Machine learning is a powerful tool in computational biology, enabling the analysis of a wide range of biomedical data such as genomic sequences and biological imaging. But when researchers use machine learning in computational biology, understanding model behavior remains crucial for uncovering the underlying biological mechanisms in health and disease. In a recent article in Nature Methods, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science propose guidelines that outline pitfalls and opportunities for using interpretable ...

On October 22 and 23, the sixth Japan SciCom Forum Conference (JSF 2024) will be held at Kyushu University's Ito Campus. Fukuoka will become the third city, following Tokyo and Okinawa, to welcome specialists in science communication from Japan and around the world. JSF 2024 will bring together a diverse group of science communicators, writers, researchers, and journalists, along with experts from overseas. The conference is open to anyone involved in sharing research findings internationally, as well as those interested in science communication, public outreach, and engagement. This year's JSF will explore a wide range of topics, including ...

 In Brazil, a study compared two systems of organic product certification implemented in São Paulo state. One system involves conventional certification by auditors accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (INMETRO). The other is peer-to-peer certification. The study, reported in an article published in the journal Organic Agriculture, suggests that peer-to-peer certification adds the virtue of agrobiodiversity to organic farming in light of the significantly larger number of products offered by farms with this type of certification. “This ...

Republicans who believe Donald Trump won the 2020 election are anticipating a much more chaotic election cycle this year than other GOP, Democratic, and independent voters, according to new polling data from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Among Republican respondents who believe President Joe Biden did not lawfully win the 2020 election, about 31% think that either “a lot” or “a great deal” of political violence will occur after the 2024 election—compared to 24% of Democratic voters, 21% of independents and just 12% of GOP voters who acknowledge Biden’s victory four years ago, the poll found.  In ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Everyone has moments of forgetfulness from time to time, especially as we get older. But older adults don’t just have difficulty remembering new information. They also have a harder time modifying those memories when new details emerge. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms behind memory updating and how those mechanisms go awry with age. A team of researchers from Penn State has identified an enzyme that contributes to age-related impairments in memory updating. When blocked, older mice were better able to incorporate new information and performed similarly ...

New research shows how the chief resident position in academic internal medicine residency programs has evolved over the past 20 years, revealing how the position has changed, the types of careers these individuals pursue, and improvement in gender representation.   These findings, published this summer by the American Journal of Medicine, stem from a 20-year multicenter study that involved the University of Colorado Internal Medicine Residency Program. CU Department of Medicine faculty member William Turbyfill, MD, was among the study’s site investigators.   Turbyfill, who practices in the Veterans Affairs ...

White River Junction, VT – Recently published findings from the VA Disrupted Care National Project (DCNP) revealed the number of vascular surgeries performed across the United States continued to decline even after large drops during the COVID-19 pandemic.   A multi-institutional team of researchers, led by the White River Junction VA Medical Center, analyzed 21,031 vascular surgeries of three common procedures from 2019 to 2023 using Medicare claim data. There was a dramatic drop of 47% at the beginning of the pandemic, but while rates of care recovered partially another ...

The potato is small enough to fit inside a person’s hand yet contains enough nutrients to whittle waistlines and lower blood sugar in adults with Type 2 diabetes. Yet, despite the fact that potatoes – particularly the skins – are packed with health-boosting nutrients, they routinely get a bad rap among dieters. That may soon change, thanks to new research by Neda Akhavan, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences within UNLV’s School of Integrated Health ...

A new study has revealed important information about how a patient’s testosterone level can help protect them from severe Covid-19. Previous research involving Swansea University investigated how sex hormones are likely to be important determinants of Covid-19 severity. Now digit ratio expert Professor John Manning, of the Applied Sports, Technology, Exercise and Medicine (A-STEM) research team, has been working with colleagues in Poland and Sweden to look more closely at the subject. He says their findings, which have just been published ...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Eating a low-fat vegan diet reduces harmful inflammatory dietary compounds called advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) by 73%, compared to no reduction on a Mediterranean diet, according to new research by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine published in Frontiers in Nutrition. The decrease in AGEs on the vegan diet was associated with an average weight loss of 13 pounds, compared with no change on the Mediterranean diet. The reduction of dietary AGEs on the low-fat vegan diet came mainly from excluding the consumption ...

August 9, 2024 — Analysis of men seen at a specialist clinic provides new insights into the classification of Peyronie's disease (PD) subtypes, according to a report in the September issue of The Journal of Urology®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "By analyzing real-world clinical data in a large group of patients, we identified four distinct subtypes of PD, and additional categorization of other causes of penile curvature," comments Landon Trost, MD, of Male Fertility and Peyronie's ...

A pivotal study has discovered a protein phosphorylation mechanism that plays a critical role in the negative regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis in tea plants (Camellia sinensis) during drought stress. This insight into the molecular response of tea plants to environmental stress could lead to the development of agricultural strategies to enhance crop resilience and quality preservation under water scarcity conditions. Drought stress poses a significant challenge to agriculture, causing substantial yield losses in many crops. Tea plants, known for their rich flavonoid content ...

The general health of forests can be estimated by the micro- and macronutrient content of tree leaves to help inform forest management decisions in the light of climate change, species loss and other variables. Traditional methods of assessing nutrient levels in forests are expensive and labor-intensive. Researchers recently analyzed the reflected spectra from tree foliage to accurately estimate the nutrients of leaves, offering a faster, larger-scale method of assessing forest health.   Field methods of collecting leaf samples ...

Recent research has uncovered significant genetic and epigenetic variations in blueberry cultivars, particularly between northern highbush (NHB) and southern highbush (SHB) blueberries. The study highlights gene introgression's role in SHB's adaptation to subtropical climates and identifies key genes, such as VcTBL44, associated with fruit firmness. These findings offer valuable insights and resources for future blueberry breeding. Blueberries, part of the Vaccinium genus, are renowned for their nutritional benefits and increasing global demand. However, cultivation faces challenges like ...

Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is a catalytic subunit of the Polycomb-repressive complex 2 (PRC2), which plays a crucial role in transcriptional repression through the methylation of histone H3 on lysine 27 (H3K27me3). This epigenetic modification leads to chromatin compaction and gene silencing. EZH2 is frequently overexpressed in a variety of cancers, including head and neck, breast, prostate, bladder, colorectal, lung, pancreatic, melanoma, and lymphoma. Mutations in the EZH2 gene are also prevalent in several hematological malignancies, such as B-lymphomas and follicular lymphomas. The dual role of EZH2 as both a tumor suppressor and oncogene depending on the cancer type ...

Recent advancements in speech emotion recognition have highlighted the significant potential of deep learning technologies across various applications. However, these deep learning models are susceptible to adversarial attacks. A team of researchers at the University of Milan systematically evaluated the impact of white-box and black-box attacks on different languages and genders within speech emotion recognition. The research was published May 27 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal. The ...

Whether Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, it’s widely recognized that classical music can affect a person’s mood. In a study published August 9 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports, scientists in China use brainwave measurements and neural imaging techniques to show how Western classical music elicits its positive effects on the brain. Their goal is to find more effective ways to use music to activate the brain in those who otherwise don’t respond, such as people with treatment-resistant depression. “Our research integrates the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, and ...

Imagine if physicians could capture three-dimensional projections of medical scans, suspending them inside an acrylic cube to create a hand-held reproduction of a patient's heart, brain, kidneys, or other organs. Then, when the visit is done, a quick blast of heat erases the projection and the cube is ready for the next scan. A new report in the journal Chem by researchers at Dartmouth and Southern Methodist University (SMU) outlines a technical breakthrough that could enable such scenarios, and others with widespread utility. The study introduces a technique that uses a specialized ...

Pregnant and postpartum women with depression and anxiety have a slightly better chance of getting psychotherapy these days, a new study finds. And they are paying less of their own money when they do. The changes in care and cost happened mainly after the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014, and to a lesser extent after the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, or MHPAEA, took effect in 2010, the analysis shows. Both laws aimed at reducing insurance-related barriers to mental health care. Even so, only about 10% of women with private insurance ...

About The Study: In this systematic review, universal free school meals were associated with increased meal participation, no or slight improvements in attendance, and decreased obesity prevalence and suspension rates; certainty of evidence was moderate for lunch participation and low or very low for other outcomes. Studies did not report several important outcomes, such as diet quality and food security, suggesting the need for more high-quality research encompassing policy-relevant indicators.  Corresponding Author: To ...

People with celiac disease must navigate everyday life by avoiding gluten, a protein in wheat, rye and barley which can trigger painful symptoms in the gut, impede the absorption of nutrients and raise the risk of other serious long-term issues. The autoimmune disorder affects about 1 per cent of the population. Its rate of occurrence has roughly doubled in the past 25 years, but there is no treatment available. An interdisciplinary  team of medical and engineering researchers centred at Canada’s McMaster University and including colleagues from the US, Australia, and Argentina, has spent the ...

The Three Gorges Region of the Yangtze River (TGR) in China has a unique geographical location, complex geomorphological features, and a fragile and sensitive climate. The Three Gorges Project, as a large-scale comprehensive water conservancy hub project in the region, has not only greatly changed the nature, society and economy of the area, but also brought great benefits and created problems, such as environmental and climatic impacts. Therefore, it is of great importance to conduct climate and environmental monitoring in the region. Recently, a team led by Chen Xianyan, a Professor at ...

In this work, we study the outdoor and indoor photovoltaic performance of LHP-based devices utilizing Spiro-OMeTAD as the hole-transport material with commonly used dopants such as lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (Li-TFSI) or without any dopants. We find out that, despite the expected low performance of devices employing undoped Spiro-OMeTAD layer under 1-Sun illumination (up to 7.7% efficiency), the devices achieve up to 25.6% efficiency under 1000 lux illumination, which is comparable to the doped counterpart devices achieving up to 29.7% efficiency. This is mainly due to the major improvement in fill factor when going towards low-light ...

A research team led by the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has constructed an unprecedented chiral-structured interface in perovskite solar cells, which enhances the reliability and power conversion efficiency of this fast-advancing solar technology and accelerates its commercialization. A perovskite solar cell (PSC) is a type of solar cell that includes perovskite-structured compound materials, which are inexpensive to produce and simple to manufacture. Unlike conventional silicon solar cells that require expensive high-temperature, high-vacuum fabrication processes, perovskites can ...

Boulder, Colo., USA: The Geological Society of America (GSA) is proud to announce the recipients of the 2024 GSA Awards, recognizing outstanding contributions to the geoscience community. Each awardee has demonstrated exceptional dedication, innovation, and impact in their respective fields. GSA President’s Medal Kathy Jefferson Bancroftis, a Paiute-Shoshone community leader and environmental protector, is honored for her advocacy and education on water misuse and environmental degradation in the Owens Valley, ...