A gene linked to unusually long lifespans in humans protects brain stem cells from the harmful effects of stress, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. Studies of humans who live longer than 100 years have shown that many share an unusual version of a gene called Forkhead box protein O3 (FOXO3). That discovery led Dr. Jihye Paik, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and her colleagues to investigate how this gene contributes to brain health during aging. In 2018, Dr. Paik and her team showed that mice who lack the FOXO3 gene ...

How much personal information can our phone apps gather through location tracking? To answer this question, two researchers - Mirco Musolesi (University of Bologna, Italy) and Benjamin Baron (University College London, UK) - carried out a field study using an app specifically developed for this research. Through the app employed in the study - published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies - researchers were able to identify which kind of personal information the app extracted and its privacy sensitivity according to users. "Users are largely unaware of the privacy implications ...

The University of Leeds has coordinated a study with 170 experts from 35 countries, including E.T.S. Agronomic Engineering lecturer Luis Perez Urrestarazu. The study conclusions have just been published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. The researchers highlighted opportunities to improve the way green spaces are monitored and maintained and helping people to interact with and appreciate the natural world around them. Similarly, as autonomous vehicles become more widely used in cities, pollution and traffic congestion are set to fall. But they also warn that advances in robotics and automation could be harmful to the environment. They may, for example generate new sources of waste and pollution, with potentially substantial negative implications for urban nature. Cities may ...

Social identity is a factor linked to wellbeing and community participation. Various studies have demonstrated the link existing between ethnic identity and empowerment and that the interaction between both of them leads to a rise in the indices of wellbeing and community participation. However, the nature of these relationships may be determined by the fact that the individual perceives his or her own group as a minority one and/or one that is subject to discrimination. In fact, these relations emerge mostly in groups that find themselves in a minority situation and/or one of discrimination, but not in groups that are more hegemonic or in the majority. To further ...

Parent education programs and interventions that begin shortly after the birth of a child have shown to significantly impact parenting behaviors that support social and academic engagement for children growing up in poverty, according to a study led by pediatricians and psychologists across the country, including NYU Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Steinhardt, and the University of Pittsburgh. The study, published today in the journal Pediatrics, examines the Smart Beginnings Project, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive approach to the promotion of school readiness in low-income families. This model addresses one of the most important causes of inequity - that many children from ...

Researchers at the Institut de Neurociències of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (INc-UAB) obtained a highly accurate recreation of human glioblastoma's features using a novel 3D microscopy analysis. The study, published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications, provides new information to help with the diagnose, by finding therapeutical targets and designing immunotherapeutical strategies. This new analysis of 3D images and quantitative data "will help to appreciate from within how the tumor is built in its full dimensionality, and to identify where different cell types are located", explains George Paul Cribaro, first author of the study. "It provides more complete information than the usual 2D analyses performed for ...

Prion diseases are a group of rapidly progressive, fatal and infectious neurodegenerative disorders affecting both humans and animals: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or 'mad cow' disease is one of the most famous since in 1996 scientists found that the agent responsible for the disease in cows, is the same agent responsible for the so-called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), a disease affecting humans. A new study carried out by SISSA - Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati in collaboration with other institutions including Genos Glycoscience ...

DURHAM, N.H.-- A new report from the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC), using data collected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, showed a marked increase in the share of child maltreatment cases resulting in fatalities as well as a decline in cases of physical abuse and neglect in 2019. The report, which highlights 2019 statistics from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), showed that fatalities rose 4%. The statistics gathered from child protection agencies in each state indicated that the uptick in child maltreatment fatalities was broadly distributed, with 25 states reporting an increase of 10% or more. This increase in fatalities continues an already upward trend ...

The first global-scale assessment of the role ecosystems play in providing sanitation finds that nature provides at least 18% of sanitation services in 48 cities worldwide, according to researchers in the United Kingdom and India. The study, published February 19 in the journal One Earth, estimates that more than 2 million cubic meters of the cities' human waste is processed each year without engineered infrastructure. This includes pit latrine waste that gradually filters through the soil--a natural process that cleans it before it reaches groundwater. "Nature can, and does, take the role of sanitation infrastructure," said Alison Parker, a Senior Lecturer in International Water and Sanitation at Cranfield University in the United ...

SEATTLE -- February 19, 2021 -- A team of scientific experts from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico are advocating for increased diversity in vaccine trials after publishing a new report that highlights a decade's worth of disparities. The new study, published in JAMA Network Open, found that among U.S.-based vaccine clinical trials, people who are Black/African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic/Latino and age 65 and older were the most underrepresented groups. Conversely, adult women were overrepresented. The research team examined 230 U.S.-based vaccine trials of all ...

What The Study Did: Persistent symptoms among adults with COVID-19 up to nine months after illness onset were analyzed in this study. Authors: Helen Y. Chu, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington in Seattle, 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.2021.0830) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The full study is linked to this news release. Embed ...

What The Study Did: This survey study compared patterns of mental health concerns, substance use and suicidal ideation during June and September of the COVID-19 pandemic and examined at-risk demographic groups. Authors: Mark É. Czeisler, A.B., Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, 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.2020.37665) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author ...

What The Study Did: Using data from completed interventional vaccine trials from 2011 to 2020, researchers examined whether racial/ethnic minority groups, females and older adults were underrepresented in U.S.-based vaccine clinical trials. Authors: Steven A. Pergam, M.D., M.P.H., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and Julie K. Silver, M.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37640) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

Women of minority races and ethnicities and with less education and income have had relatively lower access to 3D mammography, a technology that can improve breast cancer detection and decrease false alarms, according to research published today. "This study was about whether adoption of this technology is equitable. We're showing that it has not been, even though it has been FDA-approved for a decade now," said END ...

Recreational hunting -- especially hunting of charismatic species for their trophies --raises ethical and moral concerns. Yet recreational hunting is frequently suggested as a way to conserve nature and support local people's livelihoods. In a new article published in the journal One Earth, scientists from the University of Helsinki in Finland and Flinders University in Australia have reviewed more than 1,000 studies on recreational hunting -- the first such attempt to summarize the scientific literature examining the biodiversity and social effects of recreational hunting globally. Co-lead author University of Helsinki Associate Professor Enrico ...

Creating "super soldiers" of specific white blood cells to boost an anti-tumour response has been shown in a series of elegant experiments by Princess Margaret researchers. Research led by Ph.D. candidate Helen Loo Yau, Post-doctoral fellow Dr. Emma Bell and Senior Scientist Dr. Daniel D. De Carvalho describes a DNA modifying epigenetic therapy that can transform immune killer T-cells into "super soldiers" by boosting their ability to kill cancer cells. Their findings could potentially enhance immunotherapy, a new paradigm in cancer treatment currently effective for a minority of cancer patients. Some patients respond well to immunotherapy, with their tumours drastically shrinking in size, but others respond only partially or not at all. Clinicians and scientists around ...

At some point, microvehicles that are small enough to navigate our blood vessels will enable physicians to take biopsies, insert stents and deliver drugs with precision to sites that are difficult to reach, all from inside the body. Scientists around the world are currently researching and developing suitable microvehicles. In most cases, they are powered and controlled by acoustic and magnetic fields or using light. However, until now, propelling microvehicles against a fluid flow had proved to be a major challenge. This would be necessary for the micromachines to be able to navigate in blood vessels against the direction of blood flow. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now developed microvehicles ...

The latest observations from Insight-HXMT were published online in Nature Astronomy on Feb. 18. Insight-HXMT has discovered the very first X-ray burst associated with a fast radio burst (FRB) and has identified that it originated from soft-gamma repeater (SGR) J1935+2154, which is a magnetar in our Milky Way. Insight-HXMT is the first to identify the double-spike structure of this X-ray burst as the high energy counterpart of FRB 200428. This discovery, together with results from other telescopes, proves that FRBs can come from magnetar bursts, thus resolving ...

From atomic clocks to secure communication to quantum computers: these developments are based on the increasingly better control of the quantum behaviour of electrons in atomic shells with the help of laser light. Now, for the first time, physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg have succeeded in precisely controlling quantum jumps in atomic nuclei using X-ray light. Compared with electron systems, nuclear quantum jumps are extreme - with energies up to millions of times higher and incredibly short zeptosecond processes. A zeptosecond is one trillionth of a billionth of a second. The rewards include profound insight into the quantum world, ultra-precise nuclear clocks, ...

Before life emerged on Earth, many physicochemical processes on our planet were highly chaotic. A plethora of small compounds, and polymers of varying lengths, made up of subunits (such as the bases found in DNA and RNA), were present in every conceivable combination. Before life-like chemical processes could emerge, the level of chaos in these systems had to be reduced. In a new study, LMU physicists led by Dieter Braun show that basic features of simple polymers, together with certain aspects of the prebiotic environment, can give rise to selection processes that reduce disorder. In previous publications, Braun's research group explored how spatial order could have developed in narrow, water-filled chambers ...

Epileptic activity originating from one or more diseased brain regions in the temporal lobe is difficult to contain. Many patients with so-called temporal lobe epilepsy often do not respond to treatment with anti-epileptic drugs, and the affected brain areas must therefore be surgically removed. Unfortunately, this procedure only gives seizure freedom to about one third of patients, so the development of alternative therapeutic approaches is of great importance. Scientists led by neurobiologist Prof. Dr. Carola Haas, head of the research group at the Department of Neurosurgery at Medical Center - University of ...

The major direct and indirect effects of covid-19 have forced the authorities to implement policies that strike a balance between minimizing the immediate health impact of the pandemic and containing the long-term damage to society arising from protective policies. One parameter that is crucial for calculating how restrictive policies might be warranted is the mortality impact of covid-19, which has led to large-scale international collaborations in order to collect data that records deaths attributable to the pandemic. Despite the limitations, each of these research avenues and associated health measures (infection rate, deaths and excess deaths) is important in order to inform the public and policymakers about the mortality impact of covid-19. "Our results confirm that the mortality ...

When can tuberculosis therapy be stopped without risk of relapse? Doctors are faced with this question time and again, because the lack of detection of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis is no guarantee for a permanent cure of the lung infection. Patients who respond to the standard therapy may be out of treatment after six months. But for resistant cases, more than 18 months of treatment duration is currently advised. "This is a very long time for those affected, who often have to take more than four antibiotics every day and suffer from side effects", explains Prof. Dr. Christoph Lange, Clinical Director at the Research Center Borstel and director of the study, conducted at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) in cooperation with the German Center for ...

A group of researchers has developed a new program showing participation and activity is critical for the rehabilitation of older adults in long-term care. The results of their research were published in the journal PLOS ONE on February 12, 2021. "Our study shows participatory programs that encourage elderly patients to be active need greater emphasis in elderly care centers," said Yoshihiko Baba, lead author of the study. In 2015, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan launched a comprehensive plan to care for the country's aging population. Crucial to this was rehabilitation centered on promoting activities that elderly patients could actively take part in. Baba, a former ...

Although amber looks like a somewhat unusual inorganic mineral, it is actually derived from an organic source - tree resins. Millions of years ago, when this aromatic and sticky substance was slowly oozing from coniferous trees, insects and other biological material could become trapped in it. That is why some samples of amber contain fossilized specimens, preserved in a virtually pristine state, which afford fascinating snapshots of the flora and fauna of long-gone forests. Now, a research team led by LMU zoologists Viktor Baranov and Joachim Haug has made exciting ...