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Science3 May 2023

Traces from the past

Artefacts made of stone, bones or teeth provide important insights into the subsistence strategies of early humans, their behavior and culture. However, until now it has been difficult to attribute these artefacts to specific individuals, since burials and grave goods were very rare in the Palaeolithic. This has limited the possibilities of drawing conclusions about, for example, division of labor or the social roles of individuals during this period. In order to directly link cultural objects to specific individuals and thus gain deeper insights into Paleolithic ...

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Science3 May 2023

New tusk-analysis techniques reveal surging testosterone in male woolly mammoths

Graphics // Video Traces of sex hormones extracted from a woolly mammoth's tusk provide the first direct evidence that adult males experienced musth, a testosterone-driven episode of heightened aggression against rival males, according to a new University of Michigan-led study. In male elephants, elevated testosterone during musth was previously recognized from blood and urine tests. Musth battles in extinct relatives of modern elephants have been inferred from skeletal injuries, broken tusk tips and other indirect lines of evidence. But the new study, scheduled ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

Evaluation of Waning of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Induced Immunity

About The Study: The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis of secondary data from 40 studies suggest that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against laboratory-confirmed Omicron or Delta infection and symptomatic disease rapidly wanes over time after the primary vaccination cycle and booster dose. These results can inform the design of appropriate targets and timing for future vaccination programs. Authors: Piero Poletti, Ph.D., of the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

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Science3 May 2023

Researchers capture elusive missing step in the final act of photosynthesis

Menlo Park, Calif. – Photosynthesis plays a crucial role in shaping and sustaining life on Earth, yet many aspects of the process remain a mystery. One such mystery is how Photosystem II, a protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, harvests energy from sunlight and uses it to split water, producing the oxygen we breathe. Now researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, together with collaborators from Uppsala University and Humboldt University and other institutions have succeeded in cracking a key secret of Photosystem II. Using SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

Association between depression and physical conditions requiring hospitalization

About The Study: In this study that included 240,000 individuals, the most common causes of hospitalization in people with depression were endocrine, musculoskeletal, and vascular diseases, not psychiatric disorders. These findings suggest that depression should be considered as a target for the prevention of physical and mental disease. Authors: Philipp Frank, Ph.D., of University College London, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.0777) Editor’s ...

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Space3 May 2023

Astronomers witness star devouring planet: possible preview of the ultimate fate of Earth

By studying countless stars at various stages of their evolution, astronomers have been able to piece together an understanding of the life cycle of stars and how they interact with their surrounding planetary systems as they age. This research confirms that when a Sun-like star nears the end of its life, it expands anywhere from 100 to 1000 times its original size, eventually engulfing the system’s inner planets. Such events are estimated to occur only a few times each year across the entire Milky Way. Though past observations have confirmed the aftermath of planetary engulfments [1], ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

Discovery suggests route to safer pain medications

Strategies to treat pain without triggering dangerous side effects such as euphoria and addiction have proven elusive. For decades, scientists have attempted to develop drugs that selectively activate one type of opioid receptor to treat pain while not activating another type of opioid receptor linked to addiction. Unfortunately, those compounds can cause a different unwanted effect: hallucinations. But a new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified a potential route ...

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Science3 May 2023

XFELs show the final milliseconds of oxygen formation

For the first time, scientists have been able to see the crucial final step in the reaction cycle of Photosystem II, during which oxygen is formed. Using serial femtosecond crystallography performed with the XFEL technique, they have managed to obtain more information on the interaction between Photosystem II and the Mn/Ca cluster. This has been shown in a new study by Uppsala University, published in the journal Nature. The oxygen we breathe is produced by plants, algae and cyanobacteria, which use the energy of sunlight for powering the formation of oxygen. This is done by the Photosystem II enzyme, ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

To boost cancer immunotherapy’s fighting power, look to the gut

Cancer immunotherapy has transformed the treatment of many types of cancer. Yet, for reasons that remain poorly understood, not all patients get the same benefit from these powerful therapies. One potent factor in treatment outcome appears to be an individual’s gut microbiota — the trillions of microorganisms that live in the human intestine — according to new research led by investigators at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The study, done in mice and published May 3 in Nature, pinpoints how gut microbes enhance the body’s response to a common type of immunotherapy known as PD-1 checkpoint ...

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Social Science3 May 2023

Minoan eruption survey improves volcanic risk assessments

Volcanic eruptions are spectacular, violent and dangerous. Large explosive eruptions can even have global impacts. To classify the size of volcanic eruptions, the magma volume and the deposition volume are determined. Volcanologists estimate these values in order to compare the size of different volcanic eruptions or to obtain a measure of the explosiveness of the eruption. However, it is often not possible to determine the values accurately. This makes it difficult to infer the actual volume of magma and to measure the complete extent of such eruptions. In particular, because the deposits of the most violent historical eruptions are partially or completely under water, which makes geological ...

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Environment3 May 2023

Indo-Pacific corals more resilient to climate change than Atlantic corals

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the face of global warming and other environmental changes, corals in the Atlantic Ocean have declined precipitously in recent years, while corals in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are faring better. By describing several species of symbiotic algae that these corals need to grow, an international team led by Penn State has found that these mutualistic relationships from the Indo-Pacific may be more flexible and ultimately resilient to higher ocean temperatures than those in the Atlantic. Coral reefs are vast geological structures made of calcium carbonate produced by coral animals whose colonies possess dense populations ...

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Science3 May 2023

More woodlands will not impact tourism

Hiking, cycling, climbing and boating. When we take time off from work or school, we like to go out into nature. The landscape in other words play an important role for our vacations. To promote biodiversity and carbon sequestration there is a focus on planting more trees, especially in upland areas such as Howgill Fells. The Howgill Fells is located in the north-west of England and is known for its soft, rolling and open landscape. It is a popular area for tourists seeking the outdoors and hill-walking in particular. But how ...

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Environment3 May 2023

Used coffee pods can be recycled to produce filaments for 3D printing

An article published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering brings good news for coffee buffs: the plastic in used coffee pods can be recycled to make filament for 3D printers, minimizing its environmental impact. The solution was successfully tested by research groups in Brazil at the Federal University of São Carlos (USFCar) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), and in the United Kingdom at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). “We produced new conductive and non-conductive filaments from waste polylactic acid [PLA] from used coffee machine ...

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Science3 May 2023

American Stroke Association names 2023 Stroke Heroes

DALLAS, May 3, 2023 — Six local stroke heroes from across the country are being recognized by the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, for their resiliency and dedication to rise up against stroke. Approximately 800,000 Americans have a stroke each year,[1] a leading cause of disability in the U.S., and one in four survivors will have another one. The American Stroke Association’s annual Stroke Hero Awards honors stroke survivors, health care professionals and family caregivers. The ...

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Energy3 May 2023

SwRI designs safer, more effective hydrogen injector for gas turbines

SAN ANTONIO — May 3, 2023 —Southwest Research Institute is designing innovative hydrogen combustion systems for gas turbines used in power generation. The designs prevent flashback, a common concern in hydrogen-fueled combustion systems wherein the flame from the combustor travels into the nozzle, which can result in damaged equipment. Hydrogen fuel has numerous benefits including the fact that it produces no carbon emissions during the combustion process. However, one of the things that is especially challenging is that it’s highly reactive, which makes it more difficult to work with than natural gas or the liquid fuels ...

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Technology3 May 2023

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology researchers enhance thermoelectricity with guided impurity position control

Thermoelectric materials, substances that convert temperature difference into electricity, find a multitude of applications involving the conversion of waste heat into useful electrical energy. However, they often need to rely on heavy rare earth elements for efficient thermoelectric conversion. This, unfortunately, makes them expensive and environmentally hazardous. In recent years, conjugated polymer-based material has received attention as an environmentally benign alternative to the conventional rare earth metal-based thermoelectric materials. Owing to their high ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

High-throughput experiments might ensure a better diagnosis of hereditary diseases

Researchers at the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, have now contributed to solving this problem for a specific gene called GCK. The study has just been published in Genome Biology. Figure: GCK gene Rasmus Hartmann-Petersen, Professor at the Department of Biology, explains: - “The GCK gene, which codes for the enzyme glucokinase, regulates the secretion of insulin in the pancreas. GCK gene variants can therefore cause a form of hereditary diabetes. ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

Study finds fluorescent guide can help detect tumor left behind after breast cancer surgery

A new technique designed to allow surgeons to identify and remove residual tumor tissue during breast-conserving surgery showed promising results in a multi-center trial led by investigators from the Mass General Cancer Center, a member of Mass General Brigham. The clinical trial, which was funded in part by Lumicell, Inc., evaluated Lumicell’s investigational optical imaging agent pegulicianine in fluorescence-guided surgery (pFGS). In pFGS, pegulicianine is activated to a fluorescent form at sites of residual tumor, allowing surgeons to identify tumor remaining in the surgical site during breast cancer surgery. Investigators found that ...

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Science3 May 2023

Eric and Wendy Schmidt announce the 2023 Schmidt Science Fellows

New York, NY, 3 May 2023 - Today, Eric and Wendy Schmidt announced the members of the 2023 cohort of Schmidt Science Fellows. The 32 exceptional early career scientists will receive support to develop research projects and the leadership skills necessary to harness interdisciplinary science to tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems. Schmidt Science Fellows is the inaugural program of Schmidt Futures, the philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt with a mission to find and connect talented people to solve our world’s hardest ...

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Science3 May 2023

How to protect consumers from deceptive comparison pricing

Researchers from Duke University, University of Notre Dame, and Microsoft published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines using “true normal prices” during a sale as a way to reduce deceptive pricing tricks. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Competition and the Regulation of Fictitious Pricing” and is authored by Richard Staelin, Joel E. Urbany, and Donald Ngwe. Does competition make firms more honest? Over 50 years ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) assumed the answer was yes when it stopped enforcing ...

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Space3 May 2023

Astronomers find distant gas clouds with leftovers of the first stars

Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), researchers have found for the first time the fingerprints left by the explosion of the first stars in the Universe. They detected three distant gas clouds whose chemical composition matches what we expect from the first stellar explosions. These findings bring us one step closer to understanding the nature of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang. “For the first time ever, we were able to identify the chemical traces of the explosions of the first stars in very distant ...

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Science3 May 2023

Sleep phase can reduce anxiety in people with PTSD

A new study shows that sleep spindles, brief bursts of brain activity occurring during one phase of sleep and captured by EEG, may regulate anxiety in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study shines a light on the role of spindles in alleviating anxiety in PTSD as well as confirms their established role in the transfer of new information to longer-term memory storage. The findings challenge recent work by other researchers that has indicated spindles may heighten intrusive and violent thoughts in people with PTSD. The final draft of the preprint publishes in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging on ...

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Medicine3 May 2023

New investigators join Stowers Institute for Medical Research

KANSAS CITY, MO—May 3, 2023—The Stowers Institute for Medical Research announced the hiring of three principal investigators to further expand its team of scientists who seek to answer life’s biggest mysteries through foundational research. Siva Sankari, Ph.D., from Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Neşet Özel, Ph.D., from New York University, and Ameya Mashruwala, Ph.D., from Princeton University, will join the Institute’s current team of 17 principal investigators and staff of 500. The addition of these scientists ...

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Physics3 May 2023

The biophysicist names Padmini Rangamani as new Editor-in-Chief

ROCKVILLE, MD – The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce that Padmini Rangamani of the University of California, San Diego has been named as the new Editor-in-Chief of the The Biophysicsist, the Society’s open access education journal. The journal was developed under the leadership and vision of founding and current Editor-in-Chief, Sam Safran of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, to highlight and nurture biophysics education and its scholarship and development. “Now, more than ever, is the time for an education journal such as The Biophysicist to steer the ...

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Science3 May 2023

Gender gap found in research grant award amounts, re-applications

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Women researchers received substantially less funding in grant awards than men—an average of about $342,000 compared to men’s $659,000, according to a large meta-analysis of studies on the topic. Women were also less likely to receive second grants to continue their research. In first-time grant applications, proportional numbers of women and men scientists were approved for funding, but for re-applications, 9% fewer women who applied were approved than their male ...

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