A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, finds that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be “early risers,” the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. All anatomically modern humans trace their origin to Africa around 300 thousand years ago, where environmental factors shaped many of their biological features. Approximately seventy-thousand years ago, the ancestors ...

Mice with human immune cells are a new way of testing anti-cancer drugs targeting the immune system in pre-clinical studies. Using their new model, the Kobe University research team successfully tested a new therapeutic approach that blindfolds immune cells to the body’s self-recognition system and so makes them attack tumor cells. Cancer cells display structures on their surface that identify them as part of the self and thus prevent them from being ingested by macrophages, a type of immune cell. Cancer immunotherapy aims at disrupting these recognition systems. Previous studies showed that a substance that blinds macrophages to one of ...

Batteries that exploit quantum phenomena to gain, distribute and store power promise to surpass the abilities and usefulness of conventional chemical batteries in certain low-power applications. For the first time, researchers including those from the University of Tokyo take advantage of an unintuitive quantum process that disregards the conventional notion of causality to improve the performance of so-called quantum batteries, bringing this future technology a little closer to reality. When you hear the word “quantum,” the physics governing the subatomic world, developments in ...

Do you celebrate your birthday in the same month as your mum?  If so, you are not alone. The phenomenon occurs more commonly than expected – a new study of millions of families has revealed.    Siblings also tend to share month of birth with each other, as do children and fathers, the analysis of 12 years’ worth of data shows, whilst parents are also born in the same month as one another more often than would be predicted.    Previous research has found that women’s season of ...

Bat numbers declined as Britain’s trees were felled for shipbuilding in the early colonial period, new research shows. The study, by the University of Exeter and the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT), found Britain’s Western barbastelle bat populations have dropped by 99% over several hundred years. Animals’ DNA can be analysed to discover a “signature” of the past, including periods when populations declined, leading to more inbreeding and less genetic diversity. Scientists used this method to discover the historic decline ...

Due to the merits of low cost, low installation requirements, and high-level safety, aqueous rechargeable batteries (ARBs) offer an ideal option for dealing with future energy-demand pressure. Traditional aqueous batteries are mostly concentrated on mono-valent metal-ion, such as Li+, Na+, and K+. Compared to mono-valent carriers, multivalent cations have the capability to transfer more than one electron, and thereby to potentially provide better energy storage. To date, aqueous multivalent ion batteries based on Zn2+ have received a lot of attention. However, the investigations on aqueous ...

Research led by Professor John McGrath from the University of Queensland found that the concentration of the C4 protein, an important part of the immune system, was not associated with risk of mental disorders.  However, the research also showed that a higher concentration of the C3 protein reduces the risk of schizophrenia in women, and studies based on the genetic correlates of C4 found strong links with several autoimmune disorders.   Professor John McGrath from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute said his colleagues at Aarhus University in Denmark looked at ...

A clinical trial reported in 2021 and conducted by a team of researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, showed that a newly designed therapeutic food aimed at repairing malnourished children’s underdeveloped gut microbiomes was superior to a widely used standard therapeutic food. Now, another study from the same research team at Washington University School of Medicine has identified key, naturally occurring biochemical components of this new therapeutic food and the important bacterial strains that process these ...

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Ochsner Health announces plans for The Gayle and Tom Benson Ochsner Children’s Hospital, made possible through a transformational gift from Mrs. Gayle Benson.   “We are proud to unveil much-anticipated plans for a new home for Louisiana’s No. 1 ranked children’s hospital,” said Pete November, CEO, Ochsner Health. “Ochsner is deeply grateful for Mrs. Benson and her unparalleled act of generosity, which will significantly impact the lives of countless families throughout Louisiana and the Gulf South. This facility will enable us to care for more children, retain and attract top pediatric physicians ...

The genetic alphabet contains just four letters, referring to the four nucleotides, the biochemical building blocks that comprise all DNA. Scientists have long wondered whether it’s possible to add more letters to this alphabet by creating brand-new nucleotides in the lab, but the utility of this innovation depends on whether or not cells can actually recognize and use artificial nucleotides to make proteins. Now, researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego have ...

A decades-long decline in smoking prevalence in England has nearly ground to a halt since the start of the pandemic, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in the journal BMC Medicine, looked at survey responses from 101,960 adults between June 2017 and August 2022. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, from June 2017 to February 2020, smoking prevalence fell by 5.2% a year, but this rate of decline slowed to 0.3% during the pandemic (from April 2020 to August 2022), the study ...

Fossil fuels are at the heart of most human activities, contributing to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and the ever-rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. CO2 levels are projected to increase exponentially in future, resulting in severe environmental and ecological impacts. A beacon of hope amidst this chaos are eco-friendly alternatives to fossil fuels. Green energy sources can be developed using advanced biotechnological techniques. One such intervention is the use of biorefineries or microbial cell factories, that convert biomass (organic matter like plants and solid waste) into energy and valuable by-products. The first (1G) ...

The personal yet global struggle with mental health may be more visible now than ever before. Yet many people still find it difficult to access the support they need. In Japan, suicide is sadly the leading cause of death for young people. Researchers, including from the University of Tokyo, have carried out a six-year study to better understand the myriad of factors which can impact adolescent mental health. After surveying 2,344 adolescents and their caregivers, and using computer-based deep learning to process the results, they were able to identify five categories which the young people could be grouped into. Nearly 40% of those involved were ...

Improving the mental health and wellness of Black Americans requires acknowledging and confronting systemic racism underlying the US political, social, and healthcare systems that create and maintain racial inequality in every aspect of life for Black people in the USA.  The new Series of three papers on Black mental health in the USA, plus an essay from Black Americans with lived experience, published inThe Lancet Psychiatry journal, outlines the overwhelming evidence for the role racism plays in producing, maintaining, and amplifying mental health disparities for Black Americans. Against this background, the authors call for a comprehensive analysis of the conditions and systems in ...

UK organisations responsible for protecting the public from prescription-only drug adverts are putting patients at risk from the harms of weight loss drugs by not enforcing the law, reveals an investigation published by The BMJ today. Legal responsibility for regulating adverts for medicines in the UK rests with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on behalf of health ministers. But there is also a system of self-regulation with a number of bodies operating their own codes of practice, including the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). But The BMJ has found that the MHRA has not issued a single sanction for prescription drugs in the last ...

Researchers at Sinai Health have unearthed vital information about the relationship between insulin levels after eating and long-term heart and metabolic health. The research upends the notion that insulin surge following food intake is a bad thing. On the contrary – it could be an indicator of good health to come. Led by Dr. Ravi Retnakaran, Clinician-Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, part of Sinai Health, the study set out to explore how insulin levels after meals impact cardiometabolic health. While past ...

Body dissatisfaction at age 11 is linked to increased risk of depression by age 14, finds a new longitudinal study led by UCL researchers. The findings, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, show that body image concerns explain a large proportion of an association between body mass index (BMI) and depression in children, particularly in girls. The study, supported by Wellcome, involved 13,135 participants of the Millennium Cohort Study, a UCL-led nationally representative birth cohort study of people born between 2000 and 2002. The researchers found that high BMI at age seven was linked with increased depressive symptoms (which can include low mood, loss of pleasure ...

A new study cautions against using the QbTest as a standalone diagnostic or screening tool for ADHD. Rather, the study authors highlight the intended use of the QbTest as a component of a full clinical assessment, since it could help clinicians reach faster diagnostic decisions and reduce waiting lists. Researchers from the Universities of Southampton, Nottingham, Cardiff, and King’s College London explored the accuracy and clinical utility of a widely used computerised test for Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), called the QbTest. They found that, when used on its own, QbTest is not good enough ...

Researchers at Texas A&M University have already shown that paternal drinking habits prior to conception can have a negative effect on fetal development — with semen from men who regularly consume alcohol impacting placenta development, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)-associated brain and facial defects, and even IVF outcomes. In an article published this month in Andrology, the lab of Dr. Michael Golding has now demonstrated that it takes much longer than previously believed, longer than a month, for the effects of alcohol consumption to leave the father’s ...

Using questionnaires created to determine whether a particular earthquake is natural or induced by human activity, a panel of experts concluded that the November 2022 magnitude 5.2 Peace River earthquake sequence in Alberta, Canada was likely to be induced. The case study published in Seismological Research Letters was a serendipitous test of two recent questionnaire-based frameworks established to distinguish natural and induced earthquakes, the latter of which are mostly caused by hydraulic fracturing or injected water disposal wells associated with oil and gas recovery. The Peace River ...

Humans can benefit significantly from symbiotic relationships with probiotics—live bacteria and microorganisms that influence the gut microbiota. When consumed in appropriate amounts, probiotics can promote gut health, support the immune system, and enhance metabolism. Probiotics, widely regarded as a treasure in the field of microbiology, are currently finding new applications in medicine, animal care, and the food industry. However, it is often challenging to use probiotics in their existing form, owing to varying effects ...

Synthetic biology is a growing discipline of science that involves redesigning naturally occurring organisms to express new, useful attributes.  These engineered organisms can be used to address issues unresolved by conventional methods.   Broad-host-range (BHR) synthetic biology is an emerging domain that aims to expand the pool of model hosts or ‘chassis,’ by utilizing the rich diversity of the naturally evolving microbial world. The chassis provides a platform for the expression of ...

By Courtney Price, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences Researchers at Texas A&M University have already shown that paternal drinking habits prior to conception can have a negative effect on fetal development — with semen from men who regularly consume alcohol impacting placenta development, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)-associated brain and facial defects, and even IVF outcomes. In an article published this month in Andrology, ...

New York, NY | December 13, 2023 – The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) has partnered with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign, an initiative to bring global awareness to the widespread issue of gender-based violence, a pervasive public health threat. The 16 Days campaign was launched in 1991 at the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute held by the Center for Global Women’s Leadership (CGWL), with the goal of raising awareness ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Superconducting technologies are the lifeblood of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in its ongoing mission to probe the quarks and gluons inhabiting the quantum universe. Superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) technology, a core competency of Jefferson Lab, is used to accelerate the fundamental electron particles in the lab’s Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, enabling researchers from around the world to conduct cutting-edge experiments to study the fundamental building blocks of matter. With the investment from DOE’s Office ...