Hamilton, ON, Nov. 14, 2024, In a groundbreaking study, researchers at McMaster University have identified a potential treatment for Sandhoff and Tay-Sachs diseases—two rare, often fatal lysosomal storage disorders that cause progressive damage to nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. After years of investigating the diseases’ underlying mechanisms, the research team has identified an existing FDA-approved drug that could significantly improve quality of life for affected patients and their families. “Sandhoff and Tay-Sachs are devastating diseases,” ...

Since 2018, Sino-US economic and trade relations have become increasingly tense. Between 2018 and 2019, the US imposed seven rounds of tariffs on China, to which China responded with retaliatory measures. The simple average tariff rates on US imports from China rose from 4.07% in January 2018 to 24.43% in December 2019, while the simple average tariff rates on Chinese imports from the US increased from 9.32% in January 2018 to 22.53% in December 2019 (see figure 1). Consequently, the share of Chinese goods in US imports declined significantly — ...

We have probably all seen a soybean plant, about 1 meter high with leaves and pods compactly arranged on a main stem with a few short side branches. The wild relative of the domesticated soybean is a long vine with pods widely distributed on many side branches. Plant breeding by farmers thousands of years ago is to thank for this dramatic change. As human population increases and protein demand doubles, modern plant breeders must further optimize soybean plant architecture and per plant yield for modern farming systems. Conventional ...

Lancaster University researchers investigating consumer attitudes and behaviours around plastic food packaging have found UK households are ‘wishcycling’ rather than recycling – and say it’s a problem that everyone - government, food producers, waste management and residents – has to solve. Wishcycling – the act of putting packaging in recycling bins and hoping for the best, rather than knowing it’s recyclable – is something households are doing due to confusing product labels and differing recycling facilities around the country, experts warn. The academics behind Lancaster ...

A small clinical trial shows promising results for patients with triple-negative breast cancer who received an investigational vaccine designed to prevent recurrence of tumors. Conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis with a therapy designed by WashU Medicine researchers, the trial is the first to report results for this type of vaccine — known as a neoantigen DNA vaccine — for breast cancer patients. The study, which found the vaccine to be well-tolerated and to stimulate ...

Adverse events affect more than a third (38%) of adults undergoing surgery, finds a study of admissions to 11 hospitals in the US state of Massachusetts, published by The BMJ today. Of the 1009 admissions analysed, nearly half were classified as major (resulting in serious, life threatening or fatal harm) and the majority were considered as potentially preventable. Although this study may not fully represent hospitals at large, the findings show that “adverse events remain widespread in contemporary ...

Outsourcing adult social care services in England to the private sector since the 1980s has led to worse care and should be rolled back, argue experts in The BMJ today. Benjamin Goodair at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and colleagues suggest that removing the profit motive would help improve quality and reduce inequities. Social care, sometimes referred to as community, residential, or personalised care, for older people and people with physical and mental disabilities is facing record demand but performing worse than any time in recent history, they explain. One contributor to this, they say, is the outsourcing of care provision from the ...

**Correction** A subheading in the press release sent yesterday was incorrect - the line 'Global rates of diabetes doubled over the last two decades' should be ''Global rates of diabetes doubled over the last three decades'. The subheading and two further occurrences of the same mistake have been corrected in the copy below (in yellow). The rest of the press release remains unchanged. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused,  The Lancet press office (pressoffice@lancet.com).   The ...

A new clinical study shows that an inhibitor of Fas ligand (FasL), also called CD95 ligand (CD95L), led to a faster recovery of COVID-19 patients and reduced mortality. On average, it took eight days to recover for patients who received asunercept, a biotherapeutic FasL inhibitor, compared to 13 days in the control group. In addition, mortality was decreased by about 20 per cent. The study ‘Efficacy and safety of asunercept, a CD95L-selective inhibitor, in hospitalised patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19: ASUNCTIS, a multicentre, randomised, open-label, controlled, phase 2 trial’ ...

Wastewater injection resulting from oil and gas production in Oklahoma caused a dramatic rise in seismic activity in the state between 2009 and 2015. But regulatory efforts to backfill some injection wells with cement and reduce injection volumes have been effective in lowering the state’s induced earthquake rate, according to a new study in The Seismic Record. The study by Robert Skoumal of the U.S. Geological Survey and colleagues lends further support to the idea that reducing the depth of wastewater injection can decrease seismic activity—a finding that ...

Frank Yin, agronomy researcher in the University of Tennessee Department of Plant Sciences, has been selected as a 2024 American Society of Agronomy (ASA) Fellow. The honor was awarded as a result of Yin’s more than 35 years of research contributions to institutions across the world, including 16 years at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA). Yin was recognized for the Fellowship at the national meeting of ASA in San Antonio, Texas in November. “I am humbled and honored to receive this distinction, but above all I am ...

Working days lost to long Covid could be costing the economy billions of pounds every year as patients struggle to cope with symptoms and return to work, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in BMJ Open and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), examined the impact of long Covid on 4,087 patients who were referred to a long Covid clinic and registered in the Living With Covid Recovery (LWCR) programme between August 2020 and August 2022. As part of their NHS treatment for the condition, the patients ...

Mobile phones could be the key to a cheaper and more reliable way of tracking animals for ecology and conservation research, according to a new study from The Australian National University (ANU).  Traditional animal tracking methods are often expensive and require the tagged animals to be close to the tracking technology.  Now, ANU researchers have developed a cheap, lightweight Bluetooth beacon that can provide regular updates through our network of mobile phones in areas used by people carrying phones or smartwatches.  Study lead author and ANU ecologist, ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Suzanne.Leigh@ucsf.edu, (415) 680-5133 Subscribe to UCSF News This Nifty AI Tool Helps Neurosurgeons Find Sneaky Cancer Cells  Technique offers new hope for increased survival in patients with brain tumors.  What’s New:   An AI-based diagnostic system reveals cancerous tissue that may not otherwise be visible during brain tumor surgery. This enables neurosurgeons to remove it while the patient is still under anesthesia – or treat it afterwards with targeted therapies.  Why it Matters:  Brain tumors can ...

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina — Recent advances in bladder cancer treatments may offer hope of curative care to more patients, including those with high-risk localized, muscle-invasive disease, according to an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Matthew Milowsky, MD, FASCO, a bladder cancer expert at UNC School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, wrote that the promise of incorporating new treatments and predictive biomarkers to select the right patient for the right treatment every time offers a bright future for bladder cancer patients. Platinum-based chemotherapy has long been the standard treatment for metastatic bladder cancer and for ...

New York City's 2019 ride-hailing surcharge cut overall taxi and ride-share trips by 11 percent in Manhattan but failed to reduce traffic congestion, a key goal of the policy, according to a new NYU Tandon School of Engineering study published in Transportation Research Part A. “While this surcharge differs from the MTA's proposed congestion pricing plan, the study's findings can contribute to the current discourse,” said Daniel Vignon – assistant professor of Civil and Urban Engineering (CUE) and member of C2SMARTER, a U.S. Department of Transportation Tier 1 University Transportation Center – who led the research with CUE PhD student Yanchao ...

An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the red planet hurtling through space. One of these chunks of Mars eventually crashed into the Earth somewhere near Purdue and is one of the few meteorites that can be traced directly to Mars. This meteorite was rediscovered in a drawer at Purdue University in 1931 and therefore named the Lafayette Meteorite.  During early investigations of the Lafayette Meteorite, scientists discovered that it had interacted with liquid water while on Mars. Scientists have long wondered when that interaction with liquid water took place.  ...

TORONTO – Regular, self-reported symptom screening was associated with reduced symptom burden when compared with usual care for pediatric patients with cancer, according to new research led by scientists at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). The study, published today in JAMA, reported results of a randomized control trial of 445 participants aged 8 to 18 years receiving cancer treatment from across 20 pediatric cancer centres in the U.S. Half of the centres participating implemented the screening intervention while ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People with conditions or habits such as high blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, or smoking, not only have a higher risk of stroke, they may also have more severe strokes than people without these risk factors, according to a study published in the November 13, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Stroke can lead to disability or even death, yet there are a number of risk factors that people can modify with a change ...

Japan grapples with labor shortage due to low birth rates and an aging population, prompting recent governments to bring in more foreign workers. Under the leadership of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, significant immigration reforms were introduced between 2012 and 2020, aiming to alleviate these challenges by increasing the foreign population. However, despite these efforts, the government has continued to uphold the long-standing status quo of not having a formal immigration policy, mainly to balance business and nationalist interests. This status ...

Far from the stereotype of low-wage, low-skill positions, hospitality and tourism jobs could be powerful launchpads for broader career success, according to a new study from the University of Surrey. Researchers believe that working in these roles cultivates a wealth of transferable skills that can lead to lucrative opportunities in sectors like finance, healthcare, and technology.  In a study published in the Annals of Tourism Research, a team led by Dr Brigitte Stangl identified 116 unique transferable skills that employees gain while working in these sectors, highlighting the industry’s role as a vital training ground for essential skills.  The study found that employees ...

Lobbying can help companies reduce costs related to product recall, but it can also have a negative impact on the firm’s image. Research published in Strategic Management Journal offers clear data on the phenomenon, suggesting that managers should pay careful attention to the reputational cues from the media to determine when lobbying may be problematic and to refrain from the practice. Firms can use lobbying to influence the government, which in turn potentially limits their costs during product recall crises. Previous research has shown that when a firm increases its lobbying spending by approximately $417,014, which has been found to ...

The origin of many diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's can be found at the molecular level in our body, in other words, in proteins. In a healthy system, these proteins are responsible for numerous physiological functions. In order to carry out certain tasks, they may also assemble in groups consisting of numerous proteins. Once that job is done, they split up again and go their own ways. However, if larger clusters of a hundred or more proteins form so-called fibrils, which are bundles of long, filament-like accumulations of proteins, the ...

Young people’s mental health may depend on how they use social media, rather than how much time they spend using it, according to a new study by University of B.C. researchers. The research, led by psychology professor Dr. Amori Mikami (she/her) and published this week in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, examined the effects of quitting social media versus using it more intentionally. The results showed that users who thoughtfully managed their online interactions, as well as those who abstained from social media entirely, saw mental health benefits—particularly in reducing symptoms ...

A new study highlights how some marine life could face extinction over the next century, if human-induced global warming worsens.  The research, led by the University of Bristol and published today in Nature, compares for the first time how tiny ocean organisms called plankton responded, when the world last warmed significantly in ancient history with what is likely to happen under similar conditions by the end of our century.   Findings revealed the plankton were unable to keep pace with the current speed of temperature rises, putting huge swathes ...