Investigators from the Antiphospholipid Syndrome Alliance for Clinical Trials and International Networking (APS ACTION) presented new research findings in antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2023, the ACR’s annual meeting. Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), one of the leading centers in the United States providing care for adults and children with APS, is the lead coordinating center for APS ACTION, an international research network of 34 academic institutions dedicated to advancing the understanding and management of APS. APS ACTION conducts large, ...

A University of Texas at Arlington engineering researcher has received a NASA grant to use rotating detonation rocket engines (RDREs) for in-space propulsion to make them more efficient, compact and powerful. Liwei Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), will lead the $900,000 grant. “Detonation is very fast combustion. Inside an RDRE, detonation waves spin around in a circle at supersonic speeds. Compared to conventional engines that rely on regular combustion, an RDRE has a theoretically ...

A University of Texas at Arlington civil engineering researcher is determining what strategies are most effective at lessening flooding in coastal communities. Michelle Hummel, a civil engineering assistant professor, is using a $499,973 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant to study the benefits and costs of flood-reduction strategies aimed at increasing coastal resilience to storms and sea-level rise. Hummel and her colleague, Kevin Befus of the University of Arkansas, will apply advanced ...

In a study published in Nature Astronomy, astronomers from New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR) have detailed radio observations of an extraordinary aurora-like display — occurring 40,000 km above a relatively dark and cold patch on the Sun, known as a sunspot. Researchers say the novel radio emission shares characteristics with the auroral radio emissions commonly seen in planetary magnetospheres such as those around Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as certain low-mass stars. The discovery offers new insights into the origin of such intense solar radio bursts and potentially opens new avenues ...

FINDINGS An experimental computing system physically modeled after the biological brain “learned” to identify handwritten numbers with an overall accuracy of 93.4%. The key innovation in the experiment was a new training algorithm that gave the system continuous information about its success at the task in real time while it learned. The algorithm outperformed a conventional machine-learning approach in which training was performed after a batch of data has been processed, producing 91.4% accuracy. The researchers also showed that memory of past inputs stored in the system itself enhanced learning. In contrast, other ...

Intratumoral therapy – in which cancer drugs are injected directly into tumors – is a promising treatment option for solid cancers but has shown limited success in clinical trials due to an inability to precisely deliver the drug and because most immunotherapies quickly dissipate from the site of injection. A team of researchers from Mass General Brigham, in collaboration with colleagues at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, has developed a gel delivery system that overcomes these challenges. The gel is injectable but solidifies upon delivery; contains an imaging agent for visualization under CT scan; and can hold a high ...

Cardiovascular diseases rank among the top causes of death across the world, and cardiac interventions are similarly very common. For example, cardiac catheter ablation procedures, which are used to treat arrythmias, number in several tens of thousands per year in the US alone. In these procedures, surgeons insert a thin, flexible tube called a catheter into the femoral vein in the leg and navigate their way up to the heart, where the problematic tissue is destroyed using cold or focused radiation. Even though cardiac catheter-based procedures are considered minimally invasive, the position ...

A team of engineers from the University of Illinois has published the first known study documenting the long-jumping motion of 3D-printed insect-scale robots. The new study, published in the journal Smart Materials and Structures, follows a previous publication that documented the same lab’s investigation of vertical jumping in insect-scale robots. The study is led by Professor Sameh Tawfick, an associate professor and Ralph A. Andersen Faculty Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. His lab, the Kinetic Materials Research Group, studies the ...

University of Maryland researchers aiming to combat rising global temperatures have developed a new “cooling glass” that can turn down the heat indoors without electricity by drawing on the cold depths of space. The new technology, a microporous glass coating described in a paper published in the journal Science, can lower the temperature of the material beneath it by 3.5 degrees Celsius at noon, and has the potential to reduce a mid-rise apartment building’s yearly carbon emissions by 10%, according to the research team led by Distinguished University Professor Liangbing Hu in the Department of Materials ...

Optica, an international association in optics and photonics, recently announced the election of University of Oklahoma engineering professor Javier Jo, Ph.D., as a Fellow member.  Jo, a faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was honored for his contributions to integrating optical imaging and artificial intelligence for biomedical applications. His research focuses on developing optical sensing and imaging technologies to understand pathophysiological mechanisms in human diseases and improve their clinical management. “Dr. Jo’s ...

From ChatGPT to DALL-E, deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are being applied to an ever-growing range of fields. A new study from University of Toronto Engineering researchers, published in Nature Communications, suggests that one of the fundamental assumptions of deep learning models — that they require enormous amounts of training data — may not be as solid as once thought.    Professor Jason Hattrick-Simpers and his team are focused on the design of next-generation materials, from catalysts that convert captured carbon into fuels to non-stick surfaces that keep airplane wings ice-free.   One ...

Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet @Annalsofim Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent. ---------------------------- 1. Acupuncture may offer limited relief to patients with chronic hives   Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-1043 Editorial: ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 13 November 2023  Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet  @Annalsofim  Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf ...

A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham found that one in five individuals taking Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir therapy, commonly known as Paxlovid, to treat severe symptoms of COVID-19, experienced a positive test result and shedding of live and potentially contagious virus following an initial recovery and negative test—a phenomenon known as virologic rebound. By contrast, people not taking Paxlovid only experienced rebound about 2 percent of the time. Results are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “We conducted this study to address lingering questions about Paxlovid and virologic rebound in COVID-19 treatment,” said corresponding ...

JUPITER, Fla. — Slumbering among thousands of bacterial strains in a collection of natural specimens at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, several fragile vials held something unexpected, and possibly very useful. Writing in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, a team led by chemist Ben Shen, Ph.D., described discovery of two new enzymes, ones with uniquely useful properties that could help in the fight against human diseases including cancer. The discovery, published ...

New York, NY (November 13, 2023)—Researchers at the Mount Sinai Center for Transformative Disease Modeling have released a groundbreaking study identifying 4,749 key gene clusters, termed “prognostic modules,” that significantly influence the progression of 32 different types of cancer. The study, published in Genome Research, serves as a comprehensive resource and lays the foundation for the development of next-generation cancer treatments and diagnostic markers. Despite significant progress in cancer research, understanding the disease's genetic intricacies ...

Ammonia, a main component of many fertilizers, could play a key role in a carbon-free fuel system as a convenient way to transport and store clean hydrogen. The chemical, made of hydrogen and nitrogen (NH3), can also itself be burned as a zero-carbon fuel. However, new research led by Princeton University illustrates that even though it may not be a source of carbon pollution, ammonia’s widespread use in the energy sector could pose a grave risk to the nitrogen cycle and climate without proper engineering precautions. Publishing their findings in PNAS, the interdisciplinary team of 12 researchers found that a well-engineered ammonia economy could help the world achieve ...

November 13, 2023-- There is no longer any question of how to prevent high-intensity, often catastrophic, wildfires that have become increasingly frequent across the Western U.S., according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Stanford University. The analysis reveals that low-intensity burning, such as controlled or prescribed fires, managed wildfires, and tribal cultural burning, can dramatically reduce the risk of devastating fires for years at a time. The findings are some of the first to rigorously quantify the value of low-intensity fire and be released while Congress is reassessing ...

Astrophysicist Jason Nordhaus is breaking cultural and disciplinary boundaries by helping to grow the number of deaf, hard-of-hearing, and Hispanic researchers. And, in doing so, he is enabling these future scientists to drive discoveries in one of his areas of expertise—neutron star astrophysics.  Nordhaus, an associate professor of physics at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, has earned a National Science Foundation grant that connects NTID with Texas Tech University, a Hispanic Serving Institution. Through a series of unique summer research exchanges ...

Banding together to sell fishing rights could generate economic benefits for African countries, which receive far less from access to their fisheries on the global market than other countries do from theirs. By joining forces, UC Santa Barbara researchers say in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, African fisheries would not just secure more competitive access fees, they could also protect their seas’ biodiversity. “If African countries created a ‘fish cartel’ to sell fishing rights to foreign vessels, they could increase their fish biomass by 16% and make 23% more in profits,” ...

In patients with severe artery blockage in the lower leg, an artery-supporting device called a resorbable scaffold is superior to angioplasty, which has been the standard treatment, according to the results of a large international clinical trial co-led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. Angioplasty involves the widening of a narrowed artery with a small, balloon-like mechanism. A resorbable scaffold is a stent-like structure that props the artery open but is biodegradable and dissolves within a few years, avoiding some of the potential complications of a permanent ...

A compound—one of 27 million screened in a library of potential new drugs—reversed four types of chronic pain in animal studies, according to new research led by NYU College of Dentistry’s Pain Research Center and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The small molecule, which binds to an inner region of a calcium channel to indirectly regulate it, outperformed gabapentin without troublesome side effects, providing a promising candidate for treating pain. Calcium channels play a central role in pain signaling, in part through the release of neurotransmitters such as glutamate and GABA— “the ...

An international team of researchers has developed a handheld, non-invasive device that can detect biomarkers for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases. The biosensor can also transmit the results wirelessly to a laptop or smartphone.  The team tested the device on in vitro samples from patients and showed that it is as accurate as the state of the art. Ultimately, researchers plan to test saliva and urine samples with the biosensor. The device could be modified to detect biomarkers for other conditions as well.  Researchers present their findings ...

A research team from the University of Cologne, in collaboration with colleagues from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology in Freising, has discovered a receptor for bitter taste in twelve different cartilaginous fish (sharks and rays). The receptor belongs to the so-called taste receptors type 2 (T2R), which also make humans perceive bitter and potentially toxic foods. Until now, it was assumed that such receptors only occur in bony vertebrates. The work was published under the title ‘A singular shark bitter taste receptor provides insights into the evolution of bitter taste perception’ ...

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of declining phytoplankton in the North Atlantic may have been greatly exaggerated. A prominent 2019 study used ice cores in Antarctica to suggest that marine productivity in the North Atlantic had declined by 10% during the industrial era, with worrying implications that the trend might continue. But new research led by the University of Washington shows that marine phytoplankton — on which larger organisms throughout the marine ecosystem depend — may be more stable than believed in the North Atlantic. The team’s analysis of an ice core going ...