The nonprofit PhRMA Foundation launched a new grant program to provide more than $1 million in funding for research on the use of digital health technologies (DHTs) in underrepresented populations in clinical trials to advance regulatory decision-making.  Based on applicants’ letters of intent, the Foundation will award up to eight $25,000 planning grants to support the development of detailed research proposals to compete for two $500,000 grants. Planning grant award recipients will also be offered a $5,000 promotional credit from ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (7/17/2023)  – Putting truth to the test in the “post-truth era”, Boston College psychologists conducted experiments that show when Americans decide whether a claim of fact should qualify as true or false, they consider the intentions of the information source, the team reported recently in Nature’s Scientific Reports. That confidence is based on what individuals think the source is trying to do – in this case either informing or deceiving their audience. “Even when people know precisely how accurate or inaccurate a claim of fact is, whether they consider that claim to be true or false hinges on the intentions ...

The vast scale of global trade presents a constant threat of introducing new plant diseases, which is challenging to the United States system of biosecurity. Plant health professionals often must respond quickly to a newly introduced or emerging plant disease outbreak even before a well-validated diagnostic test is available. Additionally, thousands of plant pathogens that already exist have been routinely diagnosed with assays that were not fully or consistently validated, which can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, delays in proper disease management, and significant consequences for growers and the public. Growing awareness of this gap in coordination and resources for plant disease ...

Political apathy is growing in democracies around the world. Political apathy, also known as political alienation, describes feelings of separation and disaffection, a sense of powerlessness and an indifference to politics and political institutions. A hallmark of political alienation is a refusal to vote or participate in political activities. Adolescents and young adults are no exception to these trends. In many countries in Europe and North America, the youngest voters have the lowest participation rates. Why are new voters so apathetic about politics? Many factors are ...

Ambitious global $1 billion per year ‘mission science’ model needed to win on sustainable development in time, warns experts   From the climate emergency and global health to the energy transition and water security, new report argues the global science and science funding efforts must be fundamentally redesigned and scaled up to meet complex needs of humanity and the planet.    July 17, 2023, NEW YORK – The current sustainability science model requires a fundamental redesign to keep up with the pace and complexity of the challenges facing the planet, argues the high-level ...

Ophiothrix angulata, a widely recognized and prevalent ophiuroid species in the Western Atlantic, has long been the subject of taxonomic debate due to its remarkable morphological diversity. A new study just published in PeerJ Life & Environment has shed light on the species' taxonomy, revealing a significant scientific breakthrough.  Led by a team of researchers from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Católica del Maule and Florida Natural History Museum,  the comprehensive study aimed to assess species delimitation ...

On the occasion of its annual general assembly in Singapore on 16 July 2023, the International Institute of Welding presented Sergio Amancio, from the Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), with this year’s Yoshiaki Arata Award in recognition of his scientific achievements. This award, consisting of a medal and a certificate, is considered one of the world’s most important awards for research in welding and additive manufacturing and usually goes to veteran researchers who are recognised for their life’s work. For ...

Statement Highlights: The number of people who use electronic nicotine delivery systems, typically referred to as e-cigarettes, has grown exponentially, especially among youth and young adults. E-cigarette use more than doubled from 2017 to 2019 among middle and high school students. Ingredients of e-cigarettes, including nicotine, flavoring agents, sweeteners and propylene glycol and vegetable glycerol, may each independently pose dangerous health risks. More clinical studies on the long-term impact of e-cigarettes on the heart, blood vessels and lungs are needed, and experts emphasize additional molecular and laboratory research ...

In order for future mobility, such as urban air mobility (UAM), to become a reality, it must be fuel efficient and reduce carbon emissions, which requires the development of new materials with excellent physical properties and recyclability. Self-reinforced composites (SRCs) are inexpensive, lightweight, and have advantages in terms of disposal and recycling as the reinforcement and the base material are composed of the same material. For this reason, it is attracting attention as a next-generation composite material to replace carbon fiber-reinforced composites used in aircraft. Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President ...

‘Routine’ infanticide of newborns by married parents in early modern Europe was a much more widespread practice than previously thought, a new book posits. This fresh insight sits at the heart of a new book, Death Control in the West 1500–1800: Sex Ratios at Baptism in Italy, France and England, by Gregory Hanlon and contributors. The French-trained behavioural historian explains: “In most cases, infanticide was a crime leaving no aggrieved party seeking revenge if it was committed right away. It could be overlooked and forgotten with the passage of time.” Widespread infanticide Hanlon, who is Distinguished Research Professor at Dalhousie University in ...

Growing evidence supports prescribing psychostimulant medications to help reduce use of illegal stimulants such as methamphetamine, authors write in a CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) commentaryhttps://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230266. Illegal stimulant use is rising, judging by the presence of these drugs in at least half of all opioid deaths in Canada in 2022. Following evidence from clinical trials in Australia, Europe and the United States, physicians and nurse practitioners in Canada and other countries are increasingly prescribing psychostimulants as harm reduction for stimulant use disorder. "This emerging ...

Commercial, rather than patient interests, often drive cancer care and research and patients deserve better, argue a group of global oncologists and patient advocates in a Comment published in The Lancet Oncology journal. The authors also establish core guidelines for the development of a new patient-centred movement in cancer care - Common Sense Oncology.   The Comment says there has been a shift over the past few decades from predominantly publicly funded clinical trials designed to answer questions important to patients, to industry-funded trials which aim to achieve ...

Both ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions for ADHD medication have increased significantly over the past two decades, except in children under five, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research, published in BJPsych Open, reviewed data from 7 million individuals aged three to 99, from IQVIA Medical Research Data, a UK primary care database, between 2000 and 2018. Of these individuals, 35,877 had an ADHD diagnosis and 18,518 received prescriptions for ADHD medication from their GP. Although the number of individuals receiving medication for ADHD is still relatively low, the researchers found ...

Today at the International Alzheimer's Congress (AAIC) in Amsterdam, new guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease developed by clinicians and researchers from around the world were presented. In these criteria, the disease is diagnosed in the clinic through the use of blood biomarkers, just as with other major diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.   A blood test has been developed for this purpose in recent years that gives very good results, according to recent research. Charlotte Teunissen, professor of neurochemistry at Amsterdam ...

Researchers have cracked how a particular type of immune cell develops in the body and protects against infection and disease. And the discovery could help in the development of more preventive treatments, according to a new study. The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Federation University Australia, has uncovered how these specialised white blood cells operate and can produce an immune response.  Associate Professor Dan Pellicci said by understanding the function of these cells, they could be harnessed to help prevent cancer and highly infectious diseases such as ...

Criegee intermediates are produced in the ozonolysis of unsaturated compounds in the atmosphere. These intermediates are especially importanct because they contribute to the formation of OH radical during the night and to formation of secondary organic aerosols. The OH radicals increase the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere, and the aerosols may reflect or absorb sunlight and contribute to cloud formation. Criegee intermediates also lay key roles in conversion of sulfur dioxide into sulfur trioxide, finally resulting in the formation ...

Tokyo, Japan – Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have shown that 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) helps bypass deficiencies in Complex I (CI), the first in a series of protein complexes that transport electrons and help power the mitochondria. They showed that fruit flies missing the analogous protein showed improved health when given a cocktail of drugs including 5-ALA. CI deficiency is responsible for the majority of mitochondrial disorders; the team’s findings might lead to new therapies. Mitochondrial diseases arise from problems in the mitochondria, a small organelle in cells which produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP), ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- When Sara Estrapala started her career as a high school paraeducator supporting students with disabilities such as autism, down syndrome, learning disorders and challenging behaviors, she quickly recognized a challenge — her teenage students desire to make their own decisions and their teachers’ struggle to keep them engaged and following directions. Now an assistant research professor in the University of Missouri College of Education and Human Development, Estrapala is leading a four-year, $519,939 early career development and mentoring ...

Oceanic islands provide useful models for ecology, biogeography and evolutionary research. Many ground-breaking findings – including Darwin's theory of evolution – have emerged from the study of species on islands and their interplay with their living and non-living environment. Now, an international research team led by the University of Göttingen has investigated the flora of the Canary Island of Tenerife. The results were surprising: the island's plant-life exhibits a remarkable diversity ...

The European university network Enlight has been renewed: the EU has funded the Enlight Network consisting of the University of Göttingen with nine other research-oriented universities for four more years with a total of around 14.4 million euros. The Network plans to use a large part of the funds for academic initiatives, underlining its commitment to supporting researchers and students. In addition to the University of Göttingen, the Network includes the Universities of Ghent, Groningen, Uppsala and Tartu, the University of the Basque Country, the Universities of Bordeaux and Galway as well as Comenius University Bratislava; and Enlight's tenth and ...

The discovery that football players were unknowingly acquiring permanent brain damage as they racked up head hits throughout their professional careers created a rush to design better head protection. One of these inventions is nanofoam, the material on the inside of football helmets. Thanks to mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Baoxing Xu at the University of Virginia and his research team, nanofoam just received a big upgrade and protective sports equipment could, too. This newly invented design integrates nanofoam with “non-wetting ionized liquid," a ...

The range of COVID-19 symptoms varies—some feel a mild cold, others are hospitalized, while others perish. Many studies have linked the severity of COVID-19 symptoms with an individual’s biological factors, but less is known about the impact of non-biological factors, such as the environment in which people live. A new study that published on June 14, 2023, in the journal PLoS ONE, is the first to show that the neighborhood-built environment might pose an independent risk determining the individuals hospitalized due to COVID-19 illness. The authors found that in a cohort of more than 18,000 individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infections, living in ...

Many landscapes in the tropics consist of a mosaic of different types of land use. How people make use of these different ecosystems, with their particular plant communities, was unclear until now. Researchers, many of them from Madagascar, have now investigated this in an interdisciplinary Malagasy research project at the University of Göttingen. When considering biodiversity, forests often get the most attention. But this research shows that rural households use a wide range of plant species ...

Neuroscientists from the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University, Rome Campus, and the A. Gemelli IRCCS Polyclinic Foundation found that intensive exercise could slow the course of Parkinson's disease and described the biological mechanisms. The finding could pave the way for new non-drug approaches. The study "Intensive exercise ameliorates motor and cognitive symptoms in experimental Parkinson's disease by restoring striatal synaptic plasticity" is published in the journal Science Advances. The research was led by Catholic University, Rome Campus ...

Using an approach based on computer vision technology, researchers can work back from COVID-19 mortality data to see how infection rates changed on the day a lockdown or similar measure was introduced. The approach could be generally useful in future epidemics and pandemics. The work is published July 14 in Science Advances.  Coauthors Leonor Saiz, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of California, Davis, and Jose Vilar, University of the Basque Country, Spain, wanted to see the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, lockdowns and masking in the first year of the pandemic. They looked at daily death reports from European ...