SAN ANTONIO – Comprehensive profiling of fusion RNAs present in a large cohort of metastatic breast tumors revealed unique fusion mutations that may be therapeutically targetable, according to results presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held December 5-9, 2023. Fusion mutations occur when a portion of one gene becomes fused to a portion of another, which can create gene products with new functions. They are common in cancer types that are characterized by genomic rearrangements and structural damage to the DNA, including breast cancer. “Fusion RNAs may serve as ...

Data from Australian researchers could partly explain why a trial of a new drug for diabetes, was recently halted because it was found to be so effective. Importantly, the data also reveals how anti-obesity drugs like Ozempic, actually work, which to date have been a mystery. In early November the FLOW trial of the drug semaglutide on the progression of renal impairment in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease was halted ahead of schedule because of the drug’s efficacy. Part of the rationale for the cessation of the trial could be explained by ...

With the increase in the production of batteries for electric vehicles, demand is also rising for the necessary raw materials. In view of risks to the supply chain, environmental problems and precarious working conditions which are all associated with the mining and transportation of these materials, the recycling of battery materials has become an important issue in research, politics and industry. Prof. Stephan von Delft from the University of Münster (Germany) heads a team of researchers from the fields of science ...

In hopes of producing concrete structures that can repair their cracks, researchers from Drexel University’s College of Engineering are putting a new twist on an old trick for improving the durability of concrete. Fiber reinforcement has been around since the first masons were mixing horsehair into their mud. But the Drexel research team is taking this method to the next level by turning reinforcing fibers into a living tissue system that rushes concrete-healing bacteria to the site of cracks to repair the damage. Recently reported in the journal Construction ...

Ikoma, Japan – Antibodies (immunoglobulins) are Y-shaped proteins that recognize and neutralize specific pathogens. Their ability to target specific molecules or cells has made them promising candidates for future drug development. However, their light chains—parts of the antibody that contribute to recognizing and binding to specific antigens—misfold and aggregate, leading to amyloidosis, a condition that brings about complications and tissue dysfunction in the body. In the context of drug development, antibody aggregation can compromise their capacity to bind to antigens ...

LAWRENCE — Human beings first disturbed moon dust on Sept. 13, 1959, when the USSR’s unmanned spacecraft Luna 2 alighted on the lunar surface. In the following decades, more than a hundred other spacecraft have touched the moon — both crewed and uncrewed, sometimes landing and sometimes crashing. The most famous of these were NASA’s Apollo Lunar Modules, which transported humans to the moon’s surface to the astonishment of humankind. In the coming years, missions and projects already planned will change the face of the moon ...

Two-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, can exhibit some incredible properties, such as the ability to carry electric charge extremely efficiently, which could boost the performance of next-generation electronic devices.  But integrating 2D materials into devices and systems like computer chips is notoriously difficult. These ultrathin structures can be damaged by conventional fabrication techniques, which often rely on the use of chemicals, high temperatures, or destructive processes like etching. To overcome this challenge, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new technique to integrate 2D materials into devices in a single ...

Various digital platforms are becoming increasingly common in business-to-business (B2B) activities. They enable building competitiveness and boosting selling and buying. The platforms also offer different ways of building long-term customer relationships in B2B service sales. A recent study found that digital platforms are transforming traditional value chains based on linear value creation towards a platform-based, multi-sided, digital value network. “The network is administered and orchestrated by the platform owner, who must attract a sufficient number ...

Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, December 8, 2023 – Today, the Center for Cultural Heritage Technologies of the Italian Institute of Technology (CCHT-IIT), the University of Amsterdam/Rijksmuseum, and CNRS/École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay launch the first manifesto for sustainable conservation of cultural heritage. The manifesto aims to improve conservation practices and promote more sustainable and ecological methods in museum practices. During the COP28 in Dubai, the United Nations event on ...

Decade-long ocean warming which impacts ocean circulation, a decrease in oxygen levels that contributes to changes in salinification and nutrient supply, and ocean acidification are just some of the challenges the world’s oceans are facing. In 1988, a comprehensive sustained ocean time-series of observations, called the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS), began at a site about 80 km southeast of the island of Bermuda. There, scientists take monthly samples of the physics, biology, and chemistry of the ocean’s surface and depths. In a new paper published in Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers have now presented the latest findings from ...

Can AI save us from the arduous and time-consuming task of academic research collection? An international team of researchers investigated the credibility and efficiency of generative AI as an information-gathering tool in the medical field. The research team, led by Professor Masaru Enomoto of the Graduate School of Medicine at Osaka Metropolitan University, fed identical clinical questions and literature selection criteria to two generative AIs; ChatGPT and Elicit. The results showed that while ChatGPT suggested fictitious articles, Elicit was efficient, suggesting multiple references within a few minutes with the same level of accuracy as the researchers. “This ...

Research has found many challenges to medication adherence in people living with severe mental illness Talking to those with similar conditions on similar medication may offer more reassurance and useful advice The researchers worked with people with severe mental illness to better understand their lived experience. Researchers at Aston Pharmacy School have found that people with severe mental illness could benefit from peer support to help them manage their medication and improve their health and quality of life.  The study, which was set up to review the complexities ...

Lung cancer kills more people globally each year than any other type of cancer, however new Curtin University-led research has found less than five minutes of daily physical activity could be linked with prolonged life in people living with inoperable forms of the disease.   The team from Curtin School of Allied Health, Curtin enAble Institute and other research organisations measured the daily activity of 89 people living with inoperable lung cancer, from the time of their diagnosis.   They then compared the mortality rates after 12 months between those who engaged in more moderate-to-vigorous ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial of 154 individuals with chronic pain in methadone treatment for an opioid use disorder, relative to usual care, Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) plus usual care demonstrated efficacy for decreasing drug use, pain, and depression and increasing methadone treatment retention and adherence. Participants receiving MORE attended eight weekly, 2-hour telehealth groups that provided training in mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring in addition to usual care. Authors: Nina Cooperman, Psy.D., of ...

For the first time, a major group of international experts and patients have cooperated defining new parameters for the development of medicines to treat children and young people.  They make a series of recommendations on how the processes should be improved.  The work is published today in the peer-reviewed journal, The Lancet Psychiatry. The work was led by a group of experts from the Child and Adolescent Network of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), alongside representatives from the European Medicine Agency (EMA) and families ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Many people associate virtual reality headsets with interactive video games, but a researcher at the University of Missouri is using them for something far more important — helping autistic people navigate public transportation on college campuses. MU researcher Noah Glaser — in collaboration with Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor at the University of Georgia, and others — partnered with a program at the University of Cincinnati on a pair of studies geared toward providing autistic people virtual training opportunities to practice ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 7, 2023 — The elements above iron on the periodic table are thought to be created in cataclysmic explosions like the merger of two neutron stars or in rare classes of supernovae. New research suggests fission may operate in the cosmos during the creation of the heavy elements. Combing through data on a variety of elements that reside in very old stars, researchers have found a potential signature of fission, indicating that nature is likely to produce superheavy nuclei beyond the heaviest elements on the periodic table. “People have thought fission was happening in the cosmos, but ...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded The University of Texas at Arlington a $1.1 million grant to train and mentor three multi-level cohorts of interdisciplinary researchers in mathematical and computational techniques to address questions in cancer biology, computational neurology and vector-borne diseases. Led by Hristo Kojouharov, principal investigator and professor of mathematics, the research team plans to recruit and mentor nine undergraduate students, six doctoral students and two postdoctoral researchers. Joining ...

The entire country faced record high temperatures in the summer of 2023, along with record numbers of heat-related illnesses. But towering above rural and suburban records were the urban heat islands—bubbles of heat that surround cities, increasing the experienced temperature by up to five degrees Celsius (eight degrees Fahrenheit). “Urbanization drastically changes the landscape,” said Associate Professor Nick Zhou, a materials scientist specializing in sustainable building systems. “Most urban land is covered ...

SYDNEY, Dec. 8, 2023 – Vocal fry has a bad reputation in American English. A subtype of creaky voice, a feature of speech that sounds gravelly and pulselike, this manner of speech is sometimes used to form judgment about the speaker. In many languages, the creaky tone changes the meaning of words, exhibited in Lango spoken in South Sudan or Jalapa Mazatec spoken in Mexico. Hannah White and her Department of Linguistics colleagues at Macquarie University researched how creaky voice is reflected in Australian English used in Sydney, and what factors influence its prevalence. She will present ...

Artificial intelligence models that pick out patterns in images can often do so better than human eyes — but not always. If a radiologist is using an AI model to help her determine whether a patient’s X-rays show signs of pneumonia, when should she trust the model’s advice and when should she ignore it?  A customized onboarding process could help this radiologist answer that question, according to researchers at MIT and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. They designed a system that teaches a user when to collaborate with an AI assistant. In ...

In a major stride toward revolutionizing indoor navigation, a City College of New York-led team has developed groundbreaking technology that could chart real-time paths, delivering users—both sighted and low vision—a seamless and accurate indoor navigation experience complete with turn-by-turn guidance. The invention has earned a U.S. patent  titled "System and Method for Real-time Indoor Navigation." The innovation is the brainchild of the City College-based CUNY Computational Vision and Convergence Laboratory (CCVCL) headed by Zhigang ...

The U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University will partner with Colorado State University (CSU), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and other institutions in the creation of two inertial fusion science and technology hubs that were announced today by the DOE.  Following on last year’s fusion ignition breakthrough at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, the hubs aim to accelerate foundational inertial fusion research and technology development toward a potential clean and abundant energy source. In total, $42 million was awarded to collaborations between universities, ...

Twitch. Some see it as a fun online community of gamers and good-natured e-sports fandom. For others, it’s a perilous stream of potentially toxic content and hate speech.   In the ever-evolving landscape of digital communication, the real-time nature of messages on live-stream platforms like Twitch and YouTube Live brings with it unique challenges for content moderation. At present, effective tools for moderating content in live streams are lacking because existing models have been trained on non-real-time social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Research Assistant Dong-Ho Lee and Principal Scientist Jay Pujara, ...

URBANA, Ill. – When farmers harvest their grain, they can choose to sell it right away or store it to obtain better prices later in the season. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explores how Illinois corn and soybean producers make those decisions and why the cost-benefit evaluation of storage may differ across farms. Agricultural commodity prices fluctuate in response to changes in supply and demand, which depends on the stockpile of grain inventories around the country — but economists don’t really don't know how farmers decide to sell versus store their grain. “Economic theory provides guidance that Extension ...