Neuropathy is a type of chronic pain triggered by nerve injury or certain diseases. It affects millions of people worldwide, significantly deteriorating their quality of life. Neuropathy, for example, might emerge from hurting the sciatic nerve on the lower back or the spinal cord, in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes or after chemotherapy drugs. Current therapies attempt to suppress the symptoms with pain medications like opioids, but their efficacy is low, and they carry undesirable side effects. A group led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and University of Alabama at Birmingham took on the challenge of investigating the process ...

Storing data in DNA sounds like science fiction, yet it lies in the near future. Professor Tom de Greef expects the first DNA data center to be up and running within five to ten years. Data won’t be stored as zeros and ones in a hard drive but in the base pairs that make up DNA: AT and CG. Such a data center would take the form of a lab, many times smaller than the ones today. De Greef can already picture it all. In one part of the building, new files will be encoded via DNA synthesis. Another part will contain large fields of capsules, each capsule packed with a file. A robotic arm will remove a capsule, read its contents and place it back. We’re talking about synthetic ...

Today's computers are based on microprocessors that execute so-called gates. A gate can, for example, be an AND operation, i.e. an operation that adds two bits. These gates, and thus computers, are irreversible. That is, algorithms cannot simply run backwards. “If you take the multiplication 2*2=4, you cannot simply run this operation in reverse, because 4 could be 2*2, but likewise 1*4 or 4*1,” explains Wolfgang Lechner, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Innsbruck. If this were possible, however, it would be feasible ...

New University of Virginia School of Medicine insights into how the brain responds to seizures could facilitate the development of much-needed treatments for the third of patients who don’t respond to existing options. The research, from the labs of UVA’s Ukpong B. Eyo, PhD, and Edward Perez-Reyes, PhD, suggests that immune cells called microglia play important, beneficial roles in controlling various types of seizures. Prior research had left scientists uncertain whether these cells were helpful or harmful during the brain’s ...

Taylor & Francis is delighted to announce the results of Knowledge Unlatched (KU) 2023, with support pledged to convert over 50 book titles to open access (OA). Titles to benefit from this support cover a broad range of humanities and social science disciplines as well as key topic areas, including climate change, global health, and gender studies. Under the KU crowdfunding model, research libraries around the world unite to support the publication costs of new eBooks and enable access for all to important new research. Since 2016, when Taylor & Francis’ partnership with Knowledge Unlatched began, over 100 books have been published OA at no cost ...

Obesity is a known risk factor for colorectal cancer. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have now shown that this association has probably been significantly underestimated so far. The reason: many people unintentionally lose weight in the years before a colorectal cancer diagnosis. If studies only consider body weight at the time of diagnosis, this obscures the actual relationship between obesity and colorectal cancer risk. In addition, the current study shows that unintentional weight loss may be an early indicator of colorectal ...

Worms might not be depressed, per se. But that doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from antidepressants. In a new study, Northwestern University researchers exposed roundworms (a well-established model organism in biological research) to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of drugs used for treating depression and anxiety. Surprisingly, this treatment improved the quality of aging females’ egg cells. Not only did exposure to SSRIs decrease embryonic death by more than twofold, it also decreased chromosomal abnormalities in surviving offspring by more than twofold. Under the microscope, ...

Experts from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) have published new guidance to help doctors correctly diagnose hoarding disorder. Hoarding disorder affects around 2% of the population but remains a largely misunderstood mental health condition. It was only added to the International Classification of Diseases in 2019, having previously been classified under Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Published in the British Journal of General Practice, the new guidance was written by Dr Sharon Morein and Dr Sanjiv Ahluwalia of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge, England, to help health professionals spot the signs of hoarding disorder and intervene. ARU experts have also organised a free ...

As people get older, they aspire to live healthy lives as free as possible from the natural decline of cognitive abilities that occurs with aging. At Baylor College of Medicine, researchers have been studying the biological underpinnings of age-associated cognitive decline and developing nutritional strategies to promote healthy brain aging. They report today in the journal Antioxidants that supplementing GlyNAC – a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine as precursors of the natural antioxidant glutathione – improved or reversed age-associated cognitive decline in old mice and improved ...

Three New York University faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Moses Chao, a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Glennys Farrar, a professor in NYU’s Department of Physics; and Subhash Khot, a professor in NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. This year’s election of 120 new members and 23 international members were chosen “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research,” the academy announced.  Moses Chau, a professor of cell biology, psychiatry, and neuroscience and physiology and part of ...

(WASHINGTON, May 4, 2023) – Numerous studies have shown that people from racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented in clinical trials of new medical treatments for multiple myeloma. A study published today in Blood suggests that, for clinical trials of new treatments for multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer), one reason for this underrepresentation may be that the parameters set to determine who can – and cannot – enroll in trials disproportionately exclude minority patients.  “Our ...

PHILADELPHIA — (MAY 4, 2023) — The p53 gene is one of the most important in the human genome: the only role of the p53 protein that this gene encodes is to sense when a tumor is forming and to kill it. While the gene was discovered more than four decades ago, researchers have so far been unsuccessful at determining exactly how it works. Now, in a recent study published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers at The Wistar Institute have uncovered a key mechanism ...

A pilot project for energy self-sufficient schools is now starting in the County of Friesland, Northern Germany, in which school buildings will be equipped with vertical-axis wind turbines. This will be facilitated by a research group led by Professor Uygun from Constructor University. This group is studying and developing vertical wind turbines, which will be produced in its own 3D printer on the campus in Bremen and will be tested in practice within this project. This creates a fully functional test field that provides important data and experience for technology transfer. In the current energy ...

Monash University researchers have discovered a key mechanism in the body’s immune system that helps control the inflammatory response to infection. The discovery could help pave the way for more targeted therapies in a range of inflammatory conditions, such as autoimmunity and neuroinflammatory disease. The innate immune system is the body’s first line of defence against pathogens. Innate immune proteins detect foreign bodies such as bacteria and viruses and respond by mounting a protective inflammatory ...

There’s no question that watermelon is both delicious and nutritious, but new research underscores this nutrient-rich fruit’s contributions to overall diet quality and heart health. A recent study published in Nutrients suggests that watermelon can increase nutrient intake and overall diet quality in both children and adults.1 The study analyzed National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data and found that total diet quality was higher in watermelon consumers as compared to non-consumers. ...

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [May 4, 2023] —The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has announced the 2023 recipients of awards honoring individuals who made a remarkable difference in improving the lives of people with cancer over the past year. 2023 NCCN Award Recipients: Theresa J. Franco, MSN, RN, Vice President, Cancer Clinical Operations, Nebraska Medicine NCCN Board of Producers Award recipient for exemplary service of NCCN’s mission F. Marc Stewart, MD, Professor, Vice Chair, Department of Hematology and ...

DALLAS, May 4, 2023 — A recent study revealed that, in the United States, Black and Latinx entrepreneurs receive only 2.6% of venture capital investment. [1]  The American Heart Association®, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on longer, healthier lives for all, has opened the application window for submissions to the EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator™. The Accelerator program has been established to support local communities, small businesses, social entrepreneurs and innovators who are working to increase health equity and create groundbreaking social change at the zip code level. Now in its seventh year, the Business ...

In Florida alone, thousands of acres of marine seagrass beds have died. Major seagrass die-offs also are occurring around the world. Stressors such as high temperature, hypersalinity and hypoxia or lack of oxygen affect seagrasses’ ability to resist and recover from these stressor-related mortality events or when disturbances lead to seagrass die-off events. Seagrass die-offs also are linked to exposure to sediment-derived hydrogen sulfide, a well-known phytotoxin that accumulates as seagrass ecosystems become more enriched in nutrients. While hydrogen sulfide intrusion into seagrass tissue is considered a leading cause of recurring mortality ...

In 2019, scientists in the joint School of Engineering and School of Life Sciences Laboratory of Protein Design and Immunoengineering (LPDI) led by Bruno Correia developed MaSIF: a machine learning-driven method for scanning millions of protein surfaces within minutes to analyze their structure and functional properties. The researchers’ ultimate goal was to computationally design protein interactions by finding optimal matches between molecules based on their surface chemical and geometric ‘fingerprints’. Four years later, they have achieved ...

Genome editing is used to modify the genes of living organisms to elicit certain traits, such as climate-resilient crops or treating human disease at the genetic level. It has become increasingly popular in agriculture, medicine and basic science research over the past decade, and will continue to be relevant and utilized well into the future. Given this prevalence, researchers at the University of California San Diego have started an outreach program that introduces genome-editing technologies to high school students. Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Alexis Komor, and Ph.D. candidates Mallory ...

DALLAS, May 4, 2023 — Teams of research scientists from three universities will lead an innovative $15 million project to study the biological mechanisms of chronic stress that can increase cardiovascular disease risk. The Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) on Biologic Pathways of Chronic Psychosocial Stressors on Cardiovascular Health of the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization dedicated to a world of longer, healthier lives, will focus on learning more about how the body responds to chronic stress, as well as how certain interventions may help reduce health risks. Chronic stress is recognized as an independent ...

The study led by Professor Julie Henry from UQ’s School of Psychology looked at why self-directed ageism is common. Cognitive changes make it difficult for older people to challenge internalised ageist beliefs. Image: Adobe. “Older people are regularly exposed to ageism such as negative assumptions about their worth, capacity or level of understanding, as well as jokes about older age,” Professor Henry said. “At the same time, as we grow older, we rely more strongly on prior knowledge and cues from our environment to guide how we feel, think and ...

Every year 18 million people die from cardiovascular disease. Making it the deadliest disease in the world. Currently studies focus mainly on the heart, leaving the influence of vascular disease on these large numbers of deaths often out of sight. Despite vascular disorders being a trustworthy indicator for death from heart disease.  VASCUL-AID, a large European study led by Amsterdam UMC, will therefore focus on using AI to predict the worsening of vascular disease in people with an aortic aneurysm or peripheral ...

Similar to humans, chimpanzees combine vocalizations into larger communicatively meaningful structures. UZH researchers suggest that this ability might be evolutionarily more ancient than previously thought. A key feature of human language is our ability to combine words into larger compositional phrases i.e. where the meaning of the whole is related to the meaning of the parts. Where this ability came from or how it evolved, however, is less clear. Chimpanzees, our closest-living relative, are known to produce a number of different vocalizations to manage their ...

Research Highlights: Using ultrasound guidance, researchers successfully repaired a potentially deadly vascular malformation, called vein of Galen malformation, deep in the brain of a fetus before birth. The malformation, which has massively high blood flow, often leads to heart failure, severe brain injury or possibly death soon after birth. The first in-utero embolization repair was successfully performed on a fetus at 34 weeks and 2 days gestational age. Fetal ultrasound showed an immediate drop in abnormal blood flow through the ...