Each year, about 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with a bulge in the lower part of the aorta, the main artery in the body, called an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). New research from the University of Cincinnati examines the role a particular metabolite plays in the development of AAA and could lead to the first treatment of the condition. The research was published in the journal Circulation. “We started the study by examining whether AAA patients themselves had an increase in trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO).  We examined an American and Swedish ...

Actin filaments — protein structures critical to living movement from single cells to animals — have long been known to have polarity associated with their physical characteristics, with growing “barbed” and shrinking “pointed” ends. The ends of the filament are also different in the way they interact with other proteins in cells. However, the mechanism that determines these differences has never been entirely clear to scientists. Now, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have revealed key atomic structures of ...

Nutrition is an important part of any top athlete’s training program. And now, a new study by researchers from the University of Georgia proposes that supplementing the diet of athletes with colorful fruits and vegetables could improve their visual range. The paper, which was published in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, examines how a group of plant compounds that build up in the retina, known as macular pigments, work to improve eye health and functional vision. Previous studies done by UGA researchers Billy R. Hammond and ...

A new framework for making better and more transparent decisions about the use of our land could help to balance society’s demands upon it with protecting and enhancing the environment. Researchers led by the University of Leicester have proposed a framework for decisions on land use, from nationwide policymaking to building happening at street level, that would involve the most representative range of stakeholders, from those with financial interests in the land to the local communities who use it and more besides. Now published in the journal People and Nature, it encourages decisionmakers ...

Patients suffering from the “most horrible” rare brain tumour are falling through the cracks of mental health provision, University of Essex researchers have found.   A recent study which interviewed patients and clinicians discovered survivors struggle to access therapy available for other serious illnesses, such as cancer, and there was a lack of specialised support.   For the first time, the mental health of British rare brain tumour patients was examined by psychologists and now researchers are calling for urgent changes to the health service.   Dr Katie Daughters hopes her findings –published in ...

PHILADELPHIA— Historically, scientists have studied how cells develop and give rise to specialized cells, such as heart, liver, or skin cells, by examining specific proteins. However, it remains unclear how many of these proteins influence the activity of hundreds of genes at the same time to turn one cell type into another cell type. For example, as the heart develops, stem cells and other specialized cells will give rise to heart muscle cells, endothelial cells (lining of blood vessels), smooth muscle cells, and cardiac fibroblasts. But the details of this process remain mysterious. As a result of a $6 million, seven-year ...

Philadelphia — Collaborating researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and the Adams School of Dentistry and Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina have discovered that a bacterial species called Selenomonas sputigena can have a major role in causing tooth decay. Scientists have long considered another bacterial species, the plaque-forming, acid-making Streptococcus mutans, as the principal cause of tooth decay—also known as dental caries. However, in the study, which appeared 22 May in Nature Communications, the Penn Dental Medicine and UNC researchers showed that S. sputigena, previously associated ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Like many ecological scientists, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign plant biology professor James O’Dwyer has spent much of his career searching for ways to measure and predict how specific plant communities will fare over time. Which species in a diverse population will persist and coexist? Which will decline? What factors might contribute to continuing biodiversity? In a new study reported in the journal Nature, O’Dwyer and his colleague, U. of I. graduate student Kenneth Jops, report the development of a method for determining ...

The Princess Máxima Center's Board of Directors, Research management and the clinical directors warmly invite you to attend our interdisciplinary symposium, to celebrate the first five years existence of the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology. This 2-day Scientific Symposium will take place on June 12th and 13th 2023 in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. There will be presentations from well-known speakers covering the various disciplines within the field of pediatric oncology and beyond, showcasing latest developments and technologies. This event will create ...

INDIANAPOLIS – The pandemic has placed a spotlight on public health -- its workforce, infrastructure and underlying information systems designed to collect, analyze and manage public health data.  Informatics, health information technology and public health experts from across the nation convened at an American College of Medical Informatics symposium concluded that how information is received and shared by public health agencies is overdue for “a strategically designed, technology-enabled, information infrastructure for delivering day-to-day essential public health services and to respond effectively to ...

Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum mechanics to encode and elaborate data, meaning that it could one day solve computational problems that are intractable with current computers. While the latter work with bits, which represent either a 0 or a 1, quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits – the fundamental units of quantum information. “With applications ranging from drug discovery to optimization and simulations of complex biological systems and materials, quantum computing has the potential to reshape vast areas of science, industry, and society,” says ...

Eczema is an inflammatory skin condition that often affects infants as young as one to two months. Among the various types of eczema seen in infants, early-onset atopic dermatitis (AD), characterized by psychological stress and sleep disorders, is particularly concerning. Studies have, in fact, identified that if left untreated, AD can increase the risk of allergic diseases such as food allergies and asthma—a progression also known as the “atopic march”. Early diagnosis and intervention of early-onset AD is needed to ensure the infant’s psychological and physical ...

The skies aircraft fly through are bumpier today than four decades ago, scientists have found, after producing a new analysis showing that turbulence has increased as the climate changed.  New research from the University of Reading shows that clear-air turbulence, which is invisible and hazardous to aircraft, has increased in various regions around the world.  At a typical point over the North Atlantic – one of the world’s busiest flight routes – the total ...

Washington, June 8, 2023—For years, parents looking for data to compare the academic quality of schools for their children had one primary measure to turn to: average student scores on standardized tests. However, these scores are often related to factors that have nothing to do with instructional quality—such as family income or racial and ethnic background—and push parents toward schools that are Whiter and more affluent, exacerbating school segregation in the U.S. As a result, many education ...

A University of Massachusetts Amherst public health researcher has updated and validated the widely used Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) to improve the measurement performance of this self-report physical activity method. Lisa Chasan-Taber, professor and chair of biostatistics and epidemiology, and her research group used novel and innovative tools – an advanced accelerometer and wearable camera – to assess PPAQ performance. The researchers developed the PPAQ in 2004 as the first validated pregnancy physical activity questionnaire. Listed on the UMass Amherst timeline ...

A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities scientists and engineers discovered a new method for tuning the thermal conductivity of materials to control heat flow ”on the fly.” Their tuning range is the highest ever recorded among one-step processes in the field, and will open a door to developing more energy-efficient and durable electronic devices. The researchers’ paper is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the natural sciences. Just as electrical ...

An international team led by researchers at Nankai University in China and at University of Zagreb in Croatia, along with team at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) in Canada, led by Roberto Morandotti has made an important breakthrough in the study of topological phases. Their findings were recently published in Nature Physics – a journal published by Nature Publishing Group. In the last decade, topological photonics has attracted increasing attention due to the unique prospects to achieve light manipulation with high performance in terms of robustness and stability. Discoveries in topological photonics ...

Statement Highlights: A new American Heart Association scientific statement focuses on treatment strategies for pediatric cardiomyopathy (diseases of the heart muscle’s structure and function that may lead to heart failure and death) and is a companion to a 2019 scientific statement focused on diagnosis of the condition. There are several types of cardiomyopathies in children, and treatment should include personalized therapies based on the root cause, symptoms and progression of the condition in each child, according to the new scientific statement. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET, Thursday, June 8, 2023 DALLAS, June 8, 2023 — Treating ...

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies have discovered that variations in the thickness of tectonic plates relate directly to the distribution of earthquakes in Britain, Ireland and around the world. The study also solves an enduring mystery as to why small earthquakes happen frequently in Britain but are almost completely absent from neighbouring Ireland. The researchers produced a computer-generated image of Earth’s interior using a technique called seismic tomography, which works in a similar way to a medical CT scan. The data they collected revealed variations in the thickness of the ...

University of Leeds Press Release   Under embargo until 09.00 am (British Summer Time) on Thursday, June 8   **With details of a linked press conference at the UNFCC meeting in Bonn - see under notes to journalists** Greenhouse gas emissions at ‘an all-time high’ - and it is causing an unprecedented rate of global warming, say scientists   Human-induced ...

University of Birmingham spinout Linear Diagnostics has received funding to finesse a point-of-care test for rapid diagnosis of gonorrhoea and Chlamydia in men who have sex with men (MSM), and women who have sex with women (WSW).  The funding from the National Institute of Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) will cover essential work to optimise and validate Linear’s platform technology (LDx-CTNG), so it can diagnose infection from rectal and pharyngeal (throat) swabs.  Gonorrhoea and Chlamydia are both major public health concerns.  While Chlamydia remains the most commonly detected sexually ...

Researchers have tested one of the ideas put forward to explain how humanity evolved to become smarter, on non-human primates. The study, led by a team at the University of Portsmouth, found a significant connection between social organisation and cognitive skills in monkeys.  They assessed three species of macaques with different social tolerance levels, from authoritarian to more relaxed societies, in a series of cognitive touchscreen touchscreen tasks to work out how impulsive and reactive ...

Today, an estimated 41,000 people in the United States live with the loss of an upper limb, including hundreds of service men and women. Although significant progress has been made in the durability, control and function of upper-limb prosthetic devices, they lack complete integration into the body and, importantly, do not enable their users to feel. Now, with the award of an $8.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Shirley Ryan AbilityLab — the top-ranked physical medicine and rehabilitation hospital — and its research partners have an opportunity ...

Professor Laurence Hurst, Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, has been recognised for his world-leading research into genetics and evolution with a prestigious Humboldt Prize. The Humboldt Prize, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of Germany in recognition of their lifetime's research achievements. Named after the Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, recipients of the prize are academics whose “fundamental discoveries, new ...

In fast-paced and often rapidly changing work environments, employers continue to seek new and improved ways to recognize employees in the workplace. However, new research from the University of Waterloo suggests that public peer recognition may backfire by enabling comparisons among employees, and these comparisons may make some employees feel unfairly treated.   “Employers have sought out various peer recognition systems in an effort to promote employee helping behaviour,” said Pei Wang, PhD ...