Microorganisms were the first forms of life on our planet. The clues are written in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks by geochemical and morphological traces, such as chemical compounds or structures that these organisms left behind. However, it is still not clear when and where life originated on Earth and when a diversity of species developed in these early microbial communities. Evidence is scarce and often disputed. Now, researchers led by the University of Göttingen and Linnӕus University in Sweden have uncovered key findings about the earliest forms of life. In rock ...

Ann Arbor, January 24, 2024 – New research confirms what public health leaders have been fearing: the significant uptick in the cardiovascular disease (CVD) death rate that began in 2020 has continued. The continuing trend reverses improvements achieved in the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce mortalities from heart disease and stroke, the leading causes of death in the United States. The findings are reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier. Investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...

A good shoe can make a huge difference for runners, from career marathoners to couch-to-5K first-timers. But every runner is unique, and a shoe that works for one might trip up another. Outside of trying on a rack of different designs, there’s no quick and easy way to know which shoe best suits a person’s particular running style.  MIT engineers are hoping to change that with a new model that predicts how certain shoe properties will affect a runner’s performance.  The simple model incorporates ...

WASHINGTON — As we transition to a new era in computing, there is a need for new devices that integrate electronic and photonic functionalities at the nanoscale while enhancing the interaction between photons and electrons. In an important step toward fulfilling this need, researchers have developed a new III-V semiconductor nanocavity that confines light at levels below the so-called diffraction limit. “Nanocavities with ultrasmall mode volumes hold great promise for improving a wide range of photonic ...

NEW YORK— The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), a national, nonprofit whose mission is to advance and support healthy aging through biomedical research, is pleased to announce the election of Laura M. Barzilai, JD, LLM, as Chair of the Board of Directors. Stephanie Lederman, EdM, AFAR Executive Director, shares: "The Board of Directors of AFAR unanimously elected Laura Barzilai as Chair in December 2023. For nearly a decade, her contributions as a board member, committee chair, ...

Plants produce a range of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds that influence their interactions with the world around them. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign investigated how the type and amount of these VOCs change based on different features of tomato plants. The smell of cut grass is one of the defining fragrances of summer. Smells like that are one of the ways plants signal their injury. Because they cannot run away from danger, plants have evolved to communicate with each other using chemical signals. They use VOCs for a ...

The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), a national, nonprofit whose mission is to advance and support healthy aging through biomedical research, is pleased to announce the election of Thomas A. Rando, MD, PhD, as President of the Board of Directors in December 2023. Dr. Rando is currently the Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology at UCLA, where he is a professor of Neurology and Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology. Previously, he ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University engineers have created a new lithium battery that can charge in under five minutes – faster than any such battery on the market – while maintaining stable performance over extended cycles of charging and discharging. The breakthrough could alleviate “range anxiety” among drivers who worry electric vehicles cannot travel long distances without a time-consuming recharge. “Range anxiety is a greater barrier to electrification in transportation than any of the other barriers, like cost and capability of batteries, and we have identified a pathway to eliminate it using rational electrode designs,” said Lynden ...

R. Graham Cooks, the Henry B. Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and his postdoctoral researcher Lingqi Qiu have experimental evidence that the key step in protein formation can occur in droplets of pure water, and have recently published these findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In this key step, amino acids are dehydrated (they lose water) even though they are in a water solution, a paradox that is resolved by the fact that these droplet surfaces are unusually dry and highly ...

Like humans, mice live in complex social groups, fight over territory and mates, and learn when it is safer to avoid certain opponents. After losing even a brief fight, the defeated animals will flee from the mice that hurt them for weeks afterward, a new study shows. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study reveals that such “retreating behavior” is influenced by a distinct area on the underside of the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that controls hunger, sleep, and levels of many hormones. The team had previously found that this special region, called the anterior ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus (aVMHvl), ...

Bacterial infections cause millions of deaths each year, with the global threat made worse by the increasing resistance of the microbes to antibiotic treatments. This is due in part to the ability of bacteria to switch genes on and off as they sense environmental changes, including the presence of drugs. Such switching is accomplished through transcription, which converts the DNA in genes into its chemical cousin in mRNA, which guides the building of proteins that make up the microbe’s structure. For this ...

Cryptocurrency is usually “mined” through the blockchain by asking a computer to perform a complicated mathematical problem in exchange for tokens of cryptocurrency. But in research appearing in the journal Chem on January 24, a team of chemists have repurposed this process, asking computers to instead generate the largest network ever created of chemical reactions which may have given rise to prebiotic molecules on early Earth. This work indicates that at least some primitive forms of metabolism might have emerged without the involvement of ...

About The Study: This survey study found a reduced rate of overall fractures but an excess of vertebral fractures among living kidney donors compared with controls after a mean follow-up of 25 years. Treatment of excess vertebral fractures with dietary supplements such as vitamin D3 may reduce the numbers of vertebral fractures and patient morbidity. Authors: Rajiv Kumar, M.B.B.S., of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, 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/jamanetworkopen.2023.53005) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this study of 4,360 patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), functional limitations six months after injury were common after sports-related TBI, even mild sports-related TBI. Persisting impairment was evident in the sports-related TBI group despite better recovery compared with non–sports-related TBI on measures of mental health and post-concussion symptoms. These findings caution against taking an overoptimistic view of outcomes after sports-related TBI, even if the initial injury appears mild. Authors: Lindsay Wilson, ...

Researchers at the Universities of Basel and Zurich have discovered the genetic material of the pathogen Treponema pallidum in the bones of people who died in Brazil 2,000 years ago. This is the oldest verified discovery of this pathogen thus far, and it proves that humans were suffering from diseases akin to syphilis – known as treponematoses – long before Columbus’s discovery of America. The new findings, published in the scientific journal Nature, call into question previous theories concerning the spread of syphilis ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Groundwater is rapidly declining across the globe, often at accelerating rates. Writing in the journal Nature, UC Santa Barbara researchers present the largest assessment of groundwater levels around the world, spanning nearly 1,700 aquifers. In addition to raising the alarm over declining water resources, the work offers instructive examples of where things are going well, and how groundwater depletion can be solved. The study is a boon for scientists, policy makers and resource managers working to understand global groundwater dynamics. “This study was driven by curiosity. We wanted to better understand the state of global ...

DALLAS, Jan. 24, 2024 — In an effort to identify effective food is medicine approaches for incorporating healthy food into health care delivery, the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization focused on heart and brain health research, now celebrating 100 years of lifesaving work, today announced grants totaling $7.8 million to 19 research projects nationwide as part of its Health Care by Food™ initiative. The research projects focus on areas including food resource coaching for patients of a safety-net clinic, delivering food is medicine interventions ...

The Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research at the Mass General Cancer Center today announced the selection of 17 scientists who have been awarded a combined $6 million in funding. These competitive awards, which will be granted annually, were established to recognize the trailblazing efforts of Krantz Center scientists and accelerate ideas, projects and initiatives with the potential to fundamentally change how cancer is diagnosed and treated.     Philanthropists Jason and Keely Krantz, who ...

Despite strict EU regulations on plastic recycling, there is little oversight on plastic waste shipped from the EU to Vietnam. A large percentage of the exported European plastic cannot be recycled and gets dumped in nature. That is what new research led by Utrecht University’s Kaustubh Thapa has found. Following the recycling path About half of Europe’s plastic waste is exported to a number of countries in the Global South, including Vietnam. A Dutch and Vietnamese research team ventured to Minh Khai Craft Village, the largest recycling hub ...

Cincinnati Children’s continues to be a cradle for great discoveries. Our latest Research Annual Report, online now, recounts a remarkable year of scientific advancement supported by a record-high level of research funding from federal, state, industry and philanthropic sources. Among the many accomplishments from more than 1,000 faculty working in 50 research areas: Promising results from the world’s first clinical trial of FLASH proton therapy for cancer treatment Developing the first intestine organoids with functional immune cells, a major step closer to testing potential treatments using these amazing lab-grown tissues Completing ...

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Many of these articles are available for early online access–they are peer-reviewed, but not yet in their final published form. Below is a selection of articles published early online recently. To view full article text, members of the media can contact kpflaumer@ametsoc.org for press login credentials. Searching for the Most Extreme Temperature Events in Recent History Bulletin ...

Researchers have developed a way to use ultrasound to predict whether a pregnant person is at risk of delivering a baby prematurely, which occurs in upward of 10% of pregnancies in the U.S. The new method — the result of more than 20 years of collaboration between researchers in nursing and engineering at University of Illinois Chicago and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — measures microstructural changes in a woman’s cervix using quantitative ultrasound. The ultrasound method works as early as 23 weeks into a pregnancy, according to the research, which is published in ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — In the largest study of its kind, researchers at UC Davis Health found that exposure to organophosphate ester flame retardants during pregnancy was associated with preterm birth, especially among females. The chemicals were also linked to higher birth weight, a concern for increased obesity risk. The major new research study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives. “The importance of this study lies in unraveling the potential impact of exposure to environmental chemicals during pregnancy on fetal development. Our findings guide our understanding of how these chemicals may be silently seeding lasting challenges ...

The human immune system is constantly fending off a wide range of invaders – a feat that requires a diverse array of cellular troops and molecular weaponry. Although a great deal is already known about immune defense cells and the strategies they employ, many molecular details have remained elusive. Now a research team led by Professor Oliver Daumke, a lab head at the Max Delbrück Center, has managed to unravel the main activation mechanism of GBP1, a protein that plays a pivotal role in combating certain bacteria. They report in “The EMBO ...

A groundbreaking technology with immense potential in treating ischemic retinopathy in premature infants and diabetic patients has been developed by Professor Byoung Heon Kang and his research team in the Department of Biological Sciences at UNIST, in collaboration with Professor Dong Ho Park’s team at Kyungpook National University Hospital. Ischemic retinopathy, characterized by the breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier and abnormal blood vessel growth, often leads to vision impairment and loss. The researchers have identified the critical role of a mitochondrial ...