Miami (January 14, 2025) – People with COPD experience more falls and related injuries requiring medical care when using common fall-risk increasing drugs, according to a new study. The study is published in the November 2024 issue of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal.   Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an inflammatory lung disease, comprising several conditions, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Symptoms include breathlessness, fatigue and chronic cough. The disease affects more than 30 million Americans and is the fourth leading ...

UNSW engineers have demonstrated a well-known quantum thought experiment in the real world. Their findings deliver a new and more robust way to perform quantum computations – and they have important implications for error correction, one of the biggest obstacles standing between them and a working quantum computer. Quantum mechanics has puzzled scientists and philosophers for more than a century. One of the most famous quantum thought experiments is that of the “Schrödinger’s cat” – a cat whose life or death depends on the decay of a radioactive atom. According to quantum mechanics, unless the atom is directly observed, ...

The vaquita, which means “little cow” in Spanish, is the world’s smallest porpoise and most endangered marine mammal. They also have the smallest range of any marine mammal; about 1,500 square miles within the northern Gulf of California. Since 1997, vaquitas have experienced a dramatic population loss from about 600 individuals to an estimate of less than 10 animals to date. At this current rate, vaquitas are expected to become extinct imminently.  The vaquita’s decline is caused by entanglement in illegal gillnets used to fish totoaba, an endangered species prized for its swim bladder. Despite a gillnet ban and conservation efforts, ...

Giant isopods of the genus Bathynomus, which can reach more than 30 cm in length, are known as bọ biển or “sea bugs” in Vietnam. For the first time, one such species was described from Vietnamese waters and named Bathynomus vaderi. The name “vaderi” is inspired by the appearance of its head, which closely resembles the distinctive and iconic helmet of Darth Vader, the most famous Sith Lord of Star Wars. Bathynomus vaderi belongs to a group known as “supergiants,” reaching lengths of 32.5 cm and weighing over a kilogram. So far, this ...

Babies were weaned earlier in cities in the Roman Empire than in smaller and more rural communities, according to a study of ancient teeth. Urban weaning patterns more closely hewed to guidelines from ancient Roman physicians, mirroring contemporary patterns of adherence to medical experts in urban and rural communities. Roman health authorities recommended breastfeeding babies for two years. Carlo Cocozza and colleagues were interested in how ancient Romans actually fed their babies in varying settlement types. Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in dentine from the first permanent molars record ...

VANCOUVER, Wash. – While many studies have looked at possible evolutionary links between men’s strength and sexual behavior, a Washington State University study included data on women with a surprising result. Women, as well as men, who had greater upper body strength tended to have more lifetime sexual partners compared to their peers. The study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, was designed to test evolutionary theories for human sexual dimorphism—namely that in early human history there was likely a reproductive advantage selecting for men’s greater upper body strength.   Another ...

New research1 underscores the potential role of pork consumption in supporting dietary and muscle health in Korean older adults. Older adults are a nutritionally vulnerable population who often face unique challenges, including meeting daily protein and micronutrient requirements. The study,* conducted through a collaborative partnership between researchers from Gachon University in South Korea, Tufts University, Think Healthy Group, LLC, and other leading institutions, suggests that pork consumption may be positively linked to nutrient intake, diet quality and handgrip strength—an indicator of overall muscle strength in older adults. Using data from more than 2,000 ...

The world is hurtling rapidly towards a developed future, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) play a key role in enabling technological and industrial progress. These composite materials are lightweight and highly strong, making them desirable for applications in various fields, including aviation, aerospace, automotive, wind power generation, and sports equipment. However, recycling CFRPs presents a significant challenge, with waste management being a pressing issue. Conventional recycling methods ...

The global burden of anxiety- and depression-related disorders is on the rise. While multiple drugs have been developed to treat these conditions, current medications have several limitations, including slow action and adverse effects with long-term use. This underscores the urgent need for novel, rapidly-acting therapeutic agents with minimal side effects. The delta opioid receptor (DOP) plays a key role in mood regulation, making it a promising target for therapeutic intervention. Studies have shown that selective DOP agonists (compounds that activate DOP), such as SNC80 ...

CLEVELAND and CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, ILL.—Diamond, often celebrated for its unmatched hardness and transparency, has emerged as an exceptional material for high-power electronics and next-generation quantum optics. Diamond can be engineered to be as electrically conductive as a metal, by introducing impurities such as the element boron. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have now discovered another interesting property in diamonds with added boron, known as boron-doped diamonds. Their findings could pave the way for new types ...

A new study from Oxford University has uncovered why the deep neural networks (DNNs) that power modern artificial intelligence are so effective at learning from data. The new findings demonstrate that DNNs have an inbuilt ‘Occam's razor,’ meaning that when presented with multiple solutions that fit training data, they tend to favour those that are simpler. What is special about this version of Occam’s razor is that the bias exactly cancels the exponential growth of the number of possible solutions with complexity. The study has been published ...

An international team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has developed a new strategy to enhance pharmaceutical production in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, which are commonly used to manufacture protein-based drugs for treating cancer, autoimmune diseases and much more. By knocking out a gene circuit responsible for producing lactic acid—a metabolite that makes the cells’ environment toxic—researchers eliminate a primary hurdle in developing cells that can produce higher amounts of pharmaceuticals like Herceptin and Rituximab, without compromising their growth or energy production. The research, published on Jan. 14 in Nature Metabolism, ...

New research funding will investigate the early stages of heart disease associated with chronic kidney disease led by the University of Birmingham. Dr Davor Pavlovic will lead an international research team after receiving almost £300,000 from the British Heart Foundation to understand the mechanisms driving the early stages of CKD-associated cardiomyopathy. The research approach will allow detailed investigation of cellular and electrophysiological changes before irreversible damage to the heart occurs. Researchers will also test whether in the setting of CKD, early treatment can reverse or prevent heart disease. The research will be ...

CLEVELAND—Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals and Houston Methodist will harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to more accurately predict risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular events, including estimating when an adverse event might occur, by developing an AI model that “learns” from patient scans. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, claiming over 17 million lives every year, according to the American Heart Association. Accurately ...

New Haven, Conn., Jan. 14, 2025—After four years of decline, U.S. patent grants headed upward, rising 3.8 percent from calendar year 2023 to 324,043 and Samsung retained the top spot for the third year in a row, according to IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, the world’s most trusted patent data source. IFI CLAIMS Patent Services is a Digital Science company that compiles and tracks data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and other patent-issuing agencies around the globe. IFI translates its world-leading data into an annual U.S. Top 50 and ...

Wildlife trade poses one of the greatest threats to the survival of numerous species. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) at least 50,000 species are involved in trade. However, while this figure already seems huge, it risks overlooking less traditional sectors of wildlife trade, such as the pet or fashion trade. For instance, recent data shows that the number of butterflies traded exceeds the total number of terrestrial arthropods in the IPBES assessment. This raises a critical question: How many ...

A new paper in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that smoking has a negative effect on earnings among younger workers. This is particularly true among the less well educated. The adverse health effects of smoking are well known. Smoking increases the risk of various cancers, respiratory issues, and cardiovascular diseases, with approximately 14% of all deaths in 2019 attributed to smoking. Despite smoking rates declining since the 1990s, in 2019 18% of women and 27% of men in high income countries still smoked. Tobacco smoking has ...

Society is often vulnerable to disasters, but how humans manage during and after can turn devastation into opportunities for improved resilience. For instance, private wells are attracting attention as an alternative resource for securing water for daily use and consumption in the event the water supply is cut off after a disaster. However, there are few records on how wells are used in the confusion of disasters, so detailed research is needed to promote the use of emergency wells. Professor Takahiro Endo of the Graduate School of Sustainable System Sciences at Osaka Metropolitan University conducted a survey on the use ...

St. Petersburg, Fla -  Welcoming a newborn is something many couples dream of doing, but it can get complicated when conceiving becomes a roadblock. Infertility affects one in six people, but obesity can also be a problem. When diet and exercise aren’t enough to lose weight, bariatric surgery can become an option. Yet a new national survey by Orlando Health finds that 56% of Americans do not know that bariatric surgery is an effective way to improve fertility.   “Every day we have more patients ...

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin. The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, has now been revealed to contain a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape. Dr Anthony Milnes from the University of Adelaide’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, participated in the research ...

This review is led by Professor. Tengfei Xu (Research Center for Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University) and Professor. Su Zeng (Research Center for Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University). The author emphasizes metabolomics’ critical role in advancing our understanding of disease mechanisms and accelerating targeted drug development, while acknowledging current challenges in the field. Metabolomics, as a powerful tool, can captures phenotypic changes induced by exogenous compounds, offering a valuable ...

Optical microscopy has long been a fundamental tool for scientific discovery. Yet, traditional far-field techniques are limited by diffraction, restricting their resolution to hundreds of nanometers, which can be inadequate for capturing phenomena in quantum and solid-state materials. With the emergence of tip-based microscopy capable of achieving atomic-scale spatial resolution, near-field optical nano-spectroscopy and nano-imaging have evolved into versatile tools for characterizing the optical properties of materials at the nanoscale. When further combined with ultrafast pump-probe ...

Communities exposed to drinking water contaminated with manufactured chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) experience up to a 33% higher incidence of certain cancers, according to new research from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and just published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, is the first to examine cancer and PFAS contamination of drinking water in the U.S. PFAS, which are used in consumer products such as furniture and food packaging, have been found in about 45% of drinking water supplies across the United States. ...

Girolline, a compound extracted from the sea sponge Pseudaxinyssa cantharella, has been investigated for possible antitumor effects and also found to have anti-malarial effects. Now, thanks to work by scientists from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, researchers have a better idea of how it works. In addition to its possible medicinal properties, the current findings suggest that the compound could also be useful as a chemical probe for research in areas such as aging and mitochondrial health. GIrolline is one of a number of compounds with biological functions that were isolated from Pseudaxinyssa ...

Older Australian women are challenging traditional views of aging, embarking on solo road trips and travelling the country in search of adventure, personal growth and new horizons. Equipped with a caravan, campervan, or a sturdy 4WD and a tent, these women are navigating vast landscapes, from the dusty Oodnadatta Track to the spectacular Tasmanian wilderness. Margaret Yates, a PhD candidate from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Faculty of Health and a retired nurse, interviewed 29 women travellers to explore their motivations and experiences. The majority were over sixty and considered themselves ...