WASHINGTON—Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in plastics pose a serious threat to public health and cost the U.S. an estimated $250 billion in increased health care costs in 2018, according to new research published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society. Plastics contain many hazardous, endocrine-disrupting chemicals that leach and contaminate humans and the environment. These chemicals disturb the body’s hormone systems and can cause cancer, diabetes, reproductive disorders, neurological impairments of developing fetuses and children, and death. Potential options under discussion as part of a Global ...

Scientists have long known that some viruses and bacteria begin infections by latching first onto sugar molecules on the surfaces of cells lining the sinuses and throat of mammals, including humans. Viral particles, for instance, can attach to these molecules, called sialic acids, or SAs, like keys fitting into locks. Now, a new study in infant mice shows that keeping virus particles from attaching to SAs limits more than just the entry of influenza A viral infections, but also hinders their exit (shedding) and transmission from mouse to mouse. Such infections are the main cause of the seasonal flu that kills more than 36,000 Americans annually. While vaccines to guard ...

What if scientists had developed a universal coronavirus vaccine in the years prior to 2020 so that it was available at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? A universal coronavirus vaccine targets parts of the virus that are common to either many or all coronaviruses, thereby offering some degree of protection against a range of strains. A new study suggests if such a vaccine were available at the start of the pandemic, it could have saved millions of lives, prevented suffering, and saved billions of dollars in direct medical ...

WASHINGTON—The popular TikTok trend of ‘hormone balancing’ has taken over the internet with claims to balance your hormones with holistic approaches alone, but medical experts question its legitimacy. Endocrine Society expert Deena Adimoolam, M.D., will discuss ‘hormone balancing’ during the Society’s Virtual Science Writers Conference on January 24. What: The Virtual Science Writers Conference will examine: How hormones function and stay in balance  Common ...

Florida’s 156-mile-long Indian River Lagoon (IRL) borders five different counties and has five inlets that connect the lagoon with the Atlantic Ocean. In recent years, this estuary has experienced numerous phytoplankton bloom events due to increased seasonal temperatures coupled with environmental impacts. Algal blooms produce a myriad of small organic molecules, many of which can be toxic to humans and animals. Among these phycotoxin producers is Microcystis aeruginosa, a freshwater cyanobacterium, which can be found in the Southern IRL. Measurable amounts of microcystins have been found in nasal swabs ...

The effects of aging and external factors like UV exposure on skin are well documented. As people age or spend more time in the sun, their skin tends to become drier and more wrinkled, Recent findings have identified an exciting potential new link to signs of skin aging—the skin microbiome, the collection of microorganisms that inhabits our skin. The results come from a collaborative study carried out by researchers at the Center for Microbiome Innovation (CMI) at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and L'Oréal ...

What’s New: Register now to learn about the latest in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. Join us for scientific sessions and expert interviews. Thirteen sessions will be livestreamed. Why it matters: Stay up-to-date on subjects like COVID-19, asthma, COPD, and air pollution. We’ll assist you with conducting interviews, whether in-person or from your home office.   Contact Kevin Tuerff, ATS Communications & Marketing for more information, at ktuerff@thoracic.org END ...

ATLANTA – Chemical Insights Research Institute (CIRI) of UL Research Institutes confirmed its commitment to protecting environmental and human health when it opened its new research laboratories supporting scientific studies of environmental exposure and its societal health impact. At a ribbon cutting today, CIRI introduced the Center for Exposure Science; the Center for Toxicology and Human Health; and the Center for Advanced Measurements, each with a designated, cutting-edge laboratory. Using the latest tools for measuring nanosized particles and parts per billion levels of chemicals and developing high-throughput cellular techniques for measuring human toxicity, ...

The brain is widely considered the most complex organ in the human body. The intricate mechanisms through which it processes sensory information and how this information affects and is affected by motor control have captivated neuroscientists for more than a century. Today, thanks to advanced laboratory tools and techniques, researchers can use animal models to solve this puzzle, especially in the mouse brain. During the 20th century, experiments with anesthetized mice proved that sensory inputs primarily define neuronal activity in the primary ...

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the start of a period ripe with political, economic, and societal changes. In many former Soviet countries, these abrupt and turbulent transformations posed massive challenges to healthcare systems. Together with spikes in job losses and economic hardships, this led to a steep increase in mortality rates that would later come to be known as the “post-Soviet mortality crisis.”   However, this crisis did not affect all former Soviet countries equally. In particular, former Soviet countries in Central Asia, which include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, saw a ...

Every day, a significant amount of data related to weather, traffic, and social media undergo real-time processing. In traditional cloud computing, this processing occurs on the cloud, raising concerns about issues such as leaks, communication delays, slow speeds, and higher power consumption. Against this backdrop, “edge computing” presents a promising alternative solution. Located near users, it aims to distribute computations, thereby reducing the load and speeding up data processing. Specifically, edge AI, which involves AI processing at the edge, is expected to find applications in, for example, self-driving ...

Fukuoka, Japan—In a study published in Science Advances, a group of researchers led by Associate Professor Nobuhiro Yanai from Kyushu University's Faculty of Engineering, in collaboration with Associate Professor Kiyoshi Miyata from Kyushu University and Professor Yasuhiro Kobori of Kobe University, reports that they have achieved quantum coherence at room temperature: the ability of a quantum system to maintain a well-defined state over time without getting affected by surrounding disturbances This breakthrough was made possible by embedding a chromophore, ...

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Researchers have taken the first steps toward finding liquid solvents that may someday help extract critical building materials from lunar and Martian-rock dust, an important piece in making long-term space travel possible.   Using machine learning and computational modeling, Washington State University researchers have found about half a dozen good candidates for solvents that can extract materials on the moon and Mars usable in 3D printing. The work, reported in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B, is led by Soumik Banerjee, associate professor in WSU’s School of Mechanical ...

Where we live and work, our age, and the conditions we grew up in can influence our health and lead to disparities, but these factors can be difficult for clinicians and researchers to capture and address. A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham demonstrates that large language models (LLMs), a type of generative artificial intelligence (AI), can be trained to automatically extract information on social determinants of health (SDoH) from clinicians’ notes which could augment efforts to identify patients who may benefit from ...

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a neural implant that provides information about activity deep inside the brain while sitting on its surface. The implant is made up of a thin, transparent and flexible polymer strip that is packed with a dense array of graphene electrodes. The technology, tested in transgenic mice, brings the researchers a step closer to building a minimally invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) that provides high-resolution data about deep neural activity by using recordings from the brain surface. The work was published on Jan. 11 in Nature Nanotechnology. “We are expanding the spatial ...

Cities play a key role in climate change and biodiversity and are one of the most recognizable features of the Anthropocene. They also accelerate innovation and shape social networks, while perpetuating and intensifying inequalities. Today over half of all humanity lives in cities, a threshold which will rise to nearly 70% by the mid-21st century. Yet despite their importance for the Anthropocene, cities are not a recent phenomenon. In a new study, an interdisciplinary team of authors from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 10:00hrs GMT 11 January 2024 Peer reviewed Observational study People      First prehistoric person with Turner syndrome identified from the Iron Age Earliest known person with Jacob’s syndrome identified from Early Medieval Period Individuals with Klinefelter syndrome identified across a range of time periods New technique developed to measure number of chromosomes in ancient genomes more precisely Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, working with University of Oxford, University of York ...

Researchers have linked a decade-long decline in the blood lead levels of American Indian adults to long-term cardiovascular health benefits, including reduced blood pressure levels and a reduction in a marker associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and heart failure. The research team, supported by the National Institutes of Health, found that adults who had the greatest reductions in blood lead levels saw their systolic blood pressure fall by about 7 mm Hg, an amount comparable to the effects of blood pressure-lowering medication. Lead exposure is known to harm the health of children by damaging the brain and nervous system and slowing growth and development. It has also been associated ...

Through the Strong Heart Family Study, National Institutes of Health-supported researchers found that small declines in blood lead levelswere associated with long-term cardiovascular health improvements in American Indian adults. Participants who had the greatest reductions in blood lead levels saw their systolic blood pressure fall by about 7 mm Hg, an amount comparable to the effects of blood pressure-lowering medication.   The findings as reported from researchers at Columbia ...

A multi-national team of scientists (China, USA, New Zealand, Italy, and France) analyze the temperature of the Earth annually. These scientists have found a fever that increases every year. For the past decade, each year has been hotter than the prior year in the ocean. And there are other changes in the ocean that also matter. The ocean is an important part of the Earth's climate system – it covers 70% of the planet and absorbs about 90% of the heat from global warming. The ocean helps control the atmosphere – a warmer ocean leads to a warmer and moister atmosphere with wilder weather. The ocean also controls ...

In a new study, environmentally benign inverse-perovskites with high energy conversion efficiency have been reported by Tokyo Tech scientists with potential for practical application as thermoelectric materials (TEMs). Addressing the limitations typically faced with TEMs, such as insufficient energy conversion efficiency and environmental toxicity due to heavy elements, the new TEMs provide a suitable alternative to TEMs based on toxic elements with better thermoelectric properties than conventional eco-friendly TEMs.  Thermoelectric materials (TEMs) capable of converting thermal energy to electrical energy and vice versa have become an essential part of our world, which needs ...

Humans learn which behaviors pay off and which don’t from watching others. Based on this, we may draw conclusions about how to act – or eat. In the case of the latter, people may use each other as guides to determine what and how much to eat. This is called social modelling and is one of the most powerful social influences on eating behavior. In a new study, researchers in the UK investigated whether observing others’ facial expressions while eating raw broccoli influenced young women’s liking and desire to ...

Osaka, Japan – Approximately 5% of global carbon emissions are attributable to producing the chemicals that are essential to modern life. Creating a sustainable solution to one chemical reaction in particular – the autoxidation of aldehydes – has challenged researchers for decades. Now, in a study recently published in Green Chemistry, researchers from Osaka University, Shizuoka Institute of Science & Technology, and collaborating partners have solved this problem. Through reaction kinetics and mathematical ...

Controlling the direction of magnetization using low electric field is necessary for developing efficient spintronic devices. In spintronics, properties of an electron’s spin or magnetic moment are used to store information. The electron spins can be manipulated by straining orbital magnetic moments to create a high-performance magnetoelectric effect. Japanese researchers, including Jun Okabayashi from the University of Tokyo, revealed a strain-induced orbital control mechanism in interfacial multiferroics. In multiferroic material, the magnetic property ...

Study Finds Hospital Surfaces Can Harbor Harmful Microbes Even After Routine Disinfection Microbial contamination, including harmful pathogens, was found on bed rails, workstations, and other frequently-touched surfaces Arlington, Va. — January 11, 2024 — A new study published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) reports microbial contamination — including pathogenic and potentially pathogenic bacteria — on high-touch hospital surfaces despite compliance with recommended disinfection protocols. The findings shed light on the persistent challenge of reducing healthcare-associated infections ...