The death rate for patients with functional, nonepileptic seizures is higher than expected, with a rate comparable to epilepsy and severe mental illness, a Michigan Medicine-led study finds.  A team of researchers reviewed data from 700 patients who were diagnosed with functional seizures, also called psychogenic or nonepileptic seizures, between 2014 and mid-2023 and followed for a median of 15 months.  It is the largest study of its kind in the United States, matching international studies in Australia, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom, all of which have nationalized health care systems.  Of the 700 patients with functional ...

The Kavli Foundation and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Biological Sciences' Division for Integrative Organismal Systems have joined forces to launch a grant program in neurobiology and changing ecosystems. Research in this emerging field has great potential to reveal novel scientific insights that will accelerate understanding of basic biology in neural adaptation and resilience at the molecular, biophysical, cellular, and circuit levels.  “NSF’s partnership with The Kavli Foundation will enable the U.S. to advance research in this emerging and understudied field,” remarked Denise Dearing, Division ...

A new mobile phone-based facial recognition application for dogs has the potential to significantly improve rabies vaccination efforts in endemic areas like Africa and Asia, according to a study on the research published in the journal Scientific Reports. Led by researchers at Washington State University, a team used the app to test its effectiveness at a rabies vaccination clinic in rural Tanzania where they microchipped, vaccinated and registered dogs. The technology proved remarkably accurate during a subsequent visit to surrounding villages once poor images and improperly recorded ...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are highly reactive molecules containing oxygen. These compounds, which are normal byproducts of biological processes in all living organisms such as aerobic respiration as well as photosynthesis, are highly toxic. In most cases, ROS damage cellular machinery and can trigger a harmful stress response if their levels are not kept in tight check; this is why antioxidants are an important part of our diet.   However, over the past few decades, scientists have discovered that ROS are often intentionally ...

HOUSTON – (Jan. 24, 2023) – Rice University researchers in the lab of chemist Han Xiao have identified a promising new immunological pathway to treat stubborn bone tumors, one of most prevalent forms of metastases in breast cancer patients. “More than 70% of people with metastatic breast cancer will see the cancer cells move to bone, which can lead to skeletal-related events like bone pain, fractures, and hypercalcemia,” said Yixian Wang, a Rice graduate student in the Han lab who is a lead author on a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...

The fountain of youth has eluded explorers for ages. It turns out the magic anti-aging elixir might have been inside us all along. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Corina Amor Vegas and colleagues have discovered that T cells can be reprogrammed to fight aging, so to speak. Given the right set of genetic modifications, these white blood cells can attack another group of cells known as senescent cells. These cells are thought to be responsible for many of the diseases we grapple with later in life. Senescent cells are those that stop replicating. As we age, they build up in our bodies, ...

New UCLA-led research finds that infants born full term to mothers who were infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy had three times the risk of having respiratory distress compared with unexposed infants, even though they themselves were not infected with the virus. The risk was significantly lower when the mothers infected during pregnancy were previously vaccinated. The researchers found that in-utero exposure to SARS-CoV-2 sparked an “inflammatory cascade” in the infants, increasing the risk of a breathing disorder that most often ...

Highlights: More than half (51%) of respondents in a 2023 Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of the American Heart Association did not identify heart disease as the leading cause of death in the U.S. According to the 2024 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics: A Report of U.S. and Global Data From the American Heart Association, heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the U.S. for 100 years. Heart disease along with stroke, which is the fifth leading cause of death, claimed more lives ...

An international team of researchers from the European XFEL together with colleagues from the Max Born Institute in Berlin, Universities of Berlin and Hamburg, The University of Tokyo, the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Dutch Radboud University, Imperial College London, and Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging, have presented new ideas for ultrafast multi-dimensional spectroscopy of strongly correlated solids. This work has now been published in Nature Photonics. "Strongly correlated solids are complex and fascinating quantum systems in which new electronic states often ...

Barcelona, 24 January 2024 – Cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, in addition to killing a large number of tumour cells, also result in the generation of senescent tumour cells (also called “zombi cells”). While senescent cells do not reproduce, they do, unfortunately, generate a favourable environment for the expansion of tumour cells that may have escaped the effects of the chemotherapy and eventually result in tumour regrowth. An international team of researchers led by Dr. Manuel Serrano at IRB Barcelona have described how cancer cells that have become senescent after ...

The Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS) has unveiled an inaugural round of seed grants designed to integrate a greater diversity of stakeholders into the artificial intelligence (AI) development and governance lifecycle, ultimately creating positive feedback loops to improve trustworthiness, accessibility and efficacy in AI-infused systems. The eight grants announced on January 24, 2024—ranging from $100K to $150K apiece and totaling just over $1.5 million—were awarded to interdisciplinary ...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found overactivation in many brain regions, including the frontal and parietal lobes and the amygdala, in unmedicated children with anxiety disorders. They also showed that treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) led to improvements in clinical symptoms and brain functioning. The findings illuminate the brain mechanisms underlying the acute effects of CBT to treat one of the most common mental disorders. The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, was led by researchers at NIH’s ...

Women who follow vegan diets during pregnancy may face higher risks of developing preeclampsia and of giving birth to newborns with lower birth weight, suggests a recent study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. For the study, 65,872 women identified themselves as omnivorous, 666 as fish/poultry vegetarians, 183 as lacto/ovo vegetarians, and 18 as vegans. Based on a questionnaire completed mid-pregnancy, investigators found that protein intake was lower among lacto/ovo vegetarians (13.3%) and vegans (10.4%) compared with omnivorous participants (15.4%). Micronutrient intake was also ...

In a study published in Economic Inquiry, investigators compared wages of Black and white interracially married individuals with those of intraracially married individuals in the United States. After controlling for other factors that influence wages, the researchers found a wage penalty for white males in interracial marriages and a wage premium for Black males in interracial marriages, compared with their same sex and race counterparts in intraracial marriages. There were no wage penalties or premiums for white or Black females in interracial marriages. The study also ...

In an analysis of all relevant published studies that assessed atopic dermatitis (also known as eczema) associated with trends in climate-related hazards due to greenhouse gas emissions, investigators found that impacts include direct effects on eczema, like particulate matter-induced inflammation from wildfires, and indirect effects, such as stress resulting from drought-induced food insecurity.    In their research published in Allergy, the scientists created maps showing the past, ...

Rhizarthrosis, also known as trapeziometacarpal osteoarthritis, is a type of osteoarthritis that affects the thumb, and treatments range from splints to surgery. Investigators have uncovered various genetic differences between individuals with rhizarthrosis who undergo surgery for their condition versus those who opt for nonsurgical treatments. The study, which is published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, included 1,083 surgical patients and 1,888 nonsurgical patients with rhizarthrosis, as well as 205,371 controls ...

By Amy Norton Alcoholics Anonymous has long been a cornerstone of treating alcohol use disorders in the United States. But even today, Americans are not accessing it equally, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA, got its start nearly 90 years ago and is famous for spurring the "12-step" approach to recovery -- which includes acknowledging powerlessness over alcohol and giving your life over to a "higher power." Over the years, AA and similar "mutual-help groups" ...

Chopped carrot pieces are among the most universally enjoyed foods and a snacking staple – a mainstay of school lunchboxes, picnics and party platters year-round. Now researchers from the University of Bath have uncovered the secret science of prepping the popular root veg and quantified the processes that make them curl up if left uneaten for too long. Mechanical Engineering student Nguyen Vo-Bui carried out the research as part of his final-year studies, in the limited circumstances of Covid-19 lockdowns of 2021. Without access to labs, Nguyen aimed to identify the geometrical ...

Bottom Line: Imaging the tumors of patients with advanced melanoma receiving pembrolizumab (Keytruda) after only one week—rather than the standard of around three months—identified metabolic changes that corresponded with treatment response and progression-free survival (PFS). Journal in Which the Study was Published: Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Author: Michael D. Farwell, MD, an associate professor of radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Background: Cancer immunotherapy has helped ...

Social systems where influence is focused around one or a few individuals may create environments where new ideas are ignored, and innovation is hindered. This is according to a study published today in People and Nature by researchers at the University of Sydney and Stockholm University. It looked at the social networks and fertiliser use of 30 rural, cocoa-producing villages in Sulawesi, to examine how innovative and sustainable farming practices are adopted among communities. It found that when one or two farmers hold a disproportionate level of influence (often due to their roles as "model farmers" in official sustainability programs) ...

Tunnelling is one of most fundamental processes in quantum mechanics, where the wave packet could traverse a classically insurmountable energy barrier with a certain probability. Within the atomic scale, tunnelling effects play an important role in molecular biology, such as accelerating enzyme catalysis, prompting spontaneous mutations in DNA and triggering olfactory signaling cascades. Photoelectron tunnelling is a key process in light-induced chemical reactions, charge and energy transfer and radiation emission. The size of optoelectronic chips ...

Replacing abstract form-making training with the perception of landscape site has been an important trend in the basic course of landscape architecture. Based on theoretical research and the authors’ teaching practice, this article aims to explore the significance, objects, and methods of site perception training. The authors argue that because landscape design is stemmed from the perception and interpretation of site characteristics, experiencing landscape sites must precede form-making training to become the foundation of design learning. Human-scale spaces that concern elements, structure, processes, and feelings for perception, representation, ...

Tin perovskites have gained tremendous attention in lead-free perovskite solar cells. However, Sn vacancies and undercoordinated Sn ions on the tin perovskite surfaces can create deep-level traps, leading to non-radiative recombination and absorption nucleophilic O2 molecules, impeding further device efficiency and stability.   Researchers led by Prof. Ligang Xu at Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, China, are interested in lead-free perovskite solar cells, where the deep-level traps lead to inferior efficiency and stability. The work first introduced semicarbazide hydrochloride (SEM-HCl) into ...

Holographic display technology provides an ultimate solution for real 3D display and has great potential in augmented reality and virtual reality. However, the color and viewing angle of holographic 3D display mainly depend on the wavelength of the laser and the pixel size of the current spatial light modulator. Inevitable color differences and narrow viewing angle in conventional systems seriously affect the holographic display effect and hinder the application of holographic 3D display in many fields. In a new paper published in Light: Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Qiong-Hua Wang from Beihang ...

The ability to walk one kilometre comfortably can help predict fracture risk, according to researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. The findings, published today in JAMA Network Open, suggest that simply asking a patient about walking limitation could allow clinicians to identify those in need of further bone health screening and prescribe interventions that could prevent fractures from occurring. “We’ve discovered that trouble walking even short distances appears closely tied to higher fracture risk over the following five years,” says lead author of the study, Professor ...