We’ve all been there: waiting in line at a store checkout, surrounded by tempting snacks and drinks. Navigating the checkout lane in search of healthy options could be a challenge, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, who found that 70% of foods and beverages at checkout are unhealthy. For snack-sized options, an even higher proportion were unhealthy — 89%. A study published this month in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition suggests most food and beverage options at checkout consist of candy (31%), sugar-sweetened beverages (11%), salty snacks (9%) and sweets (6%). Healthy ...

Three men who had heart failure caused by the build-up of sticky, toxic proteins are now free of symptoms after their condition spontaneously reversed in an unprecedented case described by a team at UCL (University College London) and the Royal Free Hospital.  The condition, a form of amyloidosis affecting the heart, is progressive and has until now been seen as irreversible, with half of patients dying within four years of diagnosis. The new study, published as a letter in The New England Journal of Medicine, reports ...

“We expect DNAmFitAge will be a useful biomarker for quantifying fitness benefits at an epigenetic level and can be used to evaluate exercise-based interventions.” BUFFALO, NY- June 7, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 10, entitled, “DNAmFitAge: biological age indicator incorporating physical fitness.” Physical fitness is a well-known correlate of health and the aging ...

Brussels, Belgium 7 June 2023 – The call for action reverberated across the halls of the European Parliament as a diverse group of scientists, policy makers and interest organisations gathered in a packed room, to discuss how to address the gaps between science and legislation and "Shape an ambitious legislative framework for endocrine disruptors." “Through such meetings with experts, we as policy makers can obtain valuable insight into the latest available science and benefit from it in our legislative ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People who have insomnia symptoms such as trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and waking up too early, may be more likely to have a stroke, according to a study published in the June 7, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. In addition, researchers found the risk was much higher in people under 50 years old. The study does not prove that insomnia symptoms cause stroke; it only shows an association. “There are many therapies that can help people improve the quality of their sleep, so determining which sleep ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Prior to being diagnosed with epilepsy, 5% of people with a type of epilepsy called focal epilepsy had a seizure while driving, according to a new study published in the June 7, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Focal epilepsy accounts for more than half of all cases of epilepsy. People with this form of epilepsy have recurring seizures that affect one half of the brain. “Seizures while driving pose substantial risks for those experiencing them and for others ...

With the start of summer, many people will be firing up their grills and roasting everything from hot dogs to steaks. Shrimp won’t be on the menu for millions of Americans with seafood allergies, though a method reported in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry could change that. The researchers say that reverse-pressure sterilization can produce a less-allergenic shrimp product that, when tested in mice sensitive to the crustaceans, did not cause severe reactions. Some of the most common foods that people are allergic to are dairy products, wheat, peanuts and seafood. The immune system mistakes some proteins from these foods for an intruder and ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — To achieve more effective saltwater desalination, mechanical engineers focused on fluid movement rather than new materials in a new study. By adding microchannels to the inside of battery-like electrodes made of Prussian blue – an intense blue pigment often used in art that also has special chemical properties – researchers increased the extent of seawater desalination five times over their non-channeled counterparts to reach salinity levels below the freshwater threshold. The study, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ...

Semaglutide is sold under brand names such as Ozempic. Since this medication was also approved for the treatment of obesity, demand has increased, which has resulted in difficulties in procuring the drug in recent times. There is anecdotal evidence of patients with obesity or diabetes saying that their craving for alcohol has lessened since they started taking the drug. Today, individuals with alcohol dependence are treated with a combination of various psychosocial methods and medications. Four approved medications are available. Since alcohol dependence is a disease with many causes, the efficacy of these medications varies, and so it is important that we develop additional treatment medications. Reduced ...

A trained detection dog was highly accurate at finding great crested newts underground or at a distance, which might aid conservation efforts for this highly-endangered species, according to a study published June 7, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Nicola Jayne Glover from the University of Salford, UK, and colleagues. The highly-endangered great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) is a species of special conservation concern across the UK and central and northern Europe. While much is known about the great crested newts’ aquatic life phase, comparatively little is known about their terrestrial ...

The 25th International Conference on Redox Medicine 2023 which will be held in Paris on June 1-2 will welcome 61 communications (major, short and poster presentations), and gather international in-person and virtual participants from 31 countries. Redox Medicine 2023: What are the recent advances and perspectives? On its 25th anniversary, Redox Medicine 2023 will be held to bring together academic and industry experts in redox to discuss advances and recent innovation in this vast field. The new president of the Redox Medicine Society, Dr. Carole Nicco, Université ...

A genomic analysis of ancient human remains from Morocco in northwest Africa revealed that food production was introduced by Neolithic European and Levantine migrants and then adopted by local groups. A research team from Sweden, Spain and Morocco present their results in Nature on June 7th. In northwestern Africa, lifestyle transitioned from foraging to farming some 7,400 years ago, but what sparked that change remained unclear. Previous studies support conflicting views: that migrant European Neolithic farmers brought the new way of life to North Africa, or that local hunter-gatherers adopted farming practices. “We found a remarkable population continuity ...

UPTON, NY—Using some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, a group of theorists has produced a major advance in the field of nuclear physics—a calculation of the “heavy quark diffusion coefficient.” This number describes how quickly a melted soup of quarks and gluons—the building blocks of protons and neutrons, which are set free in collisions of nuclei at powerful particle colliders—transfers its momentum to heavy quarks. The answer, it turns out, is very fast. As described in a paper just published in Physical Review Letters, the momentum transfer from the “freed up” ...

Irvine, Calif., June 7, 2023 –– An automated, bilingual, computerized alcohol screening and intervention health tool is effective in reducing alcohol use among Latino emergency department patients in the U.S., according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine. “This is the first bilingual, large-scale, emergency department-based, randomized clinical trial of its kind in the country focused on English- and Spanish-speaking Latino participants,” said lead author Dr. Federico Vaca, UCI professor of emergency medicine. “Our aim was to overcome well-known barriers to alcohol screening and intervention from the emergency department while ...

“[...] large multicenter prospective randomized trials are needed to provide the clinical evidence for the use of [chemotherapy] in second line and third-line post [immunotherapy] failure.” BUFFALO, NY- June 7, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on May 26, 2023, entitled, “Value of chemotherapy post immunotherapy in stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).” Lung cancer is the number one cause of mortality among all types of cancer worldwide. Its ...

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today announced that Kunle Olukotun, a Professor at Stanford University, is the recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award for contributions and leadership in the development of parallel systems, especially multicore and multithreaded processors. In the early 1990s, Olukotun became a leading designer of a new kind of microprocessor known as a “chip multiprocessor”—today called a “multicore processor.” His work demonstrated the performance advantages of multicore processors ...

Plant biologist Alex Harkess, PhD, and his lab at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology are on a mission to change the future of food and fiber crops, one flowering plant species at a time. Much of plant breeding and global food production relies on the pollination of flowers to produce fruits that are eaten and used to produce further progeny. This process might sound straightforward, but it is actually complicated by the fact that some flowers contain only male or female reproductive organs, others contain both (hermaphrodites), and some can even switch sexes.  How flowers become male, ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. Recent developments include a molecularly driven Phase I trial of the ATR inhibitor camonsertib, an artificial intelligence model to predict immunotherapy responses in lung cancer, an analysis of cognitive and functional outcomes following treatment ...

Key messages Despite ongoing structural changes, small-scale processors, grocers, market vendors and food service operators dominate the food systems of most low- and lower middle-income countries; Unsafe food is widespread in informal food distribution channels, having national public health implications; Very few countries have coherent strategies for tackling food safety risks in the informal sector; Most of the policy attention and resources now devoted to domestic food safety in the developing world focuses on strengthening ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The risks of exposure to “forever chemicals” start even before birth, a new study confirms, potentially setting up children for future health issues. Exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) during pregnancy was linked to slightly higher body mass indices and an increased risk of obesity in children, according to a new Environmental Health Perspectives study led by Brown University researchers. While this link has been suggested in previous research, the data has been inconclusive. The new study, which was funded by the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program ...

NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has flown close enough to the sun to detect the fine structure of the solar wind close to where it is generated at the sun's surface, revealing details that are lost as the wind exits the corona as a uniform blast of charged particles. It's like seeing jets of water emanating from a showerhead through the blast of water hitting you in the face. In a paper to be published this week in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Stuart D. Bale, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and James Drake of the University of Maryland-College ...

About The Study: Among individuals with or at risk for cardiovascular disease, fewer than 1 in 4 use wearable devices, with only half of those reporting consistent daily use, according to the results of this study based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in 2019 and 2020. As wearable devices emerge as tools that can improve cardiovascular health, the current use patterns could exacerbate disparities unless there are strategies to ensure equitable adoption.  Authors: Rohan Khera, M.D., M.S., of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, is the corresponding author.  To ...

La Jolla, Calif. (June 5, 2023) —  What does ChatGPT say when you tell it you were sexually assaulted, want to commit suicide, or are trying to quit smoking?  A new study published in JAMA Network Open led by John W. Ayers, Ph.D., from the Qualcomm Institute within the University of California San Diego, provides an early look into how artificially intelligent (AI) assistants could help answer public health questions. Already, hundreds of millions use AI assistants like ChatGPT, and it will change the way the public accesses information. Given the growth of AI assistant use, the scientific team evaluated ...

The discovery of a “lost world” of ancient organisms that lived in Earth’s waterways at least 1.6 billion years ago could change our understanding of our earliest ancestors.   Known as the ‘Protosterol Biota’, these microscopic creatures are part of a family of organisms called eukaryotes. Eukaryotes have a complex cell structure that includes mitochondria, known as the “powerhouse” of the cell, and a nucleus that acts as the “control and information centre”. ...

Newly discovered biomarker signatures point to a whole range of previously unknown organisms that dominated complex life on Earth about a billion years ago. They differed from complex eukaryotic life as we know it, such as animals, plants and algae in their cell structure and likely metabolism, which was adapted to a world that had far less oxygen in the atmosphere than today. An international team of researchers, including GFZ geochemist Christian Hallmann, now reports on this breakthrough for the field of evolutionary geobiology in the journal Nature.   The previously unknown “protosteroids” were ...