(WASHINGTON – September 12, 2024) The risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots, in individuals with sickle cell trait (SCT) is higher than in individuals without the trait. However, the risk is lower than for those with heterozygous factor V Leiden (FVL), according to a study published today in Blood Advances that analyzed genetic data from 23andMe research participants. More than 100 million people worldwide and approximately 7% of Black individuals in the United States have SCT. Unlike sickle cell disease, ...

A research paper by scientists at Purdue University presented a deep learning method that enables the customization of complex strain fields according to specific requirements. The new research paper, published on Aug. 14 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, used a deep learning method based on image regression and achieved to predict and customize complex strain fields. Traditional bioreactors, powered by pneumatic actuators or motors, struggle to generate complex strain fields due to limited control over individual actuators. However, fields like cardiovascular biomechanics and tissue engineering require more advanced customization. “In the field of biomechanics, customizing ...

Highlights: Diastatic yeasts can spoil craft beer through hyperattenuation, which boosts the alcohol content and causes bottles to explode. Killer toxins, which are produced by other yeast strains, hint at a remedy. In a proof-of-concept study, researchers found that killer toxins inhibited up to 95% of diastatic yeasts. More work is needed to fine tune the recipe, but killer yeasts may help brewers remedy potentially contaminated beers. Washington, D.C. — Sept. 12, 2024 — When diastatic strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ...

DALLAS, September 12, 2024 — The American Heart Association, celebrating 100 years of lifesaving service in 2024, is recognizing 21 students, educators and elementary, middle and high schools from across the country who are making a bold impact in the battle against cardiovascular disease – the nation’s leading cause of death. These exceptional individuals and institutions were honored for their unwavering commitment to the Association’s in-school programs, Kids Heart Challenge™ ...

A new study has revealed for the first time how different synthesis methods can profoundly impact the structural and functional properties of high entropy oxides, a class of materials with applications in everyday electronic devices. The study was published this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.   “The specific material that we’ve studied here is a high entropy oxide with a spinel crystal structure, which is a mixture of five different transition metal oxides. A lot of the excitement that we ...

Less than half of Americans can name most of the rights protected under the First Amendment and under two-thirds can name the three branches of government, according to the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey, released annually since 2014. The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s nationally representative survey, conducted in May 2024 with about 1,600 U.S. adults, finds levels of public knowledge largely unchanged from 2023. As was true last year, most Americans could name only a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, provided by nearly 3 in 4 respondents. The survey also found strong public support for ...

NEW YORK, September 12, 2024  – For the second time, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences named three women scientists as Laureates of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Each will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to America’s most promising, faculty-level scientific researchers under 42. Three independent juries – one each for life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences & engineering – composed of some of America’s most distinguished scientists selected the three winning Laureates. An additional 15 Finalists will each receive ...

After more than a decade of research growth and recruiting efforts to build strong, collaborative research programs, the Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy in Amarillo has developed the Brain Drug Discovery Center, the newest Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) research center. Created from two existing pharmacy school centers — the Center for Blood-Brain Barrier Research and the Cancer Biology Research Center — the Brain Drug Discovery Center will focus on ...

A QB3-led team uniting researchers from the University of California campuses at Berkeley, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz was awarded a $12 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to investigate the origins of autism using sophisticated cellular models called “neural organoids.” This grant is the first funding brought in by QB3’s Collaborative Research initiative, which was recently created to address major challenges in human health by leveraging research talent and resources across the UC campuses served by QB3.  "We are grateful for the support provided by the CIRM team to craft a highly successful application ...

Whether they’re using it for recreational or medical reasons, a sizable percentage of people in their 50s and older have smoked, eaten, drunk or applied to their skin at least one form of cannabis in the past year, a new poll shows. In all, 21% of people age 50 and older said they used a form of cannabis that contains the psychoactive compound THC at least once in the past year, according to new findings from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging. The poll report focuses on use of cannabis ...

Mill Valley, CA – September 12, 2024 – The SynGAP Research Fund 501(c)(3) announces a $128,888 grant to Dr. Baptiste Lacoste at the uOttawa Brain and Mind Research Institute (uOBMRI) and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI). This grant supports Dr. Lacoste's pioneering research project aimed at exploring the role of vascular and metabolic dysfunction in SYNGAP1-Related Non-Syndromic Intellectual Disability (SYNGAP1-NSID), also known as SYNGAP1-Related Disorders (SRD). With elevated energy demands and a limited capacity to store ...

A Scottish $75,000 prize for “radical innovation” has shortlisted four academics from around the world. Named after Panmure House, the former Edinburgh home of 18th century Scots economist and philosopher Adam Smith, the Panmure House Prize rewards groundbreaking research that contributes to advancing long-term thinking and innovation. After a record number of entries for the 2024 prize, its fourth year, the judges have drawn up a shortlist of four submissions from the United States, Spain ...

Boston, MA and Rolle, Switzerland, September 12, 2024 – SOPHiA GENETICS (Nasdaq: SOPH), a cloud-native healthcare technology company and a global leader in data-driven medicine, will be presenting multiple posters at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024 being held in Barcelona, Spain September 13-17, 2024. The ESMO Congress is a globally influential oncology platform for clinicians, researchers, patient advocates, journalists and healthcare industry representatives from all over the world. The details of the presentations are as follows: Title: ...

Access VIDEO, photos and captions here                      Climate change and asteroids are linked with animal origin and extinction – and plate tectonics also seems to play a key evolutionary role, ‘groundbreaking’ new fossil research reveals. The discovery of an exceptionally well preserved ancient primitive Devonian coelacanth fish in remote Western Australia has been linked to a period of heightened tectonic activity, or movement in the Earth’s crust, according ...

The personal carbon footprint of the richest people in society is grossly underestimated, both by the rich themselves and by those on middle and lower incomes, no matter which country they come from. At the same time, both the rich and the poor drastically overestimate the carbon footprint of the poorest people. An international group of researchers, led by the Copenhagen Business School, the University of Basel and the University of Cambridge, surveyed 4,000 people from Denmark, India, Nigeria and the United States about inequality in personal carbon footprints – the total amount of greenhouse gases ...

HOUSTON – (Sept. 12, 2024) – Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions have discovered new insights into tumor-induced B cell changes in blood and bone marrow of triple negative breast cancer patients. The findings, published in Nature Cell Biology, show two distinct patterns of B cell abnormalities that could serve as blood biomarkers for determining likelihood of response to standard-of-care chemotherapy and immunotherapy. “Even with significant advances in immunotherapy, ...

Ehrapy is intended to fill a critical gap in the analysis of health data, says Lukas Heumos, one of the main developers and a scientist at the Institute of Computational Biology at Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University of Munich (TUM): “Until now, there have been no standardized tools for systematically and efficiently analyzing diverse and complex medical data. We’ve changed that with ehrapy.” The team behind ehrapy comes from biomedical research and has extensive experience in analyzing complex scientific datasets. “The healthcare sector faces similar challenges in data analysis as ...

Ozone gas is reducing the growth of tropical forests – leaving an estimated 290 million tonnes of carbon uncaptured each year, new research shows. The ozone layer in the stratosphere shields our planet from harmful ultraviolet radiation – and protecting it is one of the major successes of environmental action. But ozone at ground level – formed by the combination of pollutants from human activities in the presence of sunlight – interferes with plants’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Ozone is also harmful to human health. The new study, published in ...

BOSTON – Concerns about the environmental impact of healthcare decisions rarely enter into conversations between patients and physicians. However, evidence from a new study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, shows there's broad interest in changing that. In a series of focus groups conducted in different areas of the United States, doctors and patients expressed openness to considering environmental factors when discussing treatment options. The findings, presented in a paper published online today by Nature Climate Change, suggest that educating physicians about the environmental costs of treatment ...

Barcelona, 12 September 2024 – Immunotherapy has transformed cancer treatment in recent years by enabling the immune system to attack tumour cells. However, only 20-40% of patients respond positively to immunotherapy, and these rates vary across different types of cancer. Predicting which patients will respond to immunotherapy and which will not is currently a highly active area of research. Numerous studies conducted so far have focused on the specific characteristics of tumours, their microenvironment, or the patient's immune ...

A new study finds that a trilobite species with exceptionally well-preserved fossils from upstate New York has an additional set of legs underneath its head. The research, led by the American Museum of Natural History and Nanjing University in China, suggests that having a fifth pair of head appendages might be more widespread among trilobites than once thought. Published today in the journal Palaeontology, the study helps researchers better understand how trilobite heads are segmented. Trilobites are ...

Several fields of mathematics have developed in total isolation, using their own ‘undecipherable’ coded languages. In a new study published in PNAS, Tamás Hausel, professor of mathematics at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), presents “big algebras,” a two-way mathematical ‘dictionary’ between symmetry, algebra, and geometry, that could strengthen the connection between the distant worlds of quantum physics and number theory. Technical Toolkit: Symmetry and commutativity, from esthetics to functionality Symmetry is not just a question of esthetics and equilibrium, but also a highly recurrent feature throughout the domains ...

While being overweight increases the risk of developing lifestyle-related diseases, there is a phenomenon known as the obesity paradox where a decreased risk of death has been seen during cancer therapy. However, that paradox might not be the trend for all cancer therapies, an Osaka Metropolitan University team reports in JAMA Network Open, a publication of the American Medical Association. Led by graduate student Mr. Yasutaka Ihara and Professor Ayumi Shintani of the Graduate School of Medicine’s Department of Medical Statistics, ...

Screens have become ubiquitous in our daily lives — which means they’ve also become part of children’s lives too. So what effect does this have on children’s developing brains, especially critical language skills? To understand this, scientists in Estonia surveyed the parents of more than 400 children about their screen use, their children’s screen use, and their children’s language skills. They found that parents who use screens a lot also have children who use screens a lot, and that children’s higher screen time is associated with poorer language skills.  “Our ...

Scientists at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University are searching for a new treatment target for a common complication of diabetes that can cause retinal blood vessels to break down, leak, or become blocked. Diabetic retinopathy is a serious eye disease and a leading cause of blindness that results when diabetes’ sustained high blood sugar levels cause damage to the retina – the part of the eye that detects light – over time. That can happen in a number of ways, from inflammation to overgrowth ...