DENVER – Armed with a catalog of hundreds of thousands of DNA and RNA virus species in the world’s oceans, scientists are now zeroing in on the viruses most likely to combat climate change by helping trap carbon dioxide in seawater or, using similar techniques, different viruses that may prevent methane’s escape from thawing Arctic soil. By combining genomic sequencing data with artificial intelligence analysis, researchers have identified ocean-based viruses and assessed their genomes to find that they “steal” genes from other microbes or cells that process carbon in the sea. Mapping microbial ...

Embargoed until 1:30 p.m. ET, Saturday Feb. 17, 2024 DENVER – Imageomics, a new field of science, has made stunning progress in the past year and is on the verge of major discoveries about life on Earth, according to one of the founders of the discipline.   Tanya Berger-Wolf, faculty director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute at The Ohio State University, outlined the state of imageomics in a presentation on Feb. 17, 2024, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.   “Imageomics ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University crafted replica stone age tools and used them for a range of tasks to see how different activities create traces on the edge. They found that a combination of macroscopic and microscopic traces can tell us how stone edges were used. Their criteria help separate tools used for wood-felling from other activities. Dated stone edges may be used to identify when timber use began for early humans.   For prehistoric humans, improvements in woodworking technology were revolutionary. While Paleolithic (early stone age) artifacts point to the use of wood for simple tools such as spears ...

Two innovative design techniques lead to substantial improvements in performance in fractional-N phase locked loops (PLLs), report scientists from Tokyo Tech. The proposed methods are aimed to minimize unwanted signals known as fractional spurs, which typically plague PLLs used in many modern radar systems and wireless transceivers. These efforts could open doors to technological improvements in wireless communication, autonomous vehicles, surveillance, and tracking systems in beyond 5G era. Many emerging and evolving technologies, such as self-driving vehicles, target tracking systems, and remote sensors, rely on the high-speed and error-free operation ...

DENVER — Young physician investigators interested in research careers in pulmonology, allergy and immunology, pediatric and related programs, are encouraged to submit basic science or clinical research abstracts by June 3, 2024, to be considered for participation in the 20th Annual Respiratory Disease Young Investigators’ Forum. This year’s Forum will take place October 17-20, 2024, in Denver. The annual event provides career development and research opportunities for fellows and early career faculty. The Forum is a celebration of talent and ingenuity in respiratory medicine. Physician-scientists in fellowship ...

In an article published in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers based in Brazil describe the case of a nine-year-old boy admitted to hospital with multiple symptoms and overlapping conditions that made diagnosis difficult, such as short stature, thin tooth enamel (dental enamel hypoplasia), moderate mental deficiency, speech delay, asthma, mildly altered blood sugar, and a history of recurring infections in infancy.  The team used exome sequencing, in which only the protein-coding portion of the genome is analyzed, to look for genetic mutations, and found them in GCK and BCL11B. ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (Feb. 15, 2024) – Prominent oncologist and researcher Damian Green, M.D., will join Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University Miami Miller School of Medicine this spring to lead its transplantation and cellular therapy services. Green will serve as chief of Sylvester’s Division of Transplantation & Cellular Therapy, as well as assistant director of Translational Research, beginning March 1. He joins Sylvester from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, where he built a distinguished track record in research and ...

By Wynne Parry WOODS HOLE, Mass. – Like humans struggling to get through the COVID-19 pandemic, bacterial cells need social distancing to thwart viruses. But in some situations, such as inside elevators or within the candy-colored bacterial structures known as “pink berries,” staying apart just isn’t feasible. Looking like spilled Nerds or Pop Rocks, the communal, multicellular pink berries  litter the submerged surface of salt marshes in and around Woods Hole. New research conducted at the Marine Biological ...

Hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (HA-AKI) is a common complication in hospitalized patients that can lead to chronic kidney disease and is associated with longer hospital stays, higher health care costs and increased mortality. Given these negative consequences, preventing HA-AKI can improve hospitalized patient outcomes. However, anticipating HA-AKI onset is difficult due to a large number of contributing factors involved. Researchers from Mass General Brigham Digital tested a commercial machine learning tool, the Epic Risk of HA-AKI predictive model, and found it was moderately successful at predicting risk of HA-AKI in recorded patient data. ...

(Toronto, February 16, 2024) JMIR Publications is pleased to announce that JMIR Bioinformatics and Biotechnology has passed the Scientific Quality Review by the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) for PubMed Central (PMC). This decision reflects the scientific and editorial quality of the journal. All articles published from 2022 onward will be found on PMC and PubMed after their technical evaluation.  Launched in 2020, JMIR Bioinformatics and Biotechnology is a sister journal of Journal of Medical Internet Research ...

Standard chemotherapy regimens, which are mostly based on testing in relatively young and healthy patients, may do more harm to older adults with cancer who often struggle with other health issues. New research, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, shows that lowering the dose and adjusting the schedule of how chemotherapy is given to older adults with advanced cancer can make life better for patients, without compromising their treatment goals. The study, which was led by researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Wilmot Cancer Institute, focuses on how well older people tolerate chemotherapy. More than 30 percent of patients benefitted from treatment regimen ...

HOUSTON – (Feb. 16, 2024) – Rice University computer science researchers have found bias in widely used machine learning tools used for immunotherapy research. Ph.D. students Anja Conev, Romanos Fasoulis and Sarah Hall-Swan, working with computer science faculty members Rodrigo Ferreira and Lydia Kavraki, reviewed publicly available peptide-HLA (pHLA) binding prediction data and found it to be skewed toward higher-income communities. Their paper examines the way that biased data input affects the algorithmic recommendations being ...

A study co-led by Professor Kelly Metcalfe of the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, and researchers at the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit at Women’s College Hospital, finds risk-reducing mastectomies (RRM) in women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic variant, significantly reduces the risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer and lowers the probability of death. The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, examined how RRM affects the rate of death of women with a pathogenic variant but no cancer diagnosis. To date, there has been only one other study published by researchers in the Netherlands that examines the impact ...

The Hope Foundation for Cancer Research, the public charity supporting SWOG Cancer Research Network, has recently established the Frank and Linda Meyskens Annual Endowed Lectureship on Advances in Cancer Prevention. Since the early 1980’s, Dr. Meyskens has been a leader in the recognition, development, and clinical usage of Prevention in the management of cancer. Frank and Linda have directed the development of this lectureship to advance the explosion of knowledge that is expanding opportunities to engage Prevention in personalized medicine, including early detection and genetically ...

A female White-eared opossum (Didelphis albiventris) found dead in 2021 in Bosque dos Jequitibás Park in the center of Campinas, one of the largest cities in São Paulo state, Brazil, died from rabies meningoencephalitis, according to a group of researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) and Adolfo Lutz Institute (IAL), the regional reference laboratory, working with health professionals affiliated with public institutions in São Paulo city and Campinas.  Reported in an article published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, the finding serves as an alert to the presence of the virus, which is deadly to humans, ...

Researchers led by Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have introduced a pioneering approach aimed at combating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In a new study, researchers discovered a new way to enhance the body’s antioxidant response, which is crucial for cellular protection against the oxidative stress implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases. The study published today (Feb. 16) in the journal Advanced Materials.  Nathan Gianneschi, the Jacob & Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern’s Weinberg ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Anoxic marine basins may be among the most viable places to conduct large-scale carbon sequestration in the deep ocean, while minimizing negative impacts to marine life. So say UC Santa Barbara researchers in a paper published in the journal AGU Advances. As we explore ways to actively draw down the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, sending plant biomass to these barren, oxygen-free zones on the seafloor becomes an option worth considering. “The big picture here is that all the best models that we have say that we have to do some form of net negative CO2 removal in order to hit climate goals,” said geochemist, geobiologist ...

Today’s Food and Drug Administration approval of a supplemental biologics license for the monoclonal antibody omalizumab (Xolair) highlights the vital role of the National Institutes of Health-supported research that underpins the FDA decision.    FDA has approved omalizumab for the reduction of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, that may occur with an accidental exposure to one or more foods in adults and children aged 1 year and older with food allergy. People taking omalizumab still need to avoid exposure to foods to which they are allergic. Omalizumab previously received FDA approval ...

TAMPA, Fla. — Penile squamous cell carcinoma is a rare malignancy with limited treatment options and poor prognosis, especially in advanced stages. Because of its rarity, few studies focus on better understanding and managing this disease. In a new article published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers share data on the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma, addressing a critical gap in evidence regarding treatment options for this rare and aggressive cancer. The Moffitt team, in collaboration with institutions across ...

A new paper led by Harvard researchers has zeroed in on biomarkers of aging using omic data from population-based studies. The team, which included aging and longevity expert Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CEO of AI-driven drug discovery company Insilico Medicine, provided a framework for standardizing the development and validation of biomarkers of aging to better predict longevity and quality of life. The findings appeared in Nature Medicine.  Biomarkers are biological characteristics that can be measured and used to evaluate various biological processes, ...

Although primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 55, there remains no cure for the disease and its biological mechanisms are not well understood. Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is a major risk factor for the disease, but many patients with glaucoma have normal eye pressure and still lose vision. In a new study published this past month in Nature Communications, researchers from Mass Eye and Ear, led by Ayellet Segrè, PhD, conducted a comprehensive study that combined genetic discoveries from a large cross-ancestry genome-wide association study meta-analysis of POAG, led by Janey Wiggs, MD, PhD, ...

LAWRENCE — No one can do everything. Yet that is exactly what many school leaders feel like they must do. A new book from a pair of school leaders and scholars aims to help those who often feel overwhelmed focus on what they can and should do and how to help teachers and students lead schools to reaching their full potential. “Focused: Understanding, Negotiating, and Maximizing Your Influence as a School Leader,” by Jim Watterston and Yong Zhao, aims to help educational administrators guide schools to success without getting ...

Testing wastewater to assess the spread of the COVID-19 virus became common and well-publicized during the pandemic, but it has been focused mostly on urban areas. The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has awarded $400,000 to Virginia Tech, with an additional $50,000 to Virginia Tech from the Virginia Department of Health, for a two-year project to identify and implement improved and new methods to detect pathogens for multiple diseases in the wastewater of rural communities. “My work and research have primarily been focused on rural areas, and prior to the pandemic, most ...

The efficiency of oxygen supply to tissues is a factor in the severity of important diseases such as Covid-19 and heart conditions. Scientists already know that the relationship between the length of a person’s index and ring fingers, known as the 2D:4D ratio is correlated with performance in distance running, age at heart attack and severity of Covid-19. Now Swansea University digit ratio expert Professor John Manning has been working with colleagues to look more closely at the subject. Their findings have just been published by the prestigious American Journal of Human ...

In the past decade, humanity has seen the birth and expansion of a commercial space sector with new, private players, addressing technological challenges - from space launch to communication and satellite imagery of Earth. Last year, the global space industry skyrocketed launching more than 2,660* satellites into orbit, and, into the universe, interplanetary probes, landers, and much more. In the United States, SpaceX was responsible for almost 90% of these launches. In parallel to this progression is the expansion of more than 70 countries** demonstrating space capabilities. It affirms the general consensus and understanding ...