When bats can’t hear, new research finds that these hearing-dependent animals employ a remarkable compensation strategy. They adapt immediately and robustly, suggesting for the first time that bats’ brains are hard-wired with an ability to launch a Plan B in times of diminished hearing. The Johns Hopkins University work, newly published in Current Biology, raises questions about whether other animals and even humans might be capable of such deft accommodations. “Bats have this amazing flexible adaptive behavior that they can employ anytime,” said senior author ...

CHICAGO – Levothyroxine, the second most commonly prescribed medication among older adults in the U.S., may be associated with bone loss, according to a study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Levothyroxine, marketed under multiple brand names including Synthroid, is a synthetic version of a hormone called thyroxine and is commonly prescribed to treat the condition hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid. In people with hypothyroidism, the thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroxine on its own, often resulting in fatigue, weight gain, hair loss and other symptoms. If left untreated, hypothyroidism ...

CHICAGO – Researchers have identified acute effects of cigarette and e-cigarette smoking on vascular function, even without nicotine. The results of the ongoing research are being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). E-cigarettes, also known as vapes, are battery-operated devices that heat a liquid to produce an aerosol, which is then inhaled into the lungs. Vapes contain significantly fewer chemicals and toxins than are found in tobacco smoke. As a result, e-cigarettes are believed by many to be less harmful than cigarette smoking. Vapes also come in various flavors, making them popular among young people. “E-cigarettes ...

Researchers at the University of Lausanne have identified a novel role for the brain’s ‘locus coeruleus’ in sleep and its disruptions. This brain region facilitates the transition between NREM and REM sleep states while maintaining an unconscious vigilance toward the external world. Stress disrupts its functions and negatively impacts on sleep quality. Sleep disorders affect an increasing number of people, with potentially serious consequences for their health. Mammalian sleep consists of cycles between two states: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and rapid eye ...

New York, NY [November 25, 2024]—Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed an innovative approach—demonstrated in mouse models and isolated human brain tissue—to safely and effectively deliver therapeutics into the brain, providing new possibilities for treating a wide range of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Published in the November 25 online issue of Nature Biotechnology [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02487-7], the study introduces a first-of-its-kind blood-brain barrier-crossing conjugate (BCC) system, designed to overcome the protective barrier that typically blocks large biomolecules from ...

The ancient Vikings certainly had the travel bug. Between the late eighth century and approximately 1050 CE, they roamed the Atlantic in their longships all the way to Newfoundland, Labrador, and Greenland, as well as exploring the Mediterranean and continental Eurasia. Among the places the Vikings are known to have settled were the Faroe Islands, an archipelago of 18 islands in the North Atlantic. They probably weren’t the first to do so: archaeologists have found evidence that these islands had been inhabited since approximately 300 CE, possibly ...

Affordability in Canada affects not just groceries but also medications, with 1 in 20 people unable to take their medications as prescribed because of cost, found new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.241024. Prescription medications are not universally covered under Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial health insurance systems. In 2021, Canadian households paid more than $7.4 billion out of pocket for prescription medications.  The study, which included a nationally representative ...

Remotely operated camera traps, sound recorders and drones are increasingly being used in conservation science to monitor wildlife and natural habitats, and to keep watch on protected natural areas. But Cambridge researchers studying a forest in northern India have found that the technologies are being deliberately misused by local government and male villagers to keep watch on women without their consent. Cambridge researcher Dr Trishant Simlai spent 14 months interviewing 270 locals living around the Corbett Tiger Reserve, a national park in northern India, including many women from nearby villages. His report, published today in the journal Environment and Planning ...

Around 450,000 children are being failed by the UK education system because they have a special educational need and disability (SEND) that is effectively unrecognised by most schools and local education authorities, an author has warned. Supporting Colour Blindness in Education and Beyond, by author Marie Difolco, shines a spotlight on a commonly-overlooked SEND in modern classrooms: colour blindness (also known as colour vision deficiency, or CVD). She also warns that many myths surround this condition, with many people believing it just means not being able to tell the ...

Osaka, Japan – Smartphone-based augmented reality, in which visual elements are overlaid on the image of a smartphone camera, are extremely popular apps. These apps allow users to see how furniture would look in their house, or navigate maps better, or to play interactive games. The global phenomenon Pokémon GO, which encourages players to catch digital creatures through their phone, is a well-known example. However, if you want to use augmented reality apps inside a building, prepare to lower your expectations. ...

Study sought to better understand how humans evolved to become skilled at thinking about others Newer parts of the brain that support social interactions are connected to and in constant communication with the ancient amygdala First study to map with fMRI never-before-seen details of the brain’s social cognitive network CHICAGO --- We’ve all been there. Moments after leaving a party, your brain is suddenly filled with intrusive thoughts about what others were thinking. “Did they think I talked too much?” “Did my joke offend them?” “Were ...

Black men on buses and trains — whether as passengers or transit workers — face hostile encounters that threaten their sense of safety and well-being, according to a new study by a Keough School of Global Affairs sociologist. By reinforcing racist tropes that they are dangerous or invisible, these encounters can also erode Black men’s sense of dignity and self-worth. “Black men who want to go to work, school, appointments, visit others, or do any of the other things that people use public transport for, find the experience to be degrading rather than liberating,” said Gwendolyn Purifoye, assistant professor of racial justice and conflict transformation in ...

Increase in annual rates of obesity were largest by far: 7.8% in 2016 to 22.3% in 2023 Vaginal birth complications increased 22.4%; cesarean birth complications increased 48.9% Non-Hispanic Black mothers faced more than double the rate of severe complications compared to non-Hispanic white mothers Illinois data reflects national increases in obesity, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and gestational diabetes in pregnant people of all ages CHICAGO --- A new study from Northwestern Medicine reveals a troubling ...

Alcohol use was the most common predictor of escalating cannabis vaping among youth and young adults, independent of demographic factors, according to research by UTHealth Houston published this month in the journal Social Science & Medicine.  Cannabis vaping is the use of electronic cigarette delivery of liquid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a concentrated form of cannabis that has been extracted and diluted into a liquid solution.Vaping cannabis has grown in popularity among young people in the U.S., according to ...

New Haven, Conn. — Parents are much less likely to intervene when their young children are getting dressed or performing other simple chores if those tasks are framed as learning opportunities, according to a new study by Yale researchers.   Media reports and academic literature suggest that overparenting — a style of parenting in which adults persistently take over tasks or solve problems that would be developmentally appropriate for children to resolve on their own — is becoming ...

The Golgi apparatus modifies, sorts and packages proteins to be sent to their final destinations, whether that’s within or outside of the cell.   It’s a core function, but little studied in the setting of cancer immunology, especially when compared to other organelles like the mitochondria or endoplasmic reticulum.   “So we were interested in looking a little bit more at the Golgi apparatus. It's obviously an important organelle. How is it being changed or what is its role in T-cells in terms of fighting cancer?” said Nathaniel Oberholtzer, an M.D./Ph.D. student who worked in the lab of ...

New York, NY | November 22, 2024 - On Friday the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Hub (SRJ Hub) at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) launched the newest iteration of the civil society-led Global 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-based Violence campaign.  For more than 30 years, feminist activists and movements around the world have used the 16 days between the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25) and Human Rights Day (December 10) to advocate for an end to gender-based violence. ...

DURHAM, N.H.—(November 22, 2024)—An archaeologist from the University of New Hampshire and her team have collected data which indicates the presence of a large-scale pre-Columbian fish-trapping facility. Discovered in the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary (CTWS), the largest inland wetland in Belize, the team dated the construction of these fisheries to the Late Archaic period (cal. 2000-1900 BCE), pre-dating Amazonian examples by a thousand years or more. “The network of canals was designed to channel annual flood waters ...

The South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR) is organizing the São Paulo Advanced School on Disordered Systems, which will take place between April 28 and May 9, 2025, in São Paulo city, Brazil, at the São Paulo State University’s Institute of Theoretical Physics (IFT-UNESP). One of the goals of the school is to reach a broad audience that includes students with a diverse background who are eager to receive systematic training on powerful theoretical methods and who also display a keen interest in complexity ...

While it’s well known that sleep enhances cognitive performance, the underlying neural mechanisms, particularly those related to nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, remain largely unexplored. A new study by a team of researchers at Rice University and Houston Methodist’s Center for Neural Systems Restoration and Weill Cornell Medical College, coordinated by Rice’s Valentin Dragoi, has nonetheless uncovered a key mechanism by which sleep enhances neuronal and behavioral performance, potentially changing our fundamental understanding of how sleep ...

USC has embarked on a collaboration with Autobahn Labs, an accelerator for early-stage drug discovery, to identify and advance cutting-edge scientific findings into new therapies - with a special focus on critical unmet medical needs. “Our collaboration with Autobahn Labs is a pivotal moment for our institution’s mission to bring academic innovations in drug discovery to market,” said Erin Overstreet, PhD, executive director of the USC Stevens Center for Innovation, which manages a broad portfolio of university-owned intellectual ...

DETROIT — Wayne State University's Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases (CEID) is launching its participation in World AMR Awareness Week with an urgent message: the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance requires immediate community action, so it is critical to educate, advocate, and act now. Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial agents. Because of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents become ineffective and infections become difficult or impossible to treat, increasing the risk of spreading various diseases ...

University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have found a way to simultaneously mitigate three types of defects in parts produced using a prominent additive manufacturing technique called laser powder bed fusion.  Led by Lianyi Chen, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW–Madison, the team discovered the mechanisms and identified the processing conditions that can lead to this significant reduction in defects. The researchers detailed their findings in a paper published on November 16, 2024, in the International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture.   “Previous research has normally focused on reducing one type of defect, but that would ...

New Curtin University-led research has uncovered what may be the oldest direct evidence of ancient hot water activity on Mars, revealing the planet may have been habitable at some point in its past.   The study analysed a 4.45 billion-year-old zircon grain from the famous Martian meteorite NWA7034, also known as Black Beauty, and found geochemical ‘fingerprints’ of water-rich fluids.   Study co-author Dr Aaron Cavosie from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences said the discovery opened up new avenues for understanding ancient Martian hydrothermal systems associated ...

In an era of dwindling glaciers, Southern Patagonia has managed to hold on to a surprising amount of its ice. But, A new study in Scientific Reports from INSTAAR postdoc Matthias Troch suggests that this protective effect might be pushed up against its limits soon. Before making predictions, Troch and his collaborators looked back in time. They used an equation that, when plugged into NASA’s ice-sheet and sea-level system model, simulated glacial dynamics for the past six millenia. The results showed that precipitation, not temperature, was the main culprit of glacier fluctuation during around 4,500, of the past 6,000 years, or 76 percent of the time. In ...