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 ...

The newly discovered record of so-called protosteroids was shown to be surprisingly abundant throughout Earth´s Middle Ages. The primordial molecules were produced at an earlier stage of eukaryotic complexity – extending the current record of fossil steroids beyond 800 and up to 1600 million years ago. Eukaryotes is the term for a kingdom of life including all animals, plants and algae and set apart from bacteria by having a complex cell structure that includes a nucleus, as well as a more complex molecular machinery. “The highlight of ...

Poems, essays and even books – is there anything the open AI platform ChatGPT can’t handle? These new AI developments have inspired researchers at TU Delft and the Swiss technical university EPFL to dig a little deeper: For instance, can ChatGPT also design a robot? And is this a good thing for the design process, or are there risks? The researchers published their findings in Nature Machine Intelligence. What are the greatest future challenges for humanity? This was the first question that Cosimo Della Santina, assistant professor, and PhD student Francesco Stella, both from TU Delft, and Josie Hughes from EPFL, asked ...

Study led by University of Oxford researchers has revealed the mechanisms that cause lithium metal solid-state batteries to fail. Researchers used a high-resolution imaging method to visualize batteries in unprecedented detail during charging. The new insights could help overcome the technical issues with solid-state batteries, unlocking a game-changing technology for electric vehicles and aviation. Significantly improved electric vehicle (EV) batteries could be a step closer thanks to a new study led by University of Oxford researchers, published today in Nature. ...

The fastest winds ever recorded on Earth reached more than 200 miles per hour, but even those gusts pale in comparison to the sun’s wind.  In a paper published June 7, 2023 in the journal Nature, a team of researchers used data from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe to explain how the solar wind is capable of surpassing speeds of 1 million miles per hour. They discovered that the energy released from the magnetic field near the sun’s surface is powerful enough to drive the fast solar wind, which is made up of ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) find that pre-basophil and mast cell progenitors differentiate into pre-basophils before producing mature basophils in mice   Tokyo, Japan – Big changes often happen in small steps, and it’s not always easy to see how we get from point A to point B. Now, researchers from Japan have found a new step in the process of cell differentiation that leads to the production of fully functional basophils, which are critical cells in the immune system.   In a study published this month in Nature Communications, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) have revealed a previously unknown intermediate ...

BOSTON – A change of scenery can restore one's outlook, but for some precancerous cells, a journey from the caves of the bone marrow to the sunny climes of the skin can trigger genetic changes that are a harbinger of cancer, according to a new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The study, published online today by the journal Nature, is one of the first to uncover the "genetic travelogue" ...

About The Study: This analysis of the quality of responses to public health questions found that ChatGPT consistently provided evidence-based answers, although it primarily offered advice rather than referrals. Given the same addiction questions, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Samsung’s Bixby collectively recognized 5% of the questions and made one referral, compared with 91% recognition and two referrals with ChatGPT.  Authors: John W. Ayers, Ph.D., M.A., of the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, is the corresponding author.  To ...

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [June 7, 2023] — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®)—an alliance of leading academic cancer centers—published survey results today that shed light on just how widespread the current platinum chemotherapy shortage is, and shared a statement calling on the whole oncology community to work together on solutions. “This is an unacceptable situation. We are hearing from oncologists and pharmacists across the country who have to scramble to find appropriate alternatives for treating their patients with ...

In this project volumetric bioprinting was for the first time successfully combined with melt electrowriting. This combines the speed and cell-friendliness of volumetric printing with the structural strength needed to create functional blood vessels. The study by the biofabrication lab of Regenerative Medicine Center Utrecht (RMCU) was published today in Advanced Materials. Volumetric printing is a technique that was pioneered for bioprinting by the RMCU biofabrication lab in 2019. It is a fast technique, which allows cells to survive the printing process. However, because this ...

In just 7 years, the Irish Potato Famine caused approximately one million people to starve to death and forced another estimated million to flee Ireland as refugees. A mold called Phytophthora infestans infected Ireland’s potato crop, a staple food, and spread rapidly throughout the island. The seemingly tiny fungus destroyed roughly 75% of potato crops over the duration of the great hunger. This catastrophic famine, along with several others in various parts of the world throughout history, highlighted the critical need for the study of plant diseases. Decades ...

Researchers from University of St. Gallen and Columbia Business School published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines how the perceived meaning of manual labor can help predict the adoption of autonomous products. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Meaning of Manual Labor Impedes Consumer Adoption of Autonomous Products” and is authored by Emanuel de Bellis, Gita Venkataramani Johar, and Nicola Poletti. Whether it is cleaning homes or mowing lawns, consumers increasingly delegate manual tasks to autonomous products. These gadgets operate without human oversight and free consumers from ...

Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Paul Ellison, PhD, assistant professor at the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which ...

Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Amir Iravani, MD, associate professor of radiology in the Department of Radiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington, has been selected as the recipient of a $1,000,000 SNMMI Mars Shot Fund Grant. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which was established to provide resources that translate visionary nuclear medicine imaging, radiopharmaceutical therapy ...

Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Craig Levin, PhD, professor of radiology, physics, electrical engineering and bioengineering at Stanford University in Stanford, California, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which was established to provide ...

Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Julie Sutcliffe, PhD, professor of internal medicine and biomedical engineering, University of California–Davis, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which was established to provide ...

Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Randy Yeh, MD, a radiologist and nuclear medicine physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and assistant professor of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—June 7, 2023—The placenta, critical for healthy embryo development, is a multi- purpose organ with a precise lifespan—the length of a pregnancy. New research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research suggests that further exploration of the placenta’s roles and capabilities may one day lead to insights for positive pregnancy outcomes. The study published in Development on June 6, 2023, focuses on a unique property of many cells comprising the placenta that explains how these cells perform essential functional and physical ...

More than 5,000 people are diagnosed annually with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a fatal, neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, gradually robbing people of the ability to speak, move, eat and breathe. To date, only a handful of drugs exist to moderately slow its progression. There is no cure. But CU Boulder researchers have identified a surprising new player in the disease—an ancient, virus-like protein best known, paradoxically, for its essential role in enabling placental development. The findings ...