Even people whose physical activity levels fall short of recommended guidelines, but who manage to do some during their leisure time, are likely to have a lower risk of stroke than their sedentary peers, suggests a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.   The effects are independent of age and sex, the findings show, prompting the authors to suggest that everyone should be encouraged to do whatever level of physical activity they can manage in their leisure time. There’s no doubt that ...

In good news for office workers, a new study from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre (Australia) has found increasing your step count may counteract the health consequences of too much sedentary time each day. The study of over 72,000 people, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found every additional step up to around 10,000 steps a day was linked to reduced risk of death (39 percent) and cardiovascular disease (21 percent) regardless of how much remaining time was spent sedentary. Previous studies have shown an association between greater daily step count and lower levels ...

The endoscopic mapping device, developed over more than a decade by scientists at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, consists of an inflatable sphere covered in sensors, delivered down the oesophagus and able to measure electrical activity in the gut. In the same way abnormal heart electrical signals can cause serious heart problems, so research has found faulty bioelectric gut waves can lead to stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and bloating. But often doctors can’t find out what the problem is. ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Scientists led by an Oregon State University chemistry researcher are closing in on a new tool for tackling the global problem of weedkiller-tainted groundwater. Kyriakos Stylianou of the OSU College of Science led an international team that identified a material known as a metal-organic framework, or MOF, that showed an ability to completely remove, and also break down, the oft-used herbicide glyphosate. The MOF, one of four tested in a collaboration among scientists from Oregon State and Tiangong University in China, is based on scandium, chemical symbol Sc, ...

EL PASO, Texas (March 5, 2024) – Health researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso are launching a clinical trial to improve walking in the El Paso community, thanks to a $4.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The project will enroll local school district employees in 50K 4 Life, a program that challenges them to improve their health by walking at least 50,000 steps per week.  “This is an exciting opportunity to improve our community’s health through the simple, free and life-changing ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Anoles are the scuba-diving champions of the lizard world, able to stay underwater for more than 16 minutes. For animals whose body temperature depends on the environment, time spent in a cool running stream can have some tradeoffs, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. A recent study by Binghamton University doctoral candidate Alexandra M. Martin, Christopher K. Boccia of Queens University in Canada, and Binghamton University Assistant Research Professor of Biological Sciences Lindsey ...

Since it was created in 2001, Wikipedia has become a key element of the modern public sphere, which has revolutionized the way we create and share information. However, it has defects when it comes to its decentralization and flexibility, specially regarding inclusion and diversity. Some gender biases that stand out are shown in its content and its editorial participation. It has a low percentage of women’s biographies and an unequal representation in editing. Also, there are gaps in the gender representation regarding its content, biases in editing and participation, as well as imbalances in readership. These ...

A pedometer measures your steps, but what if you had a similar automated device to measure your eating behavior? Evidence from nutritional studies has long shown that the speed, timing and duration of an individual’s eating behavior are strongly related to obesity and other health issues. While eating behaviors can be accurately measured in a controlled laboratory setting, a blind spot exists when researchers attempt to study how participants actually eat “in the wild.” A new National Institutes ...

Reston, VA — Radioguided surgery can detect and remove metastatic pelvic lymph nodes in patients newly diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Targeting the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), which is overexpressed in most prostate cancer patients, radioguided surgery can improve nodal staging to guide treatment recommendations for this important patient population. In newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients, nodal involvement correlates with recurrence, and determining if lymph node metastases are present and where they ...

HOUSTON – (March 5, 2024) – Catalysts unlock pathways for chemical reactions to unfold at faster and more efficient rates, and the development of new catalytic technologies is a critical part of the green energy transition. The Rice University lab of nanotechnology pioneer Naomi Halas has uncovered a transformative approach to harnessing the catalytic power of aluminum nanoparticles by annealing them in various gas atmospheres at high temperatures. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rice ...

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 ...