A recently published study from Aarhus University may mean a textbook chapter on the immune system will have to be rewritten. In the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers reveal crucial new knowledge about B cells, which form a vital element in the body’s defence system. B cells are the cells that generate protective antibodies when we are vaccinated or have an infection – and it is also the B cells that produce harmful antibodies in connection with allergies or autoimmune diseases. The researchers have examined the earliest step ...

One in 10 adults suffer from the debilitating effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Research around a new breathing device developed by pulmonologists at the University of Cincinnati offers promise for improving their lives. The new device not only improves symptoms of breathlessness and quality of life for people with COPD, it also offers benefits for people dealing with stress and anxiety and those practicing mindfulness, meditation or yoga. The research was published in the journal Respiratory Care. The device, called PEP Buddy, was created by Muhammad Ahsan Zafar, MD, and Ralph Panos, MD. Zafar is an associate professor in the Department of Pulmonary Critical ...

About The Study: The findings of this study of nearly 24,000 individuals suggest that insurance is a modifiable risk factor that plays an important role in the racial and ethnic inequities observed in the diagnosis of advanced-stage cervical cancer. Expanding access to care and improving the quality of services rendered for uninsured patients and those covered by Medicaid may mitigate the known inequities in cervical cancer diagnosis and related outcomes.  Authors: Hunter K. Holt, M.D., M.A.S., of the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the corresponding author.   To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

About The Study: In this study of 4.3 million patients, those who were younger, publicly insured, Hispanic, or non-Hispanic Black had shorter primary care physician visits. Shorter visits were associated with a higher likelihood of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for patients with upper respiratory tract infections and co-prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines for patients with painful conditions. These findings suggest opportunities for additional research and operational improvements to visit scheduling and quality of prescribing decisions ...

A scientific instrument at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could help create a noninvasive cancer treatment derived from a common tropical plant. Pancratistatin is a chemical compound found in the spider lily, a native Hawaiian flower. Unlike traditional treatments, it kills cancer cells while keeping healthy cells intact. Until recently, pancratistatin’s workings have mystified scientists, clouding hope for potential new treatments. But after conducting neutron experiments at ORNL, students from the University of Windsor have ...

Exercising too much and not getting enough rest is bad for your health. A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that the same is true for migratory birds. They need to rest not only to renew their energy levels but also in order to boost their immune system. After a period of physical exertion, vertebrates, including humans, usually need a period of recovery. Apart from the obvious – lowering the heart rate and repairing injured muscles – other, less prominent physiological systems might also need to recover. Intensive physical activity can affect an individual’s basic immune defence. When birds migrate, they regularly stop in one place for a ...

In the issue of the renowned journal Science published today (10.3.23), the team led by Prof. Dr Ulf Peschel reports on measurements on a sequence of pulses that travel thousands of kilometres through glass fibres that are only a few microns thin. The researchers were surprised by the results. “We have found that the light pulses organize themselves after about a hundred kilometres and then behave more like molecules of a conventional gas, such as air, for example”, reports Prof. Ulf Peschel, the head of the group in Jena. In a gas the particles move back ...

FRANKFURT. Leukaemia (blood cancer) is a group of malignant and aggressive diseases of the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow. Very intensive chemotherapy and in some cases a bone marrow transplant are the only cure. Like all cancers, leukaemia is caused by changes in the DNA, the heredity material present in human cells in the form of 46 chromosomes. In many forms of leukaemia, large parts of these chromosomes are altered. People with Down syndrome, who have three copies of chromosome 21 (trisomy 21) are highly vulnerable: ...

A research study at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) analyzes the notion of spectacle as an enunciative space that is located beyond mediatic logic. In contrast to the generalized concept of spectacle laden with negative connotations, the study proposes a distancing of that concept from that of entertainment. UC3M Full Professor Pilar Carrera, in her essay Antígona o la razón espectacular (2023), published in the review Signa,advocates the notion of spectacle from the perspective of spectacular distance ...

Deep learning based semi-supervised learning algorithms have shown promising results in recent years. However, they are not yet practical in real semi-supervised learning scenarios, such as  medical image processing, hyper-spectral image classification, network traffic recognition, and document recognition. In these types of scenarios, the labeled data is scarce for hyper-parameter search, because they introduce multiple tunable hyper-parameters.  A research team has proposed a novel meta-learning based semi-supervised learning algorithm called Meta-Semi, that requires tuning only one additional hyper-parameter. Their Meta-Semi approach outperforms state-of-the-art ...

Siri and Google Assistant may be able to schedule meetings on request, but they don’t have the social understanding to independently prioritize the appointments — yet. According to researchers based in China, artificial intelligence (AI) may be smart, but it is stunted by a lack of social skills.     They published their review of the current state and call for future directions on March 10 in CAAI Artificial Intelligence Research.   “Artificial intelligence has changed our society and our daily life,” said first author Lifeng Fan, National Key Laboratory of General Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Institute for General Artificial ...

An international team of researchers has received $3 million to support an ambitious effort to understand how early gut development can profoundly shape children’s health throughout life. The funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will allow scientists at ­the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, University of Mississippi Medical Center and Pakistan’s Aga Khan University to “map” the healthy gut in children ages 5 and younger down to the ...

March 10, 2023 – The rapid transition from in-person to care to telemedicine visits at the start of the COVID‑19 pandemic did not adversely affect the quality of care – and even improved some aspects of care – for patients with major depression in a major integrated health system, according to a new report. The study appears as part of a special "Virtual Visits" supplement to Medical Care, published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "A rapid shift to virtual behavioral health care was possible without compromising health care-related practices," according to the new research, led by Nancy ...

From steering a car to swinging a tennis racket, we learn to execute all kinds of skilled movements during our lives. You might think this learning is only implemented by neurons, but a new study by researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT shows the essential role of another brain cell type: astrocytes. Just as teams of elite athletes train alongside staffs of coaches, ensembles of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex depend on nearby astrocytes to help them learn to encode when and how to move, and the ...

The tissue area that surrounds our teeth is known as the gingiva, and healthy teeth will nestle firmly into the gums thanks to the many gingival fibers that connect the tooth to the gingiva. The gingiva is home to fibroblasts - cells that contribute to the formation of connective tissue. A group of scientists from Tohoku University have discovered that the gingiva stiffness influences the properties of gingival fibroblasts, which in turn affects whether inflammation is likely to occur and make gingival fibers difficult to form.  Their findings were published in the journal Scientific ...

The deep sea is one of the least well-known areas on Earth, comprising multiple vulnerable ecosystems that play critical roles in the carbon cycle. However, the deep sea is directly exposed to the effects of human-induced climate change and may now face additional challenges arising from efforts to counteract climate change artificially. These efforts have evolved into geoengineering solutions that could operate on vast spatial scales. Ocean-based climate interventions (OBCIs) are increasingly claimed as promising solutions to mitigate climate change. These interventions use different technologies to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and sequester the carbon ...

Digitalisation, one of the megatrends of the future, has arrived in the world of dentistry. Modern technologies underpin precision applications while also making treatments less invasive for patients. At the beginning of June 2023, an international congress will bring dentistry experts from all over Europe to Vienna to discuss the broad range of application options opened up by the latest breakthroughs. The University Clinic of Dentistry Vienna is a renowned international innovation driver, especially ...

Did you know that bacteria can hide their antimicrobial resistance? Much like storing military defence equipment without revealing it to the enemy, bacteria can mask their ability to resist antimicrobials. This hidden antimicrobial resistance can pass under the radar and cause treatment failure in patients. A recent study published by researchers at UiT The Arctic University of Norway sheds light on this “hidden resistance”. The researchers describe that this phenomenon is often so rare that you cannot detect it through traditional testing methods, ...

Physicists from around the world will meet to present new research that spans from quarks to the cosmos at the American Physical Society’s (APS) April Meeting. The conference will be held in person in Minneapolis April 15-18 and online everywhere April 24-26. Scientific Program The scientific program includes more than 1,400 presentations on astrophysics, cosmology, particle physics, gravitation, nuclear physics and more. For more information, search the scientific program. All times are in U.S. Central time.  Hybrid Format The April Meeting will have ...

Rapid access to information is one of the largest barriers we have to deal with as a group of people in the Internet Age. Earth Map is a free application designed to be easily used and accessible to anyone with an internet connection and the desire to observe any environment at any time, with zero expertise (or travel) required.   This new tool features an intuitive point-and-click way of interfacing with the program, lending further to its ease of use.    ​​The researchers published their results on January 12th in the Journal of Remote Sensing.    The authors underline the importance of ...

Link to Google Drive folder containing images with caption and credit information: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ye7QXkoTHfq7L4qEcJ33r6I6w7aB2-Mn?usp=share_link   In the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, scientists have been sounding the alarm about the plight of southern resident orcas. Annual counts show that population numbers, already precarious, have fallen back to mid-1970s levels. Most pregnancies end in miscarriage or death of the newborn. They may not be catching enough food. And many elderly orcas — ...

    Gestational diabetes mellitus is a common pregnancy complication with significant health risks for both mother and offspring Gestational diabetes is rising fast and is now 7.8% of all births in U.S. Mother with gestational diabetes has increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and dementia; offspring more likely to have obesity and hypertensio CHICAGO --- Pregnant persons should dim the lights in their home and turn off or at least dim their screens (computer monitors and smartphones) a few hours before ...

Near the small harbour of Estellencs at the northeast of Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain), a pebbly beach can be found at the base of an impressive scarp that threatens rockfall. Remains of plants, crustaceans, insects, and fish have been discovered in the grey-blue rock layers formed from sediments deposited 247 million years ago. Fossils in these rocks are of great interest since they offer a window into the time where the planet was recovering from the greatest mass extinction. A few years ago, Mallorcan ...

An analysis extending from southern Portugal to northern Norway highlights the importance of temperature in determining where fish species are found. By confirming temperature as a key driver of large-scale spatial variation in fish assemblages the study was able to use future climate projections to predict where species will be most common by 2050 and 2100. The results show that overall, the greatest community-level changes are predicted at locations with greater warming, with the most pronounced effects further north - at higher latitudes. The study was the first of its ...

Hamilton, ON (March 9, 2023) - McMaster University clinician-researcher Holger Schünemann is receiving $9 million in federal funding to develop official guidelines for post-COVID-19 Condition (PCC), commonly known as long COVID.   Schünemann’s project, titled McMaster Development and Dissemination of Post COVID-19 Condition (PCC) Guidelines and Knowledge Translation Products, is being developed by McMaster in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).   Schünemann said that Cochrane Canada and ...