Hepatic fibrosis occurs when scar tissue replaces damaged cells in the liver. Over time, accumulating scarring distorts the liver, interferes with its blood supply and may progressively lead to worsening consequences, from cirrhosis to liver failure to liver cancer. In advanced cases, the only treatment is an organ transplant.     In a new paper, published online in the journal Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, a team of scientists led by corresponding authors David A. Brenner, ...

Scientists have long understood that parts of cells, called organelles, evolved to have certain shapes and sizes because their forms are closely related to how they function. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a bacteria-based tool to test whether, as the axiom goes, form follows function. The tool, which researchers say may someday have practical applications in treating illness, works by precisely targeting and dismantling the outer membrane surrounding organelles, and is being made freely available to other scientists. In an interesting twist, say the researchers, the tool may also be able to dismantle aggregated proteins in cells that ...

  Media contacts:   Abby Manishor amanishor@burness.com  Allison Eatough aeatough@umd.edu   EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL   Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 12:01am ET     New Study Finds Children of Color and from Low-Income Families Are Exposed to More Toxic Chemicals and Experience Greater Harm Landmark research review is the first to examine disparities in neurotoxic exposures and the harmful effects of those exposures on children by race, ethnicity, and economic status WASHINGTON, D.C., September 27, 2023—Children from families with low incomes and families of color are exposed to more neurotoxic ...

About The Study: Depressive symptoms were greater in locales and times with diminished community mobility in this survey study with 192,000 respondents. Strategies to understand the potential public health consequences of pandemic responses are needed.  Authors: Roy H. Perlis, M.D., M.Sc., 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.2023.34945) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In a study of 619 high-risk young adults in Ontario, Canada, individuals using cannabis frequently pre-legalization showed significant reductions in use and consequences over time, reflecting an aging out pattern. Small increases in use among participants with no pre-legalization use were observed over time, but without parallel changes in cannabis-related consequences. The results did not reveal substantive adverse near-term outcomes across the legalization period, although a within-participants design cannot rule out the possibility of alternative trajectories in the absence of legalization.  Authors: Amanda Doggett, ...

In recent months, several media outlets have investigated an Oregon law that decriminalized possession of small amounts of controlled substances, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, for some persons.  The articles have included information suggesting that the law may be responsible for continued increases in overdose deaths. Today, new research led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that in Oregon and Washington, two states that implemented drug decriminalization policies ...

Stanford Medicine investigators and their colleagues sifted through a jumble of genes implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders and identified dozens of disparate troublemakers with similar effects. Because the method they used sorts defective genes by their function — or in this case, their dysfunction — the approach is likely to accelerate drug development for neurodevelopmental disorders. Studies have implicated at least 500 genes in such disorders. But scientists have no idea exactly how defects in most of these genes impair brain function. The ...

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that explores the properties and interactions of iparticles at very small scale, such as atoms and molecules. This has led to the development of new technologies that are more powerful and efficient compared to their conventional counterparts, causing breakthroughs in areas such as computing, communication, and energy.   At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), researchers at the Quantum Systems Unit have collaborated with scientists from the University ...

The supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy M87, made famous by the first picture of a black hole shadow, has yielded another first: the jet shooting out from the black hole has been confirmed to wobble, providing direct proof that the black hole is spinning. Super massive black holes, monsters up to billions of times heavier than the Sun that eat everything around them including light, are difficult to study because no information can escape from within. Theoretically, there are very few properties that we can even hope to measure. One property that might possibly be observed is spin, but due to the difficulties involved there have been no direct ...

The nearby radio galaxy M87, located 55 million light-years from the Earth and harboring a black hole 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun, exhibits an oscillating jet that swings up and down with an amplitude of about 10 degrees, confirming the black hole's spin. The study, which was headed by Chinese researcher Dr. CUI Yuzhu and published in Nature on Sept. 27, was conducted by an international team using a global network of radio telescopes. Through extensive analysis of telescope data from 2000­–2022, the research team revealed a recurring 11-year cycle in the precessional motion of the jet base, as predicted ...

Engineers at MIT and in China are aiming to turn seawater into drinking water with a completely passive device that is inspired by the ocean, and powered by the sun.  In a paper appearing today in the journal Joule, the team outlines the design for a new solar desalination system that takes in saltwater and heats it with natural sunlight.  The configuration of the device allows water to circulate in swirling eddies, in a manner similar to the much larger “thermohaline” circulation of the ocean. This circulation, ...

Protecting large swaths of Earth’s land can help stem the tide of biodiversity loss—including for vertebrates like amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds, according to a new study published in Nature Sept. 27. The study, led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and Conservation International, emphasizes the importance of proper governance for the success of protected lands, and offers much-needed support for the United Nations’ “30 by 30” initiative to conserve the ...

NEW YORK, NY — His mind might have been set on finding water or on perfecting a song he learned as a chick from his dad. But all of that gets pushed down the to-do list for an adult male zebra finch when he notices a female has drawn nigh.    “The males stop worrying about anything else and, for the first time, we have found signs of that re-prioritization in the behavior of specific brain cells,” said Vikram Gadagkar, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute and a co-first author, along with graduate student Andrea Roeser of Cornell ...

Scientists at St Andrews are leading a significant breakthrough in a decades-long challenge to develop compact laser technology. Lasers are used across the world for a huge range of applications in communications, medicine, surveying, manufacturing and measurement.  They are used to transmit information across the internet, for medical treatments, and even in the face scanner on phones.  Most of these lasers are made from rigid, brittle, semiconductor crystals such as gallium arsenide. Organic semiconductors are a newer class of electronic material. Flexible, based on carbon and emitting visible ...

Type of work: peer-reviewed/observational study/people Barcelona: Most contraceptive pills are based on a cycle of taking the pill for 21 days, and then stopping the pill for 7 days. Now researchers have found that women’s mood worsens during the 7 pill-free days. This work will be presented at the ECNP congress in Barcelona on 8th October, after recent publication (see notes). Lead researcher, Professor Belinda Angela Pletzer (of Paris Lodron University, Salzburg, Austria) said “We investigated women’s mental health during the pill pause in long-term pill users: since they are long-term ...

Although a plethora of carbon-based catalysts have been developed to promote oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in different electrochemical systems, the degradation process of those catalysts remains obscure to date. During certain steps of the ORR on a catalyst's surface in electrochemical systems, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is generated. This compound can be detrimental to the catalyst itself because the highly oxidative species produced from H2O2 can attack different moieties of the catalyst, leading to the degradation of its chemical structure. A team of researchers has elucidated how H2O2 affects the degradation of a carbon-based catalyst named N-G/MOF. This catalyst ...

The fuels used today depend heavily on petroleum. As the demand grows, scientists are looking for ways to produce fuels that do not require petroleum. A research team set out to examine the role of zeolites in the conversion of synthetic gas to fuels. Wanting to better understand how zeolites regulate the reaction pathways, they reviewed the most recent advancements in synthetic gas conversion with catalysts containing zeolites.   Their review paper is published in the journal Carbon Future on July 28, 2023.   As an alternative ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – An AI chest X-ray foundation model for disease detection demonstrated racial and sex-related bias leading to uneven performance across patient subgroups and may be unsafe for clinical applications, according to a study published today in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The study aims to highlight the potential risks for using foundation models in the development of medical imaging artificial intelligence. “There’s ...

A joint research team in China wrote a review on in-sensor visual computing, a three-in-one hardware solution that is more efficient, economical and secure than conventional machine vision systems, which collect, store, and interpret visual signals on separate hardware units. This review was published Sept. 26 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal. In-sensor visual computing systems are inspired by how humans and other mammals collect, extract and process visual signals, an intricate biological mechanism showing low latency and low energy cost. By integrating sensing, storage and computation onto the ...

A cellular signal essential to the development of the skeleton increases during aging to weaken bones, finds a new study in mice.  The study, led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, found that blocking the signaling pathway, called Notch, in aging skeletal stem cells caused a “massive increase” in bone mass and restored lost bone-healing ability during aging.    The study results revolve around immature stem cells, which have the capacity to mature into more than one cell type. Bone is among the tissues that keep pools of stem cells on hand into adulthood, ready to mature into replacement cells that maintain healthy tissue and repair ...

DETROIT (Sept. 27, 2023) – Henry Ford Health is the first health system in Michigan to offer ExactVu, a cutting-edge technology for diagnosing and evaluating prostate cancer. Enhancing the precision and speed of diagnosis, this new technology ensures patients receive timely and appropriate care, while also providing a more efficient and convenient experience than other diagnostic methods. "Throughout the years, advancements in prostate cancer diagnostic and treatment modalities have made a tremendous difference for patients,” said Craig Rogers, M.D., Chair of the Department of Urology at Henry Ford Cancer. “This is ...

Because figuring out what is new and what is familiar in what we see is such a critically important ability for prioritizing our attention, neuroscientists have spent decades trying to figure out how our brains are typically so good at it. Along the way they’ve made key observations that seem outright contradictory, but a new study shows that the mystifying measures are really two sides of the same coin, paving the way for a long-sought understanding of “visual recognition memory” (VRM). VRM is the ability to quickly recognize the familiar things in scenes, which can then be de-prioritized so that we can focus on the new things that might be more important ...

The Buck Institute for Research on Aging and Phenome Health are joining forces in the quest to understand the biology of aging. Phenome Health, a Seattle-based nonprofit research organization led by CEO Lee Hood, MD, PhD, uses a data-driven approach to health and disease that integrates diverse types of biological big data.  The new Center for Phenomic Health at the Buck will be co-led by Dr. Hood, who joins the Buck as Chief Innovation Officer and Distinguished Professor, and Eric Verdin, MD, Buck President ...

A groundbreaking development in biomedical engineering has led to the creation of a human stomach micro-physiological system (hsMPS), representing a significant leap forward in understanding and treating various gastrointestinal diseases, including stomach cancer. The research team, led by Professor Tae-Eun Park from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNIST and Professor Seong-Ho Kong from Seoul National University Hospital, has successfully developed a biomimetic chip that combines organoid and organ-on-a-chip technologies to simulate the complex defense mechanisms of the human gastric mucosa. Organoids, which mimic human organs using stem cells, have ...

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced the establishment of its Center for AI Security Research, or CAISER, to address threats already present as governments and industries around the world adopt artificial intelligence and take advantage of the benefits it promises in data processing, operational efficiencies and decision-making. In partnership with federal agencies such as the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Information Directorate and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate ...