In-cell engineering can be a powerful tool for synthesizing functional protein crystals with promising catalytic properties, show researchers at Tokyo Tech. Using genetically modified bacteria as an environmentally friendly synthesis platform, the researchers produced hybrid solid catalysts for artificial photosynthesis. These catalysts exhibit high activity, stability, and durability, highlighting the potential of the proposed innovative approach. Protein crystals, like regular crystals, are well-ordered molecular structures with diverse properties and a huge potential for customization. They can assemble naturally from materials found within cells, which not only greatly reduces the synthesis ...

Can poor sleep and circadian rhythm make chronic pain conditions worse? Edson College Assistant Professor Chung Jung Mun plans to find out through an innovative longitudinal study.  Mun was awarded a $3 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, to explore the possible connection. “There are countless individuals suffering from multiple chronic pain disorders. A person with chronic migraine headaches is also likely to suffer from chronic low back pain. What we’re trying to find ...

A Texas A&M University doctoral student has collaborated with an innovative surgical navigation and robotics company on motion capture research that can potentially improve implant alignment during knee replacement surgeries. Aaron Henry is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Engineering program in the Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering. He worked with Caira Surgical, a surgical navigation and robotic orthopedic surgery company that focuses on simplifying workflows and developing technological ...

A mouse injured on one leg experiences an “awakening” of stem cells in the other leg as if the cells are preparing to heal an injury. Something similar happens in axolotls, which are masters at limb regeneration. Heart injuries in zebrafish can trigger certain changes in far-away organs like the kidney and brain. “In many different organisms, you can see the whole body respond to an injury. But whether or not those responses actually have any function has been unclear,” says Bo Wang, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, “So that’s what we’re focusing on.” In ...

Jakarta … San Francisco … Shanghai … Phoenix … Houston. These major cities and others around the globe have many similarities, but they share one particular commonality that is concerning for residents. They are among the global cities most affected by climate change. While each of these cities has proven resilient for centuries, urban planners, community leaders and civil engineers continue to address their many environmental challenges. In preparing for these cities’ future, however, it might be more ...

Most of the earthquakes rumbling under the West’s Great Basin come in surges, clustered together in time and place. Scientists call these seismic groups “swarms,” which are a distinct category from the numerous aftershocks following a big shake, such as the 5.7 magnitude Magna quake of 2020 on the Wasatch Fault. Rather than getting spread out evenly over time, many of these small, often imperceptible quakes strike a region in a short period of time, say a few days or weeks. Central Utah has been the stage for dozens of earthquake swarms that have been recorded over the past 40 years by an ever-expanding network of seismic arrays managed by the University ...

Encouraging Latinx adolescents of Mexican origin to embrace their ethnic pride, cultural values, and connections to their cultural community contributes to positive development and better adjustment during adolescence, a new University of California, Davis, psychology study suggests. Moreover, researchers said, cultural preservation can help Latinx youth cope with adverse life experiences and social threats such as racism and discrimination. The study results were published this month in ...

A Chapman University scientist and his colleagues have determined how the Earth responds as it heats up due to climate change. The scientists say a warming world calls for a new approach in detecting how much carbon dioxide comes out of ecosystems when the temperature changes  — which tells us how well plants and soil can alleviate damage by removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere. The study is the first to find the temperature-carbon dioxide release relationship at the landscape level.  Their ...

An international team of scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Water Research Group from the Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management at the North-West University in South Africa have discovered a new species of marine cryptofauna in the Florida Keys. Cryptofauna are the tiny, hidden, organisms that make up the majority of biodiversity in the ocean. The roughly three-millimeter-long isopod is one of only 15 species from the genus Gnathia currently known in the region. The newly discovered species, Gnathia jimmybuffetti, which is a member of a group of crustaceans called gnathiid isopods, were collected ...

PORTLAND, Ore. – Researchers in the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy have developed a drug delivery system that shows promise for greatly enhancing the efficacy of the medicine given to women with the life-threatening condition of ectopic pregnancy, which occurs when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the lining of the uterus. Olena Taratula of the OSU College of Pharmacy, and Maureen Baldwin and Leslie Myatt of Oregon Health & Science University led a team that used a mouse model to show ...

At first glance, Canada appears to have responded adequately to the covid-19 emergency, but beneath the surface lie major pandemic failures, warns a series of articles published by The BMJ today. The BMJ Canada Covid Series provides a critical analysis of what worked and what didn’t in Canada’s covid-19 response and calls for a national independent  review to learn lessons and ensure accountability for the past and future preparedness. The articles, written by leading clinicians and researchers representing 13 institutions across Canada, highlight long-standing weaknesses ...

Self-reported data from lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) patients shows these groups have poorer health outcomes compared to those who identify as heterosexual, but bisexual people disproportionally experience the worst outcomes in England.    These new findings, published today in the peer-reviewed journal The Journal of Sex Research, indicate that bisexual people face additional health disparities within an already marginalised community.    Experts, from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School and Anglia Ruskin University who led the analysis of more than 835,000 adults in England, suggests the disparities could result from unique prejudice and discrimination ...

Davis, CA – Mother-daughter duo Jennifer Canvasser and Leslie Napolitano have published Forever Our Little One, a storybook for bereaved families. Jennifer is the executive director of the Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) Society, which she founded after her son Micah tragically died from complications of NEC. Leslie is an artist and illustrator who helped care for her grandson Micah during his time in the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units. Jennifer wrote the storybook for families ...

Irvine, Calif., July 24, 2023 – Reducing waste is one way to help combat hunger around the world, but stricter control over food loss and waste does not lead to better environmental outcomes, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Colorado Boulder. In a paper published recently in Nature Food, the scientists stress that curbing food spoilage increases the amount of produce in markets, which leads to lower costs. Cheaper food encourages people to buy and eat more, offsetting the lowering of greenhouse gas ...

Glenview, Illinois – Published monthly, the journal CHEST® features peer-reviewed, cutting-edge original research in chest medicine: Pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine and related disciplines. Journal topics include asthma, chest infections, COPD, critical care, diffuse lung disease, education and clinical practice, pulmonary vascular disease, sleep, thoracic oncology and the humanities. The July issue of the CHEST journal contains 49 articles, including clinically relevant research, reviews, case series, commentary and more. Each month, the journal ...

As the world continues to combat various infectious diseases, the development of novel vaccine technologies remains at the forefront of scientific research. mRNA-based vaccines and utilization of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for their delivery, have recently shown encouraging results in diseases such as COVID-19. However, a critical concern revolves around the wide biodistribution of LNPs in the body, which, in some cases, may result in unintended side effects. A recent publication in the peer-reviewed ...

Key takeaways A new study finds that consumers often misremember if a product is labeled “scientifically studied” or “scientifically proven” — despite the significant difference in meaning between the two phrases. UCLA psychologists conducted an experiment with one group of college students and another group of older adults to determine whether they would accurately recall which claim was made in an advertisement for a dietary supplement.  Only 26% of subjects correctly remembered which phrase was used, and the percentage who recalled the information ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 24 July 2023   Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet     @Annalsofim    Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.      ----------------------------   1. ...

SAN ANTONIO (July 24, 2023) — Staying healthy and connected was difficult for everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic, but especially so for homebound older patients and their caregivers. Fortunately, a program developed by the geriatrics and supportive care team of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio effectively integrated community health workers (promotores de salud in Spanish) into patient outreach to improve health. Thanks to the program, annual visits to older adults with type 2 diabetes, dementia and other health issues in underserved ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — There’s a barrier preventing the advent of truly elastic electronic systems, the kind needed for advanced human-machine interfaces, artificial skins, smart health care and more, but a Penn State-led research team may have found a way to stretch around it.  According to principal investigator Cunjiang Yu, who holds is the Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and of Biomedical Engineering at Penn State, fully elastic electronic systems require flexibility and stretchability in every ...

Water is the world’s most valuable natural resource. Although a human can survive weeks or even months without food, going as little as three days without water could spell the end. The effects of water scarcity aren’t limited to immediate survival situations, however. Recently published research in Psychological Science suggests that cultures from water-scarce environments tend to be more likely than cultures from water-rich areas to value long-term thinking and to scorn short-term indulgence.  “Individuals from historically water-scarce climates tend to be ...

Metastasis occurs when cancer cells acquire the ability to spread and form new tumors in different places in the body, usually by traveling within blood or lymph vessels. Since metastasis is a hallmark of advanced cancer and severely complicates treatment, its early diagnosis is essential. One way to do this is by looking for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood samples. However, CTCs can be very rare, and they might be completely absent in small blood samples despite being present in a patient’s bloodstream. To address this problem, researchers have developed a technique called diffuse in-vivo flow cytometry (DiFC). It involves labeling CTCs with ...

American Geophysical Union  Release No. 23-28 24 July 2023  For Immediate Release  This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/colorado-river-basin-has-lost-water-equal-to-lake-mead-due-to-climate-change/ Colorado River Basin has lost water equal to Lake Mead due to climate change A rapid rate of reductions in runoff associated with the Colorado Basin’s snowpack region, quantified here for the first time, is largely responsible for the water loss. AGU press contact: Rebecca Dzombak, news@agu.org +1 (202) 777-7492 (UTC-4 hours) Contact ...

New research led by Adam Dixon, a conservation scientist with the World Wildlife Fund, describes the successful pilot of a novel method to study how well grassland birds are faring on croplands. The study, published in Ecological Applications, looked at 44 pockets of non-crop vegetation in the gaps between crop rows and at the edges of fields on lands under intensive agricultural cultivation in Iowa. The study may serve as a model for monitoring wildlife on working lands more generally, which can include crop fields, cattle ranches, and logged forests. The researchers analyzed satellite imagery data to determine each pocket's area and “texture,” ...

Snacking is becoming increasingly popular, with more than 70% of people reporting they snack at least twice a day. In a new study involving more than 1,000 people, researchers examined whether snacking affects health and if the quality of snack foods matters.   “Our study showed that the quality of snacking is more important than the quantity or frequency of snacking, thus choosing high quality snacks over highly processed snacks is likely beneficial,” said Kate Bermingham, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at King's College London. “Timing is also important, with late night snacking being unfavorable for health.”   Bermingham ...