WASHINGTON, April 12, 2021 -- Spiders are master builders, expertly weaving strands of silk into intricate 3D webs that serve as the spider's home and hunting ground. If humans could enter the spider's world, they could learn about web construction, arachnid behavior and more. Today, scientists report that they have translated the structure of a web into music, which could have applications ranging from better 3D printers to cross-species communication and otherworldly musical compositions. The researchers will present their results today at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2021 is being held online April 5-30. Live sessions will be hosted April 5-16, and on-demand and networking content will continue through April 30. The meeting ...

DALLAS, April 12, 2021 -- Testing how well "good" cholesterol particles reduce inflammation may help predict who is at heightened risk to develop cardiovascular disease caused by narrowed arteries, according to research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation. Assessing levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, known as "good cholesterol," are already a standard part of formulas used to predict cardiovascular risk. A new test of the anti-inflammatory function of HDL seems to provide additional information that ...

Moving endangered species to new locations is often used as part of species conservation strategies, and can help to restore degraded ecosystems. But scientists say there is a high risk that these relocations are accidentally spreading diseases and parasites. The new report published today in the journal Conservation Letters focuses on freshwater mussels, which the researchers have studied extensively, but is applicable to all species moved around for conservation purposes. Mussels play an important role in cleaning the water of many of the world's rivers and lakes, but are one of the most threatened animal groups on Earth. There is growing interest in moving mussels to new locations to boost threatened populations, or so they can be used as 'biological filters' ...

Respiratory disease increased markedly following one of Iceland's largest volcanic eruptions, a new study has found. And the findings could have significant implications for actions taken to protect the health of the 800 million people globally living near active volcanoes. Indeed, only last month (March), lava burst through a crack in Iceland's Mount Fagradalsfjall in the first eruption of its type in more than 800 years. The new research, led by the University of Leeds and the University of Iceland, examined the health impacts of pollution caused by the Holuhraun lava eruption in 2014-2015. It shows that following exposure to emissions that changed chemically from gas to fine particles, incidents of respiratory disease in ...

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London, funded by the charity Brain Tumour Research, have found a new way to starve cancerous brain tumour cells of energy in order to prevent further growth. The pre-clinical research in human tissue samples, human cell lines and mice could lead to changes in the way that some children with medulloblastoma are treated in the future, if the findings are confirmed in human clinical trials. Medulloblastoma is the most common high-grade brain tumour in children. Some 70 are diagnosed in the UK each year. Survival rate is 70 per cent for those whose tumour has not spread but it is almost always fatal in cases of recurrent ...

Good cholesterol, which is transported in HDLs (high-density lipoproteins), plays a key part in the prevention of atherosclerosis and thus the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, according to a new paper co-authored by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in the journal Circulation, the anti-inflammatory properties of HDLs could be an even better biomarker for future cardiovascular events. Atherosclerosis is considered a chronic local inflammation that leads to plaques in the blood vessels and that, if left untreated, can cause cardiovascular ...

A new study shows that thick sea-ice can increase the sensitivity of Greenlandic fjords to climate warming. Understanding the factors that control how fast glaciers move, break up and deposit chunks of ice (icebergs) into the fjords - and eventually the sea - is vital for predicting how the Greenland ice sheet will change under a warming climate and for predicting global rates of sea-level rise. A new study led by Stockholm University Assistant Professor Christian Stranne, shows that thick sea-ice outside the fjords can actually increase the sensitivity of Greenlandic fjords to warming. Stranne and a team of researchers from Sweden, Greenland, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada report on expeditions to two distinct fjords in ...

Just over half of surveyed Ontario high schools reported providing CPR and AED training to students despite being mandated by the province to provide training for the lifesaving technique, according to a new study by Unity Health Toronto researchers. The study, published Monday April 12, in CJC Open, surveyed elementary and high schools from 15 different school boards across Ontario to understand the scope of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) training, which are mandated in the Ontario Grade 9 Health and Physical Education Curriculum. Researchers from St. Michael's Hospital of ...

Glioblastomas are the most common and most aggressive brain tumours. Their survival rate has barely increased over the last 50 years, indicating an urgent need to develop new therapeutic strategies. In a paper published this week in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, the team led by Massimo Squatrito, Head of the Seve Ballesteros Foundation Brain Tumour Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), proposes a novel therapeutic strategy based on the combination of temozolomide, the first-line treatment for these patients, and dianhydrogalactitol, a drug that is being tested in clinical trials and is already approved for the treatment of other ...

People who trust television and Facebook to provide them with accurate news about the coronavirus pandemic are less knowledgeable about COVID-19, according to a new study, which assessed people's knowledge of the virus in the earliest stages of the pandemic. The study, published today in the peer-reviewed journal END ...

Researchers have found common foxgloves brought to the Americas have rapidly evolved to change flower length in the presence of a new pollinator group, hummingbirds. The findings are published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Ecology. Researchers from the University of Sussex, Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) and Universidad de Costa Rica, studying the common foxglove Digitalis purpurea, a bumblebee pollinated species native to Europe, have shown for the first time how rapid physical changes can occur in flowers following a change in environment and the presence of a new pollinator. The researchers compared foxgloves in the UK, which ...

A recent study indicates that a U.S. ban on the use of tanning beds among minors would prevent thousands of cases of melanoma in adolescents and would save millions of dollars in healthcare costs. The findings are published early online in END ...

Workplace communication often took a back seat this past year, as employees and employers rushed to work remotely, struggled with technology barriers and adjusted to physical distancing. But the pandemic has resulted in valuable lessons for communicating on the job, according to a Baylor University study. During the onset of COVID-19 -- along with accompanying layoffs and a recession -- "there likely has never been a moment with such demand for ethical listening to employees," said lead author Marlene S. Neill, Ph.D., associate professor of journalism, public relations and new media at Baylor. "Ethical listening" was defined by one communication ...

April12, 2021 - Gray wolves are among the largest predators to have survived the extinction at the end of the last ice age around11,700 years ago. Today, they can be found roaming Yukon's boreal forest and tundra, with caribou and moose as their main sources of food. A new study led by the Canadian Museum of Nature shows that wolves may have survived by adapting their diet over thousands of years---from a primary reliance on horses during the Pleistocene, to caribou and moose today. The results are published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. The research team, led by museum palaeontologist Dr. Danielle Fraser and student Zoe Landry, analysed evidence preserved in ...

HOUSTON -- Early phase clinical trials conducted by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center show promising results for patients with RET fusion-positive cancers, high-grade (HGG) and low-grade glioma (LGG) and ovarian cancer. The results, presented today at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021, showcase the researchers' ongoing efforts to advance clinical studies and expand potential indications of approved drugs to develop a platform for more effective treatments and to improve patient outcomes. FDA-approved selpercatinib shows clinical benefits for RET fusion-positive ...

PHILADELPHIA--Giving early-stage pancreatic cancer patients a CD40 immune-stimulating drug helped jumpstart a T cell attack to the notoriously stubborn tumor microenvironment before surgery and other treatments, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Changing the microenvironment from so-called T cell "poor" to T cell "rich" with a CD40 agonist earlier could help slow eventual progression of the disease and prevent cancer from spreading in more patients. The data--which included 16 ...

LOS ANGELES -- Early results from a new, pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapy trial led by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found using a bilateral attack instead of the conventional single-target approach helps minimizes treatment resistance, resulting in long-lasting remission for people with non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma that has come back or has not responded to treatment. The new approach, which will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting during one of the clinical oral plenary sessions ( END ...

New York, NY (April 10, 2021) - A personalized cancer vaccine developed with the help of a Mount Sinai computational platform raised no safety concerns and showed potential benefit in patients with different cancers, including lung and bladder, that have a high risk of recurrence, according to results from an investigator-initiated phase I clinical trial presented during the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021, held April 10-15. "While immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of cancer, the vast majority of patients do not experience a significant clinical response with such treatments," said study author Thomas Marron, MD, PhD, Assistant Director for Early Phase and Immunotherapy Trials ...

HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that mutant KRAS and p53, the most frequently mutated genes in pancreatic cancer, interact through the CREB1 protein to promote metastasis and tumor growth. Blocking CREB1 in preclinical models reversed these effects and reduced metastases, suggesting an important new therapeutic target for the deadly cancer. The findings were published today in Cancer Discovery and presented at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021 by Michael Kim, M.D., ...

Research from Queen Mary University of London has revealed novel insights into the effects of chemotherapy on the tumour microenvironment (TME). The study, published today in Cancer Immunology Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, found that chemotherapy enhances the anti-tumour actions of immune cells within the TME and their ability to support immune responses against cancer. Cancers are not just a mass of cancerous cells, but are rogue organs made up of many different cell types, including cells that form connective tissue and blood vessels, and immune cells. These non-cancerous cells have been recruited and corrupted by the cancer to help it grow and spread, and constitute what ...

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose cancer cells have low levels of aneuploidy - an abnormal number of chromosomes - tend to respond better to immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs than patients with higher levels, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers will report at the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021. In analyzing data from hundreds of patients with NSCLC who were treated with these drugs, the researchers found that those whose cancer receded tended to have less aneuploidy in their tumor cells than those whose disease remained stable or worsened. These findings suggest that aneuploidy testing can have an important role in determining which ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have shown that a quantity known as "thermoelectric conductivity" is an effective measure for the dimensionality of newly developed thermoelectric nanomaterials. Studying films of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes and atomically thin sheets of molybdenum sulfide and graphene, they found clear distinctions in how this number varies with conductivity, in agreement with theoretical predictions in 1D and 2D materials. Such a metric promises better design strategies for thermoelectric materials. Thermoelectric devices take differences in temperature between different materials and generate electrical energy. The simplest example is two strips of ...

From power grids and telecommunications to water supply and financial systems, digital data controls the infrastructure systems on which society relies. These complex, multi-tier systems depend on layered communications to accomplish their tasks - yet every point of contact becomes a potential target, every path of information a potential weak spot for malicious actors to attack. A team of researchers from the University of Calabria in Italy has developed the first predictive control scheme that can help distributed networks with multiple agents not only identify these ...

Active surveillance leads to improved quality of life Men with low health literacy seven times less likely to accept active surveillance Prostate cancer and active surveillance patient education is needed Tumor gene profiling is a tool that can help patients with a cancer diagnosis make informed decisions about treatment. In predominantly white populations, among men with early stage, favorable-risk prostate cancer, these tools have been shown to increase patient acceptance of active surveillance -- a common, evidence-based approach to monitor the tumor before a more aggressive treatment, like surgery or radiation. However, ...

A new study finds older adults who received positive airway pressure therapy prescribed for obstructive sleep apnea may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of dementia. Researchers from Michigan Medicine's Sleep Disorders Centers analyzed Medicare claims of more than 50,000 Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older who had been diagnosed with OSA. In this nationally representative study, they examined if those people who used positive airway pressure therapy were less likely to receive a new diagnosis of dementia or mild cognitive impairment over the next 3 years, compared to people who did ...