Violence spreads in a contagious way like a disease among members of the Italian mafia, a new study shows. Researchers have found committing violent acts with others increases the likelihood people in these groups will go on to carry out more violent offences in the future. The analysis of the criminal careers of organised crime offenders shows previous violence has a “persistent and long-lasting” impact on their behaviour. Prior violent co-offending has a greater impact than prior violent solo offending on the probability of future violence. Prior violent co-offending increases the probability ...

Petrina Kamya, PhD, Head of AI Platforms and President of Insilico Medicine Canada, will present at the BIO CEO & Investor Conference happening Feb. 26-27 at the New York Marriott Marquis in New York City. Dr. Kamya will speak as part of the panel “AI within Biopharma: Separating Value from Hype,” on Feb. 27, 1pm ET along with Michael Nally, CEO of Generate: Biomedicines and Liz Schwarzbach, PhD, CBO of BigHat Biosciences. The session will look at how the latest artificial intelligence (AI) tools – including generative AI and large language models – ...

“[...] fruitful efforts to bring more drugs from bench to bedside could only be possible if we do not leave them ‘midway’!” BUFFALO, NY- February 5, 2024 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on January 24, 2024, entitled, “The fate of drug discovery in academia; dumping in the publication landfill?” In this new editorial, researchers Uzma Saqib, Isaac S. Demaree, Alexander G. Obukhov, Mirza S. Baig, Amiram Ariel, and Krishnan Hajela, from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, discuss drug discovery—a tedious process that is time consuming in both divulging whether a molecule is efficacious and specific in hitting ...

In a warming climate, meltwater from Antarctica is expected to contribute significantly to rising seas. For the most part, though, research has been focused on West Antarctica, in places like the Thwaites Glacier, which has seen significant melt in recent decades. In a paper published Jan. 19 in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers at Stanford have shown that the Wilkes Subglacial Basin in East Antarctica, which holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by more than 10 feet, could be closer to runaway melting than anyone realized. “There hasn’t been much analysis in this region – there’s huge ...

Gastrointestinal cancers (GCs) are among the most common forms of cancer and account for as much as one-third of all cancer deaths worldwide. Early diagnosis is an effective way of reducing the mortality associated with GCs, and endoscopic screening has proved to be an excellent approach for detecting potentially malignant tumors. To extend the benefits of screening programs to as many people as possible, the imaging systems used should be inexpensive to manufacture and operate, yet accurate enough ...

Bariatric surgery is more effective in controlling hypertension rates, or high blood pressure, in people with obesity and uncontrolled high blood pressure compared to blood pressure medication alone, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. People who underwent bariatric surgery had lower BMI and were on fewer medications after five years while maintaining normal blood pressure levels than those who only used antihypertensive medications. According to the CDC, the U.S. obesity and hypertension rates in adults are 41.9% and 45.4%, respectively. Obesity is a known ...

Numerous studies have raised alarms about how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted learning, development and mental health among school-aged children. But few have focused on the effects felt by the 22 million children under age 6 who were not yet in school. Now a study published Feb. 5, 2024, in JAMA Pediatrics, led by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s in collaboration with the Cincinnati Public Schools, documents the pandemic’s harmful effects on kindergarten readiness. The findings are based on data from about 8,000 kindergartners who took ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. EAST LANSING, Mich. – As artificial intelligence technology advances, one area lags behind: voice-activated AI. For the more than 80 million people who stutter, voice AI technologies, which are increasingly being used in job hiring practices, can still be impossible to navigate. HeardAI, a multidisciplinary project from Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, and the nonprofit Friends: The National Association of Young People Who Stutter, has advanced to Phase 2 of the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator program to ...

Lowder & Foudray Receive Funding For Fairfax County Peer Recovery Services Evaluability Assessment  Evan Marie Lowder, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Law and Society, and Chelsea Foudray, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Criminology, Law and Society, received funding from County of Fairfax for: "Fairfax County Peer Recovery Services Evaluability Assessment."  Lowder and Foudray are laying the groundwork for a formal evaluation of Fairfax County Peer Recovery Services (PRS) programming.   For ...

This work was adapted from articles by Elizabeth Boatman and Emily C. Dooley. Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL),  and UC Davis sheds new light on how to access the sugars locked up in plants to produce petroleum-free fuels, chemicals, and medicines.  Using microbes to convert grasses, weeds, wood, and other plant residues into sustainable products will be key to achieving carbon neutrality and could even help eliminate drug shortages. But cellulose, the tough tissue that makes up a large proportion of herbaceous and woody plant ...

Lin X. Chen, a chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, has received the Senior Prize as part of the two 2023 Mildred Dresselhaus Guest Professorship Awards from the University of Hamburg, Germany. The award recognizes outstanding international women scientists and offers an opportunity for awardees to conduct research at the Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging Cluster of Excellence. Chen has held a joint appointment as professor of chemistry at Northwestern University since 2007. “I am very honored ...

Hart Receives Funding For Boot Camp David M. Hart, Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, received funding for: "2024 Climate-Tech Innovation Policy 'Boot Camp' for Early Career Researchers." Via this effort, Hart will build interpersonal bridges across the gap that separates the policy and research communities, sensitize researchers to the practical considerations that shape energy and climate innovation policy, and create new inter-disciplinary linkages among early-career researchers.  His long-term objective is to shape the research agendas of the participating scholars, so that they contribute as fully as ...

The Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Google deepen their strategic research partnership. With additional financial support from the U.S. IT company, the “Saarbrücken Research Center for Visual Computing, Interaction and Artificial Intelligence (VIA)”, which was only launched in November 2022 at the MPI in Saarbrücken, is establishing a new research area “Vision and Language Models (VLMs)”, led by Professor Bernt Schiele. This was presented by the Max Planck Directors Bernt Schiele and Christian Theobalt together with Google representatives to Saarland ...

New research is shedding light on food and beverage products linked to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and suggesting potential solutions for protecting the public. PFAS are known to be harmful to health: They can disrupt hormones, weaken bones and increase disease risk. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” because they take so long to break down, PFAS are used in fabrics, furniture and other household items—but they are also hard to get rid of. Recent tests now trace the chemicals to livestock, drinking water and food packaging, but little is known about the extent of that contamination. A new study, funded in part ...

SAN ANTONIO — February 5, 2024 - Southwest Research Institute has launched the latest phase of the transportation industry’s longest running commercial vehicle research consortium. Building on more than 33 years of research and development, the Clean Highly Efficient Decarbonized Engines 9 (CHEDE-9) consortium has expanded its scope from diesel-engine-focused research to a range of internal combustion engines and hybrid solutions. Formerly known as the Clean High-Efficiency Diesel Engine consortium, CHEDE-9 focuses on research of low- and net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) transportation technologies for light-duty passenger vehicles, heavy-duty commercial vehicles and large ...

They published their work on Feb. 2 in Energy Material Advances.   "The development of thin sulfide solid electrolyte layers is imperative" said paper author Xiayin Yao, a professor at the Laboratory of All-solid-state rechargeable battery, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). "Although sulfide solid electrolyte is easy densified through cold pressing method, the freestanding membrane generally show a thickness greater than 500 μm. The thick and heavy layer of sulfide electrolyte results in less than ...

The production of aluminium generates around 180 million tonnes of toxic red mud every year. Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, a centre for iron research, have now shown how green steel can be produced from aluminium production waste in a relatively simple way. In an electric arc furnace similar to those used in the steel industry for decades, they convert the iron oxide contained in the red mud into iron using hydrogen plasma. With this process, almost 700 million tonnes of CO2-free steel could be produced from the four billion tonnes of red ...

Sleep apnea, which involves recurring, temporary interruptions of breathing during sleep, can disturb regulation of blood lipid levels, a key factor in the development of cardiovascular disease. A University of Ottawa research team has shown that the impact of sleep apnea on the metabolism of blood lipids differs by sex, with women regulating their blood lipids better than men. The study was conducted by Nicholas Goulet, Caroline Marcoux, Renée Morin, Jean-François Mauger and Vincent Bourgon, under the supervision of Pascal ...

About The Study: This study found that in older adults, a healthy lifestyle may provide a cognitive reserve to maintain cognitive abilities independently of common neuropathologies of dementia. Authors: Klodian Dhana, M.D., Ph.D., of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2023.5491) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

About The Study: Sleep duration among Black survey respondents worsened after exposure to officer-involved killings of unarmed Black individuals in their area of residence. The findings were specific to officer involved killings of unarmed Black people, and no adverse outcomes on sleep health were found for white respondents. These findings underscore the role of structural racism in shaping racial disparities in sleep health.  Authors: Atheendar S. Venkataramani, M.D., Ph.D., of the University ...

About The Study: This study of emergency department visits for physical injuries from use of conducted energy devices, such as TASERs, by police departments found that most visits involved young Black and white males from low-income areas. Black individuals were overrepresented in the sample versus the U.S. population, consistent with research demonstrating increased risk of police violence in Black populations.  Authors: Kevin N. Griffith, Ph.D., of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center ...

PHILADELPHIA – Black adults across the United States suffer from sleep problems following exposure to news about unarmed Black individuals killed by police during police encounters, according to new findings published today in JAMA Internal Medicine from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. The issue, researchers said, may compound the risk factors that poor sleep already poses for many chronic and mental health conditions, from depression to post traumatic stress disorder. Researchers conducted two separate analyses examining changes in sleep duration in the U.S. non-Hispanic Black population before and after exposure to such deaths ...

Researchers from University of California San Diego, as part of a large collaboration with scientists around the world, have developed a new search tool to help researchers better understand the metabolism of microorganisms. Microbes are key players in virtually all biological and environmental systems, yet limitations in current techniques used to study microbial metabolism make it difficult to decode their interactions and activities. The new research, published February 5, 2023 in Nature Microbiology, directly addresses these limitations, which could ultimately transform our understanding of both human health and the environment. “Humans are walking ecosystems in which microbes vastly ...

New Haven, Conn. — Pulmonary rehabilitation, an essential component of care for patients with chronic respiratory conditions, is difficult for millions of Americans to access, a new Yale-led study reveals. The findings, researchers say, reveal geographic regions where this type of care is most lacking and illustrate the potential for telemedicine in helping to bridge this gap. The study was published Feb. 5 in JAMA Network Open. Pulmonary rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary program that incorporates exercise and strategic techniques to improve quality of life and overall health for patients with respiratory conditions like chronic ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell food scientists show that a standard quality test used for raw, organic milk is insufficient for distinguishing between specific groups of bacteria, suggesting that the criteria for determining milk quality at processing plants needs to be updated. Their work was published Jan. 20 in the Journal of Dairy Science. “Testing milk should not be one size fits all,” as tests should be used appropriately to give the best feedback to dairy producers, said lead author Renee Lee ’21, ...