Smoking cannabis associated with increased risk of heart attack, stroke NIH-funded observational study shows risk grows sharply with more frequent use   Frequent cannabis smoking may significantly increase a person’s risk for heart attack and stroke, according to an observational study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, uses data from nearly 435,000 American adults, and is among the largest ever to explore the relationship ...

●    Simple modifications to ventilation systems improve airflow, making operations safer for both patients and surgical teams ●    This research was conducted in close collaboration with a team of surgeons from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD) Abu Dhabi, UAE, February 28, 2024: NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) engineers studying ventilation systems in surgical operating theaters have found that traditional ventilation systems may inadvertently facilitate the circulation of aerosolized pathogen-carrying particles. This, as a result, puts surgical teams at a higher risk of infection by COVID-19 and other airborne diseases. Using basic engineering tools, including ...

Fish weight in the western North Pacific Ocean dipped in the 2010s due to warmer water limiting food supplies, according to a new study at the University of Tokyo. Researchers analyzed the individual weight and overall biomass of 13 species of fish. In the 1980s and 2010s, the fish were lighter. They attributed the first period of weight loss to greater numbers of Japanese sardine, which increased competition with other species for food. During the 2010s, while the number of Japanese sardine and chub mackerel moderately increased, the effect of climate change warming the ocean appears to have resulted ...

Kelp flies and marine yeast cultivated on by-products from the seafood industry can be used in feed for farmed salmon. Replacing fishmeal and soybeans can create more sustainable and circular food production, according to a thesis from the University of Gothenburg. Food from aquaculture, such as farmed fish, is the food industry’s fastest growing sector. One key reason is that this is a nutritious and protein-rich food that is generally more sustainably produced than protein from land animals. However, fish farming also has challenges. One is obtaining sufficient amounts of sustainable high-quality feed. Currently, fish feed accounts for about ...

Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have discovered that increased meltwater in the North Atlantic can trigger a chain of events leading to hotter and drier European summers. The paper, which will be published in the European Geosciences Union’s open access journal Weather and Climate Dynamics, suggests that European summer weather is predictable months to years in advance, due to higher levels of freshwater in the North Atlantic. Discussing the implications, lead author Marilena Oltmanns, Research Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, said: “While the UK and northern Europe experienced unusually cool and wet weather in Summer 2023, Greenland experienced ...

Osaka, Japan – Throughout the world, it is common for threats to national sovereignty or territorial integrity to stir up strong emotions among the public. Now, researchers from Japan have found that the strength of the reaction to such threats can break down along political lines in interesting ways. In a study published in Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, researchers from Osaka University have revealed that the Japanese public is highly sensitive to what are known as “collective ownership ...

Potters of different cultural backgrounds learn new types differently, producing cultural differences even in the absence of differential cultural evolution. The Kobe University-led research has implications for how we evaluate the difference of archaeological artifacts across cultures. Cultural artifacts differ between cultures but are relatively stable within cultures. This makes pottery, and in particular its form, an important archaeological indicator to determine the presence of different cultural groups in specific locations and how they influenced each other over time. But where do such culturally stable variations arise from? The typical explanation for this is through “selective ...

HONG KONG (28 Feb 2024) — Unique insights into the social lives of cattle revealed in a new study by scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) can enhance our understanding of animal behaviour and welfare. The study suggests that sex and social status influence social grooming (where one animal licks another, also known as allogrooming) among free-ranging feral cattle in Hong Kong. The CityUHK researchers found that feral cattle performed preferential grooming of certain individuals and, in particular, that more dominant females received more grooming. This asymmetrical distribution of licking also applied to whom male cattle decided to ...

Scientists have produced the first detailed estimates of how much sediment is transported onto the shores of coral reef islands, and how that might enable them to withstand the future threats posed by climate change. Coral reef islands are low-lying accumulations of sand and gravel-sized sediment deposited on coral reef surfaces. The sediments are derived from the broken down remains of corals and other organisms that grow on the surrounding reef. Therefore, the rate of supply of sediment from reefs is a critical control on island formation and future change. The international team of researchers used data available for 28 reef islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, widely ...

Bridging precision engineering and precision medicine to create personalized physiology avatars. Pursuing on-demand tissue and organ engineering for human health. Revolutionizing neuroscience by using AI to engineer advanced brain interface systems. Engineering the immune system for health and wellness. Designing and engineering genomes for organism repurposing and genomic perturbations.  These are the five research areas where the field of biomedical engineering has the potential to achieve tremendous impact on the field of medicine, according to “Grand Challenges at the Interface of Engineering and Medicine,” a study published by a 50-person task force published ...

Submucosal tumors (SMTs) are usually found in the stomach and esophagus during an upper endoscopy. Submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection (STER) and non-tunneling endoscopic resection (NTER) are the two most commonly used techniques in the treatment of gastric and esophageal SMTs. As novel technologies continue to shape the medical landscape, machine learning (ML) algorithms find increased application, demonstrating enhanced performance in various fields. Although some studies have evaluated the incremental value of flexible ML methods, comparisons with traditional logistic regression (LR) models are lacking. To this end, a recent study by a team of researchers from China published in the ...

Federated learning (FL) has emerged as a popular machine learning paradigm which allows multiple data owners to train models collaboratively with out sharing their raw datasets. It holds potential for a wide spectrum of nalytics applications on sensitive data. For example, federated learning has been applied on medical big data analysis such as disease prediction and diagnosis without revealing the patients’ private medical information to thirdparty services. It has also been exploited by banks and insurance ...

Researchers have newly identified a universal, essential biomarker for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma – and a potential new target for treatment. Neuroblastoma accounts for 15% of all pediatric cancer deaths and is the most common source of childhood tumors outside of brain cancer. The disease develops in early nerve tissue, usually in and around the adrenal glands, and typically affects children under age five. High-risk cases have a five-year survival rate of just 50%. Led by UC San Francisco, researchers suspected the oncoprotein AF1q, which is known to play a role in leukemia and solid tumor progression, might be important in tumors of neural origin ...

Scientists at UC San Francisco may have discovered a new way to test for autism by measuring how children’s eyes move when they turn their heads.     They found that kids who carry a variant of a gene that is associated with severe autism are hypersensitive to this motion.     The gene, SCN2A, makes an ion channel that is found throughout the brain, including the region that coordinates movement, called the cerebellum. Ion channels allow electrical charges in and out of cells and are fundamental to how they function. Several variants ...

Why hydrogen causes steels to become brittle and crack is the great conundrum of engineers and researchers looking to develop large-scale transport and storage solutions for the hydrogen age – an era which Australia hopes to lead by 2030. They may now be one step closer to understanding how hydrogen affects steels, thanks to new University of Sydney research. The researchers found adding the chemical element molybdenum to steel reinforced with metal carbides markedly enhances its ability to ...

Concerted international efforts are urgently needed to meet the targets set out in the 2030 Global Alcohol Action Plan (GAAP) and avert “dire consequences” for low and middle income countries, where alcohol markets are expanding, warn health scientists in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.   A lack of progress on alcohol and health in the wake of the 2010 Global Strategy for Reducing the Harmful Use of Alcohol prompted the 75th World Health Assembly to initiate the Global Alcohol Action Plan 2022-30 and declare alcohol a public health priority, ...

The common inflammatory condition sinusitis is linked to a 40% heightened risk of a subsequent diagnosis of rheumatic disease, particularly in the 5 to 10 years preceding the start of symptoms, finds research published in the open access journal RMD Open.   The risks seem to be greatest for a blood clotting disorder (antiphospholipid syndrome) and a condition that affects the body’s production of fluids, such as spit and tears, known as Sjögren’s syndrome, the findings indicate. Sinusitis refers to inflammation of the lining of ...

Patients whose asthma is poorly controlled have eight times excess greenhouse gas emissions compared with those whose condition is well controlled—equivalent to that produced by 124,000 homes each year in the UK—indicates the first study of its kind, published online in the journal Thorax. Improving the care of asthma patients could achieve substantial carbon emissions savings, and help the NHS meet its net zero target, say the researchers. Healthcare is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and in 2020 the NHS set an ambitious target of reducing its carbon footprint by 80% over the next 15 years, with the aim of reaching net zero by 2045, ...

In the first study to use whole genome sequencing to examine tandem repeat expansions in heart conditions, scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have laid the groundwork for early detection of and future precision therapies for cardiomyopathy.  Cardiomyopathy is an inherited heart condition that impacts up to one in 500 individuals. The condition affects the structure and function of the heart and can ultimately lead to heart failure.  The SickKids-led study, published in eBioMedicine, part of The Lancet Discovery Science, indicates that tandem repeats – a form of genetic variation – are more often expanded ...

“This [Tic Tac-shaped object that] had just traveled 60 miles in…less than a minute, was far superior in performance to my brand-new F/A-18F and did not operate with any of the known aerodynamic principles that we expect for objects that fly in our atmosphere.”  In July of 2023, retired commander in the U.S. Navy David Fravor testified to the House Oversight Committee about a mysterious, Tic Tac-shaped object that he and three others observed over the Pacific Ocean in 2004. The congressional hearings riveted ...

Interventions such as mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), could be an effective treatment option for menopause-related mood symptoms, memory and concentration problems, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, is the most up-to-date study of its kind, providing a meta-analysis of 30 studies involving 3,501 women who were going through the menopause in 14 countries, including the UK, USA, Iran, Australia, and China. Lead author, Professor Aimee Spector (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences), said: “Women can spend a notable number of years in their ...

*Please mention the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, 27-30 April) if using this material* A new research review to be given at a pre-congress day for this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) will look at the many ways artificial intelligence can help prevent infectious disease outbreaks including ensuring staff wear personal protective equipment correctly and managing day-to-day hospital activities ...

*Please mention the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, 27-30 April) if using this material* A new research review to be given at a pre-congress day for this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) will highlight the potential artificial intelligence (AI) has to improve the speed and accuracy of investigations into infectious disease outbreaks in hospitals, and potentially provide real time information to stop or prevent them. The talk will be by Dr Jonas Marschall, Division of Infectious Diseases, Washington University School ...

Walleye are one of the most sought-after species in freshwater sportfishing, a delicacy on Midwestern menus and a critically important part of the culture of many Indigenous communities. They are also struggling to survive in the warming waters of the Midwestern United States and Canada. According to a new study published Feb. 26 in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters, part of the problem is that walleye are creatures of habit, and the seasons — especially winter — are changing so fast that this iconic species of freshwater fish can’t keep up. The timing of walleye spawning ...

A UC Berkeley-led study revealed that disparities in the share of Black and Latino students admitted to America’s elite colleges and universities have endured and even widened over the last 40 years.  The study, "Shifting Tides: The Evolution of Racial Inequality in Higher Education from the 1980s through the 2010s,"(link is external) was published this month in Sage Journals and conducted by a team of researchers from UC Berkeley’s Social Sciences D-Lab, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, University of Arizona and Portland State University. It used four national survey datasets to examine college attendance trends across ...