EULAR – the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology – works on a broad spectrum of autoimmune and auto-inflammatory diseases. A rise in the incidence of some of these has been described, raising the possibility that incidence might be impacted by environmental factors. But there is a lack of available data, and commonalities and differences between some individual diseases also remain poorly understood. Conrad and colleagues aimed to clarify the picture by investigating 19 of the most common autoimmune diseases. Their work – shared at the 2023 EULAR congress in Milan, Italy – assesses trends over time, by sex, age, socioeconomic status, season ...

Early inflammatory arthritis is often undifferentiated, but it may develop into established RA or another arthropathy.1 Alternatively, it may resolve spontaneously, or remain undifferentiated for indefinite periods. Erosion is a key prognostic factor which can be detected with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).2 In addition, MRI allows direct visualization and assessment of (teno-) synovitis and bone marrow edema.3 Predicting early RA from MRI images of the hands and feet can help people access timely treatment, which may possibly ...

About The Study: In this study of 4,260 adults with and without psychiatric disorders, smoking cessation, sustained for at least 15 weeks, was associated with improved mental health outcomes in observational analyses, but the instrumental variable analysis provided inconclusive evidence. Findings like these may reassure people who smoke and their clinicians that smoking cessation likely will not worsen and may improve mental health.  Authors: Angela Difeng Wu, M.Sc., of the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom, 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/jamanetworkopen.2023.16111) Editor’s ...

For over a century, researchers have thought that the patterns of brain activity that define our experiences, hopes and dreams are determined by how different brain regions communicate with each other through a complex web of trillions of cellular connections. Now, a study led by from researchers at Monash University's Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health has examined more than 10,000 different maps of human brain activity and found that the overall shape of a person’s brain exerts a far greater influence on how we think, feel and behave than its intricate neuronal connectivity. The study, published ...

A team of researchers has created a new class of titanium alloys that are strong and not brittle under tension, by integrating alloy and 3D-printing process designs. The breakthrough, published in the top journal Nature, could help extend the applications of titanium alloys, improve sustainability and drive innovative alloy design. Their discovery holds promise for a new class of more sustainable high-performance titanium alloys for applications in aerospace, biomedical, chemical engineering, space and energy technologies. RMIT University and the University of Sydney led the innovation, in collaboration with Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the company Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Rare earth elements, like neodymium and dysprosium, are a critical component to almost all modern technologies, from smartphones to hard drives, but they are notoriously hard to separate from the Earth’s crust and from one another. Penn State scientists have discovered a new mechanism by which bacteria can select between different rare earth elements, using the ability of a bacterial protein to bind to another unit of itself, or “dimerize,” when it is bound to certain rare earths, but prefer to remain a single unit, or “monomer,” ...

Philadelphia, May 31, 2023 – Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation Childhood Cancer Data Lab, the Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN), the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC), and more than 20 additional institutions have partnered to create a first-of-its-kind open-source, reproducible analysis platform for pediatric brain tumors. With the help of thousands of genomically sequenced samples, researchers have used this platform to identify initial findings about genetic variants associated with poorer outcomes that could help guide future diagnostic and therapeutic advances. The ...

A team of scientists from Ohio University, Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and others, led by Ohio University Professor of Physics, and Argonne National Laboratory scientist, Saw Wai Hla, have taken the world’s first X-ray SIGNAL (or SIGNATURE) of just one atom. This groundbreaking achievement was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences and could revolutionize the way scientists detect the materials. Since its discovery by Roentgen ...

Take a deep breath. Now take nine more. According to new research, the amount of oxygen in one of those 10 breaths was made possible thanks to a newly identified cellular mechanism that promotes photosynthesis in marine phytoplankton. Described as “groundbreaking” by a team of researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, this previously unknown process accounts for between 7% to 25% of all the oxygen produced and carbon fixed in the ocean. When also considering photosynthesis occuring on land, researchers estimated that this mechanism could be responsible for generating ...

Electron microscopes give us insight into the tiniest details of materials and can visualize, for example, the structure of solids, molecules or nanoparticles with atomic resolution. However, most materials in nature are not static. They constantly interact, move and reshape between initial and final configurations. One of the most general phenomena is the interaction between light and matter, which is omnipresent in materials such as solar cells, displays or lasers. These interactions are defined by electrons pushed and pulled around by the oscillations of light, and the dynamics are extremely fast: light waves oscillate at attoseconds, the billionth of a billionth ...

Chess grandmasters are often held up as the epitome of thinking far ahead. But can others, with a modest amount of practice, learn to think further ahead?  In addressing this question, a team of cognitive scientists has created a computational model that reveals our ability to plan for future events. The work enhances our understanding of the factors that affect decision-making and shows how we can boost our planning skills through practice. The research, conducted by scientists in New York University’s Center for Neural Science and ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) identify a protein in some people with schizophrenia that causes schizophrenia-like features in mice   Tokyo, Japan – Links have been reported between schizophrenia and proteins produced by the immune system that can act against one’s own body, known as autoantibodies. In a study published last month in Brain Behavior and Immunity, Japanese researchers identified autoantibodies that target a ‘synaptic adhesion protein’, neurexin 1α, in a subset of patients with schizophrenia. When injected into mice, the ...

A research team affiliated with UNIST has made a significant breakthrough in uncovering the potential of ultra-photostable avalanching nanoparticles (ANP). Their study demonstrates that such particles can perform unlimited photoswitching, leading to new advancements in fields like optical probes, 3D optical memory, and super-resolution microscopy. This breakthrough has been achieved through the efforts of Professor Yung Doug Suh and his research team in the Department of Chemistry at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), in collaboration with researchers from Columbia University and ...

New York, NY—May 31, 2023—In 2021, lanthanide-doped nanoparticles made waves—or rather, an avalanche—when Changwan Lee, then a PhD student in Jim Schuck’s lab at Columbia Engineering, set off an extreme light-producing chain reaction from ultrasmall crystals developed at the Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab. Those same crystals are back again with a blink that can now be deliberately and indefinitely controlled.   “We’ve found the first fully photostable, fully photoswitchable nanoparticle—a holy grail of nanoprobe design,” said Schuck, associate ...

As the proverb “You are what you eat” goes, the type of food we consume influences our health and longevity all through our lives. In fact, there is a direct association between age-related nutritional requirements and metabolic health. Optimal nutrition according to age can help maintain metabolic health, thereby improving the health span (period of life without diseases) and lifespan of an individual. Different nutritional interventions involving varied calorie and protein intake have been known to improve the health and lifespan of rodents and primates. Furthermore, recent studies have also reported the association of dietary macronutrients (proteins, ...

Sixty per cent of roughly 1,600 Canadians who took part in a new McGill University study say their lifestyle habits either stayed the same or improved during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the flip side, 40% of participants say they adopted less healthy lifestyle habits, including worsened eating habits, sleep quality, decreased physical activity and weight gain. The research is based on the Canadian COVIDiet study of Canadians between the ages of 18 to 89 years old. Researchers from McGill’s School of Human Nutrition collected data from across the country during the first wave of infections. ...

Hypervelocity impacts of Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris (M/OD) seriously threaten the safety of manned spacecraft and astronauts in orbit. At present, M/OD above 10 cm, which can be monitored and predicted in advance, can usually be avoided by orbital maneuver. As for the small-size M/OD, because of the difficulty of monitoring, it is the main impact threat, as well as the main object of impact risk assessment and protection design of manned spacecraft. The probability of no penetration (PNP) of the sealed cabin under M/OD impact is usually used as ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 31, 2023 —Dr. Thomas E. Briggs, an Institute engineer in Southwest Research Institute’s Powertrain Engineering Division, has received the Forest R. McFarland Award by SAE International, an organization that works to advance mobility, knowledge and solutions for humanity’s benefit. Established in 1979, the award serves to honor the late Forest R. McFarland, a long-time SAE International member, for his many contributions to the organization. The award recognizes outstanding contributions by volunteers who further the goals of SAE ...

Overweight and obesity pose significant health risks, including an increased likelihood of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Researchers are seeking practical ways to promote the oxidation of lipids, which could help balance energy storage and consumption. A recent study has identified opioid growth factor receptor (Ogfr) gene as a promising new target for this process. Rodents possess thermogenic fat that includes brown and beige adipocytes, which have a high capacity to uptake and utilize glucose ...

More than 80% of New Yorkers who inject drugs test positive for the opioid fentanyl, despite only 18% reporting using it intentionally, according to a new study by researchers at the NYU School of Global Public Health.   The findings, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, suggest that many people who inject drugs are unknowingly using fentanyl, which may increase their risk for overdose and potentially their tolerance to fentanyl if it is used over time.   In 2021, more than 100,000 people died of a drug overdose in the United States, with 66% of these deaths involving illicit fentanyl—a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.   In ...

Washington, DC – Cats can play a role in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and their contaminated environment (pens in this study) can be infectious, according to new research. The study was published in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.  “In practice, after introduction of SARS-CoV-2 in our household, we should see our cat as part of the family regarding virus transmission,” said study coauthor Wim van der Poel DVM, Ph.D., Professor of Emerging and Zoonotic Viruses, Wageningen University and Research, in the Netherlands.  Van der Poel and colleagues conducted the study to gain better insight ...

Researchers from University of Connecticut, Texas A&M University, University of Colorado at Boulder, and University of Florida published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines whether price promotions on some products differentially impact demand for other products depending on their relative locations within a display. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “The Negative and Positive Consequences of Placing Products Next to Promoted Products” and ...

Some foods and medicines, such as many COVID-19 vaccines, must be kept cold. As a step toward a robust, stable technique that could indicate when these products exceed safe limits, researchers in ACS Nano report a class of brilliantly colored microcrystals in materials that become colorless over a wide range of temperatures and response times. As a proof of concept, the team packaged the color-changing materials into a vial lid and QR code. Walk-in freezers and refrigerated trucks generally maintain their set temperatures, but ...

As more and more electric cars are travelling on the roads of Europe, this is leading to an increase in the use of the critical metals required for components such as electric motors and electronics. With the current raw material production levels there will not be enough of these metals in future – not even if recycling increases. This is revealed by the findings of a major survey led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, on behalf of the European Commission. Electrification and digitalisation are leading to a steady increase in the need for critical metals* in the EU’s vehicle fleet. Moreover, only a small proportion of the metals are ...

Analysis of a British spinosaur tooth by palaeontologists at the EvoPalaeoLab of the University of Southampton shows that several distinct spinosaur groups inhabited Cretaceous Britain.      Stored within the collections of the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery in East Sussex, the fossil that forms the basis of the new study was gifted to the museum in 1889. It was collected from the local Lower Cretaceous rocks of the Wealden Supergroup, a thick, complicated rock sequence deposited across south-eastern England between 140 and 125 million years ago.    The ...