Pumping over 100,000 times a day, the heart is a critical muscle needed to deliver oxygen and nutrients to our organs to sustain healthy bodily function. Unfortunately, heart failure affects an estimated 6.2 million people in the U.S. and a staggering 64 million worldwide. Of older patients with heart failure and abnormally thickened hearts, as many as one in five have an underdiagnosed, highly progressive and fatal condition called transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, or ATTR-CM. The disease, which can be hereditary or develop spontaneously, is defined by an accumulation of misfolded transthyretin ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA — A key chemical reaction — in which the movement of protons between the surface of an electrode and an electrolyte drives an electric current — is a critical step in many energy technologies, including fuel cells and the electrolyzers used to produce hydrogen gas. For the first time, MIT chemists have mapped out in detail how these proton-coupled electron transfers happen at an electrode surface. Their results could help researchers design more efficient fuel cells, batteries, or other energy technologies. “Our advance in this paper was studying and understanding the nature of how these electrons and protons couple ...

Scientists are making significant strides in the development of ultrabroadband white laser sources, covering a wide spectrum from ultraviolet to far infrared. These lasers find applications in diverse fields such as large-scale imaging, femto-chemistry, telecommunications, laser spectroscopy, sensing, and ultrafast sciences. However, the pursuit faces challenges, particularly in the selection of appropriate nonlinear mediums. Traditional solid materials, while efficient, are prone to optical damage under high peak power conditions. Gas mediums, though ...

A discovery from an experiment with magnets and lasers could be a boon to energy-efficient data storage. “We wanted to study the physics of light-magnet interaction,” said Rahul Jangid, who led the data analysis for the project while earning his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering at UC Davis under associate professor Roopali Kukreja. “What happens when you hit a magnetic domain with very short pulses of laser light?” Domains are areas within a magnet that flip from north to south poles. This property is used for ...

What makes a soldier switch sides? That is a really good question. Especially when the soldier is an antibody that is supposed to defend the body against one of the world's most dangerous snake venoms but instead ends up helping the venom kill the body. The question has become topical after a group of DTU researchers slightly changed how they tested an antibody that had previously proven promising as an antidote to snake venom. In the first experiment on mice, the damaging effect on muscle tissue from the venom of Bothrops Asper, ...

Just like a book can’t be judged by its cover, a material can’t always be judged by its surface. But, for an elusive conjectured class of materials, physicists have now shown that the surface previously thought to be “featureless” holds an unmistakable signature that could lead to the first definitive observation. Higher-order topological insulators, or HOTIs, have attracted attention for their ability to conduct electricity along one-dimensional lines on their surfaces, but this property is quite difficult to experimentally distinguish from other ...

Dr. Marcus D. Goncalves Inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation Dr. Marcus D. Goncalves, the Ralph L. Nachman, M.D. Research Scholar and an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been elected as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) for 2024. The ASCI is one of the nation’s oldest nonprofit medical honor societies and focuses on the unique role of physician-scientists in research, clinical care and medical education. It is comprised of more than 3,000 physician-scientists representing ...

Many cancers, including some types of breast cancer, are driven by alterations in the activity of cellular enzymes called kinases. Therapies that directly inhibit these cancer-promoting activities have proven to be effective for patients in which individual driving kinases can be diagnosed.  One major challenge to this therapeutic approach is to accurately quantify tumor kinases in human biopsy samples. Many kinases are not abundantly present and are therefore more difficult to measure accurately. Although currently there are methods to quantify small amounts of kinases, measuring multiple kinases ...

As part of our open science strategy, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) is pleased to announce our new partnership with OA Switchboard, a mission-driven, community led initiative designed to simplify the sharing of information between stakeholders about open access publications throughout the whole publication journey. “We’re thrilled to partner with the OA Switchboard to improve the visibility of the work we publish,” says Elaine Stott, Chief Executive Officer of CSP. “This initiative enables institutions, consortia and funders to report ...

Sustainable water management is an increasing concern in arid regions around the world, and scientists and regulators are turning to remote sensing tools like OpenET to help track and manage water resources. OpenET uses publicly available data produced by NASA and USGS Landsat and other satellite systems to calculate evapotranspiration (ET), or the amount of water lost to the atmosphere through soil evaporation and plant transpiration, at the level of individual fields. This tool has the potential to revolutionize water management, allowing for field-scale ...

Vanderbilt University Medical Center received a $13 million Department of Defense grant to lead a multisite clinical trial that will evaluate repurposed FDA-approved drugs as treatment options for patients with Rett syndrome.  Affecting 1 in 10,000 females at birth, and males even more rarely, Rett syndrome is a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorder that affects brain development.  “It robs affected individuals of the ability to use their hands or speak and causes problems with mobility, as well as a number of other issues,” said Jeffrey Neul, Annette Schaffer Eskind Professor, ...

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announces today that St. Jude Home Care LLC, a home health agency for the hospital’s patients, earned dual certifications in both pediatrics and home health from Community Health Accreditation Partners (CHAP), an independent, non-profit, accrediting body for home and community-based healthcare organizations. St. Jude Home Care LLC is the nation’s first agency to achieve that distinction. CHAP is the only organization in the U.S. that grants a discrete pediatric certification ...

Australian scientists have pinpointed likely ‘cells-of-origin’, the source cells that can grow into breast cancer, in women carrying a faulty BRCA2 gene who are at high risk of developing the disease. The WEHI-led study also showed these cells have potential to be targeted with an existing cancer drug to delay tumour growth, in findings that may lead to future preventive treatments for the disease. At a glance Women with faulty BRCA2 genes are at a substantially higher risk of developing breast ...

House fires, road crashes and emergency rescues – they’re all part of the job for Aussie firefighters. And in such physically demanding roles, maintaining a high level of fitness and movement quality is essential.   Now, new research from health and fitness experts at the University of South Australia shows that professional firefighters have reduced movement quality as they age, which could put them at greater risk of injury.   Conducted by UniSA masters researcher, Alex Redshaw, in partnership with the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS), the findings indicate that firefighters over the age of 50 generally have lower movement ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The image spoke for itself.  University at Buffalo computer scientist and deepfake expert Siwei Lyu created a photo collage out of the hundreds of faces that his detection algorithms had incorrectly classified as fake — and the new composition clearly had a predominantly darker skin tone. “A detection algorithm’s accuracy should be statistically independent from factors like race,” Lyu says, “but obviously many existing algorithms, including our own, inherit a bias.” Lyu, PhD, co-director of the UB Center for Information Integrity, and his team have now developed what they believe are the ...

In a collaboration between the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and Carilion Clinic, researchers learned that by preserving large superficial leg veins intended for coronary bypass grafting in a mixture of the anticoagulant heparin and blood, rather than heparin and saline, the veins were better protected from cell and tissue damage. Their findings, published in January in the Journal of Vascular Research, could inform surgical practices and enhance the long-term success of vein grafts in coronary bypass surgeries. “Ultimately, we're putting healthier blood vessels ...

You may not know it, but cows share information every time they burp, moo, and chew that speaks volumes about their health and welfare.  Through the work of researchers in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, we may soon know more about what cows are “telling” us and be able to use that information to improve their well-being. James Chen, an animal data sciences researcher and assistant professor in the School of Animal Sciences is using a $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department ...

By Greg Koller COLLEGE PARK, Md.— Allen Fawcett — an energy expert and economist who has played a leading role in formulating and coordinating U.S. climate policy — is the new director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute. Fawcett joined the Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 and, since 2012, served as the chief of EPA’s Climate Economics Branch, which advances the science of climate economics to inform policy. From 2010 to 2011, Fawcett took leave from EPA to serve as the deputy associate director for energy ...

Parents who have a child with cancer are more likely to attempt suicide during the first years after diagnosis, according to a new study conducted by Qianwei Liu of Southern Medical University, China, and colleagues, published January 16th in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. Receiving a cancer diagnosis for a child is an incredibly stressful and distressing experience for parents. These parents, especially mothers, face an increased risk of psychiatric disorders, but little is known about the risk of suicide. In the new study, researchers looked at the number of suicide attempts ...

New study from the University of Sheffield identifies a novel mechanism employed by breast cancer cells to survive in the challenging environment within tumours The findings provide a new insight into a previously unknown mechanism of cancer cell survival and may offer a new target for developing therapies The research found breast cancer cells take advantage of nutrients in the extracellular matrix in times of nutrient starvation Energy starved breast cancer cells ingest and consume their surroundings to overcome starvation, a new study has found.  The research, conducted by scientists at the University of Sheffield and published today (Tuesday 16 January ...

Researchers at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and their collaborators have been working on how to harness the power of the estimated 549 million Wifi hotspots worldwide, resulting in a project that used anonymized data gathered from free Wi-Fi to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on Hanoi’s wet markets during the first stage of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the paper “Using free Wi-Fi to assess impact of COVID-19 pandemic on traditional wet markets in Hanoi” published in December 2023 in the scientific journal Food Security, the researchers analyzed and interpreted mobile device tracking ...

As researchers around the world work to develop viable alternatives to fossil fuels, the prospect of nuclear fusion—harnessing the same energy-generating reactions that power the sun—has grown increasingly attractive to private equity firms. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a partnership with investors in the private sector to accelerate the development of fusion energy, in part through the development of a fusion pilot plant, or FPP, in the United States. The FPP and ITER—the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor, currently being ...

Hiding in the shadows, euglenoids are a fascinating group of single-celled protists that are neither plant nor animal. Plants photosynthesize, and animals eat. Euglenoids do both. Spiraling along the murky bottoms of shallow fresh-water ponds with their long flagella, they eat organic goop, while also using their chloroplasts to convert CO2 and water with light into sugars. Because of this in-between status, euglenoids have been placed close to the very base of the eukaryotic branch on the tree-of-life that includes ...

WASHINGTON - A mouse study designed to shed light on memory loss in people who experience repeated head impacts, such as athletes, suggests the condition could potentially be reversed. The research in mice finds that amnesia and poor memory following head injury is due to inadequate reactivation of neurons involved in forming memories. The study, conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, is reported January 16, 2024, in the Journal of Neuroscience. Importantly for diagnostic and treatment purposes, the researchers found that the memory loss attributed to head injury was not a permanent pathological event driven by ...

New research led by the University of Oxford indicates that human domestication of crops can alter the communities of microorganisms that are associated with plants. Intriguingly, independent domestication events were found to have similar impacts on the plant microbiome. The results have been published today in Current Biology. Lead researcher Dr Riccardo Soldan (Department of Biology, University of Oxford) said: 'Our study provides evidence that regardless of where and how domestication took place, domesticated ...