Growing several plant varieties in the same field for disease resistance is a longstanding agricultural practice, but can have unpredictable results. A study publishing September 12th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Jean-Benoit Morel at Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, Montpellier, France, and colleagues suggests that plant-to-plant interactions may confer disease immunity in both wheat and rice. Neighbor-Modulated Susceptibility (NMS) occurs when healthy, same-species ...

A University of Massachusetts Amherst resource economist finds mandated in-school Body Mass Index (BMI) assessments adopted in varying forms by 24 states to combat childhood obesity have the potential to improve the health of some students while introducing body-image issues for others. The research is believed to be the first to assess these policies as a whole, rather than in single states or school districts. “In states that passed these laws, overweight and obese teens were more likely to correctly describe their bodies as such, compared to states ...

In a significant collaboration, UNIST and the University of Ulsan College of Medicine (hereinafter ‘U of U College of Medicine’) have successfully developed a joint curriculum aimed at cultivating professionals with interdisciplinary expertise. This unique program seeks to bridge the gap between engineering and medicine, producing graduates who possess both medical knowledge and engineering understanding. The collaboration aims to contribute effectively to advancements in healthcare technology and innovation. The jointly developed curriculum consists of seven courses, including ‘Introductions to Medical Science AI‘ and ‘Brain and Cognitive ...

Pneumonia is an infection of the lung alveoli caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi. It is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, representing a clinical and economic burden and a global public health problem. The microbial ecosystem (or microbiome) of the human respiratory tract colonizes different niches. The respiratory tract microbiome is of interest to scientists as it contributes to human health by stimulating the immune system and protecting against infection by pathogens. Scientists ...

Researchers have developed a non-invasive method for mapping the human auditory pathway, which could potentially be used as a tool to help clinicians decide the best surgical strategy for patients with profound hearing loss. The findings, published today in eLife, highlight the importance of early interventions to give patients the ability to hear and understand speech, so that their auditory-language network can develop properly and their long-term outcomes are improved.  Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) occurs when the sensitive hair cells inside the cochlea are damaged, or when there is damage to the auditory nerve which transmits sound to the brain. A person with profound hearing ...

Earlier this year, in a pilot project, the teams of high-tech startup Knowledge Pixels and open-access scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft released a novel workflow to publicly share and future-proof scientific findings by means of nanopublications. Nanopublications complement human-created narratives of scientific knowledge with elementary, machine-actionable, simple and straightforward scientific statements that prompt sharing, finding, accessibility, citability and interoperability. By making it easier to trace individual findings back to their origin and/or follow-up updates, it also helps to better understand the provenance of biodiversity ...

September 12, 2023 – As researchers increasingly recognize that causes for health issues are structural and interrelated, real-world, innovative case studies demonstrate the value of applying systems science to evaluate health interventions and address health inequities as seen in a special supplement, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in the October/December issue of Family & Community Health. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.   Systems science offers an effective paradigm for examining and addressing various health issues to improve outcomes and reduce health inequities. The case ...

Philadelphia, September 12, 2023 – Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neurological disorder characterized by repeated behaviors such as cleaning and checking despite clear objective evidence of cleanliness, orderliness, and correctness. Although the disease is often mischaracterized as a disorder of “fussiness,” the disorder actually stems from difficulty in processing uncertainty. However, the neural underpinnings of that aberrant processing remains unknown. Now, a new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier, uses brain imaging to get a closer look at the underpinnings of uncertainty processing ...

The Association for Psychological Science (APS) has awarded the 2024 APS Lifetime Achievement Awards to 15 psychological scientists whose contributions have advanced understanding of topics ranging from how to alleviate human suffering to cultural differences and similarities in mental processes. APS’s four lifetime achievement awards—the APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, the APS Mentor Award, the APS William James Fellow Award, and the APS James S. Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship—are the association’s highest honors, and their recipients are among the field’s most accomplished and respected ...

September 12, 2023—(BRONX, NY)—The newly renamed Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC) has been awarded comprehensive designation by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health, the ultimate standard achieved by only 55 other NCI cancer centers in the U.S. Through NCI’s peer-review process, MECCC was nationally recognized for its paradigm-shifting, practice-changing, policy-impacting cancer-focused science. As a result, MECCC was awarded a five-year, $20 million Cancer Center Support Grant to advance the translation of novel cancer research into new treatments, new screening and diagnostic tools, and equitable access ...

Replacing 50% of meat and milk products with plant-based alternatives by 2050 can reduce agriculture and land use relatedgreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 31% and halt the degradation of forest and natural land, according to new research. According to the study just published in Nature Communications, additional climate and biodiversity benefits could accrue from reforesting land spared from livestock production when meat and milk products are substituted by plant-based alternatives, more than doubling the climate benefits and halving future declines of ecosystem integrity by 2050. The restored area could contribute ...

About The Study: In this study of prospectively collected data of 49,000 adults age 60 or older participating in the UK Biobank, more time spent in sedentary behaviors was significantly associated with higher incidence of all-cause dementia. Future research is needed to determine whether the association between sedentary behavior and risk of dementia is causal. Authors: David A. Raichlen, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, 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/jama.2023.15231) Editor’s ...

A major study published in JAMA led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet suggests that a possible cause of spontaneous brain haemorrhage could be transmitted via blood transfusion. At the same time, it is very unlikely that anyone should suffer a brain haemorrhage after receiving donated blood. A common cause of spontaneous, recurring brain haemorrhages is the vascular disease cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), in which proteins accumulate along the tiny blood vessels of the brain. Several studies have shown that CAA can be transferred from one individual ...

About The Study: This meta-analysis including individual participant data from 34,000 older adults in 17 studies found that antihypertensive use was associated with decreased dementia risk compared with individuals with untreated hypertension through all ages in late life. Individuals with treated hypertension had no increased risk of dementia compared with healthy controls. Authors: Matthew J. Lennon, M.D., of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia 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.2023.33353) Editor’s ...

·Stress heightens risk for many psychiatric disorders·Finding opens new avenue for drug development to treat psychiatric disorders ·Amygdala releases endogenous cannabinoid molecules under stress ·Finding opens new avenue for drug development to treat psychiatric disorders CHICAGO --- When you are under stress, your brain may release its own cannabinoid molecules to calm you down, activating the same brain receptors as THC derived from cannabis plants.  But the brain activity patterns and neural circuits that are regulated by these brain-derived ...

Adults aged 60 and older who spend more time engaging in sedentary behaviors like sitting while watching TV or driving may be at increased risk of developing dementia, according to a new study by USC and University of Arizona researchers. Their study showed the risk of dementia significantly increases among adults who spend over 10 hours a day engaging in sedentary behaviors like sitting — a notable finding considering the average American is sedentary for about 9.5 hours each day. The study, published on Tuesday, September 12 in ...

Replacing 50% of meat and milk products with plant-based alternatives by 2050 can reduce agriculture and land use related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 31% and halt the degradation of forest and natural land, according to new research. According to the study just published in Nature Communications, additional climate and biodiversity benefits could accrue from reforesting land spared from livestock production when meat and milk products are substituted by plant-based alternatives, more than doubling the climate benefits and halving future declines of ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The risks of smoking during pregnancy for both maternal and fetal health are well documented, but only about half of pregnant people quit smoking on their own. To learn more about how e-cigarette or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) influences smoking cessation later in pregnancy, University at Buffalo researchers compared abstinence rates in the two groups. They found that those using e-cigarettes before pregnancy were more likely to abstain from smoking later in pregnancy.   Published in JAMA Network Open on Sept. 12, the research was conducted as an observational study of data gathered from 1,329 pregnant people through the U.S. ...

New research co-led by Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia shows that amplified global warming in the Canadian High Arctic drove a profound shift in the structure of a river network carved into a permafrost landscape in only 60 years. Documenting a powerful interplay among climate change, the freeze-thaw dynamics of polygonal ground and the delivery of surface water by floods as well as snow and ice melting, the team developed a new view of the physical controls governing the speed and pattern of river channel development in these fragile landscapes. “One ...

Researchers led by Prof. LI Hanjie from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have unveiled the dynamics of human macrophage specification across 19 different tissues from early embryonic stages. The study was published in Cell on Sept. 12. Macrophages, i.e., pivotal immune cells, have long been enigmatic in terms of their diversity and roles during human development. Based on findings in rodents, the scientific community has gained some insights into the diversity, developmental origins, and tissue-specific formation of macrophage subtypes. However, it was not clear whether these findings are conserved in humans. In this ...

Researchers discover genes behind antibiotic resistance in deadly superbug infections   Australian researchers have uncovered new genetic insights into Staphylococcus aureus, revealing what makes the bacterium so dangerous when it enters the blood.     While common, Staphylococcus aureus infections – known as Golden staph – can be life-threatening if the bacteria enter the bloodstream, causing sepsis. Golden staph is notorious for its ability to become resistant to antibiotics, making it hard to treat, which can lead to adverse health outcomes for patients infected with a drug-resistant ...

About The Study: In this study of Medicare beneficiaries with comorbid chronic low back pain and opioid use disorder (OUD), receipt of physical therapy and chiropractic care was low overall and lower across most racial and ethnic minority groups compared with non-Hispanic white persons. The findings underscore the need to address inequities in guideline-concordant pain management, particularly among Black or African American and Hispanic persons with OUD. Authors: Patience Moyo, Ph.D., of the Brown University School of Public Health in ...

Milan, Italy: Particular combinations of bacteria found in dust at day care facilities have been linked to wheezing in young children in a study presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan, Italy [1]. Wheezing in young children is often an early sign of asthma.   Children may spend many hours in day care each week and research suggests that conditions in day care settings can have an impact on respiratory health in early childhood. The new research offers some clues ...

During the Dutch Hunger Winter Famine, infants experienced the highest absolute and relative mortality of all children under 14 years of age. These are findings from a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Wageningen University & Research and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute in the Hague. the Netherlands. In the famine cities, infant mortality increased to one percent or 922 deaths per 10,000 compared to 109 deaths per 10,000 children between the ages of one and four, and 27 deaths per 10,000 deaths at ages 5 to 14. ...

New research published today in Blood Advances reveals that since the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, PCV7 and PCV13, invasive pneumococcal infection (IPD) rates among children living with sickle cell disease (SCD) have declined significantly. The study explores the efficacy of existing and emerging vaccines to protect children living with SCD from life-threatening infections. SCD is the most common inherited red blood cell disorder in the United States, affecting an estimated 100,000 people. ...