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 ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial of 3,777 patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a type of heart attack), the Chinese patent medicine Tongxinluo, as an adjunctive therapy in addition to STEMI guideline-directed treatments, significantly improved both 30-day and 1-year clinical outcomes. Further research is needed to determine the mechanism of action of Tongxinluo in STEMI.  Authors: Yuejin Yang, M.D., Ph.D., and Runlin Gao, M.D., of the Chinese Academy of Medical ...

Research has found that bumblebees make foraging choices to collect the most sugar from flowers in the shortest time – even if that means using more energy in the process – to provide an immediate energy boost for the colony. A new study investigating nectar drinking in one of the most common bumblebees in the UK, Bombus terrestris, has found that when foraging they maximise the amount of nectar sugar they take back to the colony each minute. To make their choices, the bumblebees trade off the time they spend collecting nectar with the energy content of that nectar. This means ...

About The Study: In this examination of SARS-CoV-2 incidence and transmission in child care centers (CCCs) and students’ households, transmission within CCCs and from children infected at CCCs into households was low in this study that included 83 children in 11 CCCs. These findings suggest that current testing and exclusion recommendations for SARS-CoV-2 in CCCs should be aligned with those for other respiratory viruses with similar morbidity and greater transmission to households. Authors: Timothy R. Shope, ...

About The Study: The results of this study of 91,460 mother-offspring pairs found no association between in utero corticosteroid and β2-adrenergic agonist exposure and offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes, regardless of the timing of exposure. Despite the limitations and low power of the study, the findings suggest that corticosteroids and β2-adrenergic agonists are safe for pregnant individuals with asthma and the neurodevelopment of their offspring. Authors: Abir Nagata, Ph.D., of Osaka University in Osaka, Japan, and Toshio Masumoto, Ph.D., of Tottori University ...

Children in child care centers are not spreading COVID-19 at significant rates to caregivers or other children at the center, nor to their households, according to a study led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh pediatrician-scientists and published today in JAMA Network Open. The findings suggest that recommendations to test symptomatic children for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and keep positive children home from child care for prolonged periods can be revised to align with those for other serious ...

PHILADELPHIA—The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today the six pairs of researchers who will make up its 2023 class of Innovation Fund investigators. These 12 acclaimed scientists—all alumni or advisors of Pew’s biomedical programs in the United States and Latin America—will partner on interdisciplinary research projects exploring key questions in human biology and disease. Combining the researchers’ expertise in topics ranging from neuroscience and immunology to cancer biology, these collaborations will help boost scientific discovery and improve human health. “An interdisciplinary approach to research is critical to uncovering scientific breakthroughs ...

Why would someone decide to give their money to help a stranger bring a creative project to life? Recent research has found that backers of crowdfunding projects participate, in part, because of a sense of indirect success and the feeling that they are contributing to something bigger. Crowdfunding — raising money for a new venture by collecting small amounts from many people — is most often done online, and messaging on the most popular sites reinforces the perception of a more democratic market. But the reality is a bit ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An international coalition of climate scientists says in a paper published today that the Earth’s vital signs have worsened beyond anything humans have yet seen, to the point that life on the planet is imperiled. William Ripple, a distinguished professor in the Oregon State University College of Forestry, and former OSU postdoctoral researcher Christopher Wolf are the lead authors of the report, and 10 other U.S. and global scientists are co-authors. “Without actions ...

In a year marked by wildfire, catastrophic flooding, and deadly weather events, an international team of scientists has updated its influential 2019 World Scientists Warning of a Climate Emergency report, which has been cosigned by over 15,000 scientists representing 163 countries. According to the team, “life on planet Earth is under siege” and “we are now in uncharted territory.”                 Writing in the journal BioScience, William Ripple, a distinguished ...

Researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and University Health Network (UHN) have demonstrated that by analyzing patients’ blood samples, they are able to detect cancer earlier in individuals with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, an inherited condition with an almost 100 percent life-time risk of developing cancer. The research, led by Drs. Trevor Pugh and Raymond Kim at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, UHN and OICR and Dr. David Malkin at SickKids, has been published in Cancer Discovery. The study, which was funded primarily ...

Flu season is upon us, and existing vaccines are only ~40-60% effective at reducing the risk of serious illness. While any level of protection against influenza viruses is better than none, there remains a lot of room for improvement of future vaccines. The Precision Vaccines Program (PVP) at Boston Children’s Hospital was awarded a Vaccine Adjuvant Development Program contract (75N93023C00040) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) that can extend up to 5 years and $9 million, ...

It is estimated that over 80% of engineering failures are due to material fatigue, so the fight against metal fatigue failures continues, as this is a key parameter for lightweight structures for all mechanical systems, such as aircraft, automobile and energy-production systems. Recently, joint research by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University achieved a breakthrough by creating an aluminium alloy with unprecedented fatigue resistance using advanced 3D printing techniques. ...

Mount Sinai researchers have discovered a link between certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and an increased risk for thyroid cancer, according to a study published in eBioMedicine today. PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are a large, complex group of synthetic chemicals that can migrate into the soil, water, and air. Due to their strong carbon-fluorine bond, these chemicals do not degrade easily in the environment. Forever chemicals been used in consumer products around the world since the 1940s, including nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics, and other products that resist grease, water, and oil. Multiple national and international ...

Hamilton, Canada: The extraordinary rise in cryptocurrency prices over the previous decade has prompted huge investments in the cryptocurrency sector. Undeniably, digital currencies have won the faith of the world's top investors, ranging from large corporations and tech millionaires to criminals, money launderers, and sanction busters. Thanks to blockchain and other technological breakthroughs, digital currencies now constitute an advanced element of the world’s modern financial ...

Washington, October 24, 2023—Participating in policy debate programs in middle and high school is associated with improvements in English language arts (ELA) achievement and increases in the likelihood that students graduate from high school and enroll in postsecondary education, according to new research. The study was published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. It was conducted by Beth Schueler from the University of Virginia and Katherine Larned from Harvard University. Video: Study co-author Beth Schueler discusses ...

Fire buffers composed of irrigated banana trees could slow and calm wildfires and generate profit for residents of fire-prone regions, according to a study. Climate change is increasing wildfire risk. Wildfires in the Western United States doubled in frequency between 1984 and 2015. At the same time, more people are living in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) than ever before, an area that often has high or extreme fire risk. Barath Raghavan and colleagues investigate the potential of banana trees to act as a multifunctional fire buffer in the WUI. Banana trees have a high water content, ideal for stopping fire. When irrigated by recycled water, they can produce ...

Scientists at The University of Toledo have proven that engineered bacteria can lower blood pressure, a finding that opens new doors in the pursuit of harnessing our body’s own microbiome to treat hypertension. The study, published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Pharmacological Research, represents a paradigm shift, said Dr. Bina Joe, a hypertension researcher at UToledo and the paper’s senior author. “The question we always ask is, can we exploit microbiota to help our health, for which optimal blood pressure is a cardinal sign. Until now, we have simply said ...

Meltwater that runs along the east coast of Greenland, hardly enters the open ocean before reaching the western side of the island.  That is one of the conclusions NIOZ PhD-candidate Elodie Duyck draws in the thesis she is defending today at Utrecht University. In the changing climate, fresh water from Greenland and the Arctic could disrupt the circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. “Understanding where, and how much, of that fresh and light water enters the Atlantic Ocean is critical to predict how the circulation may evolve under climate change”, Duyck ...

Older adults who live in disadvantaged communities are less likely to attend cardiac rehabilitation after common heart procedures, a Michigan Medicine-led study finds. The study aimed to calculate how many Medicare beneficiaries attended cardiac rehabilitation, a medically supervised program exercise and education program, after coronary revascularization between mid-2016 and 2018. Patient communities were categorized using the Distressed Community Index, which analyzes economic well-being and social determinants of health, such as educational disparities and poverty rate, of United States zip codes. Only ...

If you’ve ever belly-flopped into a pool, then you know: water can be surprisingly hard if you hit it at the wrong angle. But many species of kingfishers dive headfirst into water to catch their fishy prey. In a new scientific study in the journal Communications Biology, researchers compared the DNA of 30 different kingfisher species to zero in on the genes that might help explain the birds’ diet and ability to dive without sustaining brain damage. The type of diving that kingfishers do-- what researchers call “plunge-diving”-- is an aeronautic feat. “It’s a high-speed dive from air to water, and it’s done by very few bird species,” says ...