New research has debunked the idea that there is an “obesity paradox”, whereby patients with heart failure who are overweight or obese are thought to be less likely to end up in hospital or die than people of normal weight.   The study, which is published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Wednesday), shows that if doctors measure the ratio of waist to height of their patients, rather than looking at their body mass index (BMI), the supposed survival advantage for people with a BMI of 25kg/m2 or more disappears.   The “obesity paradox” relates to counter-intuitive findings suggesting that, although people are at greater risk of developing ...

Osaka, Japan – The Haber–Bosch reaction helps feed the world by converting nitrogen into ammonia, a fertilizer precursor. However, its carbon footprint is huge: this one reaction is the source of nearly 2% of global carbon emissions. Now, in a study recently published in ACS Energy Letters, researchers from Osaka University have helped re-imagine this reaction to improve the sustainability of the chemical industry. Replacing the Haber–Bosch reaction with a more sustainable alternative has been an active area of research for many years. These efforts have led to a globally well-established electrochemical reaction for ammonia ...

The rapid evolution and emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, such as the Omicron variant, renders it highly capable of evading the host immunity. At the same time, vaccines based on original wild-type strain of SARS CoV-2 shows reduced protection against newer variants, particularly for the Omicron variant. This results in break-through infections among those vaccinated and highly infectious among non-vaccinated individuals. Thus, it remains uncertain whether new emerging variants of the COVID-19 disease can escape the protective immune response ...

Up-and-coming local biotech startup BetaLife Pte Ltd (“BetaLife”) is collaborating with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to accelerate the development of next generation cell-based therapy for diabetes. BetaLife, a stem cell therapy company focused on developing regenerative medicine for diabetes, has acquired the rights to human induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) technology from A*STAR. This technology enables the generation of iPSCs, which are cells that have similar properties to embryonic ...

The Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus) - also known as Black Vulture, Monk Vulture or Eurasian Black Vulture - is the largest bird of prey in Europe. Globally classified as Near Threatened, its populations in southern Europe, once abundant, have been experiencing a dramatic decline since the late 1800s. So dramatic, in fact, that by the mid-1900s, these birds had already been nowhere to be seen throughout most of their distributional range across the Old Continent. In Bulgaria, the species has been considered locally extinct since 1985. Thanks to the re-introduction initiative that was started in 2015 by three Bulgarian non-governmental organisations: ...

Nine in ten women in England enter pregnancy with at least one indicator that may increase health risks to them and their baby, according to new research. Common indicators were women not quitting smoking, failing to take folic acid before pregnancy or having a previous pregnancy loss. Researchers from the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, hosted by University Hospital Southampton and University of Southampton, analysed data from over 650,000 mothers. They created a first national picture of women’s health before ...

"Have you ever wondered about life on a leaf?" Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) researcher Ashley Shade asks a simple question, but it’s one well worth investigation. The aboveground part of plants where microbes reside, or the phyllosphere, represents the largest environmental surface area on the plant. Much of this area is grown as cultivated agriculture, and understanding the interactions between plants and the microorganisms that live on their surfaces may help us develop agricultural management practices that can increase crop productivity and resilience. In their newly published study, Department ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Moderate levels of artificial light at night – like the fixture illuminating your backyard – bring more caterpillar predators and reduce the chance that these lepidoptera larvae grow up to become moths and serve as food for larger prey. This ecological impact was demonstrated in a new Cornell University study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The scientists placed more than 550 lifelike caterpillar replicas made of soft clay in a forest, setting to ascertain how the mockups were attacked and hunted by predators compared to a control group. “We measured predation ...

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is proud to announce that Anne Kornahrens, Director of Community, has been selected as a 2023 U.S. delegate to the International Younger Chemists Network (IYCN) Assembly. Kornahrens will attend the 52nd International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) General Assembly and World Chemistry Congress, to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, August 18–25, 2023.  The IUPAC Young Observer Program strives to introduce the work of IUPAC to a new generation of distinguished researchers and to provide them with an opportunity to address international science policy issues. IYCN, an affiliated ...

SAN ANTONIO (March 21, 2023) — Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) have developed a small-molecule drug that prevents weight gain and adverse liver changes in mice fed a high-sugar, high-fat Western diet throughout life. “When we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim,” said Madesh Muniswamy, PhD, professor of medicine in the health science center’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. Findings by the collaborators, also from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, were published Feb. 27 in the high-impact journal Cell ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $150 million for research into the crosscutting foundational science for multiple Energy Earthshots. This funding, provided by the Office of Science, will support fundamental research to accelerate breakthroughs in support of the Energy Earthshots Initiative. “Our Energy Earthshot solutions start with science,” said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, DOE’s Director of the Office of Science. “The Office of Science is working to find those solutions by supporting research that will target the remaining and emerging scientific challenges underlaying ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. – While listening to a favorite song is a known mood booster, researchers at Michigan State University have discovered that music-listening interventions also can make medicines more effective.  “Music-listening interventions are like over-the-counter medications,” said Jason Kiernan, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing. “You don’t need a doctor to prescribe them.”  While previous research studies have used music-listening interventions as a tool to treat pain and anxiety, Kiernan took a novel approach by studying the effects of music-listening interventions ...

URBANA, Ill. – Animal agriculture is a major source of water pollution in the United States, as manure runoff carries excess nutrients into rivers and lakes. Because of their non-point source nature, most farms are not regulated under the federal Clean Water Act. This leaves pollution control up to the states, resulting in a patchwork of different approaches that are difficult to evaluate. A new study from the University of Illinois focuses on local manure management regulations in Wisconsin and how they affect water ...

Abu Dhabi, UAE, March 21, 2023 –  A team of NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) researchers, including data and computational social scientists, is reporting new findings that highlight previously unknown ways through which non-White scientists suffer from inequalities when it comes to the process of having their research considered, published, and cited, potentially hindering the advancement of their academic careers. Specifically, the NYUAD team’s analysis found fewer non-White editors than would be expected based on their share of authorship. In addition, non-White scientists endure longer waiting times between the submission ...

Reston, VA—A novel imaging modality that can visualize the distribution of medical radiopharmaceuticals with very fine resolution has been developed and successfully tested, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Known as the lensless radiomicroscope, the palm-sized instrument offers the same level of imaging performance as its closest imaging equivalent but comes with significantly larger field of view and costs less than $100. “While many nuclear medicine imaging modalities can quantitively measure ...

East Hanover, NJ. March 21, 2023. Researchers from Kessler Foundation and Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation (collectively “Kessler”) conducted the first prospective study to assess whether transcutaneous spinal stimulation (TSS) interacts with implanted intrathecal baclofen (ITB) pump delivery systems for managing spasticity. The article, "Transcutaneous spinal stimulation in patients with intrathecal baclofen pump delivery system: A preliminary safety study," (doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.1075293), was published December 21, 2022, in Frontiers in Neuroscience. It is ...

Global data shows nearly 10 per cent of severe COVID-19 cases involve a secondary bacterial co-infection – with Staphylococcus aureus, also known as Staph A., being the most common organism responsible for co-existing infections with SARS-CoV-2. Researchers at Western have found if you add a ‘superbug’ – methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) – into the mix, the COVID-19 outcome could be even more deadly.   The mystery of how and why these two pathogens, when combined, ...

Collaborative research across the country has shown that strengthening the relationship between the student and advisor can increase retention rates in engineering doctoral studies. Dr. Marissa Tsugawa, along with professors from Penn State, The University of Oregon, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Reno, Nevada and North Carolina State University, recently published a study with the Journal of Engineering Education on March 17. The study connects an engineering student’s identity and the intention to complete a Ph.D. in engineering. Identity is a role that students give themselves during their experiences in the lab and classroom. The authors argue ...

Beetles are champions at surviving in extremely dry environments. In part, this property is due to their ability to suck water from the air with their rear ends. A new collaborative study by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Edinburgh explains just how. Beyond helping to explain how beetles thrive in environments where few other animals can survive, the knowledge could eventually be used for more targeted and delicate control of global pests such as the grain weevil and red flour beetle. Insect pests eat their way through thousands of tons of food around the world every year. Food security in developing ...

With the growth of the niche adaptive clothing market comes new challenges for retailers, including making the process of online shopping more inclusive for people with varying degrees of disability as well as expanding the functionality and aesthetic appeal of individual garments. This study involved mining online reviews to understand the perspectives of adaptive clothing customers. University of Missouri researchers identified two main challenges for adaptive clothing consumers. Customers said ...

“[...] we identified > 1,000 candidate genes with genome-wide significant age-related methylation changes in sperm.” BUFFALO, NY- March 21, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 5, entitled, “Age-related methylation changes in the human sperm epigenome.” Advanced paternal age is associated with increased risks for reproductive and offspring medical problems. Accumulating evidence suggests age-related changes ...

There is a relative increase of 20% to 30% in breast cancer risk associated with both combined and progesterone-only contraceptives, whatever the mode of delivery, though with five years of use, the 15-year absolute excess incidence is at most 265 cases per 100,000 users. The results appear in a new study publishing March 21st in the open access journal PLOS Medicine by Kirstin Pirie of University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues. Use of combined oral contraceptives, containing both estrogen and progestogen, has previously been associated with a small increase in breast cancer risk but there is limited data about the ...

CONTENT UPDATED 3/17 - note new references to cardiac rehabilitation. Statement Highlights: A new scientific statement indicates supervised exercise therapy may help improve symptoms for people with one of the most common types of heart failure, known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), in which the heart muscle’s pumping strength is intact. Exercise therapy had comparable or better results on improving exercise capacity for people with preserved EF compared to those who have heart failure with reduced ...

Regina Bateson, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Science’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, details the findings of her study, which shows the significant social and economic impacts to individuals who were out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Below she answers questions about her study. Question: How was this research performed? Regina Bateson: “In this study, I conducted a pre-registered survey experiment with a nationally representative sample of 974 U.S. adults. ...

A new nano-barrier coating could help protect ultra-lightweight carbon composite materials from extreme conditions in space, according to a study from the University of Surrey and Airbus Defence and Space.   The new functionality added to previously developed ‘space skin’ structures adds a layer of protection to help maintain space payloads while travelling in space, similar to having its very own robust ultralight protective jacket.  The research team has shown that their innovative nano-barrier would help drastically increase the stability of carbon fibre materials, while reducing radiation ...