In a survey study comparing Ukrainian refugees living in Kraków, Poland with those farther away from Ukraine in Vienna, Austria, those in Vienna tended to have higher education levels, more prior work experience, and greater willingness to remain in their new area of residence. Judith Kohlenberger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 20, 2023. Since Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022, nearly 8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. These refugees often tend to be female, in their mid- to late 30s, and more highly educated than the average ...

Having high cholesterol and high blood pressure before the age of 55 has a lasting impact on your risk of heart disease in later life - even if you subsequently lower your levels ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295004 Article Title: Association between systolic blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol with coronary heart disease according to age Author Countries: Australia, UK Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Women's risk of infertility increases by 3% for every extra 1cm of waist measurement, though physical activity may be protective, finds US epidemiological study ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295360 Article Title: Association between waist circumference and female infertility in the United States Author Countries: China Funding: JK received the funding from the Science and Technology Project of Huizhou (http://sti.huizhou.gov.cn/). Grant number: 2022CZ010016. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. END ...

An international team of scientists has found the first direct evidence linking seemingly random weather systems in the ocean with climate on a global scale. Led by Hussein Aluie, an associate professor in the University of Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and staff scientist at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, the team reported their findings in Science Advances. The ocean has weather patterns like what we experience on land, but on different time and length scales, says lead author Benjamin Storer, a research associate in Aluie’s Turbulence and Complex Flow Group. A weather pattern on land might last ...

In general, frogs’ teeth aren’t anything to write home about—they look like pointy little pinpricks lining the upper jaw. But one group of stream-dwelling frogs in Southeast Asia has a strange adaptation: two bony “fangs” jutting out of their lower jawbone. They use these fangs to battle with each other over territory and mates, and sometimes even to hunt tough-shelled prey like giant centipedes and crabs. In a new study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers have described a new species of fanged frog: the smallest one ever discovered. “This new species is tiny compared to other fanged frogs on the island where ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Acute spinal cord injury (SCI) patients lose body weight and muscle mass, despite being on a high-calorie diet while in the intensive care unit. Their muscle wasting is substantial and extends beyond what can explained by inactivity or denervation (loss of nerve supply) alone. Research led by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine published in the journal Science Translational Medicine sheds new light and decodes early muscle loss after SCI to provide an unprecedent first understanding that muscle wasting is: rapid ...

The world’s top fossil fuel firms subtly reset online conversations about climate change by ignoring discussions of extreme weather in favour of sharing praise for their own sustainability work, according to a new research paper in Nature’s npj | Climate Action series. Over half a million social media posts on X (formerly Twitter) were studied using artificial intelligence-assisted language/rhetoric analysis to reveal how fossil fuel companies, intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) interact online in conversations about climate change, including responses to climate change-related ...

Philadelphia, December 20, 2023 – India—with a dairy sector mainly composed of small dairy farms—is one of the largest milk producers in the world and home to more dairy cows than any other country. Its small farms feed millions and are critical sources of employment, income, and nutrition. As the dairy sector works toward reducing its emissions and contributing to global sustainability goals, a new study in the Journal of Dairy Science is illuminating the steps these valuable small dairy farms can take to lower their carbon footprints while providing enormous economic and nutritional benefits. The study’s lead investigator, Anjumoni Mech, PhD, of the Indian ...

December 20, 2023-- Several key public health occupations are lacking a Standard Occupational Classification code (SOC), including disease intervention specialist, public health nurse, policy analyst, and program manager, and without valid SOC matches and detailed data on local and state government health departments, the U.S. Department of Labor’s data cannot be used to count the number of public health workers serving as our nation’s frontline biodefense. Without that basic information, our nation will ...

The MIT Press is thrilled to announce a groundbreaking partnership with the European Sociological Association (ESA), marking a significant step forward in the world of academic open access publishing. We are proud to welcome European Societies and European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology to MIT Press as premier diamond open access publications, with new issues commencing in 2025.   Lígia Ferro, President of the European Sociological Association, notes that the decision to leave Taylor & Francis to publish open access with the ...

The number of people affected by tropical cyclones has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2019, reaching nearly 800 million people in 2019, according to a new study.   While more people are affected by tropical cyclones in Asia than any other region, every affected world region saw an increase in the number of people exposed to tropical cyclones, which are expected to become more intense and possibly more frequent as the climate warms.   “Although our study period is not sufficiently long to understand long-term trends, we observe a steady increase in both population and person-days exposure for ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—A common carbon compound is enabling remarkable performance enhancements when mixed in just the right proportion with copper to make electrical wires. It’s a phenomenon that defies conventional wisdom about how metals conduct electricity. The findings, reported December 2023 in the journal Materials & Design, could lead to more efficient electricity distribution to homes and businesses, as well as more efficient motors to power electric vehicles and industrial equipment. The team has applied for a patent for the work, which was supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Materials ...

As climate change drives more frequent and intense weather, finding new ways to adapt can be a matter of life or death. A new Stanford-led study reveals a steady increase in the number of people at risk from tropical cyclones and the number of days per year these potentially catastrophic storms threaten health and livelihoods. The findings could help relief agencies, development banks, and other organizations plan more effective strategies for mitigating extreme weather impacts. “Understanding the demographics of populations exposed to cyclones is crucial for understanding evolving risks,” said study lead author Renzhi Jing, a postdoctoral ...

Bonn, December 20, 2023 - Prof. Mark Coburn and PD Dr. Ana Kowark from the Department of Anesthesiology and Operative Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) have conducted the largest randomized study to date on the effect of preoperative, orally administered midazolam in older patients. Placebo-controlled, the physicians revealed that midazolam does not impair patient satisfaction and safety when used in low doses. The results were published today in the renowned journal JAMA Surgery.   Midazolam is a sedative from the benzodiazepine group. It is sometimes used in anesthesia to calm patients before an operation. "Despite ...

The intricate process of duplicating genetic information, referred to as DNA replication, lies at the heart of the transmission of life from one cell to another and from one organism to the next. This happens by not just simply copying the genetic information; a well-orchestrated sequence of molecular events has to happen at the right time. Scientists around Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla from Helmholtz Munich have recently uncovered a fascinating aspect of this process known as "replication timing" (RT) and how special this is when life commences. The new results are now published in Nature. ...

A mineral found on the surface of Mars offers potential to create sustainable energy  Uses ‘waste’ product from recent NASA research to create transformative nanomaterials Findings could play role in shaping sustainable habitation on the red planet – and clean energy production back home Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered the transformative potential of Martian nanomaterials, potentially opening the door to sustainable habitation on the red planet.  Using resources and techniques currently applied on the International Space Station and by NASA, Dr Conor Boland, a Lecturer in Materials Physics at the University of Sussex, led a ...

  Three winners have been selected in the 2023 Faces of Biology Photo Contest, sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB).  “Photography is an effective tool to help communicate the process of scientific research,” said Scott Glisson, CEO of AIBS. “This contest provides a visual forum for expression, inspiration, and technical skill that can have a positive impact on how the public views research and science. The competition showcases, in a personal way, biological research in its many forms and settings. With the images, we ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Using a type of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, MIT researchers have discovered a class of compounds that can kill a drug-resistant bacterium that causes more than 10,000 deaths in the United States every year. In a study appearing today in Nature, the researchers showed that these compounds could kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) grown in a lab dish and in two mouse models of MRSA infection. The compounds also show very low toxicity against human cells, making them particularly good drug candidates. A key innovation of the new study is that the researchers were also able to figure out ...

The mammalian nose is a work of evolutionary art. Its millions of nerve cells, each tailored with just one of thousands of specific odor-chemical receptors encoded in the genome, can collectively distinguish a trillion distinct scents. Those sensations, in turn, inform many behaviors, from assessing food options to discerning friends from foes to sparking memories.  Today, in the journal Nature, a research team led by scientists at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute describes a previously undetected mechanism in mice—starring the genetic molecule RNA—that could explain how each sensory cell, or neuron, in mammalian noses becomes tailored to detect a specific ...

About The Study: Compared with prior decades, the number of new dermatologic drug approvals by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) increased between 2012 and 2022. Nearly half of these drugs were considered first in class or first in indication, and several were deemed clinically useful or to have high added therapeutic benefit by health technology assessment organizations in Germany, Canada, or France. Authors: Ravi Gupta, M.D., M.S.H.P., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine ...

Taking inspiration from the human brain, researchers have developed a new synaptic transistor capable of higher-level thinking. Designed by researchers at Northwestern University, Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the device simultaneously processes and stores information just like the human brain. In new experiments, the researchers demonstrated that the transistor goes beyond simple machine-learning tasks to categorize data and is capable of performing associative learning. Although previous studies have leveraged similar strategies to develop brain-like computing devices, those transistors cannot function outside cryogenic temperatures. The new ...

About The Study: This pilot pragmatic clinical trial included 243 homebound older adults with self- or proxy-reported dementia found a lower although nonsignificant likelihood of nursing home placement among those receiving daily-delivered meals compared with those receiving drop-shipped frozen meals. While this study was not powered to detect meaningful, statistically significant differences in nursing home placement, its feasibility and initial results warrant exploration in an adequately powered trial.  Authors: Kali S. Thomas, Ph.D., of the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island, is the corresponding author.   To access the embargoed ...

The human brain continues to be built after we are born for far longer than previously recognized, suggests research by Shawn Sorrells, assistant professor of neuroscience in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. Sorrells’s research on postnatal brain development, published today inthe journal Nature, shines light on fundamental processes that contribute to the development of important brain functions, such as learning, memory and spatial navigation. The new research suggests that a subset of inhibitory neurons within the entorhinal cortex, or EC -- an area of the brain essential for forming memories -- continue ...

In less time than it will take you to read this article, an artificial intelligence-driven system was able to autonomously learn about certain Nobel Prize-winning chemical reactions and design a successful laboratory procedure to make them. The AI did all that in just a few minutes — and nailed it on the first try. "This is the first time that a non-organic intelligence planned, designed and executed this complex reaction that was invented by humans," says Carnegie Mellon University chemist and ...

Alloys, which are materials such as steel that are made by combining two or more metallic elements, are among the underpinnings of contemporary life. They are essential for buildings, transportation, appliances and tools — including, very likely, the device you are using to read this story. In applying alloys, engineers have faced an age-old trade-off common in most materials: Alloys that are hard tend to be brittle and break under strain, while those that are flexible under strain tend to dent easily. Possibilities for sidestepping that trade-off arose about 20 years ago, when researchers first developed medium- and high-entropy alloys, stable materials that combine ...