Virginia Tech researchers in the College of Natural Resources and Environment are assessing the efficacy of shark sanctuaries by developing a modeling system that utilizes publicly accessible fishing data to determine shark catch and mortality rates. Published in the journal Science Advances, their findings represent an important step in utilizing data science to tackle oceanic conservation challenges. “Shark sanctuaries are coastal areas designated by countries as places where the targeted ...

Even the best treatment approaches for Parkinson’s disease are inadequate if they do not address patients’ feelings of social rejection, isolation, loneliness and other psychosocial effects of stigma, according to a report from experts specializing in Parkinson’s and other movement disorders. A new report co-authored by UCLA Health neurologist and researcher Dr. Indu Subramanian says many misconceptions and biases cause patients with Parkinson’s to be stereotyped, devalued and shunned, which, along with a progressive loss of functionality and independence, often lead to “self-stigma,” with declining self-esteem and increasing anxiety and depression. The ...

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Nicolas Bazan, MD, PhD, Boyd Professor, Ernest C. and Yvette C. Villere Chair for the Study of Retinal Degeneration, and Director of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, suggests that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) decreases an essential fatty acid, preventing the formation of a class of protective molecules and reducing repair potential. The discovery may also open new therapeutic avenues for AMD. The findings are published in Experimental Eye Research, ...

A Virginia Tech professor has an integral role in the establishment of a new center to study earthquakes in the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of Oregon. The project will create an earthquake center to study subduction zones — fault lines where one tectonic plate slips beneath another — to enable collaborative research and community connections for increased hazard awareness. The Division of Earth Sciences in the Directorate for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation has awarded a $15 million grant over five years to establish the Cascadia Region ...

Coffee can do a lot of things: Wake you up, warm you up and lessen that existential dread. According to a new study, it could also help reduce the waste from 3D printing.  That’s the vision behind a new project led by Michael Rivera, an assistant professor in the ATLAS Institute and Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He and his colleagues have developed a method for 3D printing a wide range of objects using a paste made entirely out of old coffee grounds, water and a few other sustainable ingredients.  The team has already experimented with using coffee grounds to craft jewelry, pots for plants and even, ...

Corporate scandals have been on the rise for the past decade. In 2019, Strategy& (the strategy consulting business unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers) found that for the first time in the history of its annual survey, more CEOs were dismissed for ethical concerns than for poor firm performance or internal board struggles. There has been no shortage of highly publicized scandals, including the BP oil spill in 2010, the Target data breach in 2013 and abuses of financial incentives at Wells Fargo in 2016. A number of CEOs have resigned following alleged inappropriate relations, including Brian Krzanich at Intel, Leslie Moonves at CBS, ...

University of Houston atmospheric science researchers have found that while local emissions play a role in the rise of ozone levels in Houston, most of the pollutants can be carried in from other regions across the country, leading to excess ozone pollution. Their findings offer insights into strategies to mitigate future ozone pollution for the region. The research team focused on two ozone episodes in September 2021 (Sept. 6 – 11 and Sept. 23 – 26). The month of September is the typical annual ozone peak due to high temperatures, lack of rain and air circulation patterns that transport polluted air from the north. Their analysis revealed that roughly 63% of the excess ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Air pollution poses well-established risks to physical health, but an emerging body of research says that it may also have adverse effects on mental health. New research co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign economist examining the relationship between air pollution via drifting wildfire smoke exposure and suicide risk found large-scale evidence that air pollution disproportionately elevates the risk of suicide among rural populations in the U.S. Each 10% increase in airborne particulate matter in rural counties causes monthly suicide rates ...

Many of today’s artificial intelligence systems loosely mimic the human brain. In a new paper, researchers suggest that another branch of biology — ecology — could inspire a whole new generation of AI to be more powerful, resilient, and socially responsible.  Published September 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the paper argues for a synergy between AI and ecology that could both strengthen AI and help to solve complex global challenges, such as disease outbreaks, loss of biodiversity, and climate change ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (September 11, 2023) –  As an increasing number of improved asthma treatments are developed, a greater number of people with asthma are finding their symptoms under control. Their improved status raises an important question for healthcare providers (HCPs) who treat this condition: “What qualifies as clinical remission in the treatment of asthma?” A panel of 11 experts in asthma care came together to review available literature to create a working definition. The panel included six allergists, three pulmonologists and two pediatricians. The paper outlining their recommendations is published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, ...

Improving food literacy positively influences diet quality and reduces the risk of chronic diseases; however, interpreting the evidence of its effectiveness has been limited. Results of a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier, found that Foodbank Western Australia’s Food Sensations for Adults (FSA) food literacy program is effective in producing positive changes across a range of food literacy and dietary behaviors in participants ages 18 and older. Lead author Andrea Begley, DrPH, School of Population Health, Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia (WA), says, “Behavior change takes time to establish. Participants ...

Effective treatment for lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in men aged 50 or older is associated with a lower risk of death over the next few years reports a study in the October issue of The Journal of Urology®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "We found a small but significant decrease in mortality risk for older men who received medications for treatment of LUTS," comments lead author Blayne Welk, MD, MSc, of Western University ...

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $73 million in funding for eleven projects which focus on the goal of accelerating the transition from discovery to commercialization of new technologies that will form the basis of future industries. This goal will require basic research to be conducted with an eye to an innovation’s end application, considering discovery, creation, and production of materials and technologies with approaches that can be scaled and readily transitioned into new products and capabilities to support the economic health and security of the nation.  “This ...

Researchers in UC Santa Barbara professor Yasamin Mostofi’s lab have proposed a new foundation that can enable high-quality imaging of still objects with only WiFi signals. Their method uses the Geometrical Theory of Diffraction and the corresponding Keller cones to trace edges of the objects. The technique has also enabled, for the first time, imaging, or reading, the English alphabet through walls with WiFi, a task deemed too difficult for WiFi due to the complex details of the letters.      For more details ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists have detected new strains of malaria-causing parasites in Ethiopia that are both resistant to current treatments and escape detection by common diagnostic tests — a development that could increase cases and deaths from malaria and make eliminating the persistent disease an even greater challenge. The authors detailed their findings from a genomic surveillance study in Nature Microbiology. Already, scientists had found in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda strains of the parasite ...

The Buck Institute for Research on Aging has received a $3.5 million federal grant to lead the first-ever double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial to understand the effects of ketone ester supplementation on frailty, a condition of vulnerability which develops following age-related decline in multiple physiological systems.  TAKEOFF (Targeting Aging with Ketone Ester in Older Adults for Function in Frailty) will recruit a total of 180 people at the Buck, Ohio State University and the University of Connecticut Center on Aging.   “TAKEOFF ...

The Japan Trench is located on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a region of special interest in earthquake and deep-water research. “It is here that oceanic plates bend, form ultra-deep-water trenches and move below overriding plates in so-called subduction zones, while accumulating long-term global plate tectonic strain”, says Dr. Ken Ikehara from National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan, and co-chief scientist of IODP Expedition 386. “This energy is released cataclysmically during so-called megathrust earthquakes, ...

As researchers around the world race against time to develop new strategies and technologies to fight climate change, a team of scientists at the University of Houston is exploring one possible way to directly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment: Negative emissions technologies (NETs). Mim Rahimi, assistant professor of environmental engineering at UH’s Cullen College of Engineering is leading the development of an emerging NET called electrochemical direct ocean capture (eDOC), which helps the ocean cleanse itself of harmful carbon dioxide. The concept ...

New research from Rice University finds that antidepressants may actually reduce negative memories in individuals suffering from depression while improving overall memory function.    The study, “Perceived antidepressant efficacy associated with reduced negative and enhanced neutral mnemonic discrimination,” appears in the latest edition of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. It examines how antidepressant use in depressed individuals affects memories, both good and bad.    Stephanie Leal, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice, is the study’s lead author. She said the study’s main finding about the link between antidepressants ...

Agriculture relies on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which is made using energy- and carbon-intensive processes and creates nitrate-containing runoff. Researchers have long sought solutions to reduce emissions from the industry that accounts for 3% of energy consumption each year. A collaboration between two labs at Northwestern University, partnering with the University of Toronto, has found that producing the fertilizer urea using electrified synthesis could both denitrify wastewater while enabling low-carbon-intensity urea production. The process, which includes converting carbon ...

UNIST has taken a significant step towards combating women’s cancer on the African continent by signing an MOU with Eswatini Medical Christian University (EMCU) on June 28, 2023. The primary purpose of this partnership is to enhance cooperation in the diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer, marking the beginning of a promising initiative. Under this agreement, UNIST will lead research and development efforts in cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment technologies, while EMCU will provide a clinical test bed for these advancements. The ...

Nantes, France – September 11, 2023, 6:00pm CET – OSE Immunotherapeutics SA (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE) today announced the peer-reviewed publication in Annals of Oncology* of the randomized Phase 3 clinical trial (Atalante-1) on T-cell epitope cancer vaccine Tedopi® in HLA-A2 positive patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC in monotherapy in third line NSCLC with secondary resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Tedopi® is a novel T-cell epitope-based cancer vaccine targeting five tumor-associated antigens, ...

Tara Chaplin, Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology, received $500,664 from the National Institutes of Health for an Independent Scientist Career Award titled: "Integrating neural and momentary assessment of parenting, arousal, and adolescent substance use."  This Independent Scientist K02 Award will provide Dr. Chaplin with cutting edge advanced training to enhance her career and transform her program of research. Through this training, Dr. Chaplin will integrate ecological momentary assessment (EMA) science into her expertise in developmental neuroscience to understand from a neural and momentary level parenting, emotion, and substance use associations ...

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 ...