A new evaluation tool offers practical guidance for diagnosing an extreme form of social isolation known as hikikimori. The diagnostic evaluation tool was published online Sept. 15 with an accompanying letter by co-authors in the journal World Psychiatry. The tool is the first structured technique to evaluate people who suffer from a condition first recognized in young people in Japan, but believed to be widely shared in people of all ages across the globe. Known as the Hikikomori Diagnostic Evaluation, or HiDE, the tool provides practical guidance and specific ...

One explanation for why some species decline is that human modifications make existing habitat unsuitable for them. For other species, these modifications are advantageous and make the habitat available for them to expand into. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and the University of California Santa Barbara and the University of Rochester in the USA investigated the role that increased habitat availability might have played. They compared the rapidly expanding great-tailed grackle with their closest relative, the boat-tailed grackle, who are not ...

More than half of volunteer community health care workers in 19 countries experience labor exploitation, including sub-minimum-wage pay and excess work hours, Mount Sinai researchers report in the first systematic review of the subject. The researchers focused on two-tiered or dual-cadre programs, in which salaried community health workers work alongside a volunteer group of community health workers. The study, published in Lancet Global Health on September 19, provides a global estimate of the presence, prevalence, and magnitude of labor ...

Multi-storey buildings are assembled over cautiously to withstand wind strengths, researchers have found. This is because there are several difficulties in estimating damping – the method of removing energy in order to control vibratory motion like noise and mechanical oscillation, accurately in high-rise buildings The findings, published today in the journal Structures, addresses the draw back and were compiled by a team at the University of Bristol who studied the damping and natural frequency characteristics of a 150 m tall building in London (UK) obtained from the full-scale wind-induced responses using a minimal monitoring system. In general, the response ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01 BST WEDNESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2023 / 19:01 ET TUESDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2023 New study finds that most Rafflesia species, which produce the world’s largest flowers, face extinction. Lack of protection at local, national, and international levels means that remaining populations are under critical threat. Researchers propose an urgent action plan to save these remarkable flowers, building on local success stories. An international group of scientists, including botanists at the University of Oxford’s Botanic ...

Barcelona, Spain: Two out of the four internationally-recommended screening tools used by emergency medical services are inadequate for recognising sepsis, according to new research presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress today (Wednesday).   Mrs Silke Piedmont, a health scientist at the Department of Emergency Medicine Campus Benjamin Franklin Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Germany), and her colleagues from the University of Magdeburg and Jena (Germany), analysed data on 221,429 patients who were seen by emergency medical services (EMS) in Germany in 2016 outside of the hospital setting. They found that only one out of four ...

Is it an eagle? A birdie? No, it’s a gator.  The Rosenblatt Lab at the University of North Florida has recently published a study finding that living on a golf course dramatically changes alligator feeding habits.  The study suggests that land use changes can significantly alter the feeding habits of large predators. Changes in habitat and prey availability caused gators living on golf courses to have different dietary patterns and access to different prey communities compared to those living in natural habitats. As ...

New Haven, Conn. — Yale School of Nursing (YSN) embarks on its centennial year (Sept. 2023-May 2024) this month with a new dean as the school begins its next century of service. Azita Emami began her term Aug. 1 and will steer YSN through a slate of programming that reflects on 100 years of history while shaping the future of the nation’s most trusted profession. “We — all ...

PHILADELPHIA (September 19, 2023) – The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) has received a $1 million grant from the Bedford Falls Foundation – DAF, a donor-advised fund established by Philanthropists William (Bill) E. Conway Jr., co-founder and co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, and his wife, Joanne. The couple have given millions to support nursing education and scholarships to address the nation’s nursing workforce shortage. The $1 million grant to Penn Nursing will ...

Klebsiella pneumoniae (popularly known as KPC) is a little-known bacteria that causes a variety of afflictions, including pneumonia and UTIs, and which can be deadly.    “Hypervirulent” strains of the bacteria which cause severe infections, and their multidrug-resistant cousins, are beginning to evolve together, which has raised public health concerns. Now a team of Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) scientists have partnered with colleagues at ...

Images EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State University displayed some of its latest innovative research and introduced attendees to the mobility experts of tomorrow at the 2023 North American International Detroit Auto Show. MSU students and faculty — in partnership with the University Research Corridor, or URC, a cluster of three public research institutions in the state also including the University of Michigan and Wayne State University — presented current research related to ...

September 19, 2023 — Reflecting the need in anesthesiology to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), Anesthesia & Analgesia has devoted its entire October 2023 issue to these topics. This official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "The mission of Anesthesia & Analgesia states that the Journal exists for the benefit of current and future patients under the care of health care professionals engaged in the disciplines broadly related ...

Chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer is one of the major medical success stories of the 20th century, but it's far from perfect. Anyone who has been through chemotherapy or who has had a friend or loved one go through it will be familiar with its many side effects: hair loss, nausea, weakened immune system, and even infertility and nerve damage. This is because chemotherapy drugs are toxic. They're meant to kill cancer cells by poisoning them, but since cancer cells derive from healthy cells and are substantially similar to them, it is difficult to create a drug that kills them without also harming healthy tissue. But ...

Would you help a complete stranger in desperate need of money, based solely on their social media posts? Simon Fraser University professor and bioethicist Jeremy Snyder examines the complex dimensions of this question in his new book, Appealing to the Crowd: The Ethical, Political, and Practical Dimensions of Donation-Based Crowdfunding (Oxford University Press, 2023) which highlights how online crowdfunding – while helping to meet immediate needs – also impacts privacy and dignity, worsens inequalities, doesn’t solve systemic issues and most often, falls short of its goals. In ...

“This approach may allow clinicians to select the most effective therapeutic agents with real time in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma.”  BUFFALO, NY- September 19, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on September 15, 2023, entitled, “Real time ex vivo chemosensitivity assay for pancreatic adenocarcinoma.” Patient-derived organoids (PDOs) and xenografts (PDXs) have been extensively studied for drug-screening. However, their usage is limited due to lengthy establishment time, high engraftment failure rates and different tumor microenvironment ...

Empowering Employers Last year, Deep Longevity launched SenoClock, a B2B platform that grants easy access to aging clocks and an anti-aging recommendation engine. SenoClock has gained popularity among longevity clinics and consumer health companies and is releasing a major update SenoClock Gold that’ll enable any organization to adopt the anti-aging paradigm to improve the quality of life of their workforce. SenoClock highlights the drivers of the aging process in its end-users, and now offers a dynamic view of their progress. Forward-looking ...

UCF Scientist Looking at Role of Fats to Curb Graft-Versus-Host Disease in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Patients BY SUHTLING WONG  Every three minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, or myeloma – cancers of the blood, bone marrow, and lymph nodes.   Treatments for blood cancers often require hematopoietic stem cell transplants but such cells can launch a potentially deadly immunological attack on the patient’s organs called graft-vs-host ...

ITHACA, N.Y.- Though human-made ponds both sequester and release greenhouse gases, when added up, they may be net emitters, according to two related studies by Cornell University researchers. The studies begin to quantify the significant effects that both human-made and natural ponds have on the global greenhouse gas budget, measurements that aren’t well understood. “Global climate models and predictions rely on accurate accounting of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon storage,” said Meredith Holgerson, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell and senior ...

New research by Janelia scientists and collaborators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how a cluster of neurons in the fruit fly brain transforms memories about past rewards into actions, helping the fly navigate to find food. Like other insects, flies turn into the wind, or upwind, to locate the source of attractive odors. The fly’s olfactory system detects and senses odors carried by the wind, guiding the fly to the reward. In the fly, a brain region called the mushroom body processes and integrates olfactory information. Multiple compartments ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 19, 2023–A special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Health Equity titled “How Stakeholders Are Working to Advance Health Equity" covers the following areas: changing mindsets, promoting antiracism in health delivery systems, and promoting antiracism in health policy. Click here to read the issue now. Guest Editors of the special issue are Laurie Zephyrin, MD, MPH, MBA, Senior Vice President, Advancing Health Equity, The Commonwealth Fund; Claire-Cecile Pierre, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Community Health, ...

Whether light and fluffy or thin and flexible, bread holds an important place in many cultures and cuisines. And despite millennia of baking experience, scientists are still striving to improve this staple food. Below are some recent papers published in ACS journals that report insights into the quality, healthfulness and preparation of bread. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org. “Unraveling the Influence of Wheat Bran Chemical Composition, Lipolytic Enzyme Activities, and Phenolic Components on the Bread-Making Properties of Reconstituted Whole Wheat Flours” ACS Food Science & Technology Sept. 13, 2023 Whole-wheat bread contains ...

Near-eye displays are emerging as the future of portable devices, providing individuals with immersive virtual reality experiences. The primary objectives in developing these displays are to create immersive experiences and ensure visual comfort. While a larger field of view (FOV) enhances immersion in virtual reality, addressing the Vergence-Accommodation-Conflict (VAC) is crucial for comfortable vision. Researchers have explored innovative approaches to tackle these challenges. A significant breakthrough in near-eye displays is the integration of light field technology. However, earlier light field displays in VR were limited by their ...

Today, the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health was named one of 13 funded partners working alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish the Outbreak Analytics and Disease Modeling Network (OADM) – an important step towards creating a nationwide outbreak resource to support more effective responses during public health emergencies. Each funded partner will provide support in innovation, integration or implementation for outbreak analytics, disease modeling and forecasting. The Gillings ...

The U.S. National Science Foundation, UK Research and Innovation, and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada have jointly funded a new global center to address the emerging opportunity and challenge of “green ammonia” to provide clean energy and support food production while mitigating climate change. The Global Nitrogen Innovation Center for Clean Energy and the Environment (NICCEE), spearheaded by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) with key partners in the U.S. (New ...

Consumer confidence in driving hydrogen-fueled vehicles could be improved by having station operators adopt a predictive model that helps them anticipate maintenance needs, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Colorado State University (CSU). Stations shutting down for unscheduled maintenance reduces hydrogen fueling availability to consumers and may slow adoption of these types of fuel cell electric vehicles, the researchers noted. The use of what is known as a ...