EMBARGOED: Not for Release Until 00:01 AM (UK Time) on Friday 3 November 2023 New research highlights the need for routine discussions about eye donation in end-of-life care clinical settings Less than four per cent of eligible patients in end-of-life care settings were asked to consider eye donation Patients had positive views about eye donation, but most did not know it could be an option for them Staff need training and guidance to support discussing eye donation with patients A new study has found there is significant scope to increase the number of eye donations from patients cared for in hospice and palliative care settings - donations which are desperately needed for ...

PHILADELPHIA— Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a rare newborn genetic disease that impacts between 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 20,000 people, depending on the individuals’ genetic ancestry. PKU causes an amino acid—called phenylalanine (Phe)—to build up in the bloodstream. Uncontrolled PKU can lead to intellectual disability, psychiatric issues, and seizures. While current therapies can partially improve outcomes, they require meticulous, lifelong compliance that is very difficult for most patients. ...

Mount Sinai researchers have shed valuable light on the mechanism of a key protein that regulates the plasticity and function of the hippocampus, a key brain region involved in memory and learning, and that decreases with age in mice. The team’s findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, could pave the way for a better understanding of how the protein, known as tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP2), could potentially be targeted in age-related disorders like Alzheimer’s disease to help restore ...

University of Houston Assistant Professor of Biology and Biochemistry Quentin Vicens has been awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to unravel the mystery of Z-RNA – an enigmatic RNA structure within our cells that plays a critical role in immune response. This work is in collaboration with the laboratory of Beat Vögeli, associate professor at the University of Colorado and co-recipient of the award. Vicens, Vögeli and their research teams are on a mission to understand how Z-RNA forms, how often it appears in our genetic material and what it means for ...

Highlights In a preclinical study, altering the intestinal microbiome with narrow-spectrum antibiotics affected organ damage associated with hypertension. Results from the study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2023 November 1–November 5. Philadelphia, PA (November 2, 2023) — New research in rodents indicates that altering gut microbes may affect the development of organ damage associated with hypertension. The findings will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2023 November 1–November ...

Highlights Investigators found that in patients with diabetes and cancer, sodium glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors were associated with a higher risk of diabetic ketoacidosis and fracture and a lower risk of acute kidney injury and urinary tract infection compared with glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists. Results from the study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2023, November 1–November 5. Philadelphia, PA (November 2, 2023) — Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) have heart- and kidney-related benefits for patients with and without diabetes ...

Highlights Among individuals receiving in-center hemodialysis treatment in Washington, Oregon, and California, exposure to wildfire-related air pollution was associated with elevated risks of hospitalization and mortality. Results from the study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2023 November 1–November 5. Philadelphia, PA (November 2, 2023) — In analyses of data from western US states, increases in wildfire-related air pollution around dialysis clinics were linked to higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths among patients. The research will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2023 ...

Highlights A tool that provides an automated prompt to physicians increased kidney disease screening in patients with type 2 diabetes. Results from the study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2023 November 1–November 5. Philadelphia, PA (November 2, 2023) — Investigators have implemented an automated health maintenance tool created by the National Kidney Foundation into electronic medical records to prompt primary care physicians to screen for chronic kidney disease (CKD) in adult patients ...

The gene-editing technology known as CRISPR has led to revolutionary changes in agriculture, health research and more. In research published in Nature Catalysis, scientists at Florida State University produced the first high-resolution, time-lapsed images showing magnesium ions interacting with the CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme while it cut strands of DNA, providing clear evidence that magnesium plays a role in both chemical bond breakage and near-simultaneous DNA cutting. “If you are cutting genes, you don’t want to have only one strand of DNA broken, because the cell can repair it easily without editing. You want both strands to be broken,” said Hong ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Online grocery carts tend to include less variety and fewer fruits and vegetables than those in a trip to a brick-and-mortar supermarket – but online shoppers are less susceptible to unhealthy impulse buys, according to a new Cornell University study. In an analysis of nearly 2 million shopping trips, the researchers found that within a given household, Instacart baskets are more similar to each other from week to week than in-store carts, with more than twice as many overlapping items between successive trips to the same retailer. Nutritionally, however, ...

Generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, an AI-powered language tool, and Midjourney, an AI-powered image generator, can potentially assist people with various disabilities. These tools could summarize content, compose messages or describe images. Yet the degree of this potential is an open question, since, in addition to regularly spouting inaccuracies and failing at basic reasoning, these tools can perpetuate ableist biases. This year, seven researchers at the University of Washington conducted a three-month autoethnographic study — drawing on their own experiences as people with and without disabilities — to test AI tools’ utility for accessibility. Though ...

November 2, 2023 UMass Hydrogeologists Develop Innovative Way to Predict Saltwater Intrusion into Groundwater Using Plymouth, Mass. as Test Case Working closely with local conservation group, researchers develop new model to predict climate-change driven saltwater intrusion that is transferable to other vulnerable coastal communities   AMHERST, Mass. – As the world warms and ice sheets melt, the ocean continually rises. The greater Boston area can expect to see between one and six feet of sea level rise by 2100, according to recent ...

By David L. Chandler WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Sharks differ from other fish in many ways, including an apparently remarkable ability to heal from wounds, according to reports of sharks recovering from injuries sustained in the wild.  While this healing ability has not yet been documented in controlled laboratory conditions, some of the chemical compounds found in shark skin may have significant biomedical potential. To investigate this possibility, two dermatology researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden carried out research on a small shark, the spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) and other cartilaginous fish species at the ...

Epigenetics, the chemical mechanisms that controls the activity of genes, allows our cells, tissues and organs to adapt to the changing circumstances of the environment around us. This advantage can become a drawback, though, as this epigenetic regulation can be more easily altered by toxins than the more stable genetic sequence of the DNA. An article recently published at Science with the collaboration of the groups of Dr. Manel Esteller, Director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute ...

DENVER/Nov. 2 – A scientific analysis published in Veterinary and Comparative Oncology using Golden Retriever Lifetime Study data notes a potential correlation between canine sterilization and hemangiosarcoma development. This startling finding has been previously suggested by experts but still is poorly understood. The authors note that the likelihood of diagnosing hemangiosarcoma appears consistently low across all sexes and neutering statuses until about eight years of age. Beyond this point, intact and neutered male ...

Excluding herbivores – or reintroducing their predators – may aid restoration efforts in many locations, suggests a new meta-analysis of more than 600 global studies. According to the analysis, herbivores at restoration sites reduced vegetation abundance by 89%, on average, a larger effect than they had at relatively undisturbed sites. Herbivores also suppressed plant diversity at these locations. Vegetation is a primary foundation of most ecosystems. However, in many, it has been dramatically degraded, contributing to the loss of biodiversity and ...

Driven in part by large-scale atmospheric climate modes, the Southern Hemisphere accounts for more than 95% of the recent decline in global water availability, according to a new study. Global land water availability has varied due to climate change and increased human water use. Although this crucial resource underpins livelihoods, socioeconomic development, and ecosystems worldwide, it remains unclear how water availability has changed in recent decades and what is driving these changes at a global scale. Yongqiang Zhang and colleagues combine various data, including streamflow observations of large river basins of ...

At the 2022 COP-15 meeting,  signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity reached a new agreement called the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which contained provisions to establish a separate, multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism for the use of “digital sequence information” (DSI), that is, the biological data associated with, or derived from, genetic resources such as nucleotide sequences and epigenetic, protein, and metabolite data. In a new Policy Forum analysis published ...

­­­Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 18:00hrs GMT Thursday 2 November 2023 Peer reviewed Observational study People and animals    Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and Heidelberg University in Germany have shown that sex differences in animals vary dramatically across species, organs and developmental stages, and evolve quickly at the gene level but slowly at the cell type level. Mammals have different traits depending on sex, like antlers in male deer. These are known as ‘sexually dimorphic’ traits, and include differences which aren’t visible, ...

A team of researchers from UCLA has unveiled a first-of-its-kind stable and fully solid-state thermal transistor that uses an electric field to control a semiconductor device’s heat movement.  The group’s study, which will be published in the Nov. 3 issue of Science, details how the device works and its potential applications. With top speed and performance, the transistor could open new frontiers in heat management of computer chips through an atomic-level design and molecular engineering. The advance could also further the understanding of how heat is regulated in the human body. “The precision control of how heat flows through materials has been a long-held ...

Americans who have a tooth pulled or another painful dental procedure in the United States today are far less likely to get opioid painkillers than they were just a few years ago, a new study shows. That’s good news, since research shows that opioids are not necessary for most dental procedures. But the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have thrown a wrench into the effort to reduce opioid use in dental care – and not just in the few months after dentists and oral surgeons started providing routine care again after a pause in spring 2020. The decline in opioid prescriptions filled by dental patients was much faster in the pre-pandemic ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 18:00hrs GMT Thursday 2 November 2023 Peer reviewed Experimental study Animals   Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and the Université Cote d’Azur, together with other labs in France and Switzerland, have identified a gene which is an early determining factor of ovary development in mice. Typically, mice with XY sex chromosomes develop testes, and mice with XX chromosomes develop ovaries. Whether early gonads become ovaries or testes is due to cells either ...

The development of sex-specific characteristics is frequently seen in mammals. These characteristics stem from the activation of corresponding genetic programmes that until now have been largely undescribed by the scientific community. An international research team from the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University and The Francis Crick Institute in London has, for the first time, decoded the programmes that control the sex-specific development of major organs in selected mammals – humans, mice, rats, rabbits, and opossums. By comparing these programmes, the researchers were also able to trace the ...

Researchers led by Professor KANG Kisuk of the Center for Nanoparticle Research within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), have announced a major breakthrough in the field of next-generation solid-state batteries. It is believed that their new findings will enable the creation of batteries based on a novel chloride-based solid electrolyte that exhibits exceptional ionic conductivity. A pressing concern with current commercial batteries their reliance on liquid electrolytes, which leads to flammability ...

New observations down to light-year scale of the gas flows around a supermassive black hole have successfully detected dense gas inflows and shown that only a small portion (about 3 percent) of the gas flowing towards the black hole is eaten by the black hole. The remainder is ejected and recycled back into the host galaxy.   Not all of the matter which falls towards a black hole is absorbed, some of it is ejected as outflows. But the ratio of the matter that the black hole “eats,” and the amount “dropped” ...