“For robots to achieve true autonomy in the future, they must be able to assess risks before making decisions,” says Nader Motee (pictured below), a professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics in Lehigh University's P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science.  Motee recently received a nearly $680,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research to develop a novel, multi-stage, perception-based control paradigm that will essentially help robots assess risk, and ultimately make autonomous systems safer and more efficient. We humans conduct ...

WASHINGTON -- While often perceived as a negative emotion, anger can also be a powerful motivator for people to achieve challenging goals in their lives, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “People often believe that a state of happiness is ideal, and the majority of people consider the pursuit of happiness a major life goal,” said lead author Heather Lench, PhD, a professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Texas A&M University. “The view that positive emotion is ideal ...

The Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone Health has received $9.8 million from NYU Langone trustee Trudy Elbaum Gottesman and Robert W. Gottesman, founding donors of Sala Institute for Child and Family Centered Care, which has profoundly influenced excellence in clinical care across Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone since 2013. “We are proud to support innovations in pediatric research and career growth of physician–scientists,” said Trudy Elbaum Gottesman. “Our commitment is unwavering and focused on enhancing outcomes ...

WASHINGTON – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will honor six researchers who have made significant contributions to the advancement of women in neuroscience. The awards will be presented during Neuroscience 2023, SfN's annual meeting. “SfN proudly recognizes these neuroscientists for their outstanding scientific achievements and efforts to support other researchers,” said SfN President Oswald Steward. “Their dedication to scientific excellence and inclusion of women along the length of the research pipeline results in a stronger, more relevant field of neuroscience.” Bernice Grafstein Award for Outstanding ...

WASHINGTON – The Society of Neuroscience (SfN) will honor leading researchers whose pioneering work has transformed neuroscience — including the understanding of the visual system, addiction, synaptic plasticity, and learning and memory — with this year’s Outstanding Career and Research Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented during Neuroscience 2023, SfN’s annual meeting. “The Society is honored to recognize this year’s awardees, whose groundbreaking work has transformed our understanding of plasticity in ...

WASHINGTON – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will honor eight early-career researchers whose work is transforming our understanding of the neural dynamics of touch sensation, spatial navigation, memory circuits, and more. The awards will be presented during Neuroscience 2023, SfN's annual meeting. “This year’s Early Career Awardees are pushing the boundaries of neuroscience by combining cutting-edge methods in machine learning, microscopy, genetics, biophysics, and beyond,” said SfN President Oswald ...

WASHINGTON – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will present five neuroscientists with this year’s Science Education and Outreach Awards, comprising the Award for Education in Neuroscience, the Science Educator Award, and the Next Generation Awards. The awards will be presented during SfN’s annual meeting, Neuroscience 2023. “The Society is honored to recognize this creative group of neuroscientists working to educate the public about science and combat misinformation,” SfN President Oswald Steward, said. “Their innovative approaches — including games and viral social media videos — inspire not just the next generation of neuroscientists, ...

As the planet gets hotter, the need for cool living environments is becoming more urgent. But air conditioning is a major contributor to global warming since units use potent greenhouse gases and lots of energy. Now, researchers from McGill University, UCLA and Princeton have found in a new study an inexpensive, sustainable alternative to mechanical cooling with refrigerants in hot and arid climates, and a way to mitigate dangerous heat waves during electricity blackouts. The researchers set out to answer how to achieve a new benchmark in passive cooling inside naturally conditioned buildings in hot climates such as Southern California. They examined the use of roof materials ...

Good things come in microscopic packages, according to the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology’s new DROPLETS project. By packaging electrochemical reactions in smaller-than-standard serving sizes, interdisciplinary researchers aim to produce clean hydrogen, sequester carbon dioxide, and store renewable energies like wind and solar inexpensively and sustainably. Their project, called DROPLETS, received $4.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science through its Energy Earthshots Initiative. “If we do this right, we will ...

Care for women with menopausal health issues should improve globally following the release of an updated Monash University-led toolkit that guides health professionals around the world in assessing and treating them. Endorsed by the International, Australasian and British Menopause Societies, the Endocrine Society of Australia and Jean Hailes for Women’s Health, the 2023 Practitioner’s Toolkit for Managing the Menopause is designed to be used anywhere in the world.   Published in Climacteric, the Toolkit has been updated and enhanced from the original 2014 Toolkit for practitioners with new advice and therapies based on a systematic review of the latest menopause ...

An enzyme that may help some breast cancers spread can be stopped with an antibody created in the lab of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Nicholas Tonks. With further development, the antibody might offer an effective drug treatment for those same breast cancers. The new antibody targets an enzyme called PTPRD that is overabundant in some breast cancers. PTPRD belongs to a family of molecules known as protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), which help regulate many cellular processes. They do this by working in concert with enzymes called kinases to control how other proteins ...

Over the last decade, research at Michigan Medicine has shown how exposure to toxins in the environment, such as pesticides and carcinogenic PCBs, affect the risk of developing and dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.  Now, investigators have developed an environmental risk score that assesses a person’s risk for developing ALS, as well as for survival after diagnosis, using a blood sample. The results are published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. “For the first time, we have a means collecting ...

DALLAS, October 30, 2023 — Multiple 1-year grants of up to $50,000 each are available from the American Heart Association to fund research that evaluates the use of race in heart disease and stroke risk calculators. The American Heart Association,­ the single largest non-government supporter of heart and brain health research in the U.S., is offering the funding as part of the De-Biasing Clinical Care Algorithms project. The project is a two-year scientific research strategy, supported in part by a grant from the Doris Duke Foundation, to study the complex issue of how race and ethnicity factor into clinical care ...

Sarcoidosis is a complex inflammatory disease that causes the harmful accumulation of tiny clumps of cells called granulomas in the body. In most cases, sarcoidosis manifests in the lungs and lymph nodes. However, in approximately 10% of patients, the heart is affected; this condition is known as ‘cardiac sarcoidosis (CS).’ Although relatively rare, CS can cause life-threatening complications, including arrhythmia, heart failure, or sudden cardiac death.   One puzzling aspect of CS is that the condition sometimes involves the heart alone, without manifesting clinically apparent symptoms in other organs. This is referred to as isolated ...

Dendritic cells play a key role in the mammalian immune system. These cells are present throughout the human body and are known to capture foreign bodies, i.e., antigens, using extendable “arms” called dendrites. Once captured, dendritic cells present these substances to immune T cells, thereby initiating an immune response. Dendritic cells are responsive to their environment and capable of changing their morphology and other attributes dynamically. For instance, dendritic cells in the intestine’s mucosa (inner layer) capture harmful bacteria by extending their dendrites through the epithelium (outermost layer) ...

New research suggests sleepiness during virtual meetings is caused by mental underload and boredom. Earlier studies suggested that fatigue from virtual meetings stems from mental overload, but new research from Aalto University shows that sleepiness during virtual meetings might actually be a result of mental underload and boredom. ‘I expected to find that people get stressed in remote meetings. But the result was the opposite – especially those who were not engaged in their work quickly became ...

A study from an international team led by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the University of New Hampshire in the United States has revealed the importance of the Earth’s upper atmosphere in determining how large geomagnetic storms develop. Their findings reveal the previously underestimated importance of the Earth’s atmosphere. Understanding the factors that cause geomagnetic storms is important because they can have a direct impact on the Earth’s magnetic field such ...

Researchers have developed a new method for 3D printing metal that could help reduce costs and make more efficient use of resources. The method, developed by a research team led by the University of Cambridge, allows structural modifications to be ‘programmed’ into metal alloys during 3D printing, fine-tuning their properties without the ‘heating and beating’ process that’s been in use for thousands of years. The new 3D printing method combines the best qualities of both worlds: the complex shapes that 3D printing makes possible, and the ability to engineer ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – A few words of body appreciation can help counter the negative impact of viewing objectified images of female fitness influencers, according to a Washington State University study. While fitness influencers say they want to inspire good physical health, research has found that their social media posts often inspire negative mental health, especially among younger women. The WSU experimental study, published in the journal Health Communication, revealed that the negative impact ...

For immediate release on Oct. 30, 2023 at 5 a.m. ET   Cardiovascular-related deaths due to extreme heat are expected to increase between 2036 and 2065 in the United States, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers, whose work is published in Circulation, predict that adults ages 65 and older and Black adults will likely be disproportionately affected.   While extreme heat currently accounts for less than 1% of cardiovascular-related deaths, the modeling analysis predicted this will change because of a projected rise in summer ...

Research Highlights: Cardiovascular deaths from extreme heat in the United States are projected to increase by 162% by the middle of the century, based on a hypothetical scenario where currently proposed U.S. policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been successfully implemented. A more dire scenario forecasts cardiovascular deaths from extreme heat could increase by 233% in the next 13-47 years if there are only minimal efforts to reduce emissions. The percentage increase in deaths ...

PHILADELPHIA— The number of heat related cardiovascular deaths in the United States will increase over the next four decades, according to a new analysis from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Extreme heat can impact heart health in many ways, including increased heart rate, changes in blood pressure, and increased inflammation. Left untreated, these issues can be deadly. The findings, published today in Circulation, also indicate that older adults and Black adults will experience greater increases in excess cardiovascular deaths due to extreme heat. “As global temperatures rise, analyzing how demographic and environmental trends ...

In Western cultures, adolescence is often viewed as a time of rebellion and irresponsibility. A new article published in the journal Child Development Perspectives synthesized recent research on stereotypes of adolescence using an interdisciplinary approach which integrates developmental psychology, cultural psychology, and neuroscience.  The findings highlight the importance of avoiding the “one-size fits-all” assumptions about teen stereotypes across different cultures. In particular, the research ...

A McLean Hospital study of 598 people across various industries who underwent a two-day training workshop where they learned about trauma-informed care and how to deploy these skills within their organizations, found participants reported significant gains in knowledge of trauma and made improvements to organizational policies, according to a comparison of survey data collected before and after the trainings. Among those trained, who included nurses, CEOs, academics and corrections officers, post-survey scores increased ...

People have used self-portraits to communicate information about themselves for centuries — and digital cameras make it easier to share a self-portrait than ever before. But even though selfies are now almost ubiquitous, we don’t understand how people use them to communicate. So scientists from the University of Bamberg set out to investigate the semantics of selfies. “Although the term ‘selfies’ is now celebrating its 21st birthday, and although selfies are known in art history for nearly 200 years in photography and more than 500 years in paintings, we still lack a clear classification of the different types of selfies,” ...