A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a molecule that disrupts the infection mechanism of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and could be used to develop new treatments for COVID-19 and other viral diseases. The molecule targets a lesser-studied enzyme in COVID-19 research, PLpro, that helps the coronavirus multiply and hampers the host body’s immune response. The molecule, called a covalent inhibitor, forms a strong chemical bond with its intended protein target and thus increases its effectiveness as an antiviral treatment. “We’re ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (March 28, 2023) — A team led by Van Andel Institute and Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics scientists has identified two distinct subtypes of insulin-producing beta cells, or ß cells, each with crucial characteristics that may be leveraged to better understand and treat Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.   ß cells are critical guardians of the body’s metabolic balance. They are the only cells capable of producing insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels by designating dietary sugar for immediate use ...

LAWRENCE — When the Kinks’ Ray Davies penned the tune “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains,” the vanishing locomotives stood as nostalgic symbols of a simpler English life. But for a paleontologist at the University of Kansas, the replacement of steam-powered trains with diesel and electric engines, as well as cars and trucks, might be a model of how some species in the fossil record died out. Bruce Lieberman, professor of ecology & evolutionary biology and senior curator of invertebrate paleontology at the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, sought to use steam-engine history to test the merits of “competitive exclusion,” ...

“[...] mutations in G-proteins have been associated in the progress of several cancers [...]”  BUFFALO, NY- March 28, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on March 24, 2023, entitled, “Polyisoprenylated cysteinyl amide inhibitors deplete singly polyisoprenylated monomeric G-proteins in lung and breast cancer cell lines.” Finding effective therapies against cancers driven by mutant and/or overexpressed hyperactive G-proteins remains an area of active research. Polyisoprenylated cysteinyl amide inhibitors (PCAIs) are agents that mimic the essential posttranslational ...

Reston, VA—A newly published literature review sheds light on how nuclear medicine brain imaging can help evaluate the biological changes that cause chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment (CRCI), commonly known as chemo-brain. Armed with this information, patients can understand better the changes in their cognitive status during and after treatment. This summary of findings was published ahead-of-print by The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. CRCI describes a clinical condition characterized by memory and concentration impairment, difficulties with information processing ...

IIASA researchers collaborated with the FAIRR Initiative – a collaborative investor network – on the development of a new IPCC-aligned climate risk analysis tool for investors. Analyses done using the new tool, show that climate-related cost increases could significantly affect the bottom lines of the largest listed livestock companies unless new strategies are urgently adopted. The FAIRR Initiative today launched an enhanced iteration of its Coller FAIRR Climate Risk Tool providing investors with company-level data on how climate risks may impact costs and ...

The study surveyed school nurses working across the UK about their current working practices and experiences of working during the pandemic.  Dr Sarah Bekaert RN, Senior Lecturer in Child Health at Oxford Brookes University, said: “This research has highlighted the vital role school nurses play in the identification and prevention of issues that are likely to negatively impact young people as they navigate their teenage years, and then transition into adulthood. “Our findings call for advocacy by policymakers and professional organisations ...

Understanding What Prevents Shared Decision Making From Wider Implementation With Black Patients To understand the perspectives of Black patients on shared decision making (SDM) during medical appointments, researchers and clinicians investigated the preferences, needs and challenges around SDM as experienced by Black individuals. The team also offers possible adaptations and modifications for SDM models, practice and research within Black communities. The study team recruited 32 Black patients – 18 men and 17 women – with type ...

The transformative changes brought by deep learning and artificial intelligence are accompanied by immense costs. For example, OpenAI’s ChatGPT algorithm costs at least $100,000 every day to operate. This could be reduced with accelerators, or computer hardware designed to efficiently perform the specific operations of deep learning. However, such a device is only viable if it can be integrated with mainstream silicon-based computing hardware on the material level. This was preventing the implementation of one highly promising deep learning ...

SAN FRANCISCO – The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is pleased to announce that PLOS Global Public Health and PLOS Digital Health are now fully indexed in PubMed Central (PMC), expanding our reach and furthering our mission of ensuring research content is accessible and discoverable as widely as possible. Both journals have an explicit mandate to promote equity in research that can tackle the most urgent priorities for the field, such as access to healthcare, or addressing bias in AI and developing machine learning tools for underserved communities. PLOS is proud to feature ...

American Geophysical Union Press Release 23-12 28 March 2023 For Immediate Release This press release is available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/some-coastal-salt-marshes-are-keeping-up-with-sea-level-rise-for-now Some coastal salt marshes are keeping up with sea level rise — for now Salt marshes on the U.S. East Coast have accumulated soil more quickly over the past century, and some appear to be keeping pace with rising waters. But that won’t last forever. AGU press contact: Rebecca Dzombak, +1 (202) ...

Free-range organic chicken or factory farming? Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have developed a new detection method that can reveal such differences in husbandry. The so-called epigenetic method is based on the analysis of the characteristic patterns of chemical markers on the genome of the animals. Was the salmon for dinner with friends really caught wild or did it come from aquaculture? What to make of the alleged "biolabel quality“ of the shrimp for the seafood salad? And was the chicken for the Sunday roast really allowed to spend its life in the open air? Food analysis laboratories can only answer ...

Abscisic acid (ABA) is a plant hormone with essential functions in plant physiology. It is involved in developmental and growth processes and the adaptive stress response. Thus, the plant adaptation to stress situations caused by water deficit can be favored by activating this phytohormone pathway. In this project, the teams led by Pedro Luis Rodríguez at the IBMCP in Valencia and Armando Albert at the IQRF in Madrid developed a genetic-chemical method to activate this route in an inducible way and without penalizing plant growth. Based ...

Rates of prescriptions for naloxone to people at high risk for opioid overdose, as well as co-prescribing with opioids, has increased in emergency departments throughout the United States over the past decade, providing insight on the positive impact of federal policies and regulations, according to a Rutgers study.    Federal opioid prescribing guidelines in 2016 made it easier for doctors to prescribe naloxone to patients at high risk for opioid overdose. When used properly, naloxone is highly effective at reversing or reducing the life-threatening adverse effects of ...

While the outpatient management of stroke survivors through telehealth is prone to multiple barriers, it offers many advantages for addressing health equity in stroke survivors, according to a review from UTHealth Houston. The review – written by Anjail Sharrief, MD, MPH, first author and associate professor of neurology with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston – was published recently in Stroke. Telehealth has seen rapid expansion into chronic care management over the past several years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sharrief said. However, there is limited ...

Who do children prefer to learn from? Previous research has shown that even infants can identify the best informant. But would preschoolers prefer learning from a competent robot over an incompetent human? According to a new paper by Concordia researchers published in the Journal of Cognition and Development, the answer largely depends on age. The study compared two groups of preschoolers: one of three-year-olds, the other of five-year-olds. The children participated in Zoom meetings featuring a video of a young woman and a small robot with humanoid characteristics (head, ...

WASHINGTON, March 28, 2023 – Air traffic is a significant and complex problem. Near misses between passenger planes on runways have been making headlines lately and raising safety concerns as airports try to accommodate more travelers in the wake of COVID-19. Also, as any disgruntled air traveler knows, a single aircraft’s late arrival at a busy airport can trigger an avalanche effect and cause a series of subsequent delays. In Chaos, from AIP Publishing, a team of scientists from Spain and Argentina presented an original oscillating short-term memory model, with just two parameters, to study the dynamics of landing events at 10 ...

With CRISPR-Cas9 technology, humans can now rapidly change the evolutionary course of animals or plants by inserting genes that can easily spread through entire populations. Evolutionary geneticist Asher Cutter proposes that we call this evolutionary meddling “genetic welding.” In an opinion paper publishing March 28 in the journal Trends in Genetics, he argues that we must scientifically and ethically scrutinize the potential consequences of genetic welding before we put it into practice. “The capability to do genetic welding has only taken off in the last few years, and much of the thinking about it has focused on what can happen ...

WASHINGTON, March 28, 2023 – Energy production in nature is the responsibility of chloroplasts and mitochondria and is crucial for fabricating sustainable, synthetic cells in the lab. Mitochondria are not only “the powerhouses of the cell,” as the middle school biology adage goes, but also one of the most complex intracellular components to replicate artificially. In Biophysics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Sogang University in South Korea and the Harbin Institute of Technology in China identified the most promising advancements and greatest challenges of artificial mitochondria ...

About The Study: In this analysis of a national data set representing an estimated 4.7 million pediatric hospitalizations between 2009 and 2019, the number and proportion of pediatric acute care hospitalizations due to mental health diagnoses increased significantly. The majority of mental health hospitalizations in 2019 included a diagnosis of attempted suicide, suicidal ideation, or self-injury, underscoring the increasing importance of this concern.  Authors: Mary Arakelyan, M.P.H., of the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical ...

An international research collaboration has developed a VR*1 imaging system that can measure a wide range of neural activity in the cortices of mice during active behavior. This enabled them to illuminate the abnormalities in cortical functional network*2 dynamics that are found in autism*3 model mice. Using machine learning*4, they were also able to highly accurately distinguish between autism model mice and wild-type mice based on the cortical functional network patterns when the mice start or stop running. The research group was led by Professor ...

WASHINGTON, March 28, 2023 – Fibroblasts build and maintain the extracellular matrix, or physical scaffolding for cells, in the connective tissues within the body. It is believed that cancerous tumors can recruit nearby fibroblasts and use them to promote their own growth and invasion. This process, called cancer-associated fibroblast activation, can also protect tumors from chemotherapy and make treatment difficult. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Academia Sinica, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, National Taiwan University Hospital, and National Taiwan University developed ...

About The Study: The findings of this study that included 29,000 patients suggest that recent COVID-19 infection was not associated with risk of adverse postoperative outcomes, regardless of timing within the previous 60 days.  Authors: William J. O’Brien, M.S., of Veterans Affairs 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.2023.4876) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

About The Study: In this study of 3,101 adult participants, the number of days per week taking 8,000 steps or more was associated with a lower risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a curvilinear fashion. The findings suggest that for adults who face difficulties in exercising regularly, achieving the recommended daily steps only a couple days a week may have meaningful health benefits. Authors: Kosuke Inoue, M.D., Ph.D., of Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan, is the corresponding ...

WASHINGTON, DC – The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today announced funding awards totaling $123 million to support 15 new research studies. These studies aim to fill evidence gaps, enhance research methods, or improve health care decision making for a range of high-burden concerns among adults and children, including postpartum complications occurring in populations experiencing the greatest disparities in health outcomes.   In addition, PCORI awarded $4 million for two implementation projects intended to accelerate uptake of strategies shown in PCORI-funded studies, one to improve decision making about colorectal ...