The Japan Trench is located on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a region of special interest in earthquake and deep-water research. “It is here that oceanic plates bend, form ultra-deep-water trenches and move below overriding plates in so-called subduction zones, while accumulating long-term global plate tectonic strain”, says Dr. Ken Ikehara from National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan, and co-chief scientist of IODP Expedition 386. “This energy is released cataclysmically during so-called megathrust earthquakes, ...

As researchers around the world race against time to develop new strategies and technologies to fight climate change, a team of scientists at the University of Houston is exploring one possible way to directly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment: Negative emissions technologies (NETs). Mim Rahimi, assistant professor of environmental engineering at UH’s Cullen College of Engineering is leading the development of an emerging NET called electrochemical direct ocean capture (eDOC), which helps the ocean cleanse itself of harmful carbon dioxide. The concept ...

New research from Rice University finds that antidepressants may actually reduce negative memories in individuals suffering from depression while improving overall memory function.    The study, “Perceived antidepressant efficacy associated with reduced negative and enhanced neutral mnemonic discrimination,” appears in the latest edition of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. It examines how antidepressant use in depressed individuals affects memories, both good and bad.    Stephanie Leal, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice, is the study’s lead author. She said the study’s main finding about the link between antidepressants ...

Agriculture relies on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which is made using energy- and carbon-intensive processes and creates nitrate-containing runoff. Researchers have long sought solutions to reduce emissions from the industry that accounts for 3% of energy consumption each year. A collaboration between two labs at Northwestern University, partnering with the University of Toronto, has found that producing the fertilizer urea using electrified synthesis could both denitrify wastewater while enabling low-carbon-intensity urea production. The process, which includes converting carbon ...

UNIST has taken a significant step towards combating women’s cancer on the African continent by signing an MOU with Eswatini Medical Christian University (EMCU) on June 28, 2023. The primary purpose of this partnership is to enhance cooperation in the diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer, marking the beginning of a promising initiative. Under this agreement, UNIST will lead research and development efforts in cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment technologies, while EMCU will provide a clinical test bed for these advancements. The ...

Nantes, France – September 11, 2023, 6:00pm CET – OSE Immunotherapeutics SA (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE) today announced the peer-reviewed publication in Annals of Oncology* of the randomized Phase 3 clinical trial (Atalante-1) on T-cell epitope cancer vaccine Tedopi® in HLA-A2 positive patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC in monotherapy in third line NSCLC with secondary resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Tedopi® is a novel T-cell epitope-based cancer vaccine targeting five tumor-associated antigens, ...

Tara Chaplin, Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology, received $500,664 from the National Institutes of Health for an Independent Scientist Career Award titled: "Integrating neural and momentary assessment of parenting, arousal, and adolescent substance use."  This Independent Scientist K02 Award will provide Dr. Chaplin with cutting edge advanced training to enhance her career and transform her program of research. Through this training, Dr. Chaplin will integrate ecological momentary assessment (EMA) science into her expertise in developmental neuroscience to understand from a neural and momentary level parenting, emotion, and substance use associations ...

Cynthia Smith, Associate Professor and K12 Education Director, Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center (PEREC), Environmental Science and Policy, received $60,750 from Fairfax County Public Schools for: "FCPS Watershed Programs." This funding began in July 2023 and will end in late June 2024. Since 2010, Smith has worked closely with the FCPS science office to deliver outdoor, hands-on field investigations to 5,200 seventh graders annually. Over 350 Mason students have worked as PEREC field interpreters, honing ...

Kevin Moran, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, and Ziyu Yao, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, are set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for: "Collaborative Research: SHF: Medium: Toward Understandability and Interpretability for Neural Language Models of Source Code." Moran and Yao will develop a framework and methodology that enables researchers who build AI-powered developer tools and software engineers who use these tools to interpret why the underlying models make the predictions they do.  Their objective is to allow researchers to obtain detailed insights into why a model may not ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2023 — What does it mean to have “cooked” something? Is heat the only way to break down proteins and transform raw ingredients? If you love ceviche, you know that’s not true … but how exactly does ceviche get “cooked?” No heat source is used, but it still undergoes a process in which proteins are denatured. We’re taking a closer look at proteins, how they denature and what that means for the food on your plate. https://youtu.be/Pw6apr3TBzY?si=RdIYP5j3B0daGtxw Reactions ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 11, 2023) — The University of Kentucky’s Vice President for Research and leading cardiovascular scientist is being recognized for her foundational work in the field of hypertension with a prestigious award from the American Heart Association (AHA). Lisa Cassis, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences, has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since joining the UK faculty in 1988. Cassis has led many multimillion-dollar projects, including serving as program director of an $11.3 million NIH-supported Center of Biomedical Research ...

A study published in the prestigious journal Current Biology, led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), has identified 88 red fire ant nests spread over 5 hectares near the city of Syracuse, in Sicily, Italy. These are invasive colonies that could have come from China or the United States, where it is also an invasive species, according to the study's genetic analyses. This work, led by Roger Vila, a scientist at the IBE, with Mattia Menchetti as its first author, an INPhINIT ”la Caixa” ...

A healthy lifestyle that involves moderate alcohol consumption, a healthy diet, regular physical activity, healthy sleep and frequent social connection, while avoiding smoking and too much sedentary behaviour, reduces the risk of depression, new research has found. In research published today in Nature Mental Health, an international team of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University, looked at a combination of factors including lifestyle factors, genetics, brain structure and our immune and metabolic systems to identify the underlying mechanisms that might explain this link. According ...

One of the most invasive species in the world is Solenopsis invicta, a red fire ant species with a painful sting. Native to South America, the ant has established itself across the globe. In an article publishing in the journal Current Biology on September 11, a group of ant experts confirm that the species has made its way to Sicily—the ant’s first official sighting in Europe. The ants could soon spread all over the continent, the researchers warn, which could cause major environmental, health, and economic problems in Italy and ...

About The Study: The findings of this exploratory study suggest there are racial disparities in dementia severity, functional impairment, and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Future work must address racial disparities and their underlying determinants as well as the lack of representation of racially minoritized individuals in nationally representative dementia registries. Authors: Lauren Massimo, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 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.2023.3093) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this study of people taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV, tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF) use was found to be associated with higher incident hypertension and statin initiation compared with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate use, especially in those 40 years or older. Continued monitoring of blood pressure and lipids for TAF users is warranted.  Authors: Adovich S. Rivera, M.D., Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The ...

The discovery of a previously unknown molecular target has inspired what may become a therapeutic breakthrough for people with glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive brain cancer.  When people hear the word “cancer” they often picture a single mass, but glioblastoma cells are also highly invasive and spread quickly from the central mass, making it very difficult to fully eradicate. Even with current treatments such as temozolomide, the standard chemotherapy approved to treat glioblastoma, ...

The sequencing of the human genome promised a revolution in medicine, but scientists soon realized that a genetic blueprint alone does not show the body in action. That required understanding the proteome – all the proteins, expressed by our genes, forming the cellular machinery that performs the bulk of the body’s functions. Now, another set of molecules known as the lipidome – all the lipids in our bodies – is filling in more details of human physiology. Lipids are a broad category of small, fatty or oily molecules, including triglycerides, cholesterol, hormones ...

Plants have evolved diverse adaptive strategies to optimize the exploration of light and soil resources from their environments. One of the most prominent adaptive responses is the developmental plasticity of their root systems, which enables plants to efficiently forage nutrient pools that fluctuate in space and time. As a crucial component determining the active root surface, root hairs represent a powerful morphological trait to improve water and nutrient acquisition. Root hairs are extensions of epidermal cells that effectively enlarge the root surface area and facilitate soil exploration for water and nutrients. Root hair development starts with cell fate specification, which ...

Having a hobby is linked to fewer depressive symptoms and higher levels of happiness, self-reported health and life satisfaction among people aged 65 and over, and this holds true across 16 countries on three continents, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers. The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, aimed to see if the benefits of hobbies were consistent in different national settings, and looked at data from 93,263 people aged 65 or over who had enrolled in five existing longitudinal studies in England, Japan, United States, China and 12 European countries. Analysing data from participants spanning four to eight ...

Women who have been treated for cancer as a child with a certain type of chemotherapy have an increased risk of breast cancer, according to a large-scale international study of survivors of childhood cancer led by scientists from the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology. The results were published today, 11 September, in the leading journal Nature Medicine and point to the need for earlier breast cancer screening in women who have previously been treated with this chemotherapy and radiation for childhood cancer.   Three out of four children with cancer are successfully treated ...

The globe was hot and humid. The sea was teeming with life. Early squids, eel-like fish and sea worms hunted smaller animals. Above ground, however, nothing stirred. The animals had not yet crawled ashore. That was what the Earth looked like about 450 million years ago at the end of the Ordovicium period. The warm water created the perfect living conditions for wildlife. But this would soon change. Shortly after, the land masses would began to freeze and an ice cap start to spread.  The water, which had ...

Understanding the interactions between materials and chemical species is critical for engineers as it helps them determine their best uses for both day-to-day life and global-level applications.  Metal oxides, a binary material of metal and oxygen, greatly interest researchers because of their importance in transforming energy storage, production, and conversion. To further those possibilities, a team from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering has determined a new way to view how hydrogen and metal oxides interact.  “Numerous experimental techniques have been used to understand this phenomenon – from spectroscopy to catalysis” explained Giannis ...

Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that ETH Zurich has chosen Symplectic Grant Tracker from Digital Science’s suite of flagship products to power its internal funding program, to promote world-​class research with the potential to result in fundamental new knowledge or technologies and exciting discoveries.  Designed from the outset to meet research funding needs, Grant Tracker includes features to assist applicants, reviewers, committees and funders and help them to work efficiently and effectively across the grants management lifecycle. The ETH Zurich Research ...

Key points:  The PIP3/PI3K signalling pathway is one of the most important signalling mechanisms in our cells, affecting cell metabolism and growth. It is also one of the most frequently altered pathways in human cancer. Research from the Institute has shown that PI3K pathway remodelling is a common feature of cancers driven by hyperactivated PI3K signalling. Working in prostate tumour models the team identified an unknown activator driving PI3K signalling and cancer growth in a way that is released both from needing positive growth signals and also from growth-limiting feedback controls. This knowledge identifies new ...