Cynthia Smith, Associate Professor and K12 Education Director, Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center (PEREC), Environmental Science and Policy, received $60,750 from Fairfax County Public Schools for: "FCPS Watershed Programs." This funding began in July 2023 and will end in late June 2024. Since 2010, Smith has worked closely with the FCPS science office to deliver outdoor, hands-on field investigations to 5,200 seventh graders annually. Over 350 Mason students have worked as PEREC field interpreters, honing ...

Kevin Moran, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, and Ziyu Yao, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, are set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for: "Collaborative Research: SHF: Medium: Toward Understandability and Interpretability for Neural Language Models of Source Code." Moran and Yao will develop a framework and methodology that enables researchers who build AI-powered developer tools and software engineers who use these tools to interpret why the underlying models make the predictions they do.  Their objective is to allow researchers to obtain detailed insights into why a model may not ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2023 — What does it mean to have “cooked” something? Is heat the only way to break down proteins and transform raw ingredients? If you love ceviche, you know that’s not true … but how exactly does ceviche get “cooked?” No heat source is used, but it still undergoes a process in which proteins are denatured. We’re taking a closer look at proteins, how they denature and what that means for the food on your plate. https://youtu.be/Pw6apr3TBzY?si=RdIYP5j3B0daGtxw Reactions ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 11, 2023) — The University of Kentucky’s Vice President for Research and leading cardiovascular scientist is being recognized for her foundational work in the field of hypertension with a prestigious award from the American Heart Association (AHA). Lisa Cassis, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences, has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since joining the UK faculty in 1988. Cassis has led many multimillion-dollar projects, including serving as program director of an $11.3 million NIH-supported Center of Biomedical Research ...

A study published in the prestigious journal Current Biology, led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), has identified 88 red fire ant nests spread over 5 hectares near the city of Syracuse, in Sicily, Italy. These are invasive colonies that could have come from China or the United States, where it is also an invasive species, according to the study's genetic analyses. This work, led by Roger Vila, a scientist at the IBE, with Mattia Menchetti as its first author, an INPhINIT ”la Caixa” ...

A healthy lifestyle that involves moderate alcohol consumption, a healthy diet, regular physical activity, healthy sleep and frequent social connection, while avoiding smoking and too much sedentary behaviour, reduces the risk of depression, new research has found. In research published today in Nature Mental Health, an international team of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University, looked at a combination of factors including lifestyle factors, genetics, brain structure and our immune and metabolic systems to identify the underlying mechanisms that might explain this link. According ...

One of the most invasive species in the world is Solenopsis invicta, a red fire ant species with a painful sting. Native to South America, the ant has established itself across the globe. In an article publishing in the journal Current Biology on September 11, a group of ant experts confirm that the species has made its way to Sicily—the ant’s first official sighting in Europe. The ants could soon spread all over the continent, the researchers warn, which could cause major environmental, health, and economic problems in Italy and ...

About The Study: The findings of this exploratory study suggest there are racial disparities in dementia severity, functional impairment, and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Future work must address racial disparities and their underlying determinants as well as the lack of representation of racially minoritized individuals in nationally representative dementia registries. Authors: Lauren Massimo, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 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/jamaneurol.2023.3093) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this study of people taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV, tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF) use was found to be associated with higher incident hypertension and statin initiation compared with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate use, especially in those 40 years or older. Continued monitoring of blood pressure and lipids for TAF users is warranted.  Authors: Adovich S. Rivera, M.D., Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The ...

The discovery of a previously unknown molecular target has inspired what may become a therapeutic breakthrough for people with glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive brain cancer.  When people hear the word “cancer” they often picture a single mass, but glioblastoma cells are also highly invasive and spread quickly from the central mass, making it very difficult to fully eradicate. Even with current treatments such as temozolomide, the standard chemotherapy approved to treat glioblastoma, ...

The sequencing of the human genome promised a revolution in medicine, but scientists soon realized that a genetic blueprint alone does not show the body in action. That required understanding the proteome – all the proteins, expressed by our genes, forming the cellular machinery that performs the bulk of the body’s functions. Now, another set of molecules known as the lipidome – all the lipids in our bodies – is filling in more details of human physiology. Lipids are a broad category of small, fatty or oily molecules, including triglycerides, cholesterol, hormones ...

Plants have evolved diverse adaptive strategies to optimize the exploration of light and soil resources from their environments. One of the most prominent adaptive responses is the developmental plasticity of their root systems, which enables plants to efficiently forage nutrient pools that fluctuate in space and time. As a crucial component determining the active root surface, root hairs represent a powerful morphological trait to improve water and nutrient acquisition. Root hairs are extensions of epidermal cells that effectively enlarge the root surface area and facilitate soil exploration for water and nutrients. Root hair development starts with cell fate specification, which ...

Having a hobby is linked to fewer depressive symptoms and higher levels of happiness, self-reported health and life satisfaction among people aged 65 and over, and this holds true across 16 countries on three continents, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers. The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, aimed to see if the benefits of hobbies were consistent in different national settings, and looked at data from 93,263 people aged 65 or over who had enrolled in five existing longitudinal studies in England, Japan, United States, China and 12 European countries. Analysing data from participants spanning four to eight ...

Women who have been treated for cancer as a child with a certain type of chemotherapy have an increased risk of breast cancer, according to a large-scale international study of survivors of childhood cancer led by scientists from the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology. The results were published today, 11 September, in the leading journal Nature Medicine and point to the need for earlier breast cancer screening in women who have previously been treated with this chemotherapy and radiation for childhood cancer.   Three out of four children with cancer are successfully treated ...

The globe was hot and humid. The sea was teeming with life. Early squids, eel-like fish and sea worms hunted smaller animals. Above ground, however, nothing stirred. The animals had not yet crawled ashore. That was what the Earth looked like about 450 million years ago at the end of the Ordovicium period. The warm water created the perfect living conditions for wildlife. But this would soon change. Shortly after, the land masses would began to freeze and an ice cap start to spread.  The water, which had ...

Understanding the interactions between materials and chemical species is critical for engineers as it helps them determine their best uses for both day-to-day life and global-level applications.  Metal oxides, a binary material of metal and oxygen, greatly interest researchers because of their importance in transforming energy storage, production, and conversion. To further those possibilities, a team from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering has determined a new way to view how hydrogen and metal oxides interact.  “Numerous experimental techniques have been used to understand this phenomenon – from spectroscopy to catalysis” explained Giannis ...

Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that ETH Zurich has chosen Symplectic Grant Tracker from Digital Science’s suite of flagship products to power its internal funding program, to promote world-​class research with the potential to result in fundamental new knowledge or technologies and exciting discoveries.  Designed from the outset to meet research funding needs, Grant Tracker includes features to assist applicants, reviewers, committees and funders and help them to work efficiently and effectively across the grants management lifecycle. The ETH Zurich Research ...

Key points:  The PIP3/PI3K signalling pathway is one of the most important signalling mechanisms in our cells, affecting cell metabolism and growth. It is also one of the most frequently altered pathways in human cancer. Research from the Institute has shown that PI3K pathway remodelling is a common feature of cancers driven by hyperactivated PI3K signalling. Working in prostate tumour models the team identified an unknown activator driving PI3K signalling and cancer growth in a way that is released both from needing positive growth signals and also from growth-limiting feedback controls. This knowledge identifies new ...

“Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful,” warned Friedrich Nietzsche more than a century ago.  Instead, the impulse to punish appears to have grown more and more powerful in the U.S criminal justice system. Annually, more than 9 million people a year in the U.S. are arrested, and on any given day roughly 2.3 million are incarcerated, representing a 500% increase in the prison and jail population since 1980 (compared to a 46% increase in the population over the same time).  This ...

A company co-founded by a University of Bath graduate has opened the UK’s first pilot plant that can recycle up to 60% of plastic lab waste, to make back into new lab consumables. LabCycle hopes the technology could be scaled up in the future to recycle waste from healthcare, research and commercial labs that is currently incinerated or sent to landfill. To avoid cross-contamination between experiments, most lab-based scientists use a significant amount of single-use plastic in their daily research, including pipette tips, test tubes, petri dishes and multi-well ...

East Hanover, NJ – September 11, 2023 – Three Kessler Foundation research scientists, Timothy Rich, PhD, OTR/L, and Co-Principal Investigators Helen Genova, PhD, and Heba Elsayed, MD, have been awarded $777,325 in federal grants by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand research in the fields of neglect dyslexia and autism. These studies may provide major steps towards finding innovative solutions for individuals affected by these conditions. Dr. Rich, research scientist in the Center for Stroke Rehabilitation Research, was awarded $626,889 to conduct research on “Gaze, Head Rotation, and Neuroanatomic Correlates of Reading Errors in Neglect Dyslexia.” ...

Tom Hardy and his Marvel character Venom have given their names to a newly discovered Australian spider. The genus Venomius and its only current species Venomius tomhardyi were described following an expedition to Tasmania. Scientists MSc Giullia Rossi, Dr Pedro Castanheira and Dr Volker Framenau from Murdoch University (Perth, Australia) partnered with Dr Renner Baptista from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) to describe the new genus of orb-weaving spiders published in the open access journal Evolutionary Systematics. Tom Hardy portrays Eddie Brock and his alter-ego Venom, an antihero closely associated with Spider-Man, across ...

More than 3,500 scientists from around the world will meet to present new research on the physics of fluids at the 76th annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics. The conference will be held in person only at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, Nov. 19-21. News media with valid APS press credentials may register for the meeting at no cost. To request press credentials, visit APS’s virtual press office. Registration will remain open throughout ...

A team of researchers, affiliated with UNIST has made a groundbreaking advancement in improving the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells, which are gaining significant attention as eco-friendly next-generation energy sources. Led by Professor Myoung Soo Lah in the Department of Chemistry at UNIST, the team successfully developed solid electrolyte materials utilizing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). This innovative approach significantly enhances the conductivity of hydrogen ions within the solid electrolyte employed in hydrogen fuel cells. Furthermore, the research team ...

The cellular protein heparanase plays an important role in allowing diseases, including viruses and cancers, to spread within our bodies. For this reason, researchers investigating a wide range of diseases are eager to find an effective heparanase inhibitor.  Scientists from the University of Illinois Chicago, along with colleagues at the University of Georgia and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, found a molecule effective at inhibiting heparanase activity related to the herpes simplex virus and reduced the spread of the virus when tested on human cells. The new research is published in Angewandte ...