Combining data from full-body x-ray images and associated genomic data from more than 30,000 UK Biobank participants, researchers have helped illuminate the genetic basis of human skeletal proportions. The findings not only provide new insights into the evolution of the human skeletal form and its role in musculoskeletal disease, but they also demonstrate the utility of using population-scale imaging data from biobanks to understand both disease-related and normal physical variation among humans. Of all primates, humans are the only ones to have evolved to be normally bipedal, an adaptation that may have facilitated the use of tools and accelerated cognitive development. ...

Using artificial intelligence to analyze tens of thousands of X-ray images and genetic sequences, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and New York Genome Center have been able to pinpoint the genes that shape our skeletons, from the width of our shoulders to the length of our legs. The research, published as the cover article in Science, pulls back a curtain on our evolutionary past and opens a window into a future where doctors can better predict patients’ risks of developing conditions such as back pain or arthritis in later life. “Our research is a powerful demonstration of the impact of AI in medicine, particularly when it comes to analyzing ...

Immune systems develop specific genes to combat common bacteria such as those found in food, new research shows. Previous theories have suggested that antimicrobial peptides – a kind of natural antibiotics – have a general role in killing a range of bacteria. However, the new study, published in Science, examined how the immune systems of fruit flies are shaped by the bacteria in their food and environment. The researchers, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Exeter, found two peptides that each control a single bacterial species commonly encountered by the flies. “We know that an animal’s food and environment ...

NEW YORK, NY--Perhaps the most profound advance in primate evolution occurred about 6 million years ago when our ancestors started walking on two legs. The gradual shift to bipedal locomotion is thought to have made primates more adaptable to diverse environments and freed their hands to make use of tools, which in turn accelerated cognitive development. With those changes, the stage was set for modern humans. The genetic changes that made possible the transition from knuckle-based scampering in great apes to upright walking in humans have now been uncovered in a new study by researchers ...

Led by Director CHANG Sukbok, scientists from the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalizations within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have made a breakthrough in understanding the structure and reactivity of a key intermediate in catalytic reactions. This intermediate, known as a transition metal-nitrenoid, plays a crucial role in converting hydrocarbons into amides, which are important in pharmaceuticals and materials science. In chemical reactions, intermediates are substances that are formed and consumed during the transformation of reactants into products. Hence, understanding these intermediates ...

Microbial communities are widely used biotechnology suppliers for processes like manufacturing biofuels and new foods, or helping crops grow better. To engineer successful communities, scientists need to predict whether microorganisms can live and work together. One popular predictive rule states that if a pair of microbes will coexist, they will also coexist in a bigger community of microbes. A study published in Science now found that this simple rule will not always work. Just like plants and animals, microorganisms live in complex ecological communities consisting of multiple species that ...

LOGAN, UTAH, USA -- New analysis of samples collected from underneath Greenland’s ice sheet reveal the Arctic island was much greener as recently as 416,000 years ago. The findings overturn previous views that Greenland’s continental glacier, which covers about 80 percent of the 836,3000-square-mile land mass, has persisted for the last two and a half million years. “We’re discovering the ice sheet is much more sensitive to climate change than we previously thought,” says Utah State University geoscientist ...

Oak Brook, IL – The July 2023 issue of SLAS Discovery, the open access journal focused on research progressing drug discovery, is now available. Volume 28, Issue 5, contains one short communication and four full-length articles covering assay quality metrics, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and small molecule glycomimetics and other high-throughput screening-related research. Full-length articles Mathematical relationships between control group variability and assay quality metrics Authored by early ...

The world's computing needs have grown exponentially in recent years due to an explosion of technology. To meet the needs for the next technological leap, the scientific community is working to improve current processing capabilities and simultaneously develop entirely new computing methods. Two new papers from the research group of Jean Anne Incorvia, a professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Chandra Family of Electrical and Computer Engineering, aim to contribute to both of these scientific needs. Together, they offer improvements ...

A new study published in Gastroenterology aims to improve the effectiveness of screening and surveillance practices for early cancer detection in Barrett’s esophagus (BE). BE is the only identifiable precursor lesion for esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), a lethal cancer with increased incidence and mortality rates over the last several decades. The research, led by faculty at the University of Colorado (CU) Cancer Center, analyzed a large international database of over 20,000 newly diagnosed BE patients in Nordic countries to provide a more accurate look at how many patients have normal ...

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named six new Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators. The recipients of this prestigious award are outstanding, early-career physician-scientists conducting patient-oriented cancer research at major research centers under the mentorship of the nation's leading scientists and clinicians.   The Clinical Investigator Award program was designed to increase the number of physicians capable of moving seamlessly between the laboratory and the patient’s ...

HOUSTON – (July 20, 2023) – Rice University professors Qimiao Si and Jeffrey Tabor, are recipients of prestigious Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowships from the United States Department of Defense. Si, a theoretical quantum physicist, and Tabor, a bioengineer and synthetic biologist, are among 10 members of the 2023 class of Bush fellows named by the department’s Basic Research Office. The highly competitive, five-year fellowships are among the federal government’s most prestigious individual research honors. Bush fellowships are awarded annually and include $3 million to pursue ...

HOUSTON – (July 20, 2023) – Visible light is a mere fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the manipulation of light waves at frequencies beyond human vision has enabled such technologies as cell phones and CT scans. Rice University researchers have a plan for leveraging a previously unused portion of the spectrum. “There is a notable gap in mid- and far-infrared light, roughly the frequencies of 5-15 terahertz and wavelengths ranging from 20-60 micrometers, for which ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. —  At a time when Pennsylvania is actively working to achieve water-quality improvements to meet the state’s obligations for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, a multidisciplinary Penn State research team is studying whether agricultural pollution-prevention devices called riparian buffers are working properly.  Riparian buffers — areas adjacent to streams or wetlands that contain a combination of trees, shrubs and grasses — are managed differently from the surrounding landscape to provide conservation benefits. In agricultural areas, buffers intercept sediment, nutrients, pesticides and chemicals ...

Most women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed with the most advanced form of the disease. Less than a third of those diagnosed with the disease survive five years later. As the third most common type of gynecological cancer, it led to more than 200,000 reported deaths globally in 2020 alone, according to a recent study. In a study published this month in the Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, University of Notre Dame researchers in collaboration with NeoGenomics Laboratories ...

Frontiers journals have adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to improve the way authors' contributions to research are communicated and acknowledged. The new system replaces the conventional free-text authorship descriptions with a standardized and transparent system that ensures consistency and accuracy in recognizing individual contributions.  CRediT categorizes individual author contributions into well-defined roles and provides a clear, concise framework to describe the diverse contributions made by researchers ...

A research team supervised by a health policy researcher at the University of Chicago has found that increasingly common private equity investments in healthcare are generally associated with higher costs to patients and payers. That’s according to a new study published July 19 in The BMJ. The study is thought to be the first systematic review of global private equity ownership trends in medical settings. “Over the last few decades, private equity activity in healthcare has exploded, with financial institutions buying up hospitals, nursing homes and fertility ...

The transition to chaos is ubiquitous in nonlinear systems. Continuous-wave-driven photonic-chip-based Kerr microresonators exhibit spatiotemporal chaos, also known as chaotic modulation instability. For more than fifteen years such modulation instability states have been considered impractical for applications compared to their coherent-light-state counterparts, such as soliton states. The latter have been the centerpiece for numerous high-profile application demonstrations, from long-range optical communication to photonic computing. Now, researchers from the group of Tobias Kippenberg at EPFL have found a new way to harness the unique features of chaotic frequency combs to implement ...

For years, unrecycled plastic bottles have been dumped in landfills. Now, thanks to new research from UBC Okanagan, those bottles may have a second life in that landfill—stabilizing its earth walls. Used plastic bottles and textiles pose an increasing problem for landfills worldwide. Researchers say nearly a hundred million metric tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), also known as microplastics, are produced globally each year—with a fraction of that number being recycled—making it one of the largest sources of plastic waste. “One ...

Bat activity falls as farms make the transition to organic agriculture, new research shows. Organic farming is better for biodiversity than conventional farming, which relies heavily on substances such as pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. However, little is known about how wildlife is affected by the transition period when a farm goes organic. The new study, led by the universities of Bristol, Göttingen and Exeter, assessed the effects of organic farming by monitoring insect-eating bats at citrus ...

Post-menopause female killer whales protect their sons – but not their daughters – from fights with other whales, new research shows. Scientists studied “tooth rake marks” – the scarring left when one whale scrapes their teeth across the skin of another – and found males had fewer marks if their mother was present and had stopped breeding. Only six species – humans and five species of toothed whales – are known to experience menopause, and scientists have long been puzzled about why this occurs. The new study – by the universities ...

Seagrasses evolved from freshwater plants and use sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) for photosynthesis and are able to thrive in depths down to 50 metres. In contrast to algae, they possess roots and rhizomes that grow in sandy to muddy sediments. The grass-like, leaf-shoots produce flowers and complete their life cycle entirely underwater. Seeds are negatively buoyant but seed-bearing shoots can raft, thus greatly enhancing dispersal distances at oceanic scale. As a foundational species, eelgrass provides critical shallow-water habitats for diverse biotas and also provides numerous ecosystem services including carbon uptake. Seagrasses have recently been recognised as one of the important ...

WASHINGTON, DC – The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today announced the approval of $9 million for the first seven studies through its groundbreaking Science of Engagement initiative. An unprecedented research program dedicated to funding studies to demonstrate how best to engage patients, caregivers and other health care community members in comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) and other health research, the initiative aims to grow a more robust evidence base to advance patient-centered, community-driven approaches to conducting research.   Since ...

Individual palladium atoms attached to the surface of a catalyst can remove 90% of unburned methane from natural-gas engine exhaust at low temperatures, scientists reported today in the journal Nature Catalysis.  While more research needs to be done, they said, the advance in single atom catalysis has the potential to lower exhaust emissions of methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases, which traps heat at about 25 times the rate of carbon dioxide.  Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Washington State University ...

Patients and members of the public will be able to more easily take part in impactful research thanks to a new tool developed by the University of Birmingham’s work on Long COVID. These resources are detailed in a paper published today in Nature Medicine from researchers working within the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Applied Health Research, the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and NIHR Applied Research Collaboration West Midlands, reporting the evaluation ...