In our digital age, with easy access to a vast array of information, one would think that readers would naturally be exposed to a wide range of perspectives. However, the opposite seems to be happening, especially in countries like the United States (US), where people often seek out news that reinforces their existing beliefs and avoid content that challenges them. This tendency, known as partisan selective exposure, has been linked to increasing divides and tensions between different ideological groups. But is ...

A new study led by Dr. Jack Tseng and published in PeerJ Life & Environment has shed light on the intricate relationship between tooth wear and jaw mechanics in highly carnivorous mammals, known as hypercarnivores. As mammalian teeth do not regenerate, these animals often face declining bite efficiency as their teeth wear down over time. This research explores how different hypercarnivorous species, including scavengers, meat specialists, and bone-cracking predators, adapt biomechanically and possibly behaviorally to manage the challenges posed by tooth wear. The ...

A robot, trained for the first time by watching videos of seasoned surgeons, executed the same surgical procedures as skillfully as the human doctors. The successful use of imitation learning to train surgical robots eliminates the need to program robots with each individual move required during a medical procedure and brings the field of robotic surgery closer to true autonomy, where robots could perform complex surgeries without human help. “It’s really magical to have this model and all we do is feed it camera input and it can predict the robotic ...

Madeleine and Paul are sitting on a park bench. As she tells Paul about her financial worries and how she’s been struggling for months to make ends meet, Madeleine’s eyes well with tears. Paul is moved by her distress; her woes resonate with him and heighten his own fears. His heart grows heavy and his own eyes become moist, too. What’s going on? A kind of behavioural mirroring, what psychologists call “emotional contagion.” “Just as some people are more likely to catch a respiratory virus through close contact, others are more susceptible to ‘catching’ the emotions of the people around them,” explained Marie-Josée ...

Research Highlights: Fear of another heart attack was a significant ongoing contributor to how heart attack survivors perceive their health, according to a new study. While anxiety and depression are recognized as common conditions after a heart attack, they did not explain the impact of fear of recurrence in this study. The researchers suggest that fear of another heart attack should be evaluated and addressed separately from depression and anxiety. Note: The study featured in this news release is a research abstract. Abstracts presented at the American ...

Research Highlights: A small survey of adults aged 30 to 89 (average age of 65) in Sweden who have heart conditions found that there is a significant difference between the sexual health information they seek and what is provided to them by their health care professionals and the health care system. Despite 76% of patients with heart conditions reporting that sexual health affects their mood and well-being, only 5% received information or counseling about sexual health. Researchers suggest health care professionals adjust their patient care practices to ensure that discussing sexual health becomes a standard and respected topic in health ...

Research Highlights: Heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity were more common and linked to reduced access to healthy food among people who lived in neighborhoods previously subjected to structural racism-based policies that limited home ownership — an outlawed practice known as redlining. Researchers say testing interventions to help improve access to healthy food or boost social and economic resources could mitigate the still-present impact of outdated policies like redlining. Note: The study featured in this news release is a research abstract. Abstracts presented at American Heart Association’s scientific meetings are not peer-reviewed, and the ...

Research Highlights: Scientists conducted a simulation study to estimate the impact of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction. The study found that adults with chronic kidney disease would have elevated CVD risk eight years earlier than those without the disease. In addition, people with Type 2 diabetes would have an elevated CVD risk about a decade sooner than those without it. Among adults with both Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, women ...

Research Highlights: A version of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) heart disease risk score that did not include race predicted heart disease risk just as well as the original version that includes race. The original MESA risk score, developed in 2015[1], combines traditional risk factors, sex and race with a coronary artery calcium score. The MESA formula without race may be used for people who identify with more than one racial or ethnic group or those who prefer not to disclose their race or ethnicity. Note: The study featured in this ...

This news release contains updated information and data not included in the abstract. Research Highlights: The sooner a lay rescuer (bystander) starts cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a person having a cardiac arrest at home or in public, up to 10 minutes after the arrest, the better the chances of survival and brain protection, according to an analysis of nearly 200,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases in the U.S. from 2013 to 2022. Among the study’s findings, people who received CPR within two minutes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest had 81% higher odds of survival to release from the hospital ...

Research Highlights: A study of nearly 2,400 cardiac arrest cases in North Carolina found that when emergency dispatchers (telecommunicators) provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instructions to 911 callers, people were more likely to provide aid for both men and women. The study’s findings indicate that when a telecommunicator provided assistance to callers, bystander CPR was performed 44% of the time on women and 40% on men, compared to 9% on women and 11% on men when telecommunicator assistance was not provided. Researchers found the telecommunicator role critical in instructing bystanders to act quickly, possibly instrumental in reducing sex disparities ...

Research Highlights: In an analysis of more than 7,000 stroke survivors, those who were taking either a GLP1-receptor agonist or an SGLT2 inhibitor medication had a lower risk of a subsequent stroke, heart attack or death compared to peers who were not prescribed the medications during a three-year follow up period. The analysis used health data from the Rochester Epidemiology Project collected from 2000 to 2022. The first GLP-1 medication was prescribed beginning in 2006, and the authors included cases beginning in 2000 to increase the power of the study, they noted. Note: The study featured in this news release ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital and collaborating institutions discovered that the enzyme TYK2 transforms the normal protein tau into one that accumulates in the brain and contributes to the development of Alzheimer’s disease in animal models. Published in Nature Neuroscience, the study suggests that partially restraining TYK2 could be a strategy to reduce tau levels and toxicity. “Many studies have shown that the accumulation ...

The sounds of barking elephant seals are again in the air along the breeding grounds of Península Valdés, Argentina—but it’s quieter. Almost exactly a year after a massive outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza killed more than 17,000 elephant seals, including about 97% of their pups, scientists estimate that only about a third of the elephant seals normally expected here returned. “It’s beautiful to walk the beaches now and hear elephant seals again,” said Marcela Uhart, director of the Latin America Program at the UC Davis Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center within ...

Adding an extra hour every week of physical activity may lower the chance of developing the most common type of irregular heartbeat (arrythmia) by 11%, a new study shows. Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health, the investigation focused on atrial fibrillation, a condition in which the heart’s upper two chambers beat rapidly and irregularly instead of at a consistent pace. If left untreated, this can lead to stroke, heart failure, and other issues. While past studies have linked exercise to reduced risk of this type of arrhythmia, nearly all of these analyses have relied on the participants’ ...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their collaborators have discovered a new way in which RAS genes, which are commonly mutated in cancer, may drive tumor growth beyond their well-known role in signaling at the cell surface. Mutant RAS, they found, helps to kick off a series of events involving the transport of specific nuclear proteins that lead to uncontrolled tumor growth, according to a study published November 11, 2024, in Nature Cancer. RAS genes are the second most frequently mutated genes in cancer, and mutant RAS proteins are key drivers of some of the deadliest cancers, ...

All patients who have had a heart attack are typically treated using beta blockers. According to a Swedish study conducted earlier this year, this drug is unlikely to be needed for those heart patients who have a normal pumping ability. Now a sub-study at Uppsala University shows that there is also a risk that these patients will become depressed by the treatment. “We found that beta blockers led to slightly higher levels of depression symptoms in patients who had had a heart attack but were not suffering from heart failure. At the same time, beta blockers have no life-sustaining function for this group of patients,” says Philip Leissner, a doctoral student in cardiac ...

The largest ever clinical trial of T cell therapy (a type of cell-based immunotherapy) for solid tumours has been completed. Led by a Singapore clinician-investigator, the global, international, multisite trial recruited 330 advanced nasopharyngeal (NPC) cancer patients in 23 sites across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and the United States. The trial did not show an overall survival benefit for the entire patient cohort but a subset analysis combining outcomes of US, Singapore and Taiwanese sites, showed better progression free survival ...

The application process for the 12th Heidelberg Laureate Forum has begun! Young researchers in mathematics and computer science from all over the world can apply for one of the 200 exclusive spots to participate in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), an annual networking conference. The HLF offers all accepted young researchers the unique opportunity to interact with the laureates of the most prestigious prizes in the fields of mathematics and computer science. Traditionally, the recipients of the Abel Prize, the ACM A.M. Turing Award, the ACM Prize in Computing, ...

Mature egg cells, or oocytes, are essential for fertilization in assisted reproductive technologies. However, some ‘denuded’ oocytes, or those lacking the protective granulosa cell layer, fail to mature. Now, in a new study by researchers at Shinshu University, the team has developed a method to culture mature oocytes from these denuded oocytes in the lab. This innovative approach holds promise for overcoming significant challenges in reproductive science, marking a major advancement in fertility research. Assisted ...

Almost nine out of ten voters who supported Donald Trump for US President believe that America’s values, traditions and future economic prosperity are under threat – double the number of Kamala Harris supporters.  This is according to new data from Cambridge University’s Political Psychology lab, who worked with YouGov to conduct an opinion poll of US voters shortly before the election.* Some 89% of Trump voters agree that “American values and beliefs are being undermined and cherished traditions are under threat” compared ...

Cancer Research UK-funded scientists are finding out if an ingredient commonly found in grape juice and wine could keep bowel cancer at bay. Resveratrol – a naturally occurring ingredient found in grapes, blueberries, raspberries and peanuts – will be tested as a potential cancer prevention drug as part of the Cancer Research UK-funded COLO-PREVENT trial. The trial is led from the University of Leicester and the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. The trial ...

To get a good sense of a country’s level of development, you need to look at the items people have in their homes, according to economists Rutger Schilpzand and Jeroen Smits from Radboud University. Research on low- and middle-income countries often focuses on income, health or education, but that doesn’t tell you the full story of a country’s situation. ‘That’s why, for the first time, we are mapping out how the material wealth of households is developing,’ Schilpzand explains. The researchers coin this material wealth growth for households the 'domestic transition'. ...

A central issue at the UN Climate Change Conference, set to start on November 11, will be the negotiations on new payments from industrialized nations to poorer countries. However, the question of whether and how these payments will be financed remains highly controversial. The study by an international team of researchers, with participation by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has now revealed: The windfall profits alone taken in by oil and gas companies due to the 2022 energy crisis would have been sufficient to cover the existing commitments of the industrialized nations for nearly five years. The researchers ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — By studying tomato varieties that produce fruit in exceptionally hot growing seasons, biologists at Brown University identified the growth cycle phase when tomatoes are most vulnerable to extreme heat, as well as the molecular mechanisms that make the plants more heat tolerant. The discovery, detailed in a study in Current Biology, could inform a key strategy to protect the food supply in the face of climate instability, the researchers said. Agricultural productivity is particularly vulnerable to climate change, the study noted, and rising temperatures are predicted to reduce crop yields by 2.5% to 16% for every ...