are now available online.   The March issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry features studies that focus on new insights into treatments across the lifespan. Highlights include: Normalization of Fronto-Parietal Activation by Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Unmedicated Pediatric Patients With Anxiety Disorders. (AJP Deputy Editor ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People who have headaches after experiencing concussions may also be more likely to have higher levels of iron in areas of the brain, which is a sign of injury to brain cells, according to a preliminary study released today, March 5, 2024, that 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. “These results suggest that iron accumulation in the brain can be used as a biomarker for concussion and post-traumatic ...

LA JOLLA—(March 5, 2024) Salk Institute Professor Terrence Sejnowski will receive the 2024 Brain Prize for “pioneering the field of computational and theoretical neuroscience, making seminal contributions to our understanding of the brain, and paving the way for the development of brain-inspired artificial intelligence,” the Lundbeck Foundation announced today. Sejnowski shares the prize—the world’s top recognition in neuroscience, totaling 10 million DKK (approximately $1.5 million)—with Larry Abbott of Columbia University and Haim Sompolinsky of Harvard University and Hebrew ...

“[...] we posit that the majority of results in biology of aging may be irrelevant to the fundamental aim of this field and must be acknowledged appropriately.” BUFFALO, NY- March 5, 2024 – A new research perspective was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 4, entitled, “On standardization of controls in lifespan studies.” In this new paper, researchers Olga Spiridonova, Dmitrii Kriukov, Nikolai Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Leonid Peshkin from Harvard Medical ...

When biologist Elizabeth Carlen pulled up in her 2007 Subaru for her first look around St. Louis, she was already checking for the squirrels. Arriving as a newcomer from New York City, Carlen had scrolled through maps and lists of recent sightings in a digital application called iNaturalist. This app is a popular tool for reporting and sharing sightings of animals and plants. People often start using apps like iNaturalist and eBird when they get interested in a contributory science project (also sometimes called a citizen science project). Armed with cellphones equipped with cameras and GPS, app-wielding volunteers can submit geolocated data that iNaturalist then translates into user-friendly ...

HOUSTON – (March 5, 2024) – Nai-Hui Chia, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to develop a new theoretical framework to facilitate the development of efficient quantum algorithms for a range of problems in quantum physics and computer science as well as enhance the security of quantum cryptography. The highly competitive grants are awarded each year to a selective cohort of about 500 early career faculty across all disciplines engaged in pathbreaking research and committed to growing their field through outreach and education. “Quantum computing holds immense ...

WHAT: The monthly dapivirine vaginal ring and daily oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine were each found to be safe for HIV prevention among cisgender women who started using one of them in their second trimester of pregnancy, according to findings presented today at the 2024 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Denver. Pregnant people are estimated to be three times more likely to acquire HIV through sexual intercourse than similarly aged people who ...

Michelson Medical Research Foundation (MMRF) and Human Immunome Project (HIP) have awarded Dr. Siyuan Ding (Washington University in St. Louis), Dr. Claire Otero (Weill Cornell Medicine), and Dr. Dennis Schaefer-Babajew (Rockefeller University) the Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants, the organizations announced today.  The $150,000 research grants are awarded annually to support early-career scientists advancing human immunology, vaccine discovery, and immunotherapy research for major global ...

Since more than a decade it has been possible for physicists to accurately measure the location of individual atoms to a precision of smaller than one thousandth of a millimeter using a special type of microscope. However, this method has so far only provided the x and y coordinates. Information on the vertical position of the atom – i.e., the distance between the atom and the microscope objective – is lacking. A new method has now been developed that can determine all three spatial coordinates of an atom with one single image. This method – developed by the University of Bonn and University of Bristol ...

CLEVELAND – New Cleveland Clinic-led research points to sildenafil (Viagra) as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The study provides evidence from computational models, insurance claims data and observations from brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients.   Sildenafil is the main component of drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction (Viagra) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (Revatio). “Our findings provide further weight to re-purposing this existing FDA-approved drug as a novel treatment for Alzheimer’s, which is in great need of new therapies,” ...

Antarctic researchers hitched a lift on a cruise ship, and recommend this eco-friendly, collaborative approach to remote ocean science.  #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000348 Article Title: New methods of undertaking marine science in Antarctica using tourism vessels Contact:  Matthew Mulrennan; matt@kolossal.org Author Countries: Canada, United States Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

March 5, 2024, Mountain View, CA – The moon lander Odysseus, known as Odie, touched down on the Moon's surface on February 22, becoming the first time the U.S. has landed on the Moon in more than 50 years and the first commercial moon lander to successfully land on the Moon. Along with its science payload, the spacecraft also brought along a fusion of art and space exploration, SETI Institute's Artist in Residence (SETI AIR), Felipe Pérez Santiago's Earthling Project, a collection of global musical compositions representing Earth's cultural ...

Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology researchers Jonathan Sweedler, a professor of chemistry, and Fan Lam, a professor of bioengineering, outlined how spatial omics technologies can reveal the molecular intricacy of the brain at different scales. Their research appeared this month in Nature Methods. The researchers and their colleagues used a biochemical imaging framework integrated with deep learning to create 3D molecular maps with cell specificity to better understand how the brain functions in health and disease. Their research is supported by a $3 million grant from ...

WHAT: A weekly injection of semaglutide was safe and reduced the amount of fat in the liver by 31% in people with HIV and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), according to a presentation today at the 2024 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Denver. This is the first clinical trial of semaglutide for MASLD in people with HIV. The research was sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and conducted in the United States and Brazil by ACTG, a global clinical trials network focused on HIV and other infectious diseases. ...

The Lancet: Experts warn about the overmedicalisation of menopause and call for a new approach to how society views menopause and supports women as they age Menopause is a life stage for half the world’s population and is generally depicted in a negative way. However, women’s experiences of menopause are unique and vary hugely.  The Lancet 2024 Series on menopause argues that an over-simplified narrative of menopause as a health problem to be solved by replacing hormones is not based on evidence and deflects attention from the need for substantial societal shifts in how menopause, and midlife/older women in general, are viewed and treated around the world. The ...

A new review paper from authors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and collaborators concludes that menopause does not uniformly elevate the risk of depression and other mental health conditions. Menopause has long been thought to cause psychological distress, but a new review suggests that this is not always the case. The review, written by experts from Brigham Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, and international collaborators, is the third in a series of menopause-themed papers published in The ...

1. A research team consisting of NIMS and the Tokyo Institute of Technology has identified materials capable of catalyzing the conversion of ortho-hydrogen to para-hydrogen. These catalysts should be essential to the spread of mass-transportation/storage of liquid hydrogen. 2. Hydrogen is becoming widely accepted as an alternative energy source to fossil fuels. Its liquefaction (at temperatures below -253°C under pressures higher than one atmosphere) can dramatically reduce its volume, making it suitable for transportation and storage. Hydrogen molecules (H2)—each composed of two hydrogen atoms—exist in two isomeric forms: ortho- and para-H2. Under normal conditions, ...