Two to three weeks after conception, an embryo faces a critical point in its development. In the stage known as gastrulation, the transformation of embryonic cells into specialized cells begins. This initiates an explosion of cellular diversity in which the embryonic cells later become the precursors of future blood, tissue, muscle, and more types of cells, and the primitive body axes start to form. Studying this process in the human-specific context has posed significant challenges to biologists, but new research offers an unprecedented window into this point in time in ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, US, led by Calvin Kersbergen report that mice with the most common form of human congenital deafness develop normal auditory circuitry – until the ear canal opens and hearing begins. Publishing June 27th in the open access journal PLOS Biology, the study suggests that this is possible because spontaneous activity of support cells in the inner ear remains present during the first weeks of life. Mutations to the protein connexin 26 are the most common cause of hearing loss at birth, accounting for more than 25% of genetic hearing loss worldwide. To understand how these mutations lead to deafness ...

**EMBARGOED TILL TUESDAY, JUNE 27, AT 2 P.M. ET** For the first two weeks of life, mice with a hereditary form of deafness have nearly normal neural activity in the auditory system, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists. Their previous studies indicate that this early auditory activity — before the onset of hearing — provides a kind of training to prepare the brain to process sound when hearing begins. The findings are published June 27 in PLOS Biology. Mutations in Gjb2 cause more than a quarter of all hereditary forms of hearing loss at birth in people, according to some estimates. The connexin 26 protein coded by ...

The universe is awash in billions of possible chemicals. But even with a bevy of high-tech instruments, scientists have determined the chemical structures of just a small fraction of those compounds, maybe 1 percent.   Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are taking aim at the other 99 percent, creating new ways to learn more about a vast sea of unknown compounds. There may be cures for disease, new approaches for tackling climate change, or new chemical or biological threats lurking in the chemical universe.   The work is part of an initiative known as m/q or “m over q”—shorthand ...

Increasing access to prescription opioid painkillers may reduce opioid overdose deaths in the United States, according to a Rutgers study. “When access to prescription opioids is heavily restricted, people will seek out opioids that are unregulated,” said Grant Victor, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Social Work and lead author of the study published in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment. “The opposite may also be true; our findings suggest that restoring easier access to opioid pain medications may protect against fatal overdoses.” America’s opioid crisis has ...

Science is a collaborative effort. What we know today would have never been, had it not been generations of scientists reusing and building on the work of their predecessors. However, in modern times, academia has become increasingly competitive and indeed rather hostile to the individual researchers. This is especially true for early-career researchers yet to secure tenure and build a name in their fields. Nowadays, scholars are left to compete with each other for citations of their published work, awards and funding.  So, understandably, many scientists have grown unwilling ...

A new USC study that zeros in on the workings of individual T cells targeting the hepatitis C virus (HCV) has revealed insights that could assist in the development of an effective vaccine. Every year, hepatitis and related illnesses kill more than one million people around the world. If unaddressed, those deaths are expected to rise—and even outnumber deaths caused collectively by HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by 2040. For that reason, the World Health Organization and other leading groups have pledged to work toward eliminating viral hepatitis by 2030. While there are vaccines for two of the three most common ...

Collaborative work by teams at the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS) ​​at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), University of California, Irvine (UCI), and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) has shown that interplay between circadian clocks in liver and skeletal muscle controls glucose metabolism. The findings reveal that local clock function in each tissue is not enough for whole-body glucose metabolism but also requires signals from feeding and fasting cycles to properly maintain glucose levels in the ...

Children with disabilities, and their families, may face discrimination in in the hospitals and clinics they visit for their health care, according to a new study led by researchers at University of Utah Health. These attitudes may lead to substandard medical treatment, which could contribute to poor health outcomes, say the study’s authors. “They mistreated her and treated her like a robot. Every single time a nurse walked in the room, they treated her like she was not even there,” said one mother who was interviewed about her child’s health care encounters. The findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, ...

Chicago, Illinois (Embargoed until 10:05 a.m. CDT, Tuesday, June 27, 2023)—Molecular imaging with 18F-flubatine PET/MRI has shown that neuroreceptors in the brains of individuals with obesity respond differently to food cues than those in normal-weight individuals, making the neuroreceptors a prime target for obesity treatments and therapy. This research, presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2023 Annual Meeting, contributes to the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying obesity ...

The pandemic made remote work the norm for many, but that doesn’t mean it was always a positive experience. Remote work can have many advantages: increased flexibility, inclusivity for parents and people with disabilities, and work-life balance. But it can also cause issues with collaboration, communication, and the overall work environment. New research from the Georgia Institute of Technology used data from the employee review website Glassdoor to determine what made remote work successful. Companies that catered to employees’ interests, ...

(Boston)— Intersex people’s (people whose sex characteristics do not fit within the strict binary categorizations of male or female) healthcare has received a lot of media attention recently, particularly with the uptick in anti-transgender legislation, which often also targets this community. Discrimination and mistreatment in social and medical settings, largely due to the stigma of not conforming to binary views of sex, results in many intersex individuals experiencing isolation, secrecy and shame, which can have a lasting impact on their mental health.   A new study from researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine highlights the need ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A cancerous tumor is the accumulation of cells uncontrollably dividing, some of which can invade other parts of the body. The process is difficult to predict in detail, and eradicating the cells poses even greater difficulty. Now, a Penn State-led research team has revealed how the exodus initiates, shedding light on a potential therapeutic target to halt the invasion and providing a prognostic marker to help clinicians select the best treatment option.   They published their findings on June 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   “Cancer cells don’t randomly detach from the primary tumor and disseminate ...

HOUSTON – (June 27, 2023) – Many of the drugs we use to treat cancer and infectious disease are ⎯ or derive from ⎯ natural products, but it’s difficult to know exactly how nature assembles them. Retracing nature’s steps, Rice University chemical engineer Xue Gao and her team mapped out the full series of enzyme-powered reactions a marine fungus uses to produce 21R-citrinadin A, a complex molecule with anticancer properties. In the process, Gao and her collaborators identified a new enzyme, CtdY, which is the only one ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A milliliter of blood contains about 15 individual drops. For a person with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), each drop of blood could contain anywhere from fewer than 20 copies of the virus to more than 500,000 copies. Called the viral load, this is what is measured to allow clinicians to understand how patients are responding to anti-viral medications and monitor potential progression.  The time-consuming viral load testing needs to be repeated several times as a patient undergoes treatment. Now, a Penn State research team has developed a time and cost-efficient digital assay that can directly measure the presence of HIV in ...

Having a seat at the table, and voices heard, makes a world of difference when it comes to natural resources. It sounds intuitive, but experts didn’t have enough data to prove it until now. A team of researchers from across the country pored over 108 groundwater management plans in California to see how well they protect stakeholders like domestic well users, farmers and ecosystems. They found that the plans that incorporated stakeholder input offered greater protection from groundwater depletion. Unfortunately, only 9% of the sustainability plans integrated these users in a comprehensive manner. The findings have broad implications for resource management, both in California and ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Acoustic waves may be able to control how particles sort themselves. While researchers have been able to separate particles based on their shape — for example, bacteria from other cells — for years, the ability to control their movement has remained a largely unsolved problem, until now. Using ultrasound technology and a nozzle, Penn State researchers have separated, controlled and ejected different particles based on their shape and various properties.   They ...

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2023 – With their unique appearance, texture, and mouthfeel, fondants have intrigued bakers and physicists for years. They present an appetizing enigma in the world of confectionery, an intriguing combination of sugar, water, and heat that, when manipulated correctly, yields a delectably creamy product. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and Technische Universität Berlin studied the kinetic and thermodynamic processes of sugar crystallization in the making of fondant. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, they combined a controlled kneading machine with light microscopy ...

About The Study: Among 12- to 21-year-old U.S. females between 2003 and 2020, iron deficiency affected almost 40% and iron deficiency anemia affected 6%, with variation by the ferritin or hemoglobin thresholds used. Menstruation was a risk factor for both, but more than one-quarter of premenarchal individuals had iron deficiency.  Authors: Angela C. Weyand, M.D., of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2023.8020) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for ...

In their paper the team discusses their novel view of euchromatin in the cell and shows how the revealed organization is relevant to genome functions. “Our ultimate goal is to reveal how genomic information is searched and read out in living cells,” said Kazuhiro Maeshima, a leading author and a professor with the National Institute of Genetics and SOKENDAI, Japan. Chromatin describes the combination of DNA and proteins in the cells of humans and other eukaryotes. According to typical textbook models, chromatin occurs in two forms— euchromatin, that is less condensed and can be transcribed, and heterochromatin, that is more condensed and usually not transcribed. ...

Researchers who found novel coronaviruses in UK bats say genetic surveys of the viruses should be regularly conducted, even if none of those viruses can infect humans yet. Working with a network of bat conservationists, a research team led by Imperial College London and University College London researchers screened faecal samples from UK bats for coronaviruses. Their results, published today in Nature Communications, report circulation of four species of coronaviruses, including two novel ones, among the 16 UK bat species sampled. While some of these ...

Using a high-powered MRI scanner, scientists have discovered an imbalance between neurochemicals in parts of OCD patients’ brains key to decision-making and habit. Chemical imbalances were related to OCD symptom severity, as well as habitual tendencies in a decision-making task. A similar but less pronounced neurochemical imbalance was also detected in healthy individuals with milder compulsive tendencies.     Neuroscientists argue that the findings are a “major piece of the puzzle” in understanding OCD, and could open up new ...

GAO Caixia's group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has pioneered the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted methods to discover novel deaminase proteins with unique functions through structural prediction and classification. This approach has opened up a range of applications for the discovery and creation of desired plant genetic traits. The results were published in Cell. The discovery of new proteins and the exploitation of diverse engineered enzymes have contributed to the rapid advancement of biotechnology. Currently, efforts to mine novel proteins ...

Key points: Scientists have been mystified as to why animals are missing in much of the fossil record; Researchers have developed a new method to determine if animals really were absent during certain geological eras, or if they were present but too fragile to be preserved; The findings establish a new maximum point at which animals first evolved on Earth. A study led by the University of Oxford has brought us one step closer to solving a mystery that has puzzled naturalists since Charles Darwin: when did animals first appear in the history of Earth? The results have been published ...

About The Study: Neighborhood and household contexts were associated with white matter development in children, and findings suggested that obesity and cognitive performance were possible mediators in these associations. Future research on children’s brain health may benefit from considering these factors from multiple socioeconomic perspectives. Authors: Scott Marek, Ph.D., and Tamara Hershey, Ph.D., of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, are the corresponding authors.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...