Australians under 50 are experiencing stagnating life expectancy while older cohorts, especially men, are living longer, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU). The study examined longevity trends and patterns in six English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) and compared them with other high-income countries. The results show striking similarities between English-speaking countries in terms of adverse health outcomes for young and middle-aged adults under fifty. Lead author and ANU demographer, Dr Sergey Timonin, said the study ...

Osaka, Japan – Plastics underpin much of modern life—areas like medicine, technology, and food safety would be unrecognizable without plastics and their useful properties. However, the toughness of plastics, which is often desirable, also makes them a dangerous pollutant and difficult to recycle. The solution to this serious and growing problem is making plastics easier to recycle. In a study recently published in Chemical Science, researchers at Osaka University have found a way to make tough, high-performance polymers, the main component of plastics, that can be broken down easily and precisely into their component parts and ...

Tobacco use remains a significant global health challenge, despite extensive control measures at both national and international levels. Smoking continues to be a leading cause of premature death, with exposure to tobacco—whether through active smoking or secondhand smoke—significantly increasing the risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory conditions, and diabetes. These NCDs account for nearly 75% of annual global deaths. A wide range of strategies has been developed to combat smoking and promote public health, including taxation, mass media campaigns, health warnings on packaging, marketing ...

Targeting failure with new polymer technology to enhance sustainability   Sustainability is a complex problem with many different players and influenced by policies, society, and technical perspective.   We are reminded every day in the media of the unnecessary amount of waste that we are generating with pervasive pictures of plastic garbage patches floating in the oceans or stranded on our beaches. Scientists within ASU’s  School of Molecular Sciences  (SMS) and the Biodesign Institute’s Center ...

A new article published in Nature Reviews Disease Primers underscores the profound role that stigma can play in health care -- and how addressing stigma-related barriers can significantly improve health outcomes for individuals and communities around the world.  “Stigma has harmful effects on health, equity and justice,” says lead author Carmen Logie, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW). "And while we need more rigorous evaluation of interventions ...

The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed in 2010 includes a Dependent Coverage Expansion (DCE) provision that permits dependents to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans from age 19 to 25 years, the age group that has historically had the highest uninsured rate in the United States. A recent analysis reveals that during the ACA’s first decade, survival rates of DCE-eligible young adults with cancer have improved. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. To examine whether young adults with cancer diagnoses have ...

A team of researchers from the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC), the Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Margarita Salas (CIB-CSIC), and the Instituto de Ciencias de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM-CSIC) has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the underlying causes of cardiovascular disease in patients with Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), an ultra-rare genetic disorder that accelerates the aging process. The most serious consequence of HGPS is the early onset of cardiovascular disease, leading to premature death at an average age of 14.5 years.     The study was led by Dr. Vicente Andrés, ...

Canadian vaccination programs could switch to a 1-dose gender-neutral human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination approach and eliminate cervical cancer, suggests new modelling in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.240787. “Our results have important policy implications in Canada, and in other similar high-income countries evaluating whether to switch to 1-dose HPV vaccination,” writes Dr. Marc Brisson, a full professor at Laval University, Québec, and director of the Mathematical Modeling and Health Economics of Infectious Diseases Lab at the ...

Scurvy, or vitamin C deficiency, is not just an 18th-century seafarers’ disease, as a case study of a 65-year-old woman with mobility issues and social isolation shows. In an article published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.240769, clinicians describe how scurvy should be considered in patients with abnormal bleeding and nonspecific symptoms. The patient visited the emergency department at a downtown Toronto hospital for leg pain and weakness, skin lesions, and discoloration. She also had several chronic health ...

Singapore, 7 October 2024—Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School and the University of California, Santa Cruz, have discovered the secret to regulating our internal clock. They identified that this regulator sits right at the tail end of Casein Kinase 1 delta (CK1δ), a protein which acts as a pace setter for our internal biological clock or the natural 24-hour cycles that control sleep-wake patterns and other daily functions, known as circadian rhythm. Published in the journal PNAS, their findings could ...

The Kavli Foundation and the U.S. National Science Foundation are collaborating to accelerate research in the emerging field of neurobiology in changing ecosystems, stemming from the foundation’s efforts in this area first announced in 2023. A joint Kavli-NSF grantmaking program was launched in December of 2023.  Building on early success of this program, Kavli and NSF announce its continuation with a second call for proposals, open through February 10, 2025, for projects tackling hard problems in this understudied field.  Research ...

An estimated one in five Americans live with chronic pain and current treatment options leave much to be desired. Feixiong Cheng, PhD, Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Genome Center, and IBM are using artificial intelligence (AI) for drug discovery in advanced pain management. The team’s deep-learning framework identified multiple gut microbiome-derived metabolites and FDA-approved drugs that can be repurposed to select non-addictive, non-opioid options to treat chronic pain.   The findings, published in Cell Press, represent one of many ways the organizations' Discovery Accelerator partnership is helping ...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has launched its Neutron Nexus pilot program with Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, or FAMU, and Florida State University, or FSU, through the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The first program of its kind nationwide, it’s aimed at broadening and diversifying the scientific user community with outreach to universities and colleges to increase collaboration and, ultimately, scientific advancement.  Although a recently planned two-day “ORNL Days” event in Florida was cut ...

This article was published Early Release to coincide with a presentation at the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care in Las Vegas, NV. Full text is now available on evidence.nejm.org. Email mediarelations@nejm.org for access. Original Article: Intact Fish Skin Graft to Treat Deep Diabetic Foot Ulcers Dured Dardari, M.D, Ph.D., From the Diabetology Department, Center Hopitalier Sud Francilien, Corbeil-Essonnes, France, and the LBEPS, Université d’Evry, IRBA, Université Paris Saclay, 91025 Evry, France. If you have any questions for our office, please contact our Media Relations ...

October 4, 2024   UMass Amherst Astronomer Leads Science Team Helping to Develop Billion-Dollar NASA Satellite Mission Concept Alexandra Pope, science lead for the PRIMA space telescope, is on team developing next-generation space probe that will explore evolution of the universe   AMHERST, Mass. – A University of Massachusetts astronomy professor is science lead on a $5 million proposal selected by NASA to develop new space satellite missions that bridge gaps in our understanding of the evolution of ...

International collaboration between the Bioengineering Department at Clemson University, South Carolina and Arusha Technical College in Tanzania will further enhance development of a workforce skilled in biomedical device design and innovation. A recent National Science Foundation grant awarded to Dr. Melinda Harman, an Associate Professor at Clemson, along with her team of collaborators will develop innovative approaches to problem-based learning in bioengineering while fostering breakthroughs that address global health ...

About 800 million years ago (mya), before the supercontinent Pangea formed, the Earth was more diverse than classical theory suggests. By reconstructing the tree of life from the evolutionary history of amoebas and the ancestors of algae, fungi, plants and animals, Brazilian researchers have created a scenario in which several different lineages of many species inhabited the planet during the period. An article reporting their findings is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).  According to the literature, several lineages of eukaryotes that first emerged 1.5 billion years ago diversified and ...

A multi-country, government-led initiative dedicated to advancing the global transition to a sustainable, bio-based economy, unveiled a new Global Biomass Resource Assessment, providing groundbreaking data on current and future sustainable biomass supplies around the world.  The results from this new global sustainable supply assessment will allow scientists, policymakers, and industry leaders to explore potential sources of biomass as a foundation for a circular and sustainable global bioeconomy, supporting ...

Two new papers in Nature Medicine by a global research team highlight the economic value of reducing avoidable deaths.  The first paper "applies novel methods to estimate the economic value of reducing avoidable deaths worldwide, finding that in 2019, 40 million deaths were avoidable—i.e., could have been prevented or delayed if individuals in all countries had access to the best available healthcare. The economic value of reducing these avoidable deaths is equivalent to 23% of annual global income, suggesting that ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — From 2011 to 2020, the Veterans Health Administration spent $78 billion to care for U.S. military veterans enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, raising questions about federal overpayments to those private plans. That’s according to an analysis by researchers from Brown University and the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Published in JAMA, the study notes that because Medicare Advantage plans receive fixed per-patient payments for health care services without having payments reduced when veterans receive care ...

A new study by researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and the University of California Davis Health identified a new target for developing a therapy to treat atrial fibrillation, the most common type of abnormal heart rhythm. Atrial fibrillation, commonly called AFib or AF, causes about 1 in 7 strokes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is associated with a significant increase in the risk of morbidity and mortality. More than 12 million people are expected to have AFib by 2030, according to the American Heart Association, and current treatment ...

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 4, 2024 — A research team from the University of California, Irvine is the first to reveal that a molecule in the brain – ophthalmic acid – unexpectedly acts like a neurotransmitter similar to dopamine in regulating motor function, offering a new therapeutic target for Parkinson’s and other movement diseases.   In the study, published in the October issue of the journal Brain, researchers observed that ophthalmic acid binds to and activates calcium-sensing ...

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 4, 2024) — A new study published in Cell Press reveals critical insights into the role of gamma-delta T cells across 33 cancer types, shedding light on their potential as clinical biomarkers and therapeutic targets in cancer treatment. Led by a team of researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, this comprehensive analysis represents a significant advancement in the understanding of these unique immune cells and their implications for patient outcomes in cancer therapy. Despite their minority status within the T cell community, gamma-delta T cells are increasingly recognized for their dual capability to engage both ...

A new study from researchers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) shows environmental conditions in migratory birds’ winter homes carry over to affect their ability to survive spring migration and the breeding season.  While scientists have long known that the quality of winter, or non-breeding, habitat influences migratory birds’ migration timing and reproductive success, the study, published today in Current Biology, marks the first time researchers have linked winter ...

CHICAGO – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is supporting 445 neuroscience trainees to attend Neuroscience 2024, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest gathering of neuroscientists, through the Trainee Professional Development Award (TPDA) program. Over $560,000 in generous donations — the largest amount raised for this program — were contributed by individual donors to the Friends of SfN Fund, foundation and corporate supporters, and SfN Council. SfN Council leads this TPDA fundraising initiative and matched many of the donations. “SfN is delighted to support ...