CHICAGO — A new scientific study shows that the prehistoric gigantic shark, Megalodon or megatooth shark, which lived roughly 15-3.6 million years ago nearly worldwide, was a more slender shark than previous studies have suggested. Formally called Otodus megalodon, it is typically portrayed as a super-sized, monstrous shark in novels and sci-fi films, including “The Meg.” Previous studies suggest the shark likely reached lengths of at least 50 to 65 feet (15 to 20 meters). However, ...

Clinician-scientists from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago were among a diverse, international group of experts tasked by the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) with developing and validating new data-based criteria for sepsis in children. Sepsis is a major public heath burden, claiming the lives of over 3.3 million children worldwide every year. The new pediatric sepsis criteria – called the Phoenix criteria – follow the paradigm shift in the recent adult criteria that define sepsis as severe ...

About The Study: In this international, multicenter, retrospective cohort study including more than 3.6 million pediatric encounters, a novel score, the Phoenix Sepsis Score, was derived and validated to predict mortality in children with suspected or confirmed infection. The new criteria for pediatric sepsis and septic shock based on the score performed better than existing organ dysfunction scores and the International Pediatric Sepsis Consensus Conference criteria.  Authors: Tellen D. Bennett, M.D., M.S., of the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, is the corresponding author. To access the ...

About The Study: The Phoenix sepsis criteria for sepsis and septic shock in children were derived and validated by the international Society of Critical Care Medicine Pediatric Sepsis Definition Task Force using a large international database and survey, systematic review and meta-analysis, and modified Delphi consensus approach. A Phoenix Sepsis Score of at least 2 identified potentially life-threatening organ dysfunction in children younger than 18 years with infection, and its use has the potential to improve clinical care, epidemiological assessment, and research in pediatric sepsis and septic shock around the world.  Authors: R. Scott ...

An international research team led by Tell Bennett, MD, MS, professor of biomedical informatics and pediatric critical care at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, released new diagnostic criteria for sepsis in children this week, marking the first update to the pediatric sepsis definition in nearly two decades. The updated criteria, presented at the 2024 Critical Care Congress of the Society for Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), will be utilized ...

A recent multicentre study led by Amsterdam UMC and conducted in nine Dutch Intensive Care Units (ICUs) has shown that tailoring a computerised decision support system (CDSS) to the ICU environment significantly reduced the number of high-risk drug combinations administered to ICU patients. It also improved monitoring ICU patients when avoiding such combinations was not possible, and reduced the length of patients’ stay in the ICU. This study is published today in The Lancet.   "Not more, but fewer and more relevant alerts by a CDSS make such a system more valuable for healthcare providers and patients," says Amsterdam ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have been studying DNA repair by homologous recombination, where the RecA protein repairs breaks in double-stranded DNA by incorporating a dangling single-strand end into intact double strands, and repairing the break based on the undamaged sequence. They discovered that RecA finds where to put the single strand into the double helix without unwinding it by even a single turn. Their findings promise new directions in cancer research. Homologous recombination (HR) is a ubiquitous biochemical process shared across all living things, including animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria. As we go about our daily ...

Programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) is an important target for immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies that block its signaling and boost T-cell activity. PD-1 inhibitors have been approved for treating various types of cancer. But PD-1 functions can vary between different cell and cancer types, either promoting or suppressing disease progression. Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer, responds well to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. However, it was previously unknown if MCC cells express PD-1 themselves, and unclear how exactly cancer cell-intrinsic ...

When Ben Brown, research assistant professor of chemistry, thinks about the opioid epidemic, he views the problem on a molecular level. Painkillers used legitimately in medicine, such as oxycodone, are highly addictive, but better understanding of how their molecules interact with proteins in the body could lead to the formulation of nonaddictive alternatives, he said. In May, the National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded Brown $1.5 million over five years to further his work in this area. Brown, faculty affiliate of the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research and the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence in Protein Dynamics, is developing artificial intelligence that ...

The National Champion Tree Program started 83 years ago at American Forests to discover the largest, living trees in the United States. Now, the program is moving from the organization’s headquarters to a new home in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA). American Forests launched the Champion Tree Program in 1940. Its vision included establishing a nationwide laboratory for the study of forestry and trees. Being housed at Tennessee’s 1862 public land-grant university will advance the program’s understanding of big trees. “The National Champion Tree Program moving to UTIA means it can continue protecting ...

Des Plaines, IL — A new study that contributes additional data to a growing body of evidence demonstrating disparities in restraint use in the emergency department (ED) has been published in the January issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM).  The study, titled Disparities in use of physical restraints at an urban, minority-serving hospital emergency department evaluates the association between race/ethnicity and the use of restraints in an ED population ...

Using CRISPR, an immune system bacteria use to protect themselves from viruses, scientists have harnessed the power to edit genetic information within cells. In fact, the first CRISPR-based therapeutic was recently approved by the FDA to treat sickle cell disease in December 2023. That therapy is based on a highly studied system known as the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissor. However, a newer and unique platform with the potential to make large-sized DNA removals, called Type I CRISPR or CRISPR-Cas3, waits in the wings for potential therapeutic use. A new study from Yan Zhang, ...

It has been 4 years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be eradicated and new variants are continuously emerging. Despite the extensive immunization programs, breakthrough infections (infection after vaccination) by new variants are common. New research suggests that human immune responses are also changing in order to combat the never-ending emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Specifically, it has been discovered the immune system that encountered breakthrough infection by the Omicron variant acquires enhanced immunity against future versions of the Omicron. A team of South Korean scientists ...

A team led by Dr. Guadalupe Sabio at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) in Madrid has discovered a possible therapeutic target for pulmonary hypertension. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, identifies the first therapeutic target that can be modulated to preserve cardiac function in pulmonary hypertension, providing hope in the fight against this rare but fatal disease for which there is currently no cure. Pulmonary hypertension is a condition of elevated blood pressure in the arteries that carry deoxygenated blood to the lungs. This increased pulmonary blood pressure puts the heart under continuous strain ...

Scientists working on biological design should focus on the idiosyncrasies of biological systems over optimisation, according to new research. In a study, published today in Science Advances, researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Ghent have shown how exploring the unknown may be the crucial step needed to realise the continual innovation needed for the biotechnologies of the future. Recognising the role of open-endedness in achieving this goal and its growing importance in fields like computer science and evolutionary biology, the team mapped out how open-endedness is linked to bioengineering practice today and what would be required to achieve it in ...

In the study led by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) and published in Science Immunology, the researchers found that CD4+ T cells, traditionally called ‘helper T cells’ for their role in aiding the activation of other immune cells, are remarkably effective in controlling melanoma. University of Melbourne’s Dr Emma Bawden, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Doherty Institute and lead author of the study, said this discovery challenges the conventional understanding of the role of CD4+ T cells in cancer immunity. “Our ...

A team of scientists led by a Tulane University oceanographer has found that deposits deep under the ocean floor reveal a way to measure the ocean oxygen level and its connections with carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere during the last ice age, which ended more than 11,000 years ago. The findings, published in Science Advances, help explain the role oceans played in past glacial melting cycles and could improve predictions of how ocean carbon cycles will respond to global warming. Oceans adjust atmospheric CO2 as ice ages transition to warmer climates by releasing the greenhouse ...

URBANA, Ill. — In a few years, popcorn could become a standard element in science classrooms across Illinois and the nation. With funding from a new USDA grant, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign crop scientist and collaborating educators are developing a popcorn-based curriculum to reinforce concepts around agricultural science, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, computer science, genomics, research methods, and more for 4-H and high school students.  The funding may be new, but Tony Studer has proselytized ...

Hepatitis C and B viruses are one of the causes of this type of cancer –a most frequent on in blood–, and the pathologies that precede it, known as gammopathies. Early identification of an infection with these viruses can help doctors to prescribe appropriate treatment and prevent it from leading to malignant pathologies. The research has been discussed in an editorial article in the journal Haematologica  A few years ago, a patient was cured of multiple myeloma after being treated for hepatitis C, astounding researchers from the group led by Joaquín ...

Family businesses account for more than 70 percent of global GDP, and survey data shows that they are much friendlier to female leadership: up to 55 percent have at least one woman on their board and 70 percent are considering a woman for their next CEO. Experts have attributed this outlier gender parity to an emphasis on long-term strategies or family values. But a new study, published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, suggests that women’s success as leaders in family businesses is deeply rooted in how employees interpret their leadership style. “Family firms tend to focus on being inclusive ...

The atmosphere contains many tiny solid particles. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) and the University of Göttingen in collaboration with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France and the university of Gothenburg, Sweden, now studied how such non-spherical particles settle in air. For this, they used a new precision apparatus equipped with high-speed cameras and a novel particle injection mechanism. Using a 3D-printer, they created particles of different shapes resembling discs of thickness as low as 50 micrometer and rods of length as high as 880 micrometers. Thanks to this setup, they could observe that particles ...

New research published in Global Strategy Journal identifies globally mobile workers with highly specialized skills as a strategic hiring strategy, due to the workers’ legitimacy and mobility after being laid off by a failure of their former employer. The study shows that laid-off workers experience comparatively high legitimacy loss if they worked in the unit or geographical location where other workers were suspected of being responsible for the corporation’s failure. As a result, their bargaining position with a prospective employer is weaker, even if their special skills ...

We’ve known for a decade that political affiliation increasingly affects Americans’ everyday lives, including where they live, whom they befriend, and whom they welcome as in-laws. A recent Cato Institute survey revealed that nearly a third of Americans worry that voicing their political views could even harm their employment. This intensifying political tribalism, especially during an election year, threatens to limit the social networks vital to entrepreneurs. However a new study, published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, offers an example of how to connect across political entrenchment from a surprising ...

Scientists have created the world’s first working nanoscale electromotor, according to research published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The science team designed a turbine engineered from DNA that is powered by hydrodynamic flow inside a nanopore, a nanometer-sized hole in a membrane of solid-state silicon nitride. The tiny motor could help spark research into future applications such as building molecular factories for useful chemicals or medical probes of molecules inside the bloodstream to detect diseases such as cancer. “Common macroscopic machines become inefficient at the nanoscale,” said ...

General skills training programs for those hired under flexible arrangements can strengthen the relationship between firm and worker, thus benefiting both groups. But for that to happen, the programs need to have strong buy-in from both managers and workers. A new study published in Strategic Management Journal found the use of relational terms to frame training programs is key: Such phrasing makes managers more likely to promote the programs and increases uptake among the gig or contract workers. The research team included Thomaz Teodorovicz of Copenhagen Business School, Sérgio Lazzarini of Western ...