Researchers have identified buried kimberlite, the rocky home of diamonds, by testing the DNA of microbes in the surface soil. These ‘biological fingerprints’ can reveal what minerals are buried tens of metres below the earth’s surface without having to drill. The researchers believe it is the first use of modern DNA sequencing of microbial communities in the search for buried minerals. The research published this week in Nature Communications Earth and Environment represents a new tool for mineral exploration, where a full toolbox could save prospectors time and a lot of money, says co-author Bianca Iulianella Phillips, a doctoral candidate at ...

Adding crushed volcanic rock to cropland could play a key role in removing carbon from the air. In a field study, scientists at the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University found the technology stored carbon in the soil even during an extreme drought in California. The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Communications. Rain captures carbon dioxide from the air as it falls and reacts with volcanic rock to lock up carbon. The process, called rock weathering, can take millions of years ...

She has explored the brain’s secrets for more than 50 years, delving deep into the genes, proteins and cells that help govern our emotions and moods, and our responses to pleasure and pain. And today, Huda Akil, Ph.D., received the nation’s highest scientific honor – the National Medal of Science -- for those contributions and their impact on humankind’s understanding of depression, anxiety, addiction and more. Akil, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan Medical School and Michigan Neuroscience Institute, and her fellow awardees were honored at the White House in a ceremony ...

Arizona Health Opportunities Pathways to Excellence, a program of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, received a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve their dreams of becoming health care professionals. Arizona Health Opportunities Pathways to Excellence, or AZ-HOPE, is a collaboration between academic and community partners to support students’ educational endeavors and help them overcome barriers on the pathway ...

Tuesday, October 24, 2023, Cleveland: Findings from a trial led by Cleveland Clinic show that patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) at the same time as a left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) procedure using the Watchman™ device had similar outcomes when compared to patients getting TAVR in addition to medical therapy or blood thinners.      Results from the “Safety and Efficacy of Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion at the Time of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement — ...

Like several immunosuppressive biologics, the JAK inhibitor upadacitinib is also approved for the treatment of Crohn's disease. Commissioned by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has now investigated in an early benefit assessment whether the drug offers an added benefit versus the appropriate comparator therapy to patients with moderate to severe active Crohn's disease who have had an inadequate response, lost response or are intolerant to conventional therapy or a biologic agent. Therefore, an added benefit is not proven due to a lack of suitable study data. The ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While governments may take the lead in planning and financing climate change adaptation measures, such as incentivizing green infrastructure, individuals currently are most often the ones implementing actions to adapt to climate change, according to new research. The analysis, conducted by an international consortium of researchers from 20 institutions, including Penn State, in 12 countries, published in Nature Climate Change. “The evidence suggests that individuals and households are the primary adaptation actors — the ones actually implementing ways to ...

Philadelphia, October 24, 2023 – Schizophrenia is a severe neuropsychiatric disease that remains poorly understood and treated. Schizophrenia onset is typically in adolescence or early adulthood, but its underlying causes are thought to involve neurodevelopmental abnormalities. Because human prenatal and postnatal brain tissue is exceedingly difficult to procure and therefore study, researchers have had limited opportunities to identify early disease mechanisms, especially during the critical prenatal period. Now, a pair of studies that appear in Biological Psychiatry, ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Curiosity paradoxically increases people’s patience for an answer, while simultaneously making them more eager to hear it, finds a new study by Duke neuroscientists. The research might help teachers and students alike by describing a side of curiosity that encourages us to stay engaged instead of seeking immediate relief. Die-hard fans of the Hulu show, "The Bear" are left on the edge of their seats each Sunday, wondering what's going to happen in the scrappy Chicago hotdog shop next week. But the new study from Duke helps explain why viewers may choose to avoid spoilers ...

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, in partnership with the Mars Advanced Research Institute, have announced a significant breakthrough in the production of low-calorie sugar substitutes, such as allulose. This discovery could help address one of the primary obstacles to the widespread adoption of these alternatives: production costs. Allulose, also known as D-psicose, is a naturally occurring rare sugar that provides a viable alternative to sucrose (table sugar). It has a similar taste, texture and functionality, making it an attractive option for those seeking to reduce their sugar intake. By activating a natural process in a microorganism, researchers have developed ...

American Geophysical Union  24 October 2023  AGU Release No. 23-39 For Immediate Release  This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/bitcoin-mining-has-very-worrying-impacts-on-land-and-water-not-only-carbon/ AGU press contact: Rebecca Dzombak, news@agu.org (UTC-4 hours) Contact information for the researchers: Kaveh Madani, United Nations University, madani@unu.edu (UTC-4 hours) By the numbers, global bitcoin mining in 2020-2021: Used 173 terawatt ...

Eggs of the mosquito that carries Zika virus can tolerate extended desiccation by altering their metabolism, according to a new study publishing October 24th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Anjana Prasad, Sunil Laxman, and colleagues at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Bengaluru, India and the Indian Institute of Technology in Mandi, India. The finding offers potential new ways to control the spread of this mosquito. Cells are made mostly of water, and desiccation is a potentially fatal event for any organism, since the structures of many proteins and other cellular molecules are dependent ...

A new study reveals biological mechanisms by which a specific strain of bacteria in the Wolbachia genus might enhance the fertility of the insects it infects—with potentially important implications for mosquito-control strategies. Shelbi Russell of the University of California Santa Cruz, US, and colleagues report these findings in the open access journal PLOS Biology on October 24th. Different strains of Wolbachia bacteria naturally infect a number of different animals worldwide, such as mosquitos, butterflies, and fruit flies. Wolbachia can manipulate the fertility of their ...

The research team, led by Durham University, UK, used satellite data and radio-echo sounding techniques to map a 32,000 km2 area of land underneath the vast ice sheet.    They discovered a landscape that appears to have been formed by rivers at least 14 million years ago and possibly even before the initial growth of the East Antarctic ice around 34 million years ago.   This newly discovered landscape consists of ancient valleys and ridges, not dissimilar in size-and-scale to the glacially-modified landscape of North Wales, ...

Cleveland Clinic has been selected by Wellcome Leap to lead a quantum computing research project, while also playing a significant role in another led by Algorithmiq — both in collaboration with IBM Quantum.   The two contracts were won through Wellcome Leap’s Quantum for Bio Challenge, which will award up to $40 million to 12 researchers globally for research focused on accelerating the development of quantum computing applications for healthcare. Wellcome Leap is a U.S.- based non-profit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate and increase ...

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have gained valuable insights into producing nitroxide, a molecule with potential applications in the biomedical field. While nitric oxide (NO) has long been on researchers' radar for its significant physiological effects, its lesser-known cousin, nitroxide (HNO), has remained largely unexplored. The study, published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, was born out of a joint endeavor between teams at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser and Stanford ...

SAN FRANCISCO – A novel study conducted by a Japanese multicenter registry has revealed the significant benefits of using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in coronary intervention procedures. The comprehensive analysis, which focused on enhancing patient outcomes, has provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of IVUS in improving the success rates of these interventions. The study, titled "Enhancing coronary intervention outcomes with the use of intravascular ultrasound: A comprehensive analysis of long-term benefits in Japanese multicenter registry," sheds light on the positive ...

Philadelphia, PA., October 24, 2023  WHO: The Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First), an initiative of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) WHAT: Kids First announces the release of nine robust new pediatric research datasets spanning childhood cancers, congenital disorders, and cross-condition data. New publicly available datasets include: PEDIATRIC CROSS-CONDITION Kids First and INCLUDE: Down Syndrome, Heart Defects, and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Principal ...

In a new case report, researchers at UCLA Health describe promising results using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the management of post-stroke cerebellar ataxia, a debilitating condition marked by impaired coordination and balance. Cerebellar ataxia describes a group of neurological disorders that affect coordination, balance, and control of muscle movements. It results from damage or dysfunction of the cerebellum, a part of the brain responsible for coordinating voluntary movements. Ataxia can manifest as unsteady walking, difficulties with fine motor skills, and problems with speech, ...

Lingjia Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering who is also an inaugural faculty member at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, has been awarded the Mobile Distributed Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (Mobile dMIMO) project by the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) as part of its flagship FutureG program. The Mobile dMIMO project consists of three phases, with $9 million total planned funding — $1.5 million is for Phase 1 of the project. The Mobile dMIMO project represents one ...

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a smartphone attachment that could enable people to screen for a variety of neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury, at low cost—and do so accurately regardless of their skin tone. The technology, published in Scientific Reports, has the potential to improve the equity and accessibility of neurological screening procedures while making them widely available on all smartphone models. The attachment fits over a smartphone’s camera and improves its ...

Gene therapy currently represents the most promising approach for the treatment of hereditary diseases. Yet despite significant breakthroughs in recent years, there are still a number of hurdles that hinder the wider application of gene therapies. These include the efficient delivery of genetic material into target cells with minimal side effects using adeno-associated viral vectors (AAVs). The AAV carrier substances have an advantageous safety profile and high gene transfer efficiency, meaning they are often used in gene therapies and in gene editing with CRISPR/Cas. But, AAVs have limited DNA uptake capacity ...

An artificial intelligence tool effectively detected distress in hospital workers’ conversations with their therapists early in the pandemic, a new study shows, suggesting a potential new technology that screens for depression and anxiety. As the coronavirus pandemic forced many hospitals to operate beyond capacity, medical workers faced overwhelming numbers of work shifts, limited rest, and increased risk of COVID-19 infection. At the same time, quarantine policies and fear of infecting family reduced their ...

If you’ve ever watched a bumblebee move from flower to flower, you might wonder how they decide which flower to choose and how long to stay. Now, researchers reporting in the journal iScience on October 24 have new insight based on their observations of bumblebees’ interactions with slippery artificial flowers. They found that the bumblebees make choices to maximize the rate of energy return, or the amount of sugar collected each minute. “Bumblebees can make decisions ‘on the fly’ about which nectar sources are the most energetically economical,” said Jonathan ...

When it comes to the question of who gets to be a scientist, gender disparities are well-documented in many fields. Patching the infamous “leaky pipeline” can be a thorny problem, but during the 2022–2023 school year, the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford took a simple and practical step forward: they began offering period products in the department’s bathrooms. In an article publishing October 25 in the journal Trends in Chemistry, three students involved in the Oxford Period Project and their supervising ...