In several poorer countries, ageing populations and a lack of universal access to long-term care place the burden of care for older adults on their family. To mitigate this, researchers have successfully implemented a community-integrated intermediary care model in Thailand. This care service has proven effective in reducing caregiver burden and improving the functional ability and independence of seniors. The multi-pronged model includes care prevention activities, capacity-building for family caregivers, and community respite services.   Rapidly ageing populations are a problem that many ...

Philadelphia, February 22, 2023 – In recent years, wearable devices such as smartwatches and rings, as well as smart scales, have become ubiquitous – “must-haves” for the health conscious to self-monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital signs. Despite the obvious benefits, certain fitness and wellness trackers could also pose serious risks for people with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) such as pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices, reports a new study published in Heart Rhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm ...

Feb. 22, 2022 — In this high-tech era, wearable devices such as smartwatches have proven to be invaluable companions for the health conscious. But a new study from the University of Utah shows that for a small group of people, some of these electronic fitness gadgets could possibly be risky to their health — even potentially deadly.             University of Utah electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Benjamin Sanchez Terrones and U associate professor of medicine Benjamin Steinberg have published a new study that shows wearable devices such as ...

As part of an effort to address a diversity crisis in brain research, a USC-led brain research consortium is launching a massive data-gathering initiative in India. By 2050, 79% of the world's population over age 60 will live in developing countries, with 20% in India, according to the United Nations. Yet most brain research has been conducted in Caucasian populations from relatively wealthy backgrounds. This lack of ethnic diversity means that we do not know if predictors of health and disease generalize to other ethnic groups, and researchers struggle ...

Substances exhibit many novel properties under high pressure, for example, pressure can induce insulator-metal or even superconductor transition. However, in-situ magnetic measurement is always a difficult problem in high pressure research and restricts the study of superconductor's Meissner effect and magnetic phase transition behavior of magnetic materials at high pressures. A new high pressure in-situ magnetic detection method was developed recently by a collaborated research group of Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, ...

Researchers from Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), has identified novel host protease determinants, that facilitate the infection of SARS-CoV-2, including the Omicron variant, which provided new targets for combating the pandemic. In addition to the host protease determinants, members from the membrane-type matrix metalloproteinase (MT-MMP) and a disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAM) families were found to be able to mediate SARS-CoV-2 entry, with an increase efficiency against Omicron BA.1. This finding suggests that a new treatment strategy at MMP inhibition should be explored to effectively combat ...

Recently, Prof. WANG Hui, together with Prof. LIN Wenchu and associate Prof. QIAN Junchao from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported a NIR- II -responsive carbon-coated iron oxide nanocluster which was guided by magnetic resonance image and capable of combined photothermal and chemodynamic therapy (CDT). Relevant results were published in SCIENCE CHINA Materials. As a promising treatment strategy, CDT has become a hot spot in treating cancer because of its simple operation and low side effects. The basic ...

Aquaculture, or the farming of aquatic plants and animals, contributes to biodiversity and habitat loss in freshwater and marine ecosystems globally, but when used wisely, it can also be part of the solution, new research shows. Published today in Conservation Biology, University of Melbourne researchers have identified 12 potential ecological benefits of aquaculture. These include species recovery, habitat restoration, rehabilitation and protection, and removal of overabundant species. Lead ...

Recently, a research team from the Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a wearable sensing patch and realized rapid quantitative analysis of urea. The related results have been published in prestigious international journal Analytical Chemistry. Urea, which is excreted through sweat, urine, saliva and blood, is considered an important indicator of renal function in clinical diagnosis. Effective detection of urea level is crucial for early detection of disease. Wearable fluorescence-based sensors have attracted much attention of users, but traditional fluorescent hydrogels ...

To meet the requirements of single-angle and multi-band polarization aerosol detection, a research team led by Professor SUN Xiaobing from Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed an optimal inversion algorithm based on the combined utilization of multi-band intensity and polarization information. The result was published in Remote Sensing recently. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is used to characterize the extinction effect of aerosol on solar radiation, which plays ...

According to the research published in Food & Functions recently, a team led by Prof. Huang Qing at the Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), reported for the first time an update and a comprehensive summary of the studies on the immunomodulatory therapies and nutritional significance of Ganoderma lucidum (G. lucidum) from 2010 to 2022, and confirmed that G. lucidum is an essential prebiotic for increasing bacterial flora and a health encouraging agent because of its ...

NAIROBI, KENYA, February 22, 2023 - Alliance for Science (the Alliance) and Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) are excited to launch the SciFun Book, a biotechnology program for high school learners, at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi on February 23, 09:00 AM EAT. The SciFun program is designed for Form 2 and Form 3 learners and aims to enhance their understanding of biotechnology through hands-on experience in extracting DNA from fruits and vegetables while making observations about the process. The curriculum for the SciFun program is a collaborative product of Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) Science Centre and BTI, and Alliance for Science. Additional ...

PCR technology is a molecular diagnostics technology that detects target nucleic acids by amplifying the DNA amount. It has brought marked progress in the life sciences field since its development in 1984. This technology has recently become familiar to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, since PCR can detect nucleic acids that identify the COVID-19 virus. However, due to the technical nature of the PCR test, results cannot be immediately delivered. It takes at least 1 to 2 hours for the test as it requires repeated temperature cycles (60~95℃). Dr. ...

In a chemical reaction, molecules in different substances meet one another to form new molecules causing changes in the bonds of their atoms. The molecules collide at an extremely close distance—a nanometer or less—in an extremely short amount of time. This makes investigating the details of chemical reactions at the molecular scale difficult. Most experimental knowledge, used to explain single-molecule reaction dynamics, was obtained by studying reactions in gases. However, the overwhelming majority of chemical reactions take place in liquids, so elucidating single-molecule reaction dynamics in solution is an important challenge, with very few experimental ...

A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC found that exposure to a mixture of synthetic chemicals found widely in the environment alters several critical biological processes, including the metabolism of fats and amino acids, in both children and young adults. The disruption of these biological processes is connected to an increased risk of a very broad range of diseases, including developmental disorders, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and many types of cancer.  Known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, these man-made chemicals are used in a wide range of consumer and industrial products. PFAS are sometimes ...

Eighteen cartoons have been selected as finalists in the 2023 Ethics Cartooning Competition, an annual contest sponsored by the Morgridge Institute for Research.  Participants from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and affiliated biomedical centers or institutes submitted their work, then a panel of judges selected the final cartoons for display to the public, who is invited to vote and help determine the 2023 winners. This year’s cartoons depict a variety of research ethics topics, such as the ethics of scientific publishing, research funding and environments, questionable research practices, ...

The Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) is delighted to announce that faculty member Fay-Wei Li has been promoted to Associate Professor on January 13. Li was evaluated on his achievements to date and likelihood of continued success in the future. Since joining BTI in 2017, Li has developed an internationally-recognized program on seed-free plants, both in terms of genome sequencing and in making biological discoveries. He also is an excellent science communicator, with a knack for explaining the importance of scientific discoveries to a wide range of audiences. The ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – So much of modern life is spent on screens: Zoom meetings and websites, smartphones and videogames, televisions and social media. How are all those pixels and rectangles affecting how we see? Binghamton University, State University of New York Professor of Psychology Peter Gerhardstein and doctoral candidate Nicholas Duggan explore the phenomenon in “Levels of Orientation Bias Differ Across Digital Content Categories: Implications for Visual Perception,” recently published in the journal Perception. Their paper covers the extent to which online content ...

CLEVELAND: Supported by a new $3.14 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to Cleveland Clinic, researchers are using an emerging technology known as “digital twins” to better understand healthcare disparities based on where someone lives. Researchers from Cleveland Clinic and MetroHealth aim to use this information to develop strategies designed to reduce these disparities in health outcomes.   The research team, led by Jarrod Dalton, Ph.D., of Cleveland Clinic, and Adam Perzynski, Ph.D., of MetroHealth, ...

(MIAMI, FL, FEB. 21, 2023) – To create the most effective, personalized treatment plans for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma or other cancers, scientists and clinicians need the clearest picture of the genetic changes leading to the cancer’s development. That picture, say scientists at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center in the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, comes into much better focus when whole genome sequencing – rather than the current standard, exome sequencing – is used to identify changes driving the cancer. Exome sequencing, which reads only protein-coding genes, can detect some specific mutations and other variants that propel cancers, ...

Written by Kay Ledbetter, 806-547-0002,  skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu Imagine your favorite cured meat like beef jerky, pepperoni or bacon without any added sodium nitrite from any source currently necessary for color and shelf life. Wes Osburn, Ph.D., is doing exactly that.   At center, Wes Osburn, Ph.D., Texas A&M University meat scientist, is working in his lab with students Tanner Wright and Arlie Reeves on a new no nitrite-added cured meat system. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo ...

Eurasian spruce bark beetles (Ips typographus) burrow into the bark of Norway spruce (Picea abies) trees where they mate and lay their eggs. Major outbreaks in Europe have decimated millions of hectares of conifer forests. The beetles preferentially attack trees that are already infected with symbiotic fungi (such as Grosmannia penicillata), which is thought to weaken host trees and break down their chemical defenses, allowing the beetles to successfully develop in the bark. To investigate the chemical signals ...

The mass outbreaks of bark beetles observed in recent years have caused shocking amounts of forest damage throughout Germany. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office in July 2022, more than 80% of the trees that had to be felled in the previous year were damaged by insects. The damaged timber felled due to insect damage amounted to more than 40 million cubic meters. One of the main pests is the European spruce beetle Ips typographus. In the Thuringian Forest and the Harz Mountains, for example, the beetle, which is only a few millimeters long, encountered spruce monocultures that had already been weakened by high temperatures and extended ...

Takeaki Ozawa and his team from the University of Tokyo reveal the metabolic reactions upon activating an enzyme called Akt2. In doing so, they reveal the inner workings of insulin-regulated metabolism. The findings lead the way for Akt2-targeting therapeutics for diabetes and metabolic disorders.  It takes energy to do anything—even to exist. You can metabolize food to convert glucose into energy: thanks to many cascades of molecular reactions within your cells. As soon as you eat, your pancreas secretes insulin hormone, which starts ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—February 21, 2023—Of all the known genetic risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the strongest is a gene for the protein called ApoE4. People with one copy of this gene are 3.5 times more likely, on average, to develop Alzheimer’s than others, and those with two copies face a 12-fold increased risk. However, exactly how ApoE4 boosts the risk of Alzheimer’s remains unclear. Multiple types of cells in the brain make ApoE4—some of it is produced by neurons, but other brain cells called glia make it in higher quantities. For that reason, most prior research on this protein has focused on ...