A rapid, at-home test that can diagnose acute Lyme disease? That is the goal for researcher Brandon Jutras and his team at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Sciences Institute.  Through the support of a recent $1.2 million multiyear therapeutic/diagnostic research tick-borne disease grant awarded by the Department of Defense, Jutras' vision may one day become a reality. This research award aims to improve patient care and quality of life for military service members, veterans, and their beneficiaries as well as the American public living with Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases. “Current ...

The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high-profile police killings perpetuates a violent “war on cops.” In a new study, researchers assessed if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United States were influenced by the police murder of Floyd. The study found that Floyd’s murder was associated with a three-week spike in firearm assaults on police, after which the trend in such assaults dropped to levels slightly above those predicted by pre-Floyd ...

WASHINGTON — The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting rapidly, raising concerns it could cross a tipping point of irreversible retreat in the next few decades if global temperatures rise 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. New research finds that 6,000 years ago, the grounded edge of the ice sheet may have been as far as 250 kilometers (160 miles) inland from its current location, suggesting the ice retreated deep into the continent after the end of the last ice age and re-advanced before modern retreat began. “In the last few thousand years before we started watching, ...

Young women who experience a heart attack have more adverse outcomes and are more likely to end up back in the hospital compared to men of a similar age in the year following discharge. According to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, second heart attack and chest pain due to the heart are the most common causes of rehospitalization, but non-cardiac hospitalizations showed the most significant disparity. “This all begins with public awareness towards preventing heart attacks and screening ...

Women aged 55 years and younger have nearly double the risk of rehospitalization in the year immediately after a heart attack compared to men of similar age, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. Higher rates of risk factors such as obesity, heart failure, and depression among women most likely contributed to the disparity.   The findings suggest a need for closer health monitoring of the approximately 40,000 American women aged 18 to 55 years who have heart attacks each year following hospital discharge, and a better understanding of the reasons behind ...

The infrastructure that brings drinking water to homes is an investment. For millions of people, forests are part of the system behind their faucets. Over the coming decades, many forested watersheds could be lost to development, lowering water quality and raising water treatment costs, according to a new study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The research team focused on the forest-water connection in the southern U.S., a complex, heterogeneous region and, unfortunately, an ideal place for studying forest loss and worsening water quality. ...

Epilepsy affects approximately 1-in-26 people and the most common form, known as temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), often cannot be adequately treated with anti-seizure medications. Patients with this form of epilepsy may require neurosurgery to provide relief from seizures. The condition’s origins and progression are not well understood, and it has been unclear if genetic mutations may contribute to TLE. A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham, in collaboration with colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital, sheds new light on the role of somatic mutations in TLE — DNA alterations that occur after conception — and suggests the potential ...

May 1, 2023, Mountain View, CA – One of the world’s most powerful radio telescope arrays is joining the hunt for signals from other galactic civilizations. The National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), situated about 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico, is collecting data that scientists will analyze for the type of emissions that only artificial transmitters make, signals that would betray the existence of a technically accomplished society. “The VLA is the ...

Cancer is a disease of ripples – from symptoms that precede a diagnosis to treatment, side effects, and goals for long-term survival. It can impact every facet of life, for the person who receives the diagnosis as well as the person who is their caregiver. For caregivers, the economic impacts of cancer can be particularly acute, not just because cancer is an expensive disease, but because their ability to work may be significantly impacted. Building on an extensive foundation of previous research studying employment and outcomes related to cancer, newly published ...

Fish aren’t impacted by borders, and neither are the subsidized fishing fleets that follow them. A recent UBC study quantified the number of harmful fisheries subsidies that support fishing in the high seas, domestic and foreign waters and found that between 20 and 37 per cent of these subsidies supported fishing in waters outside the jurisdictions of their home nation; these subsidies also primarily originated from developed nations yet disproportionately impacted developing countries, leading to environmental and societal impacts all around the globe. “Harmful subsidies often lead to a fishing fleet being able to go out fishing even if ...

In the United States, almost 74% of adults age 20 and older have overweight or obesity, and of that number almost 42% have obesity. Not only are overweight and obesity complex and serious diseases, but clinicians and researchers are continuing to learn how they can impact health outcomes – from heart and musculoskeletal health to risk for disease, including cancer. New research published in the journal SURGERY shows that obesity is also associated with increased risk of complications following surgery, including ...

A longstanding approach to surgeries for children with kidney tumors has been an abundance of caution. While a growing body of evidence demonstrates that children who have extended lymph node sampling during surgery experience better outcomes, some have questioned whether removing more lymph nodes as part of the cancer staging is worth the risk of side effects such as lymphatic fluid leakage into the abdomen. However, recently published research shows that pediatric patients who receive more extended lymph node sampling during surgery for Wilms tumor, and other types of pediatric renal tumors, do not experience any more ...

“Here, we report a chronic wound healing model that can be used to decipher the paradoxical role of cellular senescence in acute versus chronic wound healing.” BUFFALO, NY- May 1, 2023 – A new research paper was published on the cover of Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 8, entitled, “A chronic wound model to investigate skin cellular senescence.” Wound healing is an essential physiological process for restoring normal skin structure and ...

Whenever SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s linear accelerator is on, packs of around a billion electrons each travel together at nearly the speed of light through metal piping. These electron bunches form the accelerator’s particle beam, which is used to study the atomic behavior of molecules, novel materials and many other subjects. But trying to estimate what a particle beam actually looks like as it travels through an accelerator is difficult, leaving scientists often with only a rough approximation of how a beam will behave during an experiment. Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC, the DOE’s Argonne National ...

Internet search trends may immediately capture how society seeks information related to reproductive health care, according to new research from Indiana University researchers. The study, published today in JAMA Health Forum, analyzed internet searches for abortion- and contraception-related terms following the June 24, 2022, ruling by the United States Supreme Court on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Researchers found that searches increased much more in states where reproductive health care access was more likely to be immediately restricted following the decision. “It is still fairly early to see what will be the actual changes in reproductive ...

Politicians who are the parents of daughters provide researchers with a “natural experiment” to test how personal circumstances influence legislators’ roll call votes. Research published in 2008, by author Ebonya Washington, showed that members of the U.S. House of Representatives with daughters cast more liberal votes on women’s issues during the period between 1997 and 2005. But another study published in 2019 by researchers Mia Costa et al., covering the period between 2007 and 2017, did not ...

Myeong Lee, Assistant Professor, Information Sciences and Technology, is leading a study to help people with disabilities and their families in Virginia access information about disability services more easily.  The 2022 Information Access Assessment report by the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities (VBPD) revealed that many people with disabilities and their families struggle to find the necessary information about disability services, even when they actively seek help from service agencies. ...

A new study on herpes infections of the eye from University of Illinois Chicago researchers helps shed light on the question of viral reinfections by identifying a key protein involved in viral reinfections that could be targeted by antiviral drugs. The UIC team examined how the heparanase protein, which is present in all our cells, affects reinfection from the herpes simplex virus type 1 in mice. They found that inhibiting heparanase activity can protect the eyes from being reinfected. Mice that had their heparanase protein blocked ...

Drilling will start on the West Virginia University geothermal and carbon capture data-collection well during the second week of May, marking a significant step forward in clean energy research in West Virginia. This will be the first-of-its-kind geothermal study in West Virginia and will collect core samples and temperature data down to a depth of 15,000 feet, critical to testing the potential of geothermal energy in the region. Data also will be gathered on the potential for underground carbon storage in the Appalachian basin — another scientific first in the state. The project is ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- While the coronavirus continues to infect people around the world, researchers at the University of Missouri have identified a specific protein inside the human body that plays a critical role in how the virus spreads from cell to cell after infection — a discovery that will help better understand the COVID-19 disease and could lead to the development of new antiviral drugs in the future. The finding provides new insight into how the protein, known as the occludin protein, serves as a mediator for cell-to-cell transmission ...

ATLANTA – ACR Convergence 2023, the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the world’s premier rheumatology experience, will be held Nov. 10 – 15 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA. This year’s meeting includes the return of an in-person poster hall, five in-person networking lounges, CME for select plenary sessions, and an extra half day of scientific sessions. “We are looking forward to a great meeting this fall in beautiful San Diego! This year, we will showcase a greater number and diversity of sessions with our return to the original meeting length,” ...

Photos The first statistically realistic roadway simulation has been developed by researchers at the University of Michigan. While it currently represents a particularly perilous roundabout, future work will expand it to include other driving situations for testing autonomous vehicle software.   The simulation is a machine-learning model that trained on data collected at a roundabout on the south side of Ann Arbor, recognized as one of the most crash-prone intersections in the state of Michigan and conveniently just a few miles from the offices of the research team.    Known as the Neural Naturalistic Driving Environment or NeuralNDE, it turned that data into a simulation ...

About The Study: This systematic review and meta-analysis of 53 longitudinal studies including more than 40,000 children and adolescents across 12 countries found an increase in depression symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among female individuals and those from relatively higher-income backgrounds. Anxiety symptoms increased slightly during the pandemic. These findings can inform policy and public health responses to address mental health concerns.  Authors: Sheri Madigan, Ph.D., of the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada, is the ...

About The Study: The results of this study of 1,300 participants suggest that increased physical activity was associated with functional recovery 6 months after stroke. Interventions targeting individuals with decreasing physical activity in the subacute phase of stroke may play a role in improved functional outcomes. Authors: Dongni Buvarp, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden, 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.2023.10919) Editor’s ...

A new artificial intelligence system called a semantic decoder can translate a person’s brain activity — while listening to a story or silently imagining telling a story — into a continuous stream of text. The system developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin might help people who are mentally conscious yet unable to physically speak, such as those debilitated by strokes, to communicate intelligibly again. The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, was led by Jerry Tang, a doctoral student in computer science, and Alex Huth, an assistant professor of neuroscience and computer science at UT Austin. The work relies in part on a transformer ...