The spectacled caiman, a species native to Central and South America, has been established in Florida since the 1970s. The pet trade and crocodilian farming industries, escapes and deliberate releases made it possible for caimans to invade the Florida Everglades. They pose a threat to native wildlife occupying the same habitat as our native alligators and crocodiles, competing for food and other resources. Meanwhile, they also prey upon birds, small mammals, fish and other reptiles. In a new University of Florida study, published in the journal Management of Biological Invasions, wildlife ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.—Ten medical schools have been selected to participate in a two-year quality improvement project to refine, implement and assess a competency-based obesity education curriculum, The Obesity Society (TOS) announced today. Nationally and internationally, numerous medical organizations have highlighted the need for more medical school training on the science and practice of obesity care. This program is a first step to fill that need. In addition to having access to 12 curated obesity education ...

NYU Tandon School of Engineering researchers will develop new technologies to secure the “digital legal supply chain” — the processes by which official laws and legal information are recorded, stored, updated and distributed electronically — thanks to a $1.2 million grant just awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).  Justin Cappos, associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at NYU Tandon, heads up the four-year NSF project, “Defending the Supply Chain of Democracy: Towards a Cryptographically ...

Depression and anxiety are thought to increase a person’s risk of developing cancer, but research results have been inconclusive. In an analysis of multiple studies from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Canada, investigators found that depression and anxiety are not linked to higher risks for most types of cancer among this population. The analysis is published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Experts have suspected that depression and anxiety may increase cancer risk by affecting a person’s health-related behaviors or by having biological effects on the body that support cancer development. ...

An international collaboration between researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan, the University of Tokyo, and University College London has demonstrated that self-organization of neurons as they “learn” follows a mathematical theory called the free energy principle. The principle accurately predicted how real neural networks spontaneously reorganize to distinguish incoming information, as well as how altering neural excitability can disrupt the process. The findings thus have implications for building animal-like artificial intelligences and for understanding cases of impaired learning. The study was published August 7 in Nature Communications. When we ...

Advisory Highlights: Risk factors for cardiovascular disease are common among preteens and teens, and the need for preventive care to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease exceeds the supply of health care resources, according to a new American Heart Association science advisory that reports survey results from pediatric cardiovascular health professionals. Current data show that 39% of U.S. youth ages 12-19 meet criteria for obesity or overweight, 53% have high cholesterol, 18% with prediabetes and 15% have high blood pressure. The advisory identifies the need for clinical practice guidelines, collaboration ...

‘We’re not talking about primordial prevention. They’re already at risk for having an early heart attack or stroke’ First comprehensive study in 30 years to examine pediatric preventive cardiology in the U.S., Canada Heart disease is the leading cause of death in U.S. adults CHICAGO --- Today in the U.S., a child with risk factors for heart disease (high blood pressure, overweight, etc.) can wait close to a year to see a cardiologist because of high demand and limited resources. This is precious time that could be spent managing ...

Scientists have worked out how one unusual species of trilobite — an ancient, sea-dwelling relative of spiders and lobsters — was able to defend itself against predators and survive a bumpy ride as Earth’s oxygen levels fluctuated.  The seas were filled with trilobites for nearly 300 million years starting in the Cambrian Period, some 520 million years ago. During their time on Earth, which lasted much longer than the dinosaurs, they survived two major episodes of mass extinctions and dominated ocean floor ecosystems. Their ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – Young men in a recent study who were regular consumers of sports media were more likely to accept rape myths, a set of false and prejudiced beliefs that can serve to excuse or downplay sexual assault. This connection held even after accounting for participants who believed in certain negative “masculine norms,” namely that men should control women or they should be sexually permissive and try to have sex with as many women as possible. “Sports media exposure had a unique contribution, and it was significant,” said Stacey Hust, a professor at Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication and the study’s ...

Osaka, Japan – “Your presence means the world to me” may sound like a wedding invitation cliché, but an Osaka Metropolitan University study has shown that the presence of others while working does generate a state of relaxation and positive brain activity. In psychiatry, occupational therapy encompasses not only the individual-therapist relationship but also occupational activities and group work. In clinical practice, having multiple individuals engage in separate activities within the same room has been deemed effective as part of occupational therapy. ...

The antibiotic cefazolin is an essential drug according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It is usually produced via batch manufacturing, but this multistep process is time-consuming, wasteful and requires very specialized facilities. Now for the first-time, researchers have manufactured cefazolin using the continuous-flow method. This method is cheaper, quicker, less wasteful and more flexible in terms of how much drug can be produced when it’s needed. Improving access to cefazolin is vital for global health and particularly relevant for countries such as Japan, which experienced a shortage in 2019. This study is published in the Bulletin ...

BALTIMORE, August 5, 2023–As artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT find their way into everyday use, physicians will start to see these tools incorporated into their clinical practice to help them make important decisions on diagnosis and treatment of common medical conditions. These tools, called clinical decision support (CDS) algorithms, can be enormously helpful in helping guide health care providers in determining, for example, which antibiotics to prescribe or whether to recommend a risky heart surgery. The success of these new technologies, however, depends largely on how physicians interpret and act upon a tool’s ...

University of Melbourne researchers have developed a fast, inexpensive and scalable method for engineering blood vessels from natural tissue. Co-led by ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor Daniel Heath and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Shanahan Chair in Frontier Medical Solutions Andrea O’Connor, both from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the researchers employed a novel approach to ‘tissue engineering’ blood vessels. By combining multiple materials and fabrication technologies, they developed a method to create blood vessels with complex geometries like native blood ...

By Wynne Parry Much about tiny, swimming rotifers makes them ideal study subjects. Although barely visible to the naked eye, these transparent animals and their innards are readily viewed under a microscope. What’s more, they grow readily in laboratory culture, offering scientists an otherwise difficult-to-obtain perspective from their corner of the animal kingdom. However, while rotifers have been used experimentally for more than a century by many research groups, scientists have so far lacked the ability to readily manipulate rotifers’ genetics, placing a hard limit on the experiments they can run with these animals.  A joint ...

The Ecological Society of America has named Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Ph.D., as the editor-in-chief of the newest title in its portfolio of journals. The international open-access journal, Earth Stewardship, will focus on facilitating collaborations between scientists and society to shape a sustainable future for nature and people. It will be ESA’s first publication focused on integrating the natural and social sciences; the humanities; and technical, local and Indigenous Knowledges. Earth Stewardship will highlight perspectives from the southern ...

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) will present its 16th annual Regional Policy Award to the Director for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s (CTUIR) Department of Natural Resources Eric Quaempts on Sunday, Aug 6, 5:00pm EDT, during the ESA Conference Opening Plenary. The ESA annual award recognizes  the use of ecological science to inform regional policy decisions. This is the first time in the history of the ESA policy award that a Tribal member and Tribal governance employee has been recognized for integrating tribal ecological approaches. Since ...

BOSTON - A new way to monitor two-photon lithography nanoscale fabrication could help improve the accuracy and efficiency of creating 3D engineered tissue scaffolds, according to a new study. Tissue scaffolds mimic the natural extracellular matrices found in the body, which creates a 3D environment ideal for tissue formation. Jieliyue Sun, an engineering Ph.D. student from the lab of Kimani Toussaint, Brown University will present this research at the Optica Imaging Congress. The hybrid meeting will take place 14 – 17 August 2023 in Boston. “Tissue scaffolds are three-dimensional structures that can support the growth and development of cells or tissues for biomedical ...

Highlights: Researchers led by Rafael Auras in the Michigan State University School of Packaging have shown how to make a bio-based polymer compostable in both home and industrial settings. The team said its research, published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, can help divert plastic packaging that’s been soiled by food, the vast majority of which is not recycled. Another end-of-use option, like composting, can thus help keep plastics out of landfills and the environment. To make the compostable polymer, the team blended bioplastics known as polylactic acid, or PLA, and thermoplastic ...

“Proton therapy [...] seems to have decisive advantages with regard to the long-term survival of [adenoid cystic carcinoma] [...]” BUFFALO, NY- August 4, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 10) on June 28, 2023, entitled, “Adenoid cystic carcinoma of the head and neck – treatment strategies of a highly malignant tumor with variable localizations.” In this new editorial, researchers Florian Dudde, Kai-Olaf Henkel and Filip Barbarewicz from the Army Hospital Hamburg discuss head and neck tumors, which are among the most common malignancies. ...

Researchers have modified a commercial virtual reality headset, giving it the ability to measure brain activity and examine how we react to hints, stressors and other outside forces. The research team at The University of Texas at Austin created a noninvasive electroencephalogram (EEG) sensor that they installed in a Meta VR headset that can be worn comfortably for long periods. The EEG measures the brain's electrical activity during the immersive VR interactions. The device could be used in many ways, ...

Chemical modifications of RNA molecules, such as m6A, can critically impact gene expression, influencing various aspects of cancer development and progression. However, while studies into m6A modification of messenger RNA (mRNA) have been extensive, exploration of its impact on lncRNAs, especially within the context of PDAC, has been relatively limited. In an innovative study published in the Genes & Diseases journal, a team from the The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, People's Hospital of Hangzhou Medical College and University of Mississippi Medical Center employed a methylated RNA immunoprecipitation ...

In an effort to address health disparities linked to low socioeconomic environments, a University of Massachusetts Amherst kinesiologist is partnering with Western Massachusetts preschools to implement a physical activity program for young children. Sofiya Alhassan, professor of kinesiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, will measure the impact of a gross motor skills-based physical activity program on the cognitive development of 3- to 5-year-olds enrolled in preschools in communities with low socioeconomic ...

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Medicine: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004261 Article Title: Age- and sex-specific hospital bed-day rates in people with and without type 2 diabetes: A territory-wide population-based cohort study of 1.5 million people in Hong Kong Author Countries: China Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Bacteria make up more than 10% of all living things but until recently we had little realization that, as in humans, soil bacteria have internal clocks that synchronize their activities with the 24-hour cycles of day and night on Earth. New research shows just how complex and sophisticated these bacterial circadian clocks are, clearing the way for an exciting new phase of study. This work will provide diverse opportunities, from precision timing of the use of antibiotics, to bioengineering smarter gut and soil microbiomes. An international ...

Key Takeaways: When news sites relax paywall access to their sites, they leverage the power of sampling to increase subscribers. Temporarily suspending paywall restrictions on certain major stories or trends serves the public interest while conditioning new visitors to pay for access later.   BALTIMORE, MD, August 1, 2023 – A new study has revealed that when news sites temporarily relax or suspend restrictions tied to paywall access, they eventually see an increase in subscribers. This ...