Genomic analyses reveal illegal pangolin trafficking routes from origins in Africa to markets in Asia, researchers report. The approach offers new opportunities to monitor pangolin poaching in near real-time, allowing for targeted and more effective anti-trafficking measures. The illegal wildlife trade is a significant driver of global biodiversity loss. Of all the species poached and traded, the white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) is the world’s most trafficked mammal and is at risk of extinction. Pangolins are in high demand in Asia because their scales are believed, without scientific support, ...

Combining a flexible solar cell with an electrocaloric device, researchers have created solar-powered clothing that allows the body to adapt dynamically to changes in ambient temperature, according to a new study. The new device could help guarantee the safety and comfort of the human body amid fluctuating environmental temperatures and even extend survivability in extreme environments, like those in outer space or other planets. Clothing is the most common way humans regulate their body temperature relative to the environment. However, it is normally focused on keeping an individual either warm or cool. The ability of clothing to ...

Supernovae–stellar explosions as bright as an entire galaxy–have fascinated us since time immemorial. Yet, there are more hydrogen-poor supernovae than astrophysicists can explain. Now, a new Assistant Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) has played a pivotal role in identifying the missing precursor star population. The results, now published in Science, go back to a conversation the involved professors had many years ago as junior scientists. Some stars do not simply die down, but explode in a stellar blast that could outshine ...

The ‘Nature Restoration Law’ (NRL) requires member states of the EU to implement restoration measures on at least 20 per cent of land and marine areas by 2030, and in all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. This includes specific targets to rewet peatlands and to increase pollinator populations. The NRL has already overcome various hurdles: most recently, it was approved by the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee, after delegations of the Parliament and the Council negotiated the final text. But will the regulation really achieve its aims? The authors, including scientists leading large European projects on ...

Philadelphia, December 14, 2023 – The updated Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS)/Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology (CAIC) antiplatelet therapy guidelines for primary and secondary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) provide recommendations based on the latest randomized evidence available in the literature. Updated by a panel of national experts, these new evidence-based guidelines appear in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier. ASCVD, also known as ischemic heart disease (coronary artery ...

A new Rice University study of the remains of prehistoric and modern African antelopes found that AI technology accurately identified animals more than 90% of the time compared to humans, who had much lower accuracy rates depending on the expert. Composite images of teeth from five different antelope tribes analyzed and identified by artificial intelligence. Photo courtesy of Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo. Identifying these animals and their habits helps paint a broader picture of ancient ecosystems, and with the assistance of this new technology, it can be done with more speed and accuracy than previously done by paleontologists, ...

As church membership declines across the United States, a new study from Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance finds that working women do not feel supported by their clergy and churches, regardless of whether they’re involved with a more conservative or liberal congregation. “The Limits of Congregational Support for Working Women” is part of a larger study of faith at work funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. It ...

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation’s largest nutrition program, helping 41 million participants afford “nutritious food essential to health and well-being.” But a new study from the University of Notre Dame found that SNAP participants in low-income households may not be able to meet the nutrition levels set by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). The case study set out to examine whether SNAP participants would be able to afford a healthy diet based on DGA’s recommended nutritional values. The DGA was created by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human ...

BOSTON – The global COVID-19 vaccination campaign saved an estimated 20 million lives. However, while current COVID-19 vaccines provide protection against developing severe disease, they do little to prevent infection and transmission. Findings published in the journal Nature by physician-scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and colleagues suggest that it may be possible to improve protection against COVID-19 by delivering the vaccine directly to the respiratory tract— the primary site of entry in SARS-CoV-2 infection. “The ...

In the fatal world of opioid use disorder (OUD), pharmacotherapy, or using a prescribed medication to treat drug dependence, has emerged as the gold standard of treatment. Among the trio of FDA-approved medications to treat OUD, buprenorphine is the newest highly effective drug that can suppress and reduce cravings for opioids. It is also the first medication that physicians can prescribe without requiring a special waiver from the DEA, enabling outpatient use and substantially increasing treatment accessibility.  Despite its widespread usage, with 1 million buprenorphine prescriptions filled in 2018, it is not without side effects. When taken sublingually (under ...

Thursday Dec. 14, 2023, Toronto – Does thinking about faith make religious people more likely to take leaps? A new study lead by York University’s Faculty of Health says yes, finding that participants were more likely to take risks when thinking about God as a benevolent protector.   “While the theoretical link between a belief in God and risk taking has been around for a while, the methods previous studies employed to test this weren’t the strongest, based on current best ...

Dr. Aditya Bardia, a renowned breast medical oncologist and physician scientist who specializes in developing novel targeted and personalized therapies, has joined the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center where he will assume several leadership roles across the institution. These will include the directorship of the Breast Cancer Clinical and Research Programs and the position of assistant chief of Translational Research in the division of hematology/oncology, department of medicine. He will also be named director of Translational Research Integration and co-director ...

Research published today in Nature sheds light on a small part of the so-called “dark genome” — the 98 per cent of the human genome whose biological function is largely not known.  In the study, an international multidisciplinary team reported the first high-resolution images and structural details of a genetic element known as LINE-1 (video here), which inserts itself into the human genome and is implicated in diseases such as cancer, autoimmune disorders and neurodegeneration, and even aging. The work provides a target for ...

Quantum information scientists are always on the hunt for winning combinations of materials, materials that can be manipulated at the molecular level to reliably store and transmit information. Following a recent proof-of-principle demonstration, researchers are adding a new combination of compounds to the quantum materials roster. In a study reported in ACS Photonics, researchers combined two nanosized structures — one made of diamond and one of lithium niobate — onto a single chip. They then sent light from the diamond ...

In the frigid seas halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, two types of animals browse the palatable vegetation of a high-tundra archipelago, munching on thick moss, cropped grasses and low-lying shrubs. New research from a group led by Matteo Petit Bon from the Quinney College of Natural Resources is working to untangle the ecosystem impacts that two major players — geese and reindeer — have on a changing and vulnerable Arctic system. Reindeer have been year-round residents on the islands of Svalbard for thousands of years, but at one point were almost completely gone. Svalbard ...

Hurricanes and other extreme weather events often affect disadvantaged communities more severely, and extended power outages are some of the most harmful effects. Concerns over the intensification of hurricanes has led to new environmental justice policies that aim to mitigate the unequal impacts of major storms. Now, policy experts and engineers are directing their attention toward illuminating the causes. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology sought to investigate whether socioeconomically vulnerable households experienced longer power outage durations after extreme weather events. The team analyzed data from the top eight major Atlantic hurricanes between 2017 ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has created the Center for AI @PNNL to coordinate the pioneering research of hundreds of scientists working on a range of projects focused on science, security and energy resilience.   Researchers at PNNL were among the first to dive into artificial intelligence decades ago. But AI has surged in the past year with the ready availability of generative AI, which allows almost anyone to produce sophisticated—though sometimes errant—text and images with just a small amount of data. At the same time, AI is a vital tool for ...

USD$200,000 awarded to tackle today’s pressing consumer technology demands Utilizing smart optical sensors for IoT Providing more realistic virtual and augmented realities WASHINGTON – The Optica Foundation today released more detailed information on information technology research funded by the 2023 Optica Foundation Challenge. Researchers Zaijun Chen, University of Southern California, USA, and Alejandro Velez-Zea, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, both proposed novel approaches to addressing the flow of data and information in consumer-centric technologies. “The ...

Certain facial features—like downturned lips and a heavy brow—are known to make someone appear untrustworthy to others, even though these do not indicate a person’s actual character. Such facial biases influence our everyday social interactions as well as high-stakes decisions, including who we hire, or elect to political office. But a new study by Columbia researchers shows that the effects of these judgments can be mitigated. The study outlines the results of four experiments that the authors conducted with 1,400 volunteers. Through those experiments, the researchers found that when real-world defendants have facial features that appear untrustworthy, they are more likely ...

Photolithography involves manipulating light to precisely etch features onto a surface, and is commonly used to fabricate computer chips and optical devices like lenses. But tiny deviations during the manufacturing process often cause these devices to fall short of their designers’ intentions. To help close this design-to-manufacturing gap, researchers from MIT and the Chinese University of Hong Kong used machine learning to build a digital simulator that mimics a specific photolithography manufacturing process. Their technique utilizes real data gathered from the photolithography system, so it can more ...

Arctic seals have evolved many adaptations to cope with their frosty environment—one that you might not immediately think of is the bones in their nasal cavity. Arctic seals have more convoluted nasal passages than seal species that live in milder environments, and researchers report December 14 in the Biophysical Journal that these structures help the seals more efficiently retain heat and moisture as they breathe in and out. “Thanks to this elaborate structure in their nasal cavities, Arctic seals lose less heat through nasal heat exchange than subtropical seals when both are exposed to the same ...

Aging poses a number of challenges to the body’s well-being, one of the most important being an increased susceptibility to multiple diseases, including urinary tract infections (UTIs). The connection between aging and more prevalent UTIs is not well understood, but now researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have found an explanation. The researchers show in the journal Developmental Cell that, compared to the younger counterpart, the aging urinary tract in animal models changes how it functions at the cellular level in ways that seem to favor the establishment ...

People who live in neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty and unemployment are less likely to fill their heart-failure drug prescriptions than those living in wealthier areas, a new study shows. The findings not only add to understanding geographic and economic disparities in heart disease care, but also point to new ways to address barriers for patients taking these lifesaving drugs. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study explored prescription pickup patterns among patients with systolic heart failure, a chronic, life-threatening ...

Cats tend to dictate games of fetch with their owners and most cats who play fetch learned to do so without explicit training, according to a survey of 924 cat owners published in Scientific Reports. The findings also highlight the variety of objects that cats prefer to fetch, including hair ties and bottle parts. Jemma Forman, Elizabeth Renner and David Leavens surveyed cat owners who reported fetching behaviours in 1,154 cats that they currently or previously owned. Owners reported how fetching first occurred, how often it occurs ...

A multidisciplinary study published in Nature has elucidated the structure of the machinery responsible for writing much of our “dark genome” — the 98 percent of our DNA that has largely unknown biological function. These results may spur entirely novel treatments for autoimmune diseases, cancer and neurodegeneration. An international team of scientists from Rutgers and more than a dozen other institutions, including both academia and industry, have published the first high-resolution images and structural details of avirus-like element known as LINE-1. They describe it as “an ancient genetic parasite” that is one of the most common parts of human DNA (video ...