More than twelve billion doses of mRNA vaccines have been administered globally since the start of the COVID pandemic, saving millions of lives. But RNA-based therapies for other diseases have so far proven more challenging to develop. The full-body immune response caused by mRNA vaccines is fantastic for fighting off invading pathogens, but many other conditions only affect a single organ or cell type. Engineering RNA molecules to only activate their therapeutic payloads when they find themselves in the right conditions is the key to the next generation ...

University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers, along with a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have developed a breakthrough process for making spintronic devices that has the potential to become the new industry standard for semiconductors chips that make up computers, smartphones, and many other electronics. The new process will allow for faster, more efficient spintronics devices that can be scaled down smaller than ever before. ​​ The researchers’ paper is published in Advanced Functional Materials, a peer-reviewed, top-tier materials science journal. “We believe we’ve found a material and ...

Most life on Earth is based on polymers of 20 amino acids that have evolved into hundreds of thousands of different, highly specialized proteins. They catalyze reactions, form backbone and muscle and even generate movement. But is all that variety necessary? Could biology work just as well with fewer building blocks and simpler polymers? Ting Xu, a University of California, Berkeley, polymer scientist, thinks so. She has developed a way to mimic specific functions of natural proteins using only two, four or six different building blocks — ones currently used in ...

AMES, IA – In his new book, Matt DeLisi, a world-renowned criminologist at Iowa State University, lays out evidence that Ted Bundy’s criminal career was far lengthier and deadlier than the official record from 1974 to 1978. “Ted Bundy and the Unsolved Murder Epidemic: The Dark Figure of Crime” underscores how most crime is never known to law enforcement. The book also emphasizes that a small percentage of individuals in society commit a much larger share of violent crime. With an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 unsolved homicide cases in the U.S., DeLisi offers solutions ...

JMIR Medical Education is excited to announce the launch of a new theme issue, ChatGPT, Generative Language Models, and Generative AI in Medical Education. The Call for Papers is now open and submissions are due by July 31st.  Guest editors Kaushik P Venkatesh, MBA, MPH, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, and Maged N Kamel Boulos, MBBCh, MSc, PhD, FHEA, SMIEEE, of Sun Yat-sen University, China, are encouraging both empirical and theoretical submissions, including original research, systematic reviews, viewpoints, and tutorials.  The objective of this theme issue ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – Most people who ranked high in “joy of missing out” or JOMO also reported high levels of social anxiety in a recent Washington State University-led study. The term JOMO has been popularized as a healthy enjoyment of solitude in almost direct opposition to the negative FOMO, the “fear of missing out” people may have when seeing others having fun experiences without them. In an analysis of two samples of adults, researchers found mixed results when it comes to JOMO with evidence that there is some anxiety behind the joy. “In general, a lot of people like being connected,” said ...

Study reveals link between major discrimination and frailty Cancer and its treatment can accelerate the rate of aging because they both destabilize and damage biological systems in the body. New research published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, found that African American cancer survivors who reported high levels of discrimination exhibited greater aging and frailty than those reporting lower levels of discrimination. For the study, Jeanne Mandelblatt, MD, MPH, director of the Institute for Cancer and Aging Research at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, ...

WASHINGTON — Discrimination experienced by Black people can affect their health and increase their frailty, which can be particularly impactful for cancer survivors, according to a new study by researchers at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and colleagues at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. The researchers assessed frailty by a number of factors, including whether a participant had several chronic diseases, poor muscle strength and difficulty performing activities of daily living. The ...

Individuals who are obese may be more susceptible to severe COVID-19 because of a poorer inflammatory immune response, say Cambridge scientists. Scientists at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID) and Wellcome Sanger Institute showed that following SARS-CoV-2 infection, cells in the lining of the lungs, nasal cells, and immune cells in the blood show a blunted inflammatory response in obese patients, producing suboptimal levels of molecules needed to fight ...

Nearly half of parents say they would definitely know if their child was vaping, despite characteristics of vaping devices that make it easy to hide or disguise their use, a new national poll suggests. Four in five parents also think their adolescent or teen understands the health risks of vaping with few believing their child has tried it, according to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at University of Michigan Health. “Very few parents believe their ...

Society and social interaction play a key role in life for humans. The well-being of a person greatly depends upon their ability to be part of complex socio-cultural institutions. Even during infancy, humans rely on their social interactions with other humans for social and cultural learning, subsequent adaptation to different social environments, and ultimately, survival. Several studies have shown that infants do not respond automatically or reflexively to external cues, but instead adaptively modulate their social behaviors to suit their social context. Gaze-following is one such behavior that infants modulate based on their surroundings. ...

New research indicates that a small percentage of financial landlords, like private equity firms and institutional investors, own four times more of Montreal’s rental housing stock than was previously estimated. Neighbourhoods with more financial landlords are also experiencing higher housing stress levels. In the first comprehensive analysis of its kind in a North American city, researchers from the University of Waterloo and McGill University developed a new method of identifying networks of property ownership lurking behind ...

**Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April). Please credit the conference if you use this story** Embargo: 2301H UK time Saturday 18 March Healthy dogs and cats could be passing on multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs; bacteria that resist treatment with more than one antibiotic) to their hospitalised owners, and likewise humans could be transmitting these dangerous microbes to their pets, according to new research being presented ...

Alexandria, VA – A symposium aiming to provide a better understanding of the tumor microenvironment, immune tolerogenic niches at cancer initiation, and novel immunotherapeutic strategies in head and neck cancer patients was featured at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, held in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023. Cancer ...

Alexandria, VA – In alignment with AADOCR’s Diversity and Inclusion Statement, several symposia exploring the ongoing challenges in addressing the oral health care needs of equity-deserving populations were featured at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, held in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023. The symposium, “Assessing Oral Health ...

Alexandria, VA – A study exploring the development of “Dental Tough Adhesive (DenTAI)”, a novel bioinspired adhesive patch with robust mechanical properties, capable of strong adhesion, and able to carry out extended release of clobetasol-17-propionate, the first-line drug for treating oral lichen planus (OLP) and recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, held in conjunction with the 47th Annual ...

Alexandria, VA – A symposium exploring the significance, interactions, and evolutionary mechanisms of salivary mucins was featured at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, held in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023. Mucin proteins in saliva are responsible for the unique physicochemical properties of saliva that include lubrication, viscosity, and barrier function. A dense array of O-glycans attached to the mucin protein backbone provide mucins with their typical functions.  Recently, ...

A study in the Journal of The National Cancer Institute Cancer Spectrum looked at chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI), as they become popular resources for cancer information. They found these resources give accurate information when asked about common cancer myths and misconceptions. In the first study of its kind, Skyler Johnson, MD, physician-scientist at Huntsman Cancer Institute and assistant professor in the department of radiation oncology at the University of Utah (the U), evaluated the reliability and accuracy of ChatGPT’s ...

University of Utah Health scientists have corrected abnormal heart rhythms in mice by restoring healthy levels of a protein that heart cells need to establish connections with one another. That protein, GJA1-20k, is underproduced in people with a genetic condition called arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, one of the leading causes of sudden cardiac arrest in athletes under the age of 35. The finding, reported in the journal Circulation Research, suggests a new strategy for treating the abnormal heart rhythms caused by arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. The results may also have implications for treating dangerous arrhythmias associated with more common ...

Recently incarcerated people with opioid use disorder have trust in working with peer support specialists who recovered from addiction and faced similar life experiences, according to a Rutgers study.   The study, published in the journal Psychiatric Services, found that peer support specialists were most valued for providing emotional and community-based addiction recovery support as well as housing and employment information — crucial when going back into the community.   More than ...

House hunting on Mars could soon become a thing, and researchers at the University of Arizona are already in the business of scouting real estate that future astronauts could use as habitats. Researchers in the UArizona College of Engineering have developed technology that would allow a flock of robots to explore subsurface environments on other worlds. "Lava tubes and caves would make perfect habitats for astronauts because you don't have to build a structure; you are shielded from harmful cosmic radiation, so all you need to do is ...

A detailed "body scan" of Malaspina Glacier, one of Alaska's most iconic glaciers, revealed that its bulk lies below sea level and is undercut by channels that may allow ocean water to gain access, should its coastal barrier erode. This makes the glacier more vulnerable to seawater intrusion than previously thought and may cause it to retreat faster than predicted.  The findings, published by University of Arizona researchers in the Journal of Geophysical Research, underscore ...

As one of the major blue carbon ecosystems, mangroves provide critical ecosystem services in mitigating global climate change. However, the future complex and variable climate conditions may lead to the uncertainty in trajectories of blue carbon capacity. Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations (eCO2) is projected to become a prominent driver to mangrove blue carbon in the future. A group of scientists working on blue carbon reviewed studies on “changes in mangrove blue carbon under elevated atmospheric CO2” to identify the pathways for how eCO2 might influence mangrove ecosystem carbon cycling. The research is published as a review article in Ecosystem health and sustainability, ...

Alexandria, VA – A study examining the mental health-oral health association cross-sectionally and longitudinally was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, held in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023. The study, led by Alex Kalaigian of the University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry, acquired self-reported data from the Population ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have found that gold nanoparticles supported on a zirconium oxide surface help turn waste materials like biomass and polyester into organosilane compounds, valuable chemicals used in a wide range of applications. The new protocol leverages the cooperation between gold nanoparticles and the amphoteric (both acid and base) nature of the zirconium oxide support. The result is a reaction that requires less demanding conditions, a greener method for upcycling waste.   Recycling is a big part of humanity’s solution to the global issue of plastic waste. Much ...