In science, the explanation with the fewest assumptions is most likely to be true. Called “Occam’s Razor,” this principle has guided theory and experiment for centuries. But how do you compare between abstract concepts? In a new paper, philosophers from UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine discuss how to weigh the complexity of scientific theories by comparing their underlying mathematics. They aim to characterize the amount of structure a theory has using symmetry — or the aspects of an object that remain the same when other changes are made. After much ...

Safety biomarkers aim to provide an additional tool for detecting acute drug-induced pancreatic injury (DIPI) in phase 1 clinical trials TUCSON, Ariz., June 13, 2023 — Critical Path Institute (C-Path) today announced that the Biomarker Qualification Program (BQP) at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Biomarker Letter of Support (LOS) for four pancreatic injury safety biomarkers identified and evaluated by C-Path’s Predictive Safety Testing Consortium's (PSTC) Pancreatic Injury Working Group (PIWG). This set of biomarkers will help increase the ability ...

The term meta means a concept of transcendence or surpassing, and when applied to materials, metamaterials encompass artificially engineered substances that exhibit properties not naturally found in the environment. Metasurfaces, characterized by their thinness and lightness, have garnered considerable interest as a potential component for incorporation into portable augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices to facilitate holographic generation. Nonetheless, it is important to note that metasurfaces have inherent limitations, such ...

The Bhopal gas explosion in 1984—one of India’s worst industrial disasters—may have heightened the risk of disability and cancer in later life among future generations, curbed their educational attainment, and prompted a fall in the proportion of male births the following year, suggests research in the open access journal BMJ Open. The disaster is likely to have affected people across a substantially more extensive area than previous evidence suggested, say the researchers.   During the incident, toxic ...

The NHS will be “flying blind” in its attempts to meet its legal, and moral, obligation to eliminate ethnic inequalities in health and care until longstanding problems with the quality of ethnicity data are resolved, warns an expert in The BMJ today. Inequalities in health and care between ethnic groups have been documented for decades, explains Sarah Scobie at the Nuffield Trust. But she argues that analysis by broad ethnic groups (white, Asian, black, and mixed) can mask substantial variation within them. An accompanying infographic presents some of these disparities across a range ...

BOSTON—Childhood adversity—circumstances that threaten to a child’s physical or psychological well-being--has long been associated with poorer physical and mental health throughout life, such as greater risks of developing cardiac disease, cancer, or depression. It remains unclear, however, when and how the effects of childhood adversity become biologically embedded to influence health outcomes in children, adolescents, and adults. A team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), previously showed that exposure to adversity between ages 3 to 5 has a ...

Children displayed a resilient capacity to continue playing during peak COVID-19, a study has found, even though their options to do so became more limited while under stay-at-home orders. The research, by academics at the University of Cambridge, interviewed children themselves about their playing habits during the pandemic. Without disputing the consensus that COVID-19 impeded children’s healthy development, it does suggest that they were able to adapt their play habits to their changed circumstances. Children largely expressed ...

Extinct kangaroos used alternative methods to their famous hop according to comprehensive analysis from University of Bristol and the University of Uppsala scientists. Although hopping is regarded as a pinnacle of kangaroo evolution, the researchers highlight that other kinds of large kangaroos, in the not too distant past, likely moved in different ways such as striding on two legs or traversing on all fours. In the review, published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, the team shows that there are other ways to be an evolutionary ...

Artificial night-time light confuses a colour-changing coastal woodlouse, new research shows. The sea slater is an inch-long woodlouse that lives around the high-tide line and is common in the UK and Europe. Sea slaters forage at night and can change colour to blend in and conceal themselves from predators. The new study, by the University of Exeter, tested the effects of a single-point light source (which casts clear shadows) and “diffuse” light (similar to “skyglow” found near towns and cities). While the single light did not interfere with the sea slaters’ camouflage, diffuse light caused them to turn ...

A new study suggests that between 2005 and 2014, for almost all births in England, being born outside of working hours did not carry a significantly higher risk of death to the baby from anoxia (lack of oxygen) or trauma, when compared to births during working hours. The finding runs contrary to an assumed, wider ‘weekend effect,’ with previously reported research suggesting a significantly higher risk of death for births outside of working hours or at weekends. The current study from City, University of London ...

The bright lights of big cities are wonders of the modern world; intended to help us work, stay safe and enjoy the world around us long after the sun has set. While artificial light has been great for increasing human productivity, some nocturnal animals, and even people, pay a price for this illumination. From increasing the amount of time that predators are active to disrupting migrations, light pollution affects many animals; but how do animals that use their own luminescence to lure food or attract mates fair against this new, brighter background? Female common glow-worms (Lampyris noctiluca) emit a green glow from their abdomen to ...

URBANA, Ill. — Meat processing plants in the U.S. have garnered considerable public attention in recent years, often focusing on production and labor issues. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the vulnerability of large, concentrated plants, as major shutdowns led to reduced output and higher meat prices for consumers. Policy makers have launched initiatives at the state and federal levels to increase meat processing capacity and industry resilience, often favoring small and medium-sized plants. But little research exists to determine what factors make plants more likely to succeed. A new study from the University of ...

Philadelphia, June 13, 2023— Class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I) proteins play an essential role in the immune system of all jawed vertebrates. The MHC-I displays peptide fragments of proteins from within the cell on the cell surface, “presenting” them to the immune system, which is constantly scanning the body for foreign or toxic antigens. When foreign peptides are identified, they trigger a cascade that allows cytotoxic T cells to eliminate intruders. This process has been exploited in the development of both vaccines ...

A molecule found in the venomous toadfish Thalassophryne nattereri has proved capable of controlling lung inflammation and could be the basis for a more effective asthma drug. The research was supported by FAPESP and conducted by scientists at Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. An article describing the results is published in the journal Cells. A welter of fish species live in freshwater, seawater and a mixture of the two, and some of them are venomous. They have spines or stingers connected to venom glands, which ...

Residents in rural counties with limited access to high-speed internet cannot take advantage of increasingly popular online health services. A new study by the University of Cincinnati highlighted disparities in access to digital technology that could widen the gap in access to health care. The study found that socially vulnerable communities in the United States face more barriers to adequate health care, live in areas with fewer health care resources and have less access to high-speed internet. The study was published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health. The Biden Administration announced this year it will invest $73 million in outreach ...

We have a good understanding of how a woman’s external features can change during pregnancy, but scientists know surprisingly little about what biological changes occur internally. A new Northwestern Medicine study, published June 5 in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, provides data about immune cells and biological changes (gene expression) in pregnant people at multiple timepoints before and during pregnancy. Using RNA sequencing and computational methods to estimate proportions of different activated types of immune cells in blood the team of scientists showed how pregnancy induces progressive changes in the maternal ...

To help patients in need of transplants, artificial kidneys would have to function like their natural counterparts, but they wouldn’t necessarily have to look like them. With a new $1 million prize from the Kidney Innovation Accelerator, or KidneyX, a team of USC Stem Cell scientists led by Nils Lindström in collaboration with Leonardo Morsut are on a quest to build a kidney that resembles the real thing in function, but not in form. “Nature has taught us that kidneys can come in an ...

Synthetic biologists have become increasingly creative in engineering yeast or bacteria to churn out useful chemicals — from fuels to fabrics and drugs — beyond the normal repertoire of microbes. But a multi-university group of chemists has a more ambitious goal: to retool the cell's polypeptide manufacturing plants — the ribosomes that spin amino acids into protein — to generate polymer chains that are more elaborate than what can now be made in a cell or a test tube. The $20 million research enterprise centered at the University of California, Berkeley, is ...

A new analysis provides a more complete picture of sickle cell disease mortality burden by combining disease prevalence data in different age groups and trends in overall survival when factoring in resulting secondary conditions. When looking across all deaths, sickle cell disease is a leading cause of mortality in children under 5 years as well as in youth 5–14 years and adults 15–49 years. Half a million babies were born with sickle cell disease in 2021, and 79% of these infants were in sub-Saharan Africa. The largest increases ...

Billions of people around the world face water insecurity. Although there are numerous projects from governments, NGOs, and private corporations who are committed to providing safely managed water and sanitation by 2030, a new study advocates for more holistic evaluation of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions.    According to the study by Justin Stoler, associate professor in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, issues ...

NEW YORK, June 13, 2023 – With the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to create both massive disruption and great opportunity within the music industry, ASCAP — the only US PRO that operates on a not-for-profit basis — is introducing a slate of AI initiatives to help music creators navigate the future while protecting their work. These newly announced initiatives include: adoption by the ASCAP Board of Directors of a set of key ASCAP AI principles, creator education, startup incubation and policy development. Building upon ASCAP’s strong ...

Researchers have newly discovered a surprising and potentially significant reason why eating foods frequently cooked at high temperatures, such as red meat and deep-fried fare, elevates cancer risk. The alleged culprit: DNA within the food that’s been damaged by the cooking process. As shown for the first time known to the authors, this study by Stanford scientists and their collaborators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland, and Colorado State University reveals that components of heat-marred DNA can be absorbed during digestion and incorporated into the DNA of the consumer. That uptake directly ...

Irvine, Calif., June 13, 2023 – University of California, Irvine neuroscientists probing the gene changes behind Alzheimer’s disease have developed a process of making a “meta-cell” that overcomes the challenges of studying a single cell. Their technique has already revealed important new information and can be used to study other diseases throughout the body. Details about the meta-cell – created by researchers with the UCI Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, known as UCI MIND – were published in the online journal Cell Press. Technologies called transcriptomics that study sets of RNA within organisms ...

Think fast: if you’re running a race and overtake the person in second place, what position are you in? Many people instinctively respond that you’re in first place. However, upon reflection, some people realize the correct answer is that you’re now in second place: the former number-two runner slipped into third as you overtook them. Trick questions of this kind are invaluable to cognitive scientists because they shed light on the cognitive quirks that shape our decision-making. “These aren’t just trick questions,” explained Nick Byrd, a philosopher-scientist and Intelligence Community Fellow who led the research at Stevens ...

Sodium chloride, better known as table salt, isn't exactly the type of mineral that captures the imagination of scientists. However, a smattering of tiny salt crystals discovered in a sample from an asteroid has researchers at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory excited, because these crystals can only have formed in the presence of liquid water. Even more intriguing, according to the research team, is the fact that the sample comes from an S-type asteroid, a category known to mostly lack hydrated, or water-bearing, minerals. The discovery strongly suggests ...