Air pollutants reduce nocturnal hawkmoth pollination of evening primrose flowers by altering the flowers’ appealing scents, according to a new study that involved field experiments in Washington state. The findings illustrate the impact of anthropogenic airborne pollutants on an animal’s olfactory ability and suggest that such pollutants may limit global pollination. Human activities have drastically altered the environment. Sensory pollutants – human-introduced noise, artificial light, and chemical pollutants – can change animal behavior and fitness by introducing new stimuli or modifying naturally ...

The 15-kilometer-long magma dike that formed beneath Grindavík, Iceland, in November 2023, which caused widespread damage and evacuation of the local population, reached an unprecedented subsurface magma flow rate of 7400 cubic meters per second, researchers report. The dike formation preceeded the more recent Sundhnúkur eruptions in December 2023 and January 2024. The study, which combined satellite-based geodetic observations and seismic measurements of the Sundhnúkur crater chain and physical modeling, shows how fracturing and tectonic stress can drive massive magma flow into dikes with only modest overpressure in the feeding magma body. According to the authors, the ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new fusion of materials, each with special electrical properties, has all the components required for a unique type of superconductivity that could provide the basis for more robust quantum computing. The new combination of materials, created by a team led by researchers at Penn State, could also provide a platform to explore physical behaviors similar to those of mysterious, theoretical particles known as chiral Majoranas, which could be another promising component for quantum computing. The ...

International research led by the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS) at Pompeu Fabra University, in collaboration with Hospital del Mar, Hospital Clínic, Charité - Medical University of Berlin, and the universities of Oslo and Genoa, has developed a computational biology tool, based on multi-level network analysis, to achieve an integrated vision of multiple sclerosis. This tool could be used to study other complex diseases such as types of dementia.  Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune ...

Young children in India who suffer from life-threatening diarrhea frequently are given ineffective treatments because health providers misperceive the wishes of a child’s caregiver, according to a novel new study.   Using actors posing as child caregivers to examine the behavior of health providers in two divergent regions in India, researchers found that the perceived preferences of a child’s caregiver was a more important factor in the way a child was treated than the views of the health care provider about the best course of action.   The ...

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered a previously unknown ability of a group of immune system cells, known as Atypical B cells (ABCs), to fight infectious diseases such as malaria.    The discovery provides new insight into how the immune system fights infections and brings scientists a step closer to harnessing the body’s natural defences to combat malaria.  The scientists say ABCs could also be key to developing new treatments for chronic autoimmune conditions such as lupus.  According to the researchers, ABCs have long been associated with malaria, ...

Regular erections could be important for maintaining erectile function, according to a new study on mice published in Science by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. “We discovered that an increased frequency of erections leads to more fibroblasts that enable erection and vice versa, that a decreased frequency results in fewer of these cells,” says principal investigator Christian Göritz. In a new study on mice, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University in Sweden ...

In most materials, heat prefers to scatter. If left alone, a hotspot will gradually fade as it warms its surroundings. But in rare states of matter, heat can behave as a wave, moving back and forth somewhat like a sound wave that bounces from one end of a room to the other. In fact, this wave-like heat is what physicists call “second sound.”  Signs of second sound have been observed in only a handful of materials. Now MIT physicists have captured direct images of second sound for the first time.  The new images reveal how heat can move like a wave, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – People with aphasia have more trouble coming up with words they want to use when they’re prompted by images and words that carry negative emotional meaning, new research suggests. The study involved individuals whose language limitations resulted from damage to the brain caused by a stroke – the most common cause of aphasia, affecting at least one-third of stroke survivors. The disorder impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing. Researchers from The Ohio State University who led the study said the findings – suggesting that prompts ...

Key Takeaways  Young women under the age of 30, Black women, and women with lower education levels are disproportionately affected by intimate partner homicide during pregnancy, reflecting the need to better serve and protect these vulnerable populations.  Particularly by firearms, increasing rates of intimate partner homicide of women who are pregnant or recently pregnant are occurring in states that have limited access to abortion.  Researchers describe a ‘dire ...

While combing through the human genome in 2007, computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti made a discovery that would transform her research career. As a then postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Sabeti discovered potential evidence that some unknown mutation in a gene called LARGE1 had a beneficial effect in the Nigerian population. Other scientists had discovered that this gene was critical for the Lassa virus to enter cells. Sabeti wondered whether a mutation in LARGE1 ...

Feb. 8, 2024 Contact: Katherine McAlpine, 734-647-7087, kmca@umich.edu    Image Leader in robotics at U-M and beyond elected to National Academy of Engineering Dawn Tilbury is recognized for advances in manufacturing network control and human-robot interaction, as well as engineering leadership ANN ARBOR—Dawn Tilbury, the Ronald D. and Regina C. McNeil Department Chair of Robotics at the University of Michigan, has been recognized with one of engineering's greatest honors—election to the National Academy of Engineering.  NAE members are outstanding researchers, ...

A competitive U.S. Department of Education program that prepares undergraduate students interested in careers in academic research has selected 16 undergraduate students from The University of Texas at Arlington to join. The McNair Scholars Program was named for physicist and astronaut Ronald E. McNair, the second Black astronaut in U.S. history and one of several crew members killed when the space shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986. The program assists qualified first-generation ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have identified a new way to harness the antioxidant and antibacterial properties of a botanical compound to make nanofiber-coated cotton bandages that fight infection and help wounds heal more quickly. The findings are especially important given the increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Cotton gauze is one of the most common wound dressings; it’s inexpensive, readily available, comfortable and biocompatible. However, it doesn’t promote healing or fight infection. “Cotton alone cannot provide an answer for these ...

The macrophage is one of the body’s most important inhabitants. Meaning “big eater” in Greek, this immune cell consumes and digests problematic elements from microbes and cancer cells to dust and debris. Macrophages are especially important in the lungs, where they both fight bacterial infection and clear the lungs of excess surfactant, a protein- and lipid-rich layer that’s essential to healthy function but can create a sticky buildup if not controlled. In a recent study, investigators from Rockefeller University ...

Our resilient kidneys are invaluable members of the body’s purification system, and they excel at bouncing back after injury. This even holds true for most sick infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Because of this remarkable ability, dips in kidney function in infants were often overlooked historically in favor of other pressing diseases or symptoms. But physicians and researchers have shown increased interest in understanding kidney health in newborns and young infants within the last decade, leading to the AWAKEN study (Assessment of Worldwide Acute Kidney Epidemiology in Neonates). With initial ...

National media coverage of police brutality influences public perceptions of law enforcement more than the performance of people’s local police departments, according to data analysis from NYU Tandon School of Engineering, challenging the assumption that public confidence in police depends mostly on feeling safe from local crime. In a study published in Communications Psychology, a NYU Tandon research team tracked media coverage of police brutality in 18 metropolitan areas in the United States – along with coverage of local crimes  – and analyzed tweets from those cities to tease out positive attitudes from negative ...

Tap into any social media platform, turn on the television or cue up a podcast, and it is easy to find examples of hypocrisy or bad behavior in political discourse, and new research from University of Nebraska–Lincoln political scientists may explain why. The findings from a large survey study, co-authored by Kyle Hull, Kevin Smith and Clarisse Warren, demonstrate the willingness of people to bend their morals — even behave unethically — when engaging in the political realm. Results also suggest that hostility toward outgroups (i.e., opposing party) is the driving factor for the moral ambiguity exercised ...

When we walk down the street, we have an internal sense of which way we are heading, from looking at street signals and physical landmarks, and also a sense of where we’d like to go. But how does the brain coordinate between these directions, doing the mental math that tells us which way to turn? Now, new research describes such a neural process in fruit flies, providing insight into how an animal’s brain steers it in the right direction. The study, published in Nature , shows how neurons that signal the direction in which a fly is currently oriented work together with neurons that signal the direction in which way the ...

SAN ANTONIO — February 8, 2024 —Dr. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist and associate vice president of Southwest Research Institute’s Space Sector, has been named a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Fellows are recognized for their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics. AIAA cited Stern “for outstanding contributions to the exploration of the solar system and the development of commercial spaceflight.” “I am honored beyond words to be named an AIAA Fellow and thank my nominators very much, including SwRI Vice President Dr. Ben Thacker, who led the nomination,” ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological disease that usually leads to permanent disabilities. It affects around 2.9 million people worldwide, and around 15,000 in Switzerland alone. One key feature of the disease is that it causes the patient’s own immune system to attack and destroy the myelin sheaths in the central nervous system. These protective sheaths insulate the nerve fibres, much like the plastic coating around a copper wire. Myelin sheaths ensure that electrical impulses travel quickly and efficiently from nerve cell to nerve cell. If they are damaged or become thinner, this can lead to irreversible visual, ...

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (February 8, 2024) – Cacao of Excellence, a programme of the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) announced today the winners of the 2023 Cacao of Excellence Awards, honouring excellence in the cultivation of cacao, while also supporting and encouraging a more sustainable sector. The full list of Gold, Silver and Bronze winners can be found below and on the Cacao of Excellence website. The winners were announced ...

Genetic expression, often leading to protein synthesis, requires a complex coordination of molecular machinery across several stages. A vital step in protein-coding gene expression is messenger RNA (mRNA) export, which involves shuttling mature mRNAs from the cell’s nucleus to the cytoplasm. The mRNA export process relies on mRNA–protein complex formation, with the evolutionary conserved ATP-bound TREX complex playing a pivotal role. Among its components, the RNA helicase UAP56 is perhaps the most important one during its assembly. Not only does UAP56 participates during mRNA splicing in some transcripts, but it also recruits ...

An advanced human heart organoid system can be used to model embryonic heart development under pregestational diabetes-like conditions, researchers report February 8 in the journal Stem Cell Reports. The organoids recapitulate hallmarks of pregestational diabetes-induced congenital heart disease found in mice and humans. The findings also showed that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and lipid imbalance are critical factors contributing to these disorders, which could be ameliorated with exposure to omega-3s. “The new stem cell-based organoid technology employed will enable physiologically relevant studies in humans, allowing us to bypass animal models and obtain more information ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 8, 2024 — In a new study of nasal decongestant purchasing patterns, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that phenylephrine remained the most popular choice year after year, despite decades of concerns over a lack of evidence supporting its effectiveness. Published today in JAMA, the research letter points to a coming wave of supplychain disturbances if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moves to pull oral phenylephrine from the shelves, as recommended by an FDA advisory panel in 2023 that found the medication ineffective. The researchers ...