Two million years ago, Homo erectus had expanded beyond the lowland savanna environments of East Africa and into the high-altitude regions of the Ethiopian highlands, where they produced both Oldowan and Acheulean tools, according to a new study. It presents a reanalysis of an early hominin fossil first discovered in 1981. The findings provide novel insights into the evolution, migration and adaptive capacities of early human ancestors. In Africa, the limited number of hominin fossils found in direct association with stone tools has hindered attempts to link Homo habilis and Homo erectus with ...

A new probiotic-guided chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T platform uses engineered bacteria to infiltrate and produce synthetic antigen targets, enabling CAR-T cells to find, identify, and destroy tumor cells in situ, according to a new study. The combined cell therapy platform expands the scope of CAR-T cell therapy to include difficult-to-target solid tumors. Immunotherapies using CAR-T cells have proven successful in treating some types of blood cancers. However, their efficacy against solid tumors remains elusive. A key challenge facing tumor-antigen targeting immunotherapies like CAR-T is the identification of suitable ...

New pharmaceuticals, cleaner fuels, biodegradable plastics: in order to meet society’s needs, chemists have to develop new synthesis methods to obtain new products that do not exist in their natural state. A research group at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with Cardiff University, has discovered how to use an external electric field to control and accelerate a chemical reaction, like a ‘‘switch’’. This work, to be read in Science Advances, could have a considerable impact on the development of new molecules, enabling not only more environmentally friendly synthesis, but also very simple external control of a chemical reaction. In ...

NEWPORT, Ore. – Dynamic and changing Arctic Ocean conditions likely caused three major mortality events in the eastern North Pacific gray whale population since the 1980s, a new study has found. During each of these die-offs, including one that began in 2019 and is ongoing, the gray whale population was reduced by up to 25% over just a few years, said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor with Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and the study’s lead author. “These are extreme population swings that we did not expect to see in a large, long-lived species like gray whales,” Stewart said. “When the availability ...

In two parallel projects, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been involved in creating the most comprehensive atlases of human brain cells to date. The two studies, which are published in Science, provide clues on different brain diseases and give hope for medical advancements in the future, such as new cancer drugs. Knowing what cells constitute the healthy brain, where different cell types are located and how the brain develops from the embryo stage is fundamental to the ability to compare and better understand how diseases arise. There are at present advanced atlases of the ...

Tropical crops such as coffee, cocoa, watermelon and mango may be at risk due to the loss of insect pollinators, finds a new study led by UCL and Natural History Museum researchers. Published in Science Advances, the study explores the intricate interplay between climate change, land use change, and their impact on pollinator biodiversity, ultimately revealing significant implications for global crop pollination. The study, which compiled data from 1,507 crop growing sites around the world and catalogued 3,080 insect pollinator species, exposes a concerning trend – the combined pressures ...

A group of international scientists have mapped the genetic, cellular, and structural makeup of the human brain and the nonhuman primate brain. This understanding of brain structure, achieved by funding through the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® Initiative, or The BRAIN Initiative®, allows for a deeper knowledge of the cellular basis of brain function and dysfunction, helping pave the way for a new generation of precision therapeutics for people with mental disorders and other disorders of the brain. The findings appear in a compendium of ...

New York, NY—October 12, 2023—For several years, researchers have been successfully using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to target specific antigens found on blood cells as a cure for patients with leukemia and lymphoma. But solid tumors, like breast and colon cancers, have proven to be more difficult to home in on. Solid tumors contain a mix of cells that display different antigens on their surface-often shared with healthy cells in the body. Thus, identifying a consistent and safe target has impeded the success of most CAR-T cell therapy for solid tumors at the first phase ...

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and cigarette smoking causes three in 10 of all cancer deaths. Smoking also accounts for more than 30 percent of the difference in life expectancy among different socioeconomic groups. Roberta Freitas-Lemos, research assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, recently received a career development award to explore the ways in which nicotine tax policies can influence health disparities. The award of more than $680,000 over five years from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health is designed ...

New York, NY (October 12, 2023) - The Mount Sinai Health System has received a $12,180,625 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to compare new treatment options for sickle cell disease and determine which work best for specific patients. “Sickle cell traditionally has been a neglected disease, but it benefited from a flurry of innovation over the last decade and there are now three new medications approved for the disease,” says Jeffrey Glassberg, MD, Director of the Mount Sinai Sickle Cell Program. “While this is welcome news, clinicians now have a new challenge. ...

Advocates for the use of trigger warnings suggest that they can help people avoid or emotionally prepare for encountering content related to a past trauma. But trigger warnings may not fulfill either of these functions, according to an analysis published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.   Instead, warnings appear to heighten the anticipatory anxiety a person may feel prior to viewing sensitive material while making them no less likely to consume that content, wrote Victoria M. E. Bridgland of ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden are investigating a car fuel comprised of a liquid that is converted to hydrogen by a solid catalyst. The used liquid is then emptied from the tank and charged with hydrogen, after which it can be used again in a circular system that is free from greenhouse gas emissions.  In two research articles, Lund researchers have demonstrated that the method works, and while it is still basic research, it has the potential to become an efficient energy-storage system in the future. “Our catalyst is one of the most efficient around, at least if you look at publicly available research,” says Ola ...

FROEDTERT HEALTH, WISCONSIN DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORIES AND HEALTHECO LAUNCH ATALAN, A TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED CLINICAL PARTNERSHIP PROVIDING ACCESS TO THE BEST IN LABORATORY MEDICINE   Atalan’s Access Hub Connects Doctors and Medical Centers to a Vetted Network of the Nation’s Foremost Clinical Laboratories to Improve Patient Diagnostics and Care   MILWAUKEE, Oct. 12, 2023 – Froedtert Health, Wisconsin Diagnostic Laboratories (WDL) and HealthEco announced today the launch of Atalan, a technology-enabled clinical partnership providing doctors and medical centers unprecedented access to a vetted network of the nation’s ...

Researchers from the Veterinary Education, Research, & Outreach (VERO) program at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) have received $300,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the costliest disease in the cattle industry, bovine respiratory disease (BRD). The grant will fund a highly collaborative project involving Mississippi State University, West Texas A&M University and Texas A&M ...

A new study will combine an Alzheimer’s medication that slows disease progression in some patients with two other drugs to see if their effects can be amplified. The trial will be the first to test drugs acting on two disease-driving proteins, amyloid and tau, for patients with late-onset Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia.  The trial will recruit 900 participants with early Alzheimer’s at UC San Francisco and other sites nationwide. It is funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health. It is awarded to Adam Boxer, MD, PhD, principal investigator and project ...

Nearly 30 million Chinese individuals experience hearing loss (HL), with around 60% of these cases being hereditary. HL is the second most common congenital disability in China, with an estimated 30,000 babies in China born with HL each year and face the challenges of medical expenses and education-related issues. To understand if concurrent hearing screening and high-throughput genetic screening could improve the effectiveness of newborn HL programs, a new study by Minghong Zhao, Xuemei Luo, Qinfei ...

It may be possible to create paved roads and landing pads on the Moon by using lasers to melt lunar soil into a more solid, layered substance, reports a proof-of-concept study in Scientific Reports. Although these experiments were carried out on Earth using a substitute for lunar dust, these findings demonstrate the viability of the technique and suggest it could be replicated on the Moon. However, further work may be needed to refine the process, according to the authors. Moon dust poses a significant challenge to lunar rovers as, due to the low levels of gravity, ...

AI is so energy hungry that most data analysis must be performed in the cloud New energy-efficient device enables AI tasks to be performed within wearables This allows real-time analysis and diagnostics for faster medical interventions Researchers tested the device by classifying 10,000 electrocardiogram samples The device successfully identified six types of heart beats with 95% accuracy EVANSTON, Ill. — Forget the cloud. Northwestern University engineers have developed a new nanoelectronic device that can perform accurate machine-learning classification tasks in the most energy-efficient ...

Viewed globally, it is above all individuals and households that are pursuing adaptation to the impacts of climate change; systematic networking of the various groups affected is lacking. This is the conclusion reached by an international team of experts from Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence for climate research (CLICCS) and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). Their meta-study was just released in the journal Nature Climate Change. For their meta-study, the 30 authors analyzed more than 1,400 academic studies on climate change adaptation. By doing so, they offer the first global overview of which groups of actors are pursuing adaptation – and ...

About The Study: Red blood cell (RBC) transfusion was common in patients admitted to 233 intensive care units in 30 countries between 2019 and 2022, with high variability across centers in transfusion practices. Although many different clinical reasons and triggers were stated for RBC transfusion, the three most common reasons (low hemoglobin level, active bleeding, hemodynamic instability) and triggers (hypotension, tachycardia, no physiological trigger affected the decision to transfuse) were largely overlapping in all regions.  Authors: Alexander P. J. Vlaar, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., of Amsterdam University Medical ...

About The Study: This randomized trial in 25 adult medical-surgical intensive care units (ICUs) in Canada found that the transition from standard-volume to small-volume tubes for blood collection in the ICU may reduce red blood cell transfusion without impacting biospecimen sufficiency for laboratory analysis.  Authors: Deborah M. Siegal, M.D., M.Sc., of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 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/jama.2023.20820) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for ...

About The Study: Based on high-quality population-based data, this study found that the higher lung cancer incidence in women than in men has not only continued in individuals younger than 50 years but also now extends to middle-aged adults as younger women with a high risk of the disease enter older age. Reasons for this shift are unclear because the prevalence and intensity of smoking are not higher in younger women compared with men except for a slightly elevated prevalence among those born in the 1960s.  Authors: Ahmedin Jemal, D.V.M., Ph.D., of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: ...

About The Study: In this study of 249,000 visits to seven academic and community hospital emergency departments, patients who identified as Black, Hispanic, and Other race and ethnicity were assigned less acute Emergency Severity Index scores than their white peers despite having received more involved physician workups, suggesting some degree of mistriage. Clinical decision support systems might reduce these disparities but would require careful calibration to avoid replicating bias.  Authors: Joshua W. Joseph, M.D., M.S., ...

A world-first clinical trial published in JAMA could provide an easy way to save tens of thousands of units of blood every year in Canada and much more worldwide. The trial, which involved more than 27,000 patients in 25 adult intensive care units (ICUs) across Canada, showed that taking less blood for lab tests using “small-volume” tubes reduced the need for almost one blood transfusion for every 10 patients. Most hospitals use standard tubes that automatically draw four to six milliliters (ml) of blood, but a typical laboratory test requires less than 0.5 ml of blood, meaning the rest (more ...

Sleep is generally defined as a period during which the body and mind are at rest—as if disconnected from the world. However, a new study led by Delphine Oudiette, Isabelle Arnulf, and Lionel Naccache at Paris Brain Institute shows that the frontier between wakefulness and sleep is much more porous than it seems. The researchers have shown that ordinary sleepers can pick up verbal information transmitted by a human voice and respond to it by contracting their facial muscles. This astonishing ability occurs intermittently during almost all stages of sleep—like windows of connection with the outside world were temporarily opened on this occasion. These new findings ...