A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, shows that rapid evolution in bats may account for the animals’ extraordinary ability to both host and survive infections as well as avoid cancer.  Bats are exceptional among mammals for not only their ability to fly but also their long lives, low cancer rates, and robust immune systems. Bats are also thought to have played a role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. The ability of bats to tolerate viral infections may stem from unusual features ...

【Summary】 　A research group led by Professor Kazuki Kurimoto and Assistant Professor Hiroki Ikeda from the Department of Embryology at Nara Medical University has developed a highly sensitive method for quantitative single-cell transcriptome analysis, which enables the precise examination of cells extracted from tissue sections using laser capture microdissection (LCM), and named the method DRaqL (Direct RNA recovery and quenching for LCM). Moreover, this method allows quantification of exon-exon junctions of mRNA. In an application of DRaqL to mouse ovarian sections, the research group established a predictive model for oocyte transcriptomes based on their diameter. Remarkably, ...

As climate change accelerates, it is becoming increasingly important to study the impact of climate change on human health. A new thesis from the University of Gothenburg examines church records and historical weather data in the Nordic countries to show that the risk of dying from malaria was higher if the previous summer was a hot one. The growing impact of climate change on human health is an acute global threat in the 21st century. The rise in certain types of extreme weather events is not only affecting individuals, but also putting ecosystems that are closely linked to our health under pressure. “As the climate grows warmer, there is a risk of insect-borne ...

Over the past two decades, coral reefs have declined at unprecedented rates. This is in part because of extreme weather events, which cause wide-spread coral bleaching, a process during which corals lose their color because of stressors, including changes in water temperature, light, or nutrient availability. One of the worst mass bleaching events occurred in 2016 and 2017 on the Great Barrier Reef, causing bleaching on 91% of the system’s reefs. As frequency and severity of mass bleaching events are expected to increase in the future, researchers are looking for ways to protect corals from excessive radiation and temperatures. As part of the Cooling and Shading ...

Microcombs can help us discover planets outside our solar system and track new diseases in our bodies. But current microcombs are inefficient and unable to reach their full potential. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have scored a world first with their solution to make microcombs ten times more efficient. Their breakthrough opens the way to new discoveries in space and healthcare and paves the way for high-performance lasers in a range of other technologies. Laser frequency ...

Doctors urgently need better international guidance on treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the over 50s, conclude world-leading experts reviewing current research on this increasing issue globally. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, the team’s findings highlight a ‘striking’ gap in knowledge about older people as existing guidelines focus on children and young adults. “Our analysis concludes that better approaches are urgently required to screen and diagnose people aged from around age 50 to 55,” says lead author Dr Maja Dobrosavljevic ...

Philadelphia, September 20, 2023 – In the largest study to date exploring the relationship between severe psoriasis and coronary microvascular dysfunction, researchers have found further evidence that patients with severe psoriasis are at higher cardiovascular risk. The results are published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, published by Elsevier. Psoriasis is a chronic systemic immune-mediated inflammatory disease that affects 1-3% of the global population. In this study, a total of 503 patients with psoriasis, and without clinical cardiovascular disease, underwent transthoracic Doppler echocardiography to evaluate coronary microcirculation. ...

Applying Google’s own nutrition advertising policy to the US market would slash the number of products from the country’s top 25 food and beverage manufacturers that could be marketed to children online, according to new research from The George Institute for Global Health.  Published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the findings suggest the global company could play a significant role in improving the health of future generations by reducing their exposure to, and preference for, unhealthy foods and drinks.  Lead author Dr Elizabeth Dunford, Research ...

Expanding newborn screening (NBS) to include identifying genes associated with an increased risk for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) would cause more harm than good, according to an article published in Pediatrics. While some experts believe early identification of NDDs in the newborn period would provide an equitable way to flag and treat disabilities early, the authors of the new paper contend that broader genomic sequencing would worsen existing health disparities.    “The benefit of early genomic screening hinges upon the ability ...

Overview A research team led by Assistant Professor Mizuki Takeda from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, has developed a technique to generate training data for robots that operate based on estimations of the user’s state using machine learning. To date, some methods based on machine learning have been proposed to estimate the state of a robot users using candidate points for the position of the center of gravity. However, for such learning, training data corresponding to when the robot is used to support movements are required. The above-mentioned research ...

Bard, Google’s AI chatbot, based on LaMDA and later PaLM models, was launched with moderate success in March 2023 before expanding globally in May. It’s a generative AI that accepts prompts and performs text-based tasks like providing answers, and summaries, and creating various forms of text content. On 13 July 2023, Google Bard announced a major update which allowed providing images as inputs together with textual prompts. It was claimed that Bard can analyze visual content and provide a description (e.g., image captions) or answer questions using visual ...

Prof. John Speakman from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, alongside Prof. Kevin Hall from the National Institutes of Health (U.S.), Prof. Thorkild Sorensen from the University of Copenhagen and Prof. David Allison from Indiana University (U.S.), has published a perspective article on potential mechanisms of obesity pathogenesis. It was based on an academic conference held by The Royal Society, with experts and scholars in the field of obesity research discussing the potential pathogenesis of obesity. This article was published in Science on Aug. 31. Governments ...

Osaka, Japan – When your wounds heal and your liver detoxifies a poison such as histamine you ingested, you can thank the class of enzymes known as copper amine oxidases for their assistance. Identifying the exact positions of the smallest hydrogen atoms in these enzymes is challenging with commonly used technologies, but is critical to engineering improved enzymes that exhibit unusual yet useful biochemical reactivity. Now, in a study recently published in ACS Catalysis, a team led by researchers ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- In previous research, Andrew Subica and his colleagues found exceptionally high rates of alcohol use disorder (or alcohol abuse) and alcohol-related harms among Pacific Islander young adults. Now Subica, an associate professor in the UC Riverside School of Medicine’s Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health, has received a $3 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, or NIAAA, of the National Institutes of Health to conduct research aimed at preventing these disorders and harms in Pacific ...

A research group led by Professor Emeritus Michio Homma (he, him) and Professor Seiji Kojima (he, him) of the Graduate School of Science at Nagoya University, in collaboration with Osaka University and Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology, have made new insights into how locomotion occurs in bacteria. The group identified the FliG molecule in the flagellar layer, the ‘motor’ of bacteria, and revealed its role in the organism. These findings suggest ways in which future engineers could build nanomachines with full control over their movements. They published the study in iScience.    As nanomachines become ...

A new evaluation tool offers practical guidance for diagnosing an extreme form of social isolation known as hikikimori. The diagnostic evaluation tool was published online Sept. 15 with an accompanying letter by co-authors in the journal World Psychiatry. The tool is the first structured technique to evaluate people who suffer from a condition first recognized in young people in Japan, but believed to be widely shared in people of all ages across the globe. Known as the Hikikomori Diagnostic Evaluation, or HiDE, the tool provides practical guidance and specific ...

One explanation for why some species decline is that human modifications make existing habitat unsuitable for them. For other species, these modifications are advantageous and make the habitat available for them to expand into. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and the University of California Santa Barbara and the University of Rochester in the USA investigated the role that increased habitat availability might have played. They compared the rapidly expanding great-tailed grackle with their closest relative, the boat-tailed grackle, who are not ...

More than half of volunteer community health care workers in 19 countries experience labor exploitation, including sub-minimum-wage pay and excess work hours, Mount Sinai researchers report in the first systematic review of the subject. The researchers focused on two-tiered or dual-cadre programs, in which salaried community health workers work alongside a volunteer group of community health workers. The study, published in Lancet Global Health on September 19, provides a global estimate of the presence, prevalence, and magnitude of labor ...

Multi-storey buildings are assembled over cautiously to withstand wind strengths, researchers have found. This is because there are several difficulties in estimating damping – the method of removing energy in order to control vibratory motion like noise and mechanical oscillation, accurately in high-rise buildings The findings, published today in the journal Structures, addresses the draw back and were compiled by a team at the University of Bristol who studied the damping and natural frequency characteristics of a 150 m tall building in London (UK) obtained from the full-scale wind-induced responses using a minimal monitoring system. In general, the response ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01 BST WEDNESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2023 / 19:01 ET TUESDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2023 New study finds that most Rafflesia species, which produce the world’s largest flowers, face extinction. Lack of protection at local, national, and international levels means that remaining populations are under critical threat. Researchers propose an urgent action plan to save these remarkable flowers, building on local success stories. An international group of scientists, including botanists at the University of Oxford’s Botanic ...

Barcelona, Spain: Two out of the four internationally-recommended screening tools used by emergency medical services are inadequate for recognising sepsis, according to new research presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress today (Wednesday).   Mrs Silke Piedmont, a health scientist at the Department of Emergency Medicine Campus Benjamin Franklin Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Germany), and her colleagues from the University of Magdeburg and Jena (Germany), analysed data on 221,429 patients who were seen by emergency medical services (EMS) in Germany in 2016 outside of the hospital setting. They found that only one out of four ...

Is it an eagle? A birdie? No, it’s a gator.  The Rosenblatt Lab at the University of North Florida has recently published a study finding that living on a golf course dramatically changes alligator feeding habits.  The study suggests that land use changes can significantly alter the feeding habits of large predators. Changes in habitat and prey availability caused gators living on golf courses to have different dietary patterns and access to different prey communities compared to those living in natural habitats. As ...

New Haven, Conn. — Yale School of Nursing (YSN) embarks on its centennial year (Sept. 2023-May 2024) this month with a new dean as the school begins its next century of service. Azita Emami began her term Aug. 1 and will steer YSN through a slate of programming that reflects on 100 years of history while shaping the future of the nation’s most trusted profession. “We — all ...

PHILADELPHIA (September 19, 2023) – The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) has received a $1 million grant from the Bedford Falls Foundation – DAF, a donor-advised fund established by Philanthropists William (Bill) E. Conway Jr., co-founder and co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, and his wife, Joanne. The couple have given millions to support nursing education and scholarships to address the nation’s nursing workforce shortage. The $1 million grant to Penn Nursing will ...

Klebsiella pneumoniae (popularly known as KPC) is a little-known bacteria that causes a variety of afflictions, including pneumonia and UTIs, and which can be deadly.    “Hypervirulent” strains of the bacteria which cause severe infections, and their multidrug-resistant cousins, are beginning to evolve together, which has raised public health concerns. Now a team of Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) scientists have partnered with colleagues at ...