Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two academic disciplines have come to fore: peace and conflict studies and East European studies. Experts from both fields represent important voices in the public discourse. A symposium entitled ‘War and Peace in Ukraine: Reflecting, Studying and Engaging Across Disciplines” will be held from 12 until 13 October 2023 at Bielefeld University. It brings together experts from both fields in order to discuss the relationship between them and challenges of participating in a highly ...

Whether improperly closing a door or shanking a kick in soccer, our brains tell us when we’ve made a mistake because these sounds differ from what we expect to hear. While it’s long been established that our neurons spot these errors, it has been unclear whether there are brain cells that have only one job—to signal when a sound is unexpected or “off.” A team of New York University neuroscientists has now identified a class of neurons—what it calls “prediction-error neurons”—that are not responsive to sounds in general, ...

Dementia, which includes Alzheimer's disease, currently affects around 1.8 million people in Germany. The exact cause has not yet been clarified, but genetic factors play a significant role in the development of the disease.  Most previous analyses aimed at the identification of novel Alzheimer's genes used, a "case-control design". "With this conventional and highly simplistic analysis strategy, a vast amount of clinical information is lost that can be valuable for elucidating new disease mechanisms," says Prof. Dr. Lars Bertram, head of the Lübeck Interdisciplinary Platform for Genome Analysis at the University ...

Increased salinity usually spells trouble for freshwater insects like mayflies. A new study from North Carolina State University finds that the lack of metabolic responses to salinity may explain why some freshwater insects often struggle in higher salinity, while other freshwater invertebrates (like mollusks and crustaceans) thrive. Salinity in this case refers to the concentrations of all the salts in an aquatic environment, not just sodium. “Freshwater habitats in general are getting saltier for a number of reasons, including road salt and ...

The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has responded critically to a reflection paper by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on the approval of new drugs based on single-arm studies. The EMA correctly points out that studies without a control arm are subject to bias and that, in general, it is hardly possible to estimate causal effects from them. However, it does not provide clear criteria for limiting drug approval based on such studies to extremely rare exceptional cases. The FDA shows how to do it There is also no recommendation on external controls - in contrast to guidance published ...

Perovskite-based solar cells, widely considered as successors to the currently dominant silicon cells, due to their simple and cost-effective production process combined with their excellent performance, are now the subject of in-depth research. A team of scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy ISE and the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw presented perovskite photovoltaic cells with significantly improved optoelectronic properties in the journal Advanced Materials and Interfaces. Reducing optical losses in the ...

(Boston)—Naomi Hamburg, MD, the Joseph A. Vita Professor of Medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for her research study, “Endothelial Cell Health Across the Spectrum of Cardiometabolic Disease.”   Cardiometabolic diseases are a group of common but often preventable conditions including heart attack, stroke, diabetes, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The escalating prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors including obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) ...

About The Study: COVID-19 was associated with a substantial risk for autoimmune and autoinflammatory connective tissue disorders in this retrospective cohort study, indicating that long-term management of patients with COVID-19 should include evaluation for such disorders.  Authors: Solam Lee, M.D., Ph.D., of Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine in Wonju, Republic of Korea, is the corresponding author.   To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website ...

Cancer cells are chameleons. They completely change their metabolism to grow continuously. University of Basel scientists have discovered that high levels of the amino acid arginine drive metabolic reprogramming to promote tumor growth. This study suggests new avenues to improve liver cancer treatment. The liver is a vital organ with many important functions in the body. It metabolizes nutrients, stores energy, regulates the blood sugar level and plays a crucial role in detoxifying and removing harmful components and drugs. Liver cancer is one of the world’s most lethal types of cancer. Conditions that cause liver cancer include obesity, excessive ...

About The Study: The findings of this survey study involving 1,373 physicians and three survey periods suggest that the physician burnout rate in the U.S. is increasing. This pattern represents a potential threat to the ability of the health care system to care for patients and needs urgent solutions.  Authors: Marcus V. Ortega, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, 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/jamanetworkopen.2023.36745) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including ...

Drug overdose deaths increased sharply among Americans without a college education and nearly doubled over a three-year period among those who don’t have a high school diploma, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The findings further highlight a potential association between the rise in drug overdose deaths and barriers to education access, a social determinant of health.     Lower educational attainment has been one of the socioeconomic factors historically associated with drug use and overdose deaths, but the emergence of fentanyl in street drugs and the rise of the COVID-19 ...

Details of past climate conditions are revealed to researchers not only by sediment samples from the ocean floor, but also by the surface of the seafloor, which is exposed to currents that are constantly altering it. Deposits shaped by near-bottom currents are called contourites. These sediment deposits contain information about past ocean conditions as well as clues to climate. Contourites are often found on continental slopes or around deep-sea mountains. But they can be found in any environment where strong currents occur near the seafloor. The mechanisms that control them are not yet well understood. ...

In a recent study, scientists from the department Living Matter Physics at MPI-DS developed a model describing communication pathways in bacterial populations. Bacteria show an overall organizational pattern by sensing the concentration of chemicals in their environment and adapting their motion. The structure only becomes visible on a higher level “We modeled the non-reciprocal interaction between two bacterial species”, first author Yu Duan explains. “This means that species A is chasing species B, whereas B is aiming to repel from A”, he continues. The researchers found, that just this chase-and-avoid interaction is sufficient to form a structural pattern. The ...

The central question in the ongoing hunt for dark matter is: what is it made of? One possible answer is that dark matter consists of particles known as axions. A team of astrophysicists, led by researchers from the universities of Amsterdam and Princeton, has now shown that if dark matter consists of axions, it may reveal itself in the form of a subtle additional glow coming from pulsating stars. Dark matter may be the most sought-for constituent of our universe. Surprisingly, this mysterious form of matter, ...

A team of New York University computer scientists has created a neural network that can explain how it reaches its predictions. The work reveals what accounts for the functionality of neural networks—the engines that drive artificial intelligence and machine learning—thereby illuminating a process that has largely been concealed from users.  The breakthrough centers on a specific usage of neural networks that has become popular in recent years—tackling challenging biological questions. Among these are examinations of the intricacies of ...

Astronomers have gotten very good at spotting the signs of planet formation around stars. But for a complete understanding of planet formation, we also need to study examples where planet formation has not yet started. Looking for something and not finding it can be even more difficult than finding it sometimes, but new detailed observations of the young star DG Taurus show that it has a smooth protoplanetary disk without signs of planet formation. This successful non-detection of planet formation may indicate ...

Research sheds light on how genetics influences the growth of the placenta and reveals a link to increased risk of disease in the mother. The placenta is an organ which grows in the womb alongside the foetus, which is attached to it by the umbilical cord. It is the only organ that contain tissue from both mother and child. The placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to the growing foetus and removes waste as the baby develops. A poorly functioning placenta is associated with pregnancy complications, and later risk of disease in the child. Despite its key role, little is yet known ...

Across Africa about two million premature deaths each year are caused by the effects of diabetes and hypertension. In contrast, most people living with HIV are in regular care and virally suppressed, and HIV mortality rates have fallen five-fold since their peak of 2 million deaths annually in the early 2000s to less than 500,000 in 2022. Dr Josephine Birungi, a co-author and Graduate Researcher-Public Health at La Trobe University, said that the similarities in chronic disease management of HIV and other chronic conditions should make integrated clinics beneficial. “The only difference is the medicine they take. We’re seeing ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.— Neary 240 scientific abstracts covering a variety of topics such as anti-obesity medications, body mass index and pediatric obesity will be featured at the 41st Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society’s (TOS) at ObesityWeek® 2023. This in-person event will take place Oct. 14–17, 2023 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. Innovative scientific research results will be presented in both oral and poster formats. These communications provide notable exposure and recognition for studies and authors, and represent cutting-edge research in obesity prevention and ...

On October 2, 2023, BGI Genomics signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Colombian National Cancer Institute (INC or Instituto Nacional de Cancerologia). This collaboration, which aims to foster research and further develop cutting-edge solutions based on genetic sequencing for early diagnosis of cervical and colorectal cancer, reflects a shared dedication to enhancing health outcomes in the region. The MoU was formally inked at INC facilities by Dr. Carolina Wiesner, INC Director, and Mr. Rainer Perez, alternate legal representative of BGI Genomics in Colombia. Mr. Marco Antonio Rincón, Latin America Business Director, BGI Genomics, notes: ...

UCC palaeontologists discover molecular evidence of phaeomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger colouration.  “This will paint a more accurate picture of ancient animal colour.”  Phaeomelanin is now toxic to animals – discovery may be first step in understand its evolution.  Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) have found the first molecular evidence of phaeomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger colouration, in the fossil record.   The new study reports ...

A new study from Queen Mary University of London, published in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine, has found that people may experience long-term symptoms —or ‘long colds’—after acute respiratory infections that test negative for COVID-19. Some of the most common symptoms of the ‘long cold’ included coughing, stomach pain, and diarrhea more than 4 weeks after the initial infection. While the severity of an illness appears to be a key driver of risk of long-term symptoms, ...

Our five senses bombard us with environmental input 24/7. One way our brain makes sense of this abundance of information is by combining information from two or more senses, such as between smells and the smoothness of textures, pitch, color, and musical dimensions. This sensory integration also causes us to associate higher temperatures with warmer colors, lower sound pitches with less elevated positions, and colors with the flavor of particular foods – for example, the taste of oranges with the color of the same name. Now, a study in Frontiers in Psychology has shown experimentally that such unconscious 'crossmodal' ...

Osaka, Japan - Can particles as minuscule as viruses be detected accurately within a mere 5 minutes? Osaka Metropolitan University scientists say yes, with their innovative method for ultrafast and ultrasensitive quantitative measurement of biological nanoparticles, opening doors for early diagnosis of a broad range of diseases. Nanoscale extracellular vesicles (EVs) including exosomes, with diameters of 50–150 nm, play essential roles in intercellular communication and have garnered attention as biomarkers for various diseases and drug delivery capsules. Consequently, the rapid and sensitive detection of nanoscale EVs from trace samples is ...

Men who have been on parental leave have a significantly reduced risk of being hospitalized due to alcohol consumption. This is shown by a study published in Addiction from researchers at the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University. The aim of the study was to assess whether fathers’ parental leave influences alcohol-related morbidity and mortality. In order to try to find out if that is the case, the researchers have investigated the effects of parental leave policy that was implemented in Sweden in 1995. The policy encouraged fathers to use parental leave by reserving 30 days of leave for their use alone and resulted in the proportion ...