HOUSTON – (May 30, 2023) – Conventional implantable medical devices designed for brain stimulation are often too rigid and bulky for what is one of the body’s softest and most delicate tissues. To address the problem, Rice University engineers have developed minimally invasive, ultraflexible nanoelectrodes that could serve as an implanted platform for administering long-term, high-resolution stimulation therapy. According to a study published in Cell Reports, the tiny implantable devices formed stable, long-lasting and seamless tissue-electrode ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at SLEEP 2023 found that teens with greater variability in their sleep patterns have a higher risk for school-related problems. Results show that the teens with greater night-to-night variability in the time they fell asleep were 42% more likely to have been suspended or expelled in the past two years, 29% more likely to have received a D or F in any course, and 26% more likely to have ever failed a course. The likelihood of suspension or expulsion was also 31% higher in teens with greater variability in sleep duration. “Variability in sleep duration and later sleep ...

Today’s substance use prevention efforts ignore individual genetic risk, but Rutgers research suggests DNA test results may eventually enhance prevention and treatment and improve outcomes. Investigators recruited 325 college students, provided them with varying levels of information about alcohol use disorder and how genetics affect addiction risk and asked them how they would react to learning they had high, medium and low genetic tendencies toward alcoholism. The results provided two significant supports for eventually using real genetic risk scores in actual addiction prevention efforts. First, participants understood what those scores indicated; they recognized that higher ...

Transportation accounts for roughly one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and adoption of electric vehicles are seen by many experts in government and the private sector as a vital tool in efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Roughly a decade ago, EVs accounted for a tiny fraction of overall car sales. As of March 2023, they make up 7% of new sales “What changed between then and now?” asks Kenneth Gillingham, professor of environmental and energy economics at the Yale School of the Environment. ...

DARIEN, IL – Cortisol levels in late pregnancy can predict the sleep of infants, according to a new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2023 annual meeting.  Results show that newborns with higher levels of cortisol in their hair samples took longer to fall asleep at 7 months of age. Neonatal hair cortisol is a measure of fetal cortisol in the last trimester of pregnancy.  “Although increases in cortisol across pregnancy are normal and important for preparing the fetus for birth, our findings ...

May 30, 2023 That’s Not Nuts: Almond Milk Yogurt Packs an Overall Greater  Nutritional Punch than Dairy-Based UMass Amherst food science major completes comparison of 612 plant-based and dairy yogurts AMHERST, Mass. – In a nutritional comparison of plant-based and dairy yogurts, almond milk yogurt came out on top, according to research led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst food science major. “Plant-based yogurts overall have less total sugar, less sodium and more fiber than dairy, but they have less protein, calcium and potassium than dairy yogurt,” ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While it can take years for the pharmaceutical industry to create medicines capable of treating or curing human disease, a new study suggests that using generative artificial intelligence could vastly accelerate the drug-development process.  Today, most drug discovery is carried out by human chemists who rely on their knowledge and experience to select and synthesize the right molecules needed to become the safe and efficient medicines we depend on. To identify the synthesis paths, scientists often employ a technique called retrosynthesis – a method for creating potential drugs by working backward from the wanted molecules and searching for chemical reactions ...

May 30, 2023, Mountain View, CA – Akshay Suresh, a graduate student at Cornell University, spearheads an extraordinary scientific endeavor -- a groundbreaking mission to uncover periodic signals emanating from the core of the Milky Way called the Breakthrough Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals (BLIPSS). Such repetitive patterns could be the key to unlocking the mysteries of extraterrestrial intelligence in our galaxy. Suresh and his co-authors detail the project’s results thus far in a paper accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, “A 4–8 GHz Galactic Center Search for Periodic Technosignatures.” BLIPSS ...

“In this study, we present novel transcriptional dependencies between MALAT1 and MAPK-pathway-associated genes in melanoma.” BUFFALO, NY- May 30, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on May 26, 2023, entitled, “Deconstructing the role of MALAT1 in MAPK-signaling in melanoma: insights from antisense oligonucleotide treatment.” The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) MALAT1 is a regulator of oncogenesis and cancer progression. MAPK-pathway upregulation is the main event in the development and progression of human cancer, including melanoma and recent studies have shown that MALAT1 has a significant impact on the ...

The low blood oxygen levels of obstructive sleep apnea cause widespread changes in gene activity throughout the day, according to a new study in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by David Smith of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, US, and colleagues. The finding may lead to tools for earlier diagnosis and tracking of the disorder. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) occurs when the airway becomes blocked (usually by soft tissue, associated with snoring and interrupted breathing during the night), resulting in intermittent hypoxia (low blood oxygen) and disrupted sleep. ...

Since it was identified in 1984 as the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has infected more than 80 million people and been responsible for some 40 million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Currently, the WHO reports more than 38 million people globally live with the retrovirus, and each year, another 1 million new cases are diagnosed. While antiretroviral therapy helps keep HIV in check, patients must stay on their medication to prevent the development of AIDS. Scientists have spent years trying to develop an ...

INDIANAPOLIS—Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine have discovered alternative gene splicing, which occurs during gene expression, can impact a person’s risk of alcohol use disorder (AUD). They recently published their findings in Molecular Psychiatry. “AUD is a common and complex genetic disorder that happens people experience problems related to excessive alcohol consumption,” said Rudong Li, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the YunLong Liu, PhD Laboratory and lead author of the paper. “This discovery has revealed ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 30, 2023 Contact: Gina DiGravio, 617-358-7838, ginad@bu.edu Novel Approach Significantly Improves Access, Decreases Wait Times for Autism Screening Developmentally Trained-Primary Care Clinicians can reduce disparities for children referred for developmental evaluation (Boston)—Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and the presence of repetitive and restricted behaviors or interests. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends autism-specific screening at 18- and 24-month well-child visits, yet earlier diagnosis has been shown to ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Before it was home to Spain and Portugal, much of the Iberian Peninsula was ruled by a succession of Islamic dynasties for almost 800 years during the Middle Ages. Known as al-Andalus, its influence is still reflected in art and politics today – not only in Spain and North Africa, but also in places far from the historical site of al-Andalus. Eric Calderwood, a comparative and world literature professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, wrote about that influence and how it is used to make sense of the present in his new book, “On Earth or in Poems: ...

A team of astrophysicists and citizen scientists have identified what may be some of the last planets NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope observed during its nearly decade-long mission. The trio of exoplanets – worlds beyond our solar system – are all between the size of Earth and Neptune and closely orbit their stars. ''These are fairly average planets in the grand scheme of Kepler observations,” said Elyse Incha, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But they’re exciting because Kepler observed them during its last few days of operations. It showcases just how good Kepler was at planet hunting, even at the end of its ...

The Shaw Prize in Astronomy 2023 is awarded in equal shares to Matthew Bailes, Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, Duncan Lorimer, Professor and Interim Chair of Physics and Astronomy and Associate Dean for Research at Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, USA and Maura McLaughlin, Eberly Family Distinguished Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, USA, for the discovery ...

Worldwide, one of the initial responses to the COVID-19 virus was locking down parts of the economy to reduce social interactions and the virus’s spread. Now, the development and production of vaccines have largely replaced broad lockdowns. In a new study that considered epidemiology and economics, researchers sought to determine how the arrival of vaccines should affect the duration and intensity of lockdown policies. They concluded that boosting the rate of vaccine use influences intensity and duration of lockdowns, depending on a variety of factors. The study was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, ...

Health care organizations today are caring for patients with increasingly complex needs and leveraging larger teams that include clinicians with diverse and specialized expertise. At the same time, high turnover and labor shortages mean that facilities frequently employ a more temporary and mobile workforce. In a new commentary, researchers point out that, as a result, “the structure of health care teams often defies decades of wisdom from team-design research about the conditions that support the best possible performance.” The article was written ...

30 May 2023 - A detailed plan to transform product packaging and significantly cut plastic production and pollution has been developed by researchers. The study comes as government representatives meet in Paris to negotiate a legally binding global plastics treaty with a mandate to end plastic pollution.  The research, published today by the University of Portsmouth’s Global Plastics Policy Centre, commissioned by the Break Free From Plastic movement, consolidates 320 articles and papers, plus 55 new interviews with reuse experts from around the world [1], to suggest a universal definition of reuse systems and, for the ...

Visiting zoos in silence can generate a range of novel experiences, helping people to connect to animals in a more intimate way and giving visits more gravitas, according to new research. Experts ran special silent events at Paignton and Bristol zoos as part of a wider project on the auditory culture of zoos. Visitors were better able to focus, concentrate and even meditate on specific animals and their behaviour, which sometimes fostered feelings of intimacy with and attachment to particular zoo animals. The research, published in TRACE: Journal for Human-Animal Studies, was conducted by Professor Tom Rice, Dr Alexander Badman-King, Professor Sam ...

A group of world leading health and scientific experts are calling on the aviation industry to take action to protect passengers and aircrew from dangerous cabin fumes which they say have led to a new emerging disease. Led by former pilot and leading global aviation health researcher Dr Susan Michaelis, the specialists have released the first medical protocol of its kind to help treat those effected by contamination of the aircraft cabin breathing air supply and collect data on contamination events. The International Fume Events Task Force, made up of 17 doctors, occupational health specialists, toxicologists, epidemiologists and aviation experts, have spent six years researching ...

A mutation that causes severe hypertension also protects the kidneys from being damaged, reports a team led by Enno Klußmann of the Max Delbrück Center and the DZHK in “Kidney International”. The researchers are now exploring how the effects of the mutated gene can be used therapeutically. Over time, high blood pressure leads to kidney damage – unless you happen to have a mutated PDE3A gene. “This mutation causes extremely high blood pressure, but the kidneys still work normally even ...

Two Southwest Research Institute scientists were part of a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team that observed a towering plume of water vapor more than 6,000 miles long — roughly the distance from the U.S. to Japan — spewing from the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. In light of this NASA JWST Cycle 1 discovery, SwRI’s Dr. Christopher Glein also received a Cycle 2 allocation to study the plume as well as key chemical compounds on the surface, to better understand the potential habitability of this ocean world. During its 13-year reconnaissance of the Saturn system, the Cassini spacecraft discovered that Enceladus has a subsurface ocean ...

Fereshte Ghahari Kermani, Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy, received funding for the project: "Local Probe of Correlated and topological phases in graphene Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures."  These heterostructures are  constructed by different two-dimensional (2D) monolayers vertically stacked and weakly coupled by van der Waals interactions. Such interactions take place when adjacent atoms come close enough that their outer electron clouds barely touch. This action induces charge fluctuations that result in nonspecific, nondirectional attraction.  For this project, Ghahari will ...

More than 5,000 planets are confirmed to exist beyond our solar system. Over half were discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, a resilient observatory that far outlasted its original planned mission. Over nine and a half years, the spacecraft trailed the Earth, scanning the skies for periodic dips in starlight that could signal the presence of a planet crossing in front of its star.  In its last days, the telescope kept recording the brightness of stars as it was running out of fuel. On Oct. 30, 2018, its fuel tanks depleted, the ...