New research published in Contemporary Economic Policy indicates that Disability Insurance (DI) may improve economic opportunities for children whose parents have health conditions that limit work. The study included 52,575 parent-child pairs in the United States. When investigators examined economic mobility patterns for children whose parents reported work-limiting disability, they found that children had less upward economic mobility and more downward mobility relative to children of non-limited parents. Children of parents ...

A randomized controlled trial conducted in Canada and published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry found that Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), a nurse-home visiting program, improved child language and mental health at age 2 years when compared with existing services. Rates of child injuries and maternal subsequent pregnancies were similar in the two groups. This real-world effectiveness trial involved sustained research-policy-practice collaborations from 2011–2022. Investigators successfully reached/enrolled and sustained engagement with 739 participants (368 NFP, 371 comparison) and their 737 children for ...

Functional Family Therapy is a family-based intervention for youth with behavior problems, and although it’s been implemented in 45 states in the U.S and in nine other high-income countries, a recent analysis of published and unpublished studies found that the therapy is not consistently more or less effective than other treatments, including various forms of individual, family, and group interventions. The authors of the analysis, which is published in Campbell Systematic Reviews and included 20 studies, also noted that there is insufficient evidence ...

In the late 1950s and 1960s, more than 12,000 malformed babies with short arms and legs were born as a side effect of thalidomide, a drug sold to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness. The tragedy was caused by the drug's side effect, which exists in a racemic mixture of two mirror-image forms. Research to determine the molecular structure of various compounds is essential for understanding biological phenomena and developing drugs to treat diseases and is mainly based on the interpretation ...

Overview A research team from the Department of Applied Chemistry and Life Science at the Toyohashi University of Technology (Professor Ryugo Tero et al.) discovered a phenomenon in which specific lipids were concentrated on graphene oxide in a multicomponent lipid bilayer membrane serving as a cell membrane model. This research team also clarified the mechanism by which the components of “lipid rafts" (where important cell membrane reactions such as neurotransmission and metabolism occur) gather owing to the surface characteristics of graphene oxide. This discovery is ...

A team of researchers from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), led by Assistant Professor Anand Jeyasekharan, has discovered a unique combination of oncogenes that could predict treatment resistance, and hence unfavourable outcomes, of patients with Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common type of blood cancer in Singapore and globally.  This unique oncogenic combination, serving as an indicator of treatment resistance, can be detected through state-of-the-art technology. The researchers, however, went a step ...

SINGAPORE, XX July 2023 – Long-running research by Duke-NUS Medical School into the omega-3 transporter protein Mfsd2a has shown that it plays a key role in a specific mechanism that prevents the liver from storing too much fat from food. Published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, this latest study by Duke-NUS and collaborators from Singapore General Hospital (SGH) signals the possibility that a dietary supplement could be developed to help prevent non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Eating too much fatty food increases the risk of many health problems, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and NAFLD. The excess fat that accumulates in the ...

A team led by Prof. GUO Guoping and Prof. CAO Gang from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with Sigmund Kohler from Materials Science Institute of Madrid, developed a response theory applicable to strongly coupled and multiqubit systems. Their study was published in Physical Review Letters.  Semiconductor quantum dot (QD) strongly coupled to microwave photons is the key to investigate light-matter interactions. In previous studies, the team used high-impedance super-conducting resonant cavity to implement the strong coupling of the QD-cavity hybrid system. Based on this strong ...

The Safety Sensescaping project, funded by WorkSafe's WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund, is part of Peninsula Health’s Thriving in Health program, which aims to create safe and mentally healthy environments for healthcare workers to thrive in.   Project lead and RMIT Senior Lecturer Dr Olivier Cotsaftis worked with doctors, nurses and non-clinicians at Peninsula Health for three years to understand the psychosocial hazards in their workplace and find design-led solutions to prevent mental injury.   Cotsaftis said hospital scrubs were an unconscious source of stress for many healthcare workers.  Designed according to the standard male ...

An international team of astronomers used the state-of-the-art capability of VERA, a Japanese network of radio telescopes operated by NAOJ, to uncover valuable clues about how rapidly growing “young” supermassive black holes form, grow, and possibly evolve into more powerful quasars. It is now widely accepted that nearly every active galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole at its core, with masses ranging from millions to billions of times that of the Sun. The growth history by which these black holes have gained such huge masses, however, remains an open question. Led by Mieko Takamura, ...

Membraneless organelles (MLOs), also known as “biomolecular condensates,” are formed by the biological process of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). MLOs are highly dynamic bodies containing proteins and nucleic acids. While the role of proteins in LLPS has been extensively investigated, there is a growing interest in the scientific community to understand the role of RNAs—the nucleic acid responsible for innumerable biological functions including coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes, and ultimately proteins—in phase separation. Recent studies have revealed that MLOs are rich in RNAs ...

Piezoelectricity in native bones has been well recognized as the key factor in bone regeneration. However, the current additive-manufactured scaffolds mainly focus on the reconstruction of bionic topological structure and mechanical microenvironment, while the crucial electrical microenvironment (EM) in bone regeneration is neglected. Piezoelectricity in native bones has been well recognized as the key factor in bone regeneration. However, the current additive-manufactured scaffolds mainly focus on the ...

Investigators from Cedars-Sinai have provided new understanding of how diabetes delays wound healing in the eye, identifying for the first time two related disease-associated changes to the cornea. The findings, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Diabetologia, also identified three therapeutic pathways that reversed these changes and partially restored wound-healing function to the cornea—a discovery that could ultimately inform new treatments for diabetes. “We have found that diabetes induces more cellular changes than we were aware of previously,” ...

Biomolecular condensates, the tiny combinations of proteins and mRNA forming membrane-less compartments within cells, have big potential implications for the future of not just plants but humans. On Sunday, August 6, at 9:00 am, the #PlantBio2023 plenary “Highlights of New and Emerging Research on Biomolecular Condensates in Plants” will dive into this new field and its recent discoveries.  “It’s going to be a great way to get your feet wet and understand what biomolecular condensates are,” ...

Not being heard, not being taken seriously and being misunderstood by health care providers often describes a routine medical visit for many Black parents. For Black parents of young children, that lack of cultural understanding can lead to grim consequences for the health of the baby and mother.   According to the California Department of Public Health, Black babies in the Bay Area are two to three times more likely to be born too soon or too small or to die before their first birthday, compared to white babies. Scientific evidence points to structural racism and a systemic lack ...

Scientists have combined two light wavelengths to deactivate a bacterium that is invulnerable to some of the world’s most widely used antibiotics, giving hope that the regime could be adapted as a potential disinfectant treatment. Under the guidance of project leader Dr Gale Brightwell, scientists at New Zealand’s AgResearch demonstrated the novel antimicrobial efficiency of a combination of two light wavelengths against a ‘superbug’ known as antibiotic-resistant extended-spectrum beta-lactamase E. coli. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global threat of ...

At first, some parents were wary: An audio chatbot was supposed to teach their kids to speak positively to themselves through lessons about a superhero named Zip. In a world of Siri and Alexa, many people are skeptical that the makers of such technologies are putting children’s welfare first. Researchers at the University of Washington created a new web app aimed to help children develop skills like self-awareness and emotional management. In Self-Talk with Superhero Zip, a chatbot guided pairs of siblings ...

The University of Texas at Arlington is part of a new consortium funded by the Department of Energy that involves the development of new technologies and college courses covering everything from radiation detection to nuclear engineering. The grant also will help UTA develop 2D materials that can be integrated into new hand-held photonic technologies with multiple uses. Electrical Engineering Professor Weidong Zhou and Associate Professor Alice Sun will use the five-year, $1.8 million grant to work with collaborators at UT Arlington, University of North Texas, University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, ...

Researchers at Texas A&M University are taking a traditional manufacturing tool — metal cutting — and developing a more accessible method for understanding the behavior of metals under extreme conditions. Metal cutting – scraping a thin layer of material from a metal’s surface using a sharp knife (not unlike how we scrape butter) – might not be the first thing that comes to mind for studying material properties. However, Drs. Dinakar Sagapuram and Hrayer Aprahamian, assistant professors ...

People with bipolar disorder—characterised by extreme mood swings—are 6 times more likely to die before their time from external causes, such as accidents, violence, and suicide, than those without the condition, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health. And they are twice as likely to die from somatic (physical) causes, with alcohol a major contributing factor, the findings show. A heightened risk of an early death from any cause has been consistently reported in those with ...

The proportion of smokers’ duty free tobacco purchases in England has tripled since 2019, rising from just over 5% to just over 16%, but there’s been no reported change in black market purchases, reveals a time-trends analysis published online in the journal Tobacco Control. Between 2002 and 2014, between 12% and 20% of UK adult smokers said their last tobacco purchase had been from a low or untaxed source. And smokers who buy their tobacco from low/untaxed sources—and those who switch to cheaper products—are less likely to try to quit smoking than those ...

It’s time to stop prevaricating and explore the use of psilocybin—the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’—and other psychedelics to ease the often overwhelming distress faced by women with late stage gynaecological cancers, urge doctors in a commentary published online in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer. Conventional ‘gold standard’ psychotherapeutic approaches, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), take too long to change old habits and require too much stamina, suggest the authors from the University of Texas ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — If, as the saying goes, ‘nothing in life is free,’ then corals might pay a price for being resilient to climate change. Indeed, the prevailing belief among scientists has been that corals must suffer reduced growth or other tradeoffs when they partner with symbiotic algae that help them tolerate warmer water. Yet, new research led by Penn State demonstrates that certain corals can have their cake and eat it too, and as a result, these coral-symbiont partnerships may come to dominate ...

An Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study sheds new light on some of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of opioid addiction, which accounted for three-quarters of the more than 100,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States in 2021. The Mount Sinai researchers found that inpatients with heroin use disorder exhibited a bias in favor of processing drug cues over cues related to natural, non-drug rewards, as observed during passive viewing of the cues and when the patients were asked to try two emotional regulation strategies. Results of the study were published in the July 12 issue of the American Journal ...

How do you study a predator with both camouflage and stealth that make it virtually invisible in the forest? Even jaguars poop. A team of researchers led by the University of Cincinnati applied genetic and isotopic analyses to jaguar scat to investigate the habitat needs of the big cats in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Preserve of Belize in Central America. The study demonstrates a novel and noninvasive technique for identifying the landscape use and conservation needs of elusive wildlife. Researchers used scat-detecting dogs named Billy and Bruiser to find telltale evidence left behind by jaguars ...