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Science10 Oct 2023

Pingpong balls score big as sound absorbers

Long-term exposure to low-frequency noise can cause numerous health problems, but the solution may be found in an unexpected object, a pingpong ball. Conventionally thought of as the hollow plastic balls that speed through the air during a fast-tempo game of table tennis, with a few modifications, pingpong balls can help absorb the city din. Low-frequency noise is ubiquitous in cities, near roads, and by airports. Though potentially heard as background in the acoustic landscape, it can trigger earaches, respiratory impairment, irritability, and other ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Postsurgery memory impairment in middle-aged Chinese patients

About The Study: This study of middle-aged Chinese surgery patients found subjective cognitive and short-term memory impairment within 12 months after both cardiac and noncardiac surgery, with multiple identified risk factors, underscoring the potential of preoperative psychological interventions and optimized perioperative management for postoperative cognitive impairment prevention. Authors: Huan Song, M.D., Ph.D., and Qian Li, M.D., of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Use of prenatal telehealth in the first year of the pandemic

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that most survey respondents who gave birth between June and December 2020 did not use prenatal telehealth, and a personal preference for in-person care was the most common reason. Patients’ preferences should influence how prenatal telehealth, which has both benefits and drawbacks, is incorporated into their care. Authors: Rebecca A. Gourevitch, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland in College Park, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi: ...

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Environment10 Oct 2023

Titanium oxide material can remove toxic dyes from wastewater

Discharged in large quantities by textile, cosmetic, ink, paper and other manufacturers, dyes carry high-toxicity and can bring potential carcinogens to wastewater. It’s a major concern for wastewater treatment—but researchers in Drexel University’s College of Engineering may have found a solution, using a tiny nanofilament. A study lead Michel Barsoum, Ph.D., Distinguished University professor in the College of Engineering, and his team, including researchers from Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, found that a ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Role of methylation in vernalization and photoperiod pathway: a potential flowering regulator?

Recognized as a pivotal developmental transition, flowering marks the continuation of a plant's lifecycle. Flowering time determines the length of plant reproductive period and environmental adaptability. The correct flowering time is very significant for plants to reproduce fruit successfully and is controlled by environment and endogenous signals. Vernalization and photoperiod are the two main flowering pathways orchestrating a large number of floral signals. Methylation is one of the most important epigenetic modifications, which is involved in many key plant growth and development events. Methylation, including histone methylation, DNA methylation ...

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Energy10 Oct 2023

Wireless, battery-free electronic ‘stickers’ gauge forces between touching objects

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed electronic “stickers” that measure the force exerted by one object upon another. The force stickers are wireless, run without batteries and fit in tight spaces. That makes them versatile for a wide range of applications, from arming robots with a sense of touch to elevating the immersive experience of VR and AR, making biomedical devices smarter, monitoring the safety of industrial equipment, and improving the accuracy and efficiency of inventory management in warehouses. They could be used, for example, in knee implants to measure the forces that implants exert on the joint. ...

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Science10 Oct 2023

How to cope when your values clash with your co-workers’

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In our increasingly polarized society, more people may find themselves in a workplace where they are one of the few conservatives or few liberals around. A new study found that those whose values – political or otherwise – don’t match the majority in their organization felt they received less respect and as a result were less engaged at work. Moreover, their co-workers noticed their lack of engagement. “It is a real issue that organizations face,” said Tracy Dumas, lead author of the study and associate professor of management and human resources at The Ohio State University’s ...

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Physics10 Oct 2023

Source of electron acceleration and X-ray aurora of Mercury ̶ local chorus waves detected

Background Since Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun among the solar system planets, it is strongly influenced by the solar wind, a high-speed (several hundred km/s) stream of plasma blowing from the Sun. Explorations of Mercury was first carried out by the Mariner 10 spacecraft in 1974 and 1975, which revealed that Mercury has a magnetic field, and thus a magnetosphere, similar to that of Earth. In the 2000s, the MESSENGER spacecraft provided a detailed picture of the Mercury's magnetic field and magnetosphere, and revealed that Mercury's magnetic field center is shifted northward from the planet’s center by approximately ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

NIH provides $1.2 million for ambitious effort to battle antibiotic resistance

University of Virginia researchers are working to outrace two dangerous germs known for quickly developing resistance to new antibiotics – and the scientists’ efforts could help us better combat antibiotic resistance more broadly. A team led by Jason Papin, PhD, is developing sophisticated computer models of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, two multi-drug resistant bacteria that infect thousands of Americans every year. The researchers will use their models to better understand the cellular processes and gene activity that make the bacteria ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Researchers test large language model that preserves patient privacy

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Locally run large language models (LLMs) may be a feasible option for extracting data from text-based radiology reports while preserving patient privacy, according to a new study from the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (NIH CC) published in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). LLMs are deep-learning models trained to understand and generate text in a human-like way. Recently released LLM models such as ChatGPT and GPT-4 have garnered attention. However, they are not compatible with healthcare data due to privacy constraints. “ChatGPT and GPT-4 are proprietary models that require the user ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

DNA aptamer finds novel application in regulating cell differentiation

Generating specific cell lineages from induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells is the holy grail of regenerative medicine. Guiding iPSCs toward a target cell line has garnered much attention, but the process remains challenging. Now, researchers from Japan have discovered that an anti-nucleolin DNA aptamer, iSN04, can determine a cell’s lineage during differentiation. By demonstrating the generation of cardiomyocytes from murine pluripotent stem cells, their concept shows promise as a regenerative therapy. Self-renewal ...

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Environment10 Oct 2023

Monitoring African copper and cobalt mining emissions from space

Emissions associated with mining operations in Africa’s Copperbelt can be quantified from space, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Mining for copper and cobalt in Africa has rapidly increased, the latter in response to growing global demand for electric vehicles, laptops, smartphones, and other devices that rely on lithium-ion batteries, the vast majority of which contain cobalt. The new study is published in Geophysical Research Letters, ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Study compares health information exchange data versus patient self-reports to measure cancer screening uptake

INDIANAPOLIS – Knowing which populations are following cancer screening guidelines is important to public health officials and policy makers as well as researchers developing strategies to improve adherence. A recent study is one of the first to compare using health information exchange (HIE) data with patient self-reported data as a means of gathering this intelligence. The researchers found that completeness of information differed by data source and screening test. HIE data provided more information than patient self-reports about ...

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Energy10 Oct 2023

Seamlessly multiplexing memory storage and recall

Every day we store memories, some of which we are able to recall later. But while we do so, do we keep on storing? Yes! We cannot afford to stop memory formation while we are retrieving prior ones. Imagine, for instance, that you are navigating the city while recalling last night’s events to a friend tagging along. Your brain must memorize aspects of the route even while you are in the story, so that you can find your way back later or reach your next destination. We seem to perform this task without much conscious effort. Big deal, one could say, as we know that the brain has trillions of synaptic connections, so parallel processing ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

UNIST recognized for design excellence at IDEA 2023!

The design concept of a disaster alert balloon, capable of changing its color like a chameleon, has been honored for its design excellence at the internationally renowned International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) 2023. The awarded concept, named SAFEUP, serves as a hazard indicator, providing visual information about the condition of accident sites from a safe distance. Developed by Professor Chajoong Kim and his team in the Department of Design at UNIST, SAFEUP has received the ‘IDEA 2023’ Bronze Award in the category of Concepts & Speculative Design. The ...

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Science10 Oct 2023

The ribosome–depression link

A group of ribosomal protein genes connect animal models of depression to human patients with major depressive disorder. In order to research depression treatments, scientists use a mouse model, inducing a state with similarities to depression though exposure to variable, unpredictable, and uncontrolled stressors over days or weeks. But is this state molecularly akin to what humans with major depressive disorder experience? To find out, Xiaolu Zhang, Mahmoud Ali Eladawi, and colleagues examine transcriptomics data from postmortem human brain tissue and from several mouse models of stress, seeking to pinpoint conserved ...

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Science10 Oct 2023

Ionic crystal generates molecular ions upon positron irradiation, finds new study

Positron, the antiparticle of electron, has the same mass and charge as that of an electron but with the sign flipped for the charge. It is an attractive particle for scientists because the use of positrons has led to important insights and developments in the fields of elementary particle physics, atomic physics, materials science, astrophysics, and medicine. For instance, positrons are known to be components of antimatter. They are also powerful in detecting lattice defects in solids and semiconductors and in structural analysis of the topmost surface of crystals. Positronic compounds, namely ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Maternal obesity predicts heart disease risk better than pregnancy complications

First study to determine the role pre-pregnancy obesity plays in future poor heart health Those with overweight or obese BMI in early pregnancy had a higher risk of developing hypertensive disorders of pregnancy ‘If pre-pregnancy obesity is the culprit or cause of risk, we should be targeting this with interventions’ Pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes have recently been associated with a higher risk of developing heart disease later in life. But a new Northwestern Medicine study has found obesity before or during ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Pregnancy complications increase and unmask short- and long-term cardiovascular risk for people with obesity

Having obesity before and during early pregnancy appears to be a strong indicator of risk for developing future cardiovascular disease and was significantly linked with adverse outcomes during pregnancy such as high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes, according to a study published in Circulation Research that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers have known obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and pregnancy complications related to blood pressure. However, they did not know which factors – obesity or the pregnancy complications – played larger roles in influencing a person’s ...

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Environment10 Oct 2023

Are we running out of water? Water security threatened by droughts and heatwaves worldwide

Increased demand for water due to global population growth, coupled with the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, endangers our water security. Nonetheless, little is known about the relationship of water use by sectors and the occurrence of drought-heatwave events, particularly at the large scale. To unveil this issue, a group of researchers from the Department of Physical Geography from Utrecht University evaluated the responses of sectoral water use during droughts, heatwaves and compound (combined) events at a global scale. The study published in Environmental Research Letters shows that stronger sectoral water use responses are found for heatwaves compared to ...

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Science10 Oct 2023

Researchers find pre-Columbian agave plants persisting in Arizona landscapes

A new paper in the Annals of Botany, published by Oxford University Press, reveals that researchers have found unaltered agave plant species cultivated by several early cultures including the Hohokam people, a large Native American group in the Southwest that existed between 300 and 1500 CE. Agave plants have been of great economic and social importance in the Americas for at least 9,000 years. Before people cultivated corn, agave plants were one of their main carbohydrate sources. Archaeological research indicates the Hohokam increased agricultural potential by building terraces for agave dry farming. Agricultural features such as terraces and rock piles were especially characteristic ...

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Science10 Oct 2023

Food taxes, farm subsidies and GM crops: new ‘how-to’ guide launched for tailor-made food policies

October 10, WASHINGTON D.C. – A new tool will help governments customise food and agriculture policies based on country-level circumstances to increase their effectiveness at improving diets, adapting to changing climate and protecting natural resources. The Political Economy and Policy Analysis (PEPA) Sourcebook is the first to compile dozens of frameworks and approaches for designing food and agriculture policies, such as reforming farm subsidies, water policies, food safety regulations and taxes. The authors from the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and the International Food Policy Research Institute ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Comprehensive new Canadian guideline for skeletal health and fracture prevention

A comprehensive guideline from Osteoporosis Canada aims to help primary care professionals deliver care to optimize skeletal health and prevent fractures in postmenopausal females and males who are age 50 years and older. It is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.221647. With 25 recommendations and 10 good practice statements, this update to the 2010 guideline contains sections on exercise, nutrition, fracture risk assessment, treatment and more, reflecting advances in risk assessment, and nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic management of osteoporosis. In ...

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Science10 Oct 2023

Five years of legal cannabis in Canada: mixed success

Five years after cannabis legalization in Canada, it appears to be a mixed success, with social justice benefits outweighing health benefits, write authors in a commentary published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230808. Cannabis use was legalized in Canada in October 2018, with the goal to improve cannabis-related public health and safety, and reduce youth access and illegal activities related to cannabis. There was concern among some health ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2023

Mental health issues in Latinx middle schoolers may increase risk of sleep problems, obesity and unhealthy behaviors

WASHINGTON (Oct. 10, 2023)--Latinx kids who experienced depression, anxiety or other mental health issues in middle school had a greater chance of developing sleep problems, unhealthy weight gain and sedentary behavior in high school, according to a study out today. The research, led by a team at the George Washington University, suggests that unhealthy behaviors linked to mental health issues may start early in life and trigger obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and other serious health problems. “Our study suggests signs of depression ...

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