Rett syndrome is a rare devastating neurological disorder that primarily affects young girls and manifests as an impaired ability to walk and talk, along with characteristic ‘hand-wringing’ movements, seizures, and cognitive disability. This incurable condition results from mutations in the methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene that impairs the role of the MeCP2 protein in regulating the activity of many genes in brain cells. A new MECP2 gene variant (G118E) was recently characterized by a research team led by Dr. Huda Zoghbi, a distinguished service professor at Baylor College of Medicine and the founding director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological ...

WASHINGTON—Optica Publishing Group today published the first issue of its newest peer-reviewed, Gold Open Access journal, Optica Quantum.  Optica Quantum joins Optica Publishing Group’s diverse portfolio of 19 peer-reviewed journals and provides a home for high-impact research in quantum information science and technology (QIST), enabled by optics and photonics. Editor-in-Chief Michael G. Raymer of the University of Oregon, USA, leads the editorial board, comprised of outstanding researchers from around the world who are active in quantum science and technology. “Discoveries in QIST have the potential to change the world ...

Brigham Young University researcher Jeff Bednar is now a part-time ghost hunter. And while the business professor doesn’t have night vision cameras or ultrasensitive recording equipment, he’s found a bunch of ghosts — including several on his own campus. The ghosts Bednar and University of Illinois colleague Jacob Brown are hunting sound similar to the ghosts you’ve heard of — they linger long after they’ve left this life and hover over their previous haunts — but they’re not necessarily the kind of ghosts that show up around Halloween. They’re called organizational ghosts: admired former ...

UC, UC Health mark 10 years as NIH StrokeNet National Coordinating Center, celebrate competitive renewal for next 5 years Cincinnati, OH (Monday, Oct. 30, 2023) – The University of Cincinnati and UC Health have been renewed as the National Coordinating Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) StrokeNet, which is the primary infrastructure for multicenter trials of stroke funded by NIH and the pipeline for new potential treatments for adults and children with stroke and those at risk for stroke. Created in 2013, NIH StrokeNet ...

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Hellenic Society of Cardiology have teamed up to host the ACC Middle East & Eastern Mediterranean 2023 conference. The annual forum kicks off on November 3 – 5 in Athens, Greece, and puts the spotlight on the latest in cardiovascular prevention. Global experts will converge for an innovative educational experience to discuss best practices for improving the heart health of patients with cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world. There are an estimated 11 million new cases of heart disease in Europe each year, while cardiovascular diseases are responsible for one-third of ...

INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana University School of Medicine researchers have identified multiple species of bacteria that, when present in the gut, are linked to an increased risk of developing severe malaria in humans and mice. Their findings, recently published in Nature Communications, could lead to the development of new approaches targeting gut bacteria to prevent severe malaria and associated deaths. Malaria is a life-threatening infectious disease caused by parasites transmitted through the bite of infected mosquitoes. According to the World Health Organization’s latest World Malaria Report, an estimated 619,000 people died from malaria ...

Marmar Moussa, Ph.D., an assistant professor of computer science professor at the University of Oklahoma, has secured a nearly $1 million award from the National Institutes of Health to advance her work in computational genomics. The study, titled “Computational approaches to the mechanistic elucidation of the serrated pathway of human colon carcinogenesis,” aims to unravel the mechanisms driving the serrated pathway of human colon carcinogenesis using computational methods that help explain how colon cancer develops. “This research is ...

A new approach to valuing the carbon storage potential of natural habitats aims to help restore faith in offset schemes, by enabling investors to directly compare carbon credit pricing across a wide range of projects. Current valuation methods for forest conservation projects have come under heavy scrutiny, leading to a crisis of confidence in carbon markets. This is hampering efforts to offset unavoidable carbon footprints, mitigate climate change, and scale up urgently needed investment in tropical forest conservation. Measuring the value of carbon storage is not easy. Recent research revealed that as little as 6% of carbon credits ...

**CORRECTION** We have identified an error in this press release. The fifth paragraph of the release originally read: The researchers warn that if carbon dioxide emissions remain at 2022 levels of about 40 billion gigatonnes per year, the carbon budget will be exhausted by around 2029, committing the world to warming of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. However, this should read: The researchers warn that if carbon dioxide emissions remain at 2022 levels of about 40 gigatonnes per year, the carbon budget will be exhausted ...

Why all languages have words for ‘this’ and ‘that’ Languages around the world have words for ‘this’ and ‘that’ according to new research from an international team, led by the University of East Anglia. Researchers studied more than 1,000 speakers of 29 different languages to see how they use demonstratives – words that show where something is in relation to a person talking such as ‘this cat’ or ‘that dog’. It was previously thought that languages vary in the spatial distinctions they make - and that speakers of different languages may think in fundamentally different ...

The nutrients available from seafood could drop by 30 per cent for low-income countries by the end of the century due to climate change, suggests new UBC research. That’s in a high carbon emissions and low mitigation scenario, according to the study published today in Nature Climate Change. This could be reduced to a roughly 10 per cent decline if the world were to meet the Paris Agreement targets of limiting global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius - which recent reports have shown we’re not on track to achieve. “Low-income countries and the global south, ...

Pei Dong, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, received $250,000 from the U.S. Department of the Interior for the project: "Engineering Spatial Wood Carbon Scaffolds with Nanocellulose Fillers for Water Deionization." This funding began in Sept. 2023 and will end in Sept. 2025. This project seeks to create an innovative and energy-efficient capacitive deionization process with the help of biomass-based advanced porous structures for water desalination and purification.  ### About George Mason University George Mason University is Virginia's largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls 38,000 students from 130 countries ...

Geoffrey Gilleaudeau, Assistant Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences (AOES), received funding for the project: "Geochemical Analysis of Carboniferous Carbonates and Implications for Ocean Oxygenation."   He and his collaborators aim to generate a new composite carbon record through the lower Mississippian in the Williston Basin. They also aim to generate a new record that tests the hypothesis that carbon excursion was related to an expansion of global ocean anoxia, ...

Russell Studying Black Displacement & Mobility In Arlington County Donald Russell, Director, Provisions Research Center for Art & Social Change, Director, Mason Exhibitions, University Curator, College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA), received funding for the project: "Black Displacement and Mobility in Arlington County." The goal of the project is to create a database of researched information that evidences Black displacement, migration, mobility, and the legacy of the Black diaspora that remains today in Arlington County.  The database will consist of maps, ...

Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, large, carnivorous aquatic lizards that lived during the late Cretaceous. With “transitional” traits that place it between two well-known mosasaurs, the new species is named after a sea serpent in Norse mythology, Jormungandr, and the small North Dakota city Walhalla near to where the fossil was found. Details describing Jǫrmungandr walhallaensis are published today in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.  “If you put flippers on a Komodo dragon and made it really big, that’s basically what it would have looked like,” said the study’s lead ...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Emily Burchfield, Emory assistant professor of environmental sciences, $1.6 million to lead efforts to identify emerging pressures on agriculture in Georgia, Iowa and Ohio and to develop predictive models to help farmers and policymakers weather these changes. “In a nutshell, we’re trying to understand what climate change will mean for agriculture in these three states,” Burchfield says. “We’ll be integrating biophysical projections based on environmental data with insights ...

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers found a seed device that acts as a GPS for surgeons to locate and remove breast and lymph node tumors was safe and effective.  The feasibility study evaluating the use of the devices, called SmartClips, was recently published in the journal The American Surgeon.  UC’s Jaime Lewis and her colleague Elizabeth Shaughnessy helped test the SmartClip devices as they were being developed.  “We went a few times and saw the different prototypes, worked with them, and provided feedback. ...

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. – OU researchers have received a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a research center to address children’s cumulative health impacts from agricultural and non-chemical exposures. This grant will create the Children’s Environmental Health Center in the U.S. Southern Great Plains, which includes Oklahoma and Texas. The Center will focus on mitigating the chemical and non-chemical stressors that affect school absenteeism caused by gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. This collaborative center will be under the direction of Changjie Cai, Ph.D., assistant professor ...

There is a low-cost way for you to protect yourself and reduce your risk of respiratory diseases such as flu, RSV, and COVID-19. Build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal box (CR box) in 30 minutes with just $60 worth of common hardware store supplies. In July, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists began several weeks of advanced bioaerosol chamber testing to assess the efficacy and power of this air filter against infectious aerosols, like the virus that causes COVID-19. The results are in, and they are good. The U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development’s 3,000 cubic ft. bioaerosol chamber testing results show ...

About The Study: High blood pressure variability indicated increased lifetime dementia risk in late life but not in midlife in this study that included 820 adults monitored for an average time of 32 years. This result suggests that high blood pressure variability may indicate increased dementia risk in older age but might be less viable as a midlife dementia prevention target.  Authors: Jan Willem van Dalen, Ph.D., of the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, is the corresponding author.   To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.40249) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that race and ethnicity and neighborhood disadvantage are associated with hearing-related quality of life in deaf or hard-of-hearing children. The neighborhood association was seen most broadly in children older than 13 years.  Authors: Dylan K. Chan, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, is the corresponding author.   To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.40934) Editor’s Note: Please see ...

About The Study: In this imaging study that included 54 athletes, higher levels of 18 kDa translocator protein (TSPO) that mark brain injury and repair were found in former National Football League (NFL) players compared with former non-collision sport athletes. The NFL players also had lower performance in learning and memory. These findings suggest that further tracking of TSPO levels in relation to neuropsychological performance over time is needed to understand whether these signs persist, progress, and/or warrant neuroimmune-modulating ...

SAN ANTONIO (Oct. 30, 2023) — About 283 million people worldwide suffer from alcohol use disorder, a debilitating health challenge for which limited therapeutic options are available. The cost to society is estimated at greater than $2 trillion annually. “People try to rehabilitate, but it is very challenging,” said Yu Shin Kim, PhD, a neuroscience researcher at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “Headache is one of the severe withdrawal symptoms that pushes the rehabilitating patient back to alcohol, because people know that, after drinking, alcohol will actually reduce the headache. It becomes a vicious ...

As little as 1 per cent reduction in deep sleep per year for people over 60 years of age translates into a 27 per cent increased risk of dementia, according to a study which suggests that enhancing or maintaining deep sleep, also known as slow wave sleep, in older years could stave off dementia. The study, led by Associate Professor Matthew Pase, from the Monash School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, and published today in JAMA Neurology, looked at 346 participants, over 60 years of age, enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study who completed two overnight sleep studies in ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- For too long, cancer treatment has been a double-edged sword – the very treatments designed to kill cancer cells often wrought havoc on healthy ones too.   But a new study published online Oct. 30 in Immunity, a Cell Press journal, unveils an approach to cancer treatment that researchers describe as more precise, long-lasting, and less toxic than current therapies.   The work, led by Duke University School of Medicine immunology researcher Jose Ramon Conejo-Garcia, MD, PhD, centers on the innovative use of IGA antibodies ...