People with heart failure who increase their daily step count also saw improvements in their health status over a 12-week period, according to a study published today in JACC: Heart Failure. The study suggests that physical data from wearable devices, such as step count, can be clinically significant and has the potential to inform future clinical trials and clinical care. Consumer wearable devices to track health status and progress are commonly used and part of a growing trend of mobile health technology. However, how to interpret data from wearable devices, including step count, is at times ...

Who lived at Machu Picchu at its height? A new study, published today in Science Advances, used ancient DNA to find out for the first time where workers buried more than 500 years ago came from within the lost Inca Empire. Researchers, including Jason Nesbitt, associate professor of archaeology at Tulane University School of Liberal Arts, performed genetic testing on individuals buried at Machu Picchu in order to learn more about the people who lived and worked there. Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Cusco ...

Programmed cell death, a fundamental biological process that facilitates the elimination of old, damaged, infected, and non-functional cells, plays a crucial role in maintaining the balance between health and disease in the human body. Research by the team of Dr Alessandro Annibaldi from the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) at the University of Cologne has uncovered a novel mechanism of cell death regulation, shedding light on its significance during conditions such as SARS-CoV infection and skin injury. The study ‘Cleavage ...

New Haven, Conn. — A genetic analysis suggests that the servants and retainers who lived, worked, and died at Machu Picchu, the renowned 15th century Inca palace in southern Peru, were a diverse community representing many different ethnic groups from across the Inca empire. The genomic data, described in a new study in Science Advances, is the first investigation of the genomic diversity of individuals buried at Machu Picchu and adjacent places around Cusco, the Inca capital. It builds upon previous archeological and bio-archaeological research, including a 2021 Yale-led study which found that Machu Picchu (AD 1420-1530) is older than was previously believed. “The ...

A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered loss of metabolic fitness in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cells is a critical mechanism of resistance, with infused cells gradually losing the ability to compete with tumor cells for nutrients, leading to tumor relapse. The study, published today in Science Advances, demonstrates that engineering CAR NK cells to express interleukin-15 (IL-15) enhances the cells’ metabolic fitness and provides a longer-lasting ...

A new study from UCLA Health researchers finds that the typical ways health systems store and track data on children receiving emergency care miss a sizable portion of those who are having self-injurious thoughts or behaviors. The researchers also found that several machine learning models they designed were significantly better at identifying those children at risk of self-harm.  Amid a nationwide youth mental health crisis, mental health providers are trying to improve their understanding of which children are at-risk of suicide or self-harm so providers can intervene earlier. However, health systems often ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $33 million to support 14 clean-energy research projects as part of a program to ensure the Department’s research funding is reaching pockets of the country that traditionally have received disproportionally low amounts of Federal scientific funding. The projects will cover a range of topics—including grid integration, renewable solar and wind energy, and advanced manufacturing. Today’s funding will help ensure all regions of the country share in the ownership of priority research that advances science and addresses energy ...

“We created datasets for predicting whether or not a compound extends the lifespan of C. elegans [...]” BUFFALO, NY- July 26, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 13, entitled, “Predicting lifespan-extending chemical compounds for C. elegans with machine learning and biologically interpretable features.” Recently, there has been a growing interest in the development of pharmacological interventions targeting ...

“We believe that KIAA0930 would be a novel cachexia therapeutic target.” BUFFALO, NY- July 26, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on July 20, 2023, entitled, “The uncharacterized transcript KIAA0930 confers a cachexic phenotype on cancer cells.” Patients with cancer cachexia have a poor prognosis and impaired quality of life. Numerous studies using preclinical models have shown that inflammatory cytokines play an important role in the development of cancer cachexia; however, no clinical trial targeting cytokines has been successful. Therefore, ...

The lifespan of a small roundworm that has been used as a key model organism in ageing research is limited by how it self-sacrifices to feed its young, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The authors of the new Nature Communications paper say their findings raise questions about how well insights from the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) worm can be translated to human ageing advances. C. elegans is widely used as a laboratory animal, and has been central to ageing research for 40 years thanks to discoveries of genes that can be supressed to produce up to a tenfold increase in ...

China has set itself the goal of reaching its peak of carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 and thereafter to reduce emissions to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. To achieve this, it needs to increase photovoltaic (PV) and wind power to 10-15 petawatt hours (PWh) by 2060. However, according to historical installation rates and a recent high-resolution energy-system-model and forecasts based on China's 14th Five-Year Energy Development Programme (CFEDP), the capacity of China for producing non-fossil-fuel energy will reach a maximum of only 9.5 PWh per year by 2060. Now, an international study with the participation ...

Viruses, like movie villains, operate in one of two ways: chill or kill. They can lay low, quietly infiltrating the body’s defenses, or go on the attack, exploding out of hiding and firing in all directions. Viral attacks are almost always suicide missions, ripping apart the cell that the virus has been depending on. The attack can only succeed if enough other healthy cells are around to infect. If the barrage of viral particles hits nothing, the virus cannot sustain itself. It doesn’t die, since viruses aren’t technically alive, but it ceases to function. So for a virus, the key challenge is deciding when to flip from chill mode into kill mode. Four years ago, Princeton ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have unraveled the step-by-step activation process of a protein with a deep evolutionary history in all domains of life, opening the door to harnessing its functions for use as a biotechnology tool. The protein belongs to the “superfamily” of Argonaute proteins, which previous research has suggested to be involved in gene silencing, a fundamental process known as RNA interference. These proteins are well-characterized in eukaryotes – the plants, fungi, animals, humans and other life forms with cells that have a defined ...

URBANA, Ill. — As the global population grows under a changing climate, the urgency to find sustainable protein sources is greater than ever. Plant-based “meat” and “dairy” products may be popular, but they’re not the only environmentally friendly meat alternatives.  A new study in mice from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests replacing traditional protein sources with mealworms in high-fat diets could slow weight gain, improve immune response, reduce inflammation, enhance energy metabolism, and ...

Exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics — particles smaller than 5 millimeters and 1 micrometer across, respectively — have been linked to adverse health outcomes. Although some of their sources are well known, others haven’t been thoroughly vetted yet. Below are recent papers published in ACS journals that report new insights into the origins of some microscopic plastic pieces: laser-cut acrylic sheets, orthodontic rubber bands and children’s food containers. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org. “Characterization ...

An Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study sheds light on the intricate interplay between mammary adipose (fat) tissue and breast health, and offers exciting possibilities for understanding breast development, lactation, cancer, and obesity and related metabolic disorders. The study was published today in Nature. The research team was led by Prashant Rajbhandari, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease), and a member of the Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai. The ...

CLEVELAND - Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat, being highly resistant to chemotherapy. However, there are no effective alternative therapies to chemotherapy, so chemo remains the best available treatment. Although there are fewer than roughly 60,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed annually in the U.S., about 95 percent of people with it die from it, mainly because it often goes undetected in early stages. Approved multi-agent chemotherapy regimens offer a marginal advance over single-agent ...

Some of the world’s most distinct and ancient animal species, which play crucial roles in our planet’s ecosystems, are exploited for the wildlife trade across large parts of the world, according to new research from the University of Sheffield.   The study, led by researchers from the University’s School of Biosciences, has found that in large areas of the world, a wide range of functionally and evolutionarily distinct species are targeted for the wildlife trade, which has the potential to cause major losses of evolutionary history and alter key ecological processes.   Published in Nature, the ...

The very first rule for people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes is to eat a healthy nutritious diet. Attention to ingested calories, as well as nutrients contained in various foods, become integral parts of a diabetic person's life. However, this might not be enough: an important role in determining the future health status of people with this condition could be played by the degree of processing of foods that end up on the dish. These products are described as "ultra-processed" and are associated with adverse health outcomes, as reported in general population studies. A study conducted by the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention at the I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed in Pozzilli, ...

LOS ANGELES, CA — Keck Hospital of USC earned five stars, the highest rating possible, on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2023 quality star rating report. Only approximately 16% of hospitals across the country, 483 out of 3,076, received five stars out of a one-to-five-star rating system. “This prestigious designation demonstrates our continuing commitment to patient safety and to best patient outcomes, and is the result of the hard work of every physician, nurse and staff member at the hospital,” said Stephanie Hall, MD, MHA, chief medical officer ...

About 15 years ago, researchers reported that the timing of spring in high-Arctic Greenland had advanced at some of the fastest rates of change ever seen anywhere in the world. But, according to new evidence reported in the journal Current Biology on July 26, that earlier pattern has since been completely erased. Instead of coming earlier and earlier, it seems the timing of Arctic spring is now driven by tremendous climate variability with drastic differences from one year to the next. “As scientists we are obliged to revisit previous ...

The United States has more than 10 times the number of mass shooting incidents than other developed countries, yet little research has shown the distribution and types of shootings, geographically. “I’m constantly asked, ‘What is public health doing about the rise in mass shootings?” says Leslie Barnard, MPH, a student working with the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative. Barnard, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Epidemiology in the Colorado School of Public Health at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, wanted to find answers to address public ...

Eighty-two percent of child deaths in low-income countries could be prevented, according to a study from the international CHAMPS network published in JAMA Network Open. The study, which used the minimally invasive autopsy technique developed by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), found an infectious agent in 87% of cases and identified malnutrition as the most common underlying cause of death. Ninety-nine percent of deaths in children under five years of age occur in low- and middle-income countries. "If we want to prevent these deaths, we need to know the causes, but the problem is that we lack reliable data," says Quique Bassat, ...

About The Study: The findings of this study including 268 counties in 22 states suggest that wastewater surveillance can provide an accurate assessment of county SARS-CoV-2 incidence and may be the best metric for monitoring amount of circulating virus as home testing increases and disease acuity decreases because of vaccination and treatment. Authors: Meri R. J. Varkila, M.D., of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, 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.2023.25591) Editor’s Note: Please ...

About The Study: This secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial including 19,000 older adults found a significant increase in intracranial bleeding with daily low-dose aspirin but no significant reduction of ischemic stroke. These findings may have particular relevance to older individuals prone to developing intracranial bleeding after head trauma (e.g., from falls).  Authors: John J. McNeil, Ph.D., of Monash University in Melbourne, 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.2023.25803) Editor’s ...