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Science29 Jun 2023

US infant mortality declined, but low birth weight, preterm births increased

Nearly 4 million infants are born in the United States each year. Despite improvements in obstetric and perinatal care, infant mortality in the U.S. is of ongoing concern. The nation ranks No. 23 in the world for infant mortality rates with 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, with worse outcomes observed in Black infants compared to white infants. Now, new original research from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators indicates that infant mortality alone may be insufficient as a health indicator. For the study, researchers explored time trends and racial inequities ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

JMIR Publications sees a 133% increase in journals with a Journal Impact Factor

(Toronto, June 28, 2023) With the release of the 2023 Journal Citation Reports™ (JCR) today, we first want to thank everyone who has contributed to our continued mission toward a more open world. Of our 34 open access journals, 14 now have a Journal Impact Factor (JIF)—that’s a 133% increase since last year, and we still have more journals launched in the last 2 years that won’t yet be relevant for metrics such as the JIF and CiteScore. Eight of our journals now have a JIF: Interactive Journal of Medical Research - 2 JMIR ...

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Environment29 Jun 2023

Researchers on UN Maritime Organization: "At the moment, it’s working against its own green transition"

The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) is actively contributing to the shipping industry being far off course from ever reaching its climate goals. In large part, this is because the organization lacks funding and expertise. Without strengthening the IMO, any transition of the enormous industry is hazily imaginable. This, according to the Copenhagen and Lund university researchers behind a new study of the organization. Three percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to the shipping industry. And things remain headed in the wrong direction – with CO2 emissions from ships continuing to rise year after year. This has increased ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

Secret of stem cells protecting the gastric mucosa

Ikoma, Japan – The gastric corpus, which is a major component of the glandular stomach, is composed of parietal, chief, pit, and neck cells. Each of these specialized epithelial cells play an important role in digestion, and they are continuously replenished by new ones which are formed via the differentiation of stem cells. Defects in this process lead to gastric diseases such as intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer. However, the underlying mechanisms responsible for the renewal and differentiation of stem cells, and ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

Higher average temperature linked to serious vision impairment among older Americans

TORONTO, ON – American adults 65 years old and older living in warmer regions are more likely to have serious vision impairment than their peers living in cooler regions, according to a recent study published in the journal Ophthalmic Epidemiology. Compared to those who lived in counties with average temperature of less than 50°F (< 10 °C), the odds of severe vision impairment were 14% higher for those who lived in counties with average temperature between 50-54.99°F, 24% higher for those between ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

Eating for two? Leave weight advice to the experts during pregnancy

Pregnant women may be better supported by trained dietitians to control weight gain during pregnancy, a new analysis of almost 100 studies shows. The meta-analysis of almost 35,000 participants across 99 studies published in JAMA Network Open found that interventions from allied health professionals such as dietitians were the most beneficial for controlling gestational weight gain (GWG). Spanning 30 years of international evidence, the research team including maternal health expert Professor Shakila Thangaratinam from the University of Birmingham identified that between 6 and 20 sessions on a one-to-one ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

New review finds the benefits of a widely-used treatment for gambling problems may be overstated

A new meta-analysis (an analysis of past research) published by the scientific journal Addiction presents important findings that shed light on the effectiveness of psychological treatments for gambling problems. The analysis provides both positive and negative insights, including uncovering potential overstatements of the benefits associated with using cognitive-behavioural techniques (CBTs). Significantly more funds are essential to increase the rigor of studies and to improve understanding of treatment impact among individuals experiencing gambling problems. The analysis pooled the results of 29 randomised controlled trials of CBTs on reducing ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

Our brains are hardwired to believe lies and conspiracy theories, research shows

In Politics, Lies and Conspiracy Theories, released today, Marcel Danesi Ph.D., a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada, analyzes the speeches of dictators including Mussolini, Stalin, Putin and Hitler, as well as prominent hate groups. His research finds there is one thing they all have in common: they all use dehumanizing metaphors to instill and propagate hatred of others. “The intent of such speech is to attack those who do not belong to the mainstream, such as racial minorities, or people of different sexual orientations,” says Danesi. Powerful language For example words like ‘pests’, ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

Combining maths with music leads to higher scores, suggests review of 50 years of research

Children do better at maths when music is a key part of their lessons, an analysis of almost 50 years of research on the topic has revealed. It is thought that music can make maths more enjoyable, keep students engaged and help any ease fear or anxiety they have about maths. Motivation may be increased and pupils may appreciate maths more, the peer-reviewed article in Educational Studies details. Techniques for integrating music into maths lessons range from clapping to pieces with different rhythms when learning numbers and fractions, to using ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

Test animals, hold your breath

Kyoto, Japan -- Animal experimentation may not be a thing of the past just yet, but work on human iPS cell technology may someday grant emancipation for lab mice and other species. Renal proximal tubules are an essential part of our kidneys' ability to reabsorb vital substances into the bloodstream, such as albumin, before the conversion to urine. However, in order to pursue accurate testing and other applications, researchers have needed a quantitative evaluation system that simulates the function of ...

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Technology29 Jun 2023

BBCube 3D: a breakthrough in semiconductor integration and data transmission

A technology for the three-dimensional integration of processing units and memory, as reported by researchers from Tokyo Tech, has achieved the highest attainable performance in the whole world, paving the way to faster and more efficient computing. Named "BBCube 3D," this innovative stacked architecture achieves higher data bandwidths than state-of-the-art memory technologies, while also minimizing the energy needed for bit access. In the present digital age, engineers and researchers keep coming up with new computer-assisted technologies that require higher data bandwidths between the processing units (or PUs, such as GPUs and CPUs) and memory chips. Some examples ...

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Space29 Jun 2023

Scientists find evidence for slow-rolling sea of gravitational waves

Scientists are reporting the first evidence that our Earth and the universe around us are awash in a background of spacetime undulations called gravitational waves. The waves oscillate very slowly over years and even decades and are thought to originate primarily from pairs of supermassive black holes leisurely spiraling together before they merge. The findings, reported in a series of papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, come from 15 years’ worth of observations made ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

First misinformation susceptibility test finds ‘very online’ Gen Z and millennials are most vulnerable to fake news

University of Cambridge psychologists have developed the first validated “misinformation susceptibility test”: a quick two-minute quiz that gives a solid indication of how vulnerable a person is to being duped by the kind of fabricated news that floods online spaces. The test, proven to work through a series of experiments involving over 8,000 participants taking place over two years, has been deployed by polling organisation YouGov to determine how susceptible Americans are to fake headlines. The first survey to use the new 20-point test, called ‘MIST’ ...

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Space29 Jun 2023

Clamor of gravitational waves from universe’s merging supermassive black holes ‘heard’ for first time

Following 15 years of data collection in a galaxy-sized experiment, scientists have “heard” the perpetual chorus of gravitational waves rippling through our universe for the first time — and it’s louder than expected. The groundbreaking discovery was made by scientists with the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) who closely observed stars called pulsars that act as celestial metronomes. The newly detected gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space-time — are by far the most powerful ever measured: They carry roughly a million times as much energy as ...

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Space29 Jun 2023

Gravitational waves from colossal black holes found using 'cosmic clocks'

You can't see or feel it, but everything around you — including your own body — is slowly shrinking and expanding. It's the weird, spacetime-warping effect of gravitational waves passing through our galaxy, according to a new study by a team of researchers with the U.S. National Science Foundation's NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center. The findings published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters are from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), a collaborative team of researchers from more than 50 institutions in the U.S. and abroad. The team ...

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Space29 Jun 2023

Scientists use exotic stars to tune into hum from cosmic symphony

Astrophysicists using large radio telescopes to observe a collection of cosmic clocks in our Galaxy have found evidence for gravitational waves that oscillate with periods of years to decades, according to a set of papers published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The gravitational-wave signal was observed in 15 years of data acquired by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Physics Frontiers Center (PFC), a collaboration of more than 190 scientists from the US and Canada who use pulsars ...

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Space29 Jun 2023

Australian astronomers find possible ‘fingerprints’ of gravitational waves

Astronomers using data collected by CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, Murriyang, have found their strongest evidence yet for low-frequency gravitational waves. For nearly 20 years the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array collaboration has monitored a set of rapidly spinning stars that pulse like a lighthouse, called pulsars. They are looking for nanosecond pulse delays caused by gravitational waves to provide further evidence for Einstein’s general theory of relativity and build on our understanding of the Universe. By ...

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Space29 Jun 2023

Astrophysics collaboration led by Oregon State finds ‘chorus’ of gravitational waves

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of time-space predicted by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, are permeating the universe at low frequencies, according to a multiyear National Science Foundation project led by Oregon State University scientists. The findings appear in a collection of five papers authored by researchers from the NANOGrav Physics Frontier Center co-directed by Xavier Siemens, professor of physics in the OSU College of Science. Evidence of the gravitational waves, whose oscillations are ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

CCNY professor Jacek Dmochowski breaks down science of sports betting

It’s a dilemma that many a regular bettor probably faces often -- deciding when to place a sports bet. In a study entitled “A statistical theory of optimal decision-making in sports betting,” Jacek Dmochowski, Associate Professor in the Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York, provides the answer. His original finding appears in the journal PLOS One. “The central finding of the work is that the objective in sports betting is to estimate the median outcome. Importantly, this is not the same as the average outcome,” said Dmochowski, whose expertise ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

Menopausal hormone therapy linked to increased rate of dementia

Use of menopausal hormone therapy is associated with an increased rate of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, suggests a large Danish study published by The BMJ today. An increase was seen in long term users of menopausal hormone therapy, but also in short term users around the age of menopause (55 years or younger) as is currently recommended. These findings align with the largest clinical trial carried out on this topic, and the researchers call for further studies “to explore if the observed association in this study between menopausal hormone therapy use and increased risk of dementia illustrates a causal ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

THE LANCET: Opioid pain relievers do not reduce acute lower back and neck pain, study suggests

Peer-reviewed / Randomised Controlled Trial / People A randomised controlled trial including 347 participants with lower back or neck pain found there was no benefit of taking opioid pain relievers compared to placebo. There was no significant difference in pain scores between those given opioid pain relievers and those given placebo after six weeks; while patients given the placebo had slightly lower pain scores after a year. The authors warn that there is no evidence that opioids should be prescribed ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

More doctors in England and Wales choosing to retire early

Increasing numbers of doctors are opting to take voluntary early retirement, rather than waiting to claim their pension at retirement age, official figures show. Figures provided to The BMJ by the NHS Business Services Authority under a freedom of information request show that the number of GPs and hospital doctors in England and Wales opting for voluntary early retirement has increased by an average of 9.3% year on year, rising from 376 in 2008 to 1424 in 2023. Over the same period, the number retiring on the basis of age has fallen, from 2030 in 2008 to 1721 in 2023. The rise in early retirement was seen for hospital doctors and GPs. The number of hospital doctors ...

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Science29 Jun 2023

Opioids no more effective than placebo for acute back and neck pain

Opioid pain-relieving medicines are not more effective than a placebo in relieving acute back and neck pain and may even cause harm, according to a world-first trial led by the University of Sydney. The researchers say this is proof that treatment guidelines should be updated to advise against the use of opioids for this purpose. Over 577 million people worldwide experience low back and neck pain at any one time. Despite a global push to reduce the use of opioids, in Australia approximately 40 to 70 percent of those who present with neck and back complaints are prescribed opioids for their pain. The OPAL trial recruited close ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

Vitamin D supplements may reduce risk of serious cardiovascular events in older people

Vitamin D supplements may reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attacks among people aged over 60, finds a clinical trial published by The BMJ today. The researchers stress that the absolute risk difference was small, but say this is the largest trial of its kind to date, and further evaluation is warranted, particularly in people taking statins or other cardiovascular disease drugs. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a general term for conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels and is one of the main causes of death globally. CVD events such as heart attacks and strokes are set to increase as populations continue ...

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Medicine29 Jun 2023

AI tool could speed up dementia diagnosis

A new AI tool that could help doctors assess the early signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s more quickly and efficiently, has been developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield. The system, known as CognoSpeak, uses a virtual agent displayed on a screen to engage a patient in a conversation. It asks memory-probing questions inspired by those used in outpatient consultations and conducts cognitive tests, such as picture descriptions and verbal fluency tests. The tool then uses artificial intelligence and speech technology to analyse language and speech patterns to look for signs of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other memory ...

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