Just over a century has passed since the discovery of insulin, a time period during which the therapeutic powers of the hormone have broadened and refined. Insulin is an essential treatment for type 1 diabetes and often for type 2 diabetes, as well. Roughly 8.4 million Americans use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association.  One hundred years of research have greatly advanced medical and biochemical understanding of how insulin works and what happens when it is lacking, but the reverse, how potentially fatal insulin hyper-responsiveness is prevented, has remained a persistent mystery. In a new study, published in the April 20, 2023  online edition ...

Tokyo, Japan – Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have successfully engineered multi-layered nanostructures of transition metal dichalcogenides which meet in-plane to form junctions. They grew out layers of multi-layered structures of molybdenum disulfide from the edge of niobium doped molybdenum disulfide shards, creating a thick, bonded, planar heterostructure. They demonstrated that these may be used to make new tunnel field-effect transistors (TFET), components in integrated circuits with ultra-low power consumption. Field-effect transistors ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Chronic alcohol consumption may make people more sensitive to pain through two different molecular mechanisms—one driven by alcohol intake and one by alcohol withdrawal. That is one new conclusion by scientists at Scripps Research on the complex links between alcohol and pain. The research, published in the British Journal of Pharmacology on April 12, 2023, also suggests potential new drug targets for treating alcohol-associated chronic pain and hypersensitivity. “There is an urgent need to better ...

The orientations of these infinitesimally small separations between individual “grains” of a polycrystalline material have big effects. In a material such as aluminum, these collections of grains (called microstructures) determine properties such as hardness.  New research is helping scientists better understand how microstructures change, or undergo “grain growth,” at high temperatures. A team of materials scientists and applied mathematicians developed a mathematical model that more accurately describes such microstructures by integrating data that can be identified from highly magnified ...

WINSTON-SALEM, NC, April 21, 2023 – Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) scientists have created a promising injectable cell therapy to treat osteoarthritis that both reduces inflammation and also regenerates articular cartilage. Recently identified by the Food and Drug Administration as a public health crisis, osteoarthritis affects more than 520 million people worldwide who deal with pain and inflammation. Osteoarthritis is typically induced by mechanical or traumatic stress in the joint, leading to damaged cartilage that cannot be repaired naturally. “Without better understanding of what drives the initiation and progression of osteoarthritis, effective treatment ...

Modern-day technologies like optical computing, integrated photonics, and digital holography require light signals to be manipulated in three dimensions. To achieve this, it is necessary to be able to shape and guide the flow of light according to its desired application. Given that light flow within a medium is governed by the refractive index, specific tailoring of the refractive index is needed to realize control of the light path within the medium. To this end, scientists have developed what are called “aperiodic photonic ...

New McCombs Award Honors Herb Miller Professional Faculty Impact Award recognizes exceptional contributions of teaching, service, and mentorship. Associate Professor of Instruction Herb Miller is the namesake and the first recipient of the new McCombs School of Business Marketing Department Herbert A. Miller Jr. Professional Faculty Impact Award. The award was made possible by William Cunningham, who served as McCombs dean, UT Austin president, and University of Texas System chancellor, as a way to recognize and honor the professional faculty in the department of marketing. “In ...

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is found everywhere from the dust filling most of outer space to the cores of stars to many substances here on Earth. This would be reason enough to study hydrogen, but its individual atoms are also the simplest of any element with just one proton and one electron. For David Ceperley, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, this makes hydrogen the natural starting point for formulating and testing theories of matter. Ceperley, also a member of the Illinois Quantum ...

University of Houston computer scientists have developed a new system to keep construction workers safe at job sites. Their findings and process are laid out in a study published in the research journal Applied Sciences. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 4,764 workers died on the job in 2020. Employees in construction and extraction occupations accounted for 20% of those deaths. Many were struck by a vehicle or mobile machinery on construction sites. Although the construction industry has enlisted the help of safety experts, a great number of fatalities and injuries still occur. “The point of our research project was to enhance safety of workers ...

BOSTON – Alcohol consumption increased substantially across the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the impact was greatest among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations, where deaths from alcohol-associated liver disease were six times those of white people, according to a study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB). The disproportionately high mortality rate reflects not just the pandemic, but a systemic failure of supportive health care and lack of critical resources for AIAN populations ...

There’s a crisis unfolding in the field of linguistics: Global language experts estimate that, without intervention, about one language will be lost every month for the next 40 years. A study published in Science Advances debuts a grammatical database that documents the enormous diversity of current languages on the planet, highlighting just how much humanity stands to lose and why it's worth saving.  Known as Grambank, it is now the world’s largest publicly available comparative grammatical database. Initiated by scholars in the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the ...

University of Pittsburgh researchers have identified a type of immune cell that drives chronic organ transplant failure in a mouse model of kidney transplantation and uncovered pathways that could be therapeutically targeted to improve patient outcomes. The findings are published in a new Science Immunology paper. “In solid organ transplantation, such as kidney transplants, one-year outcomes are excellent because we have immunosuppressant drugs that manage the problem of acute rejection,” ...

Researchers have developed next-generation smart textiles – incorporating LEDs, sensors, energy harvesting, and storage – that can be produced inexpensively, in any shape or size, using the same machines used to make the clothing we wear every day. The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, have previously demonstrated that woven displays can be made at large sizes, but these earlier examples were made using specialised manual laboratory equipment. Other smart textiles can be manufactured in specialised microelectronic fabrication facilities, but these are highly expensive and produce large volumes of waste. However, the team found that flexible ...

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-secreted lipid bilayer bioparticles with a diameter of 30 to 250 nm. They are a promising source of biomarkers for liquid biopsies for early cancer diagnosis and real-time monitoring of tumor development. However, analysis of nanosized EVs in blood samples has been hampered by the lack of effective, rapid, and standardized methods to isolate and purify EVs.   In a study published in Science Advances, SUN Jiashu’s group from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and collaborators from the Fifth Medical Center of the Chinese PLA General ...

An international team led by scientists at the University of Sydney has demonstrated nanowire networks can exhibit both short- and long-term memory like the human brain. The research has been published today in the journal Science Advances, led by Dr Alon Loeffler, who received his PhD in the School of Physics, with collaborators in Japan. “In this research we found higher-order cognitive function, which we normally associate with the human brain, can be emulated in non-biological hardware,” Dr Loeffler said. “This work builds on our previous research in which we showed how nanotechnology could be used to build a brain-inspired electrical device with neural ...

Polynesian peoples are renowned for their advanced sailing technology and for reaching the most remote islands on the planet centuries before the Europeans reached the Americas. Through swift eastward migrations that are now well covered by archaeological research, Polynesian societies settled virtually every island from Samoa and Tonga to Rapa Nui/Easter Island in the east, Hawai’i in the north, and Aotearoa/New Zealand in the south. But little is known about Polynesian migrations west of the 180th meridian. In order to better understand the relationship between these Polynesian societies of the western Pacific, Melanesia and Micronesia – often ...

A study led by the University of St Andrews suggests that a frequently used medical test for heart injury could one day be used to help COVID-19 patients avoid hospitalisation. Cardiac troponins are proteins that form part of the heart’s contractile machinery and are released into the bloodstream when the heart is damaged. It can be measured in a blood test which is widely used in the assessment of heart attacks and other heart conditions.  Existing studies since 2020 have shown that COVID-19 patients who have elevated troponin levels are more likely to die or suffer adverse clinical outcomes compared with those who have normal ...

JUPITER, Fla. — In a discovery fundamental to the inner workings of cells, scientists have discovered that if oxidative stress damages protein factories called ribosomes, repair crews may move in to help fix the damage so work can quickly resume. The discovery, reported Friday in the journal Molecular Cell, could have implications for cancer, the aging process, and growth and development, said the study’s lead author, molecular biologist Katrin Karbstein, Ph.D., a professor at The Herbert ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An exploded star can pose more risks to nearby planets than previously thought, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray telescopes. This newly identified threat involves a phase of intense X-rays that can damage the atmospheres of planets up to 160 light-years away. The results of the study, led by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Washburn University and the University of Kansas, are published in the Astrophysical Journal. Earth is not in danger of such a threat today because there are no potential supernova progenitors within this distance, but it may have experienced ...

Despite efforts by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pediatric clinicians to increase the COVID-19 vaccination rate among children, many remain unvaccinated due to parental concerns about the vaccine’s long-term effects and anticipated responsibility. Those are findings from a new study published in Pediatricsand conducted by the Center for Economic and Social Research(CESR) at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. The researchers sought to determine the causes of low child vaccination rates. Currently, only 39% of children 5 to 11 and 68% of those 12 to 17 have received ...

ATLANTA, Ind. – Insignum AgTech® and Beck’s have signed an agreement to test Insignum’s innovative corn traits in Beck’s elite varieties. The companies will collaborate to cross the trait into proprietary Beck’s genetics for field-testing in 2023 to evaluate commercial viability of the traits. Insignum AgTech develops plant genetic traits that enable plants to “talk” and signal to farmers when specific plant stresses begin. “With this trait, a corn plant generates purple pigment, indicating that a fungal infection has started ...

Botanists and paleontologists, led by researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, have identified a fossil chili pepper that may rewrite the geography and evolutionary timeline of the tomato plant family. The team’s findings, published last month in the journal New Phytologist, show that the chili pepper tribe (Capsiceae) within the tomato, or nightshade (Solanaceae), family is much older and was much more widespread than previously thought. Scientists previously believed that chili peppers evolved in South America at most ...

An international team of scientists, co-led by Dr Carla J. Harper, Assistant Professor in Botany in the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity, has discovered the oldest evidence of plant self-defence in wood in a 360-million-year-old fossil from south-eastern Ireland. Plants can protect their wood from infection and water loss by forming special structures called “tyloses”. These prevent bacterial and fungal pathogens from getting into the heartwood of living trees and damaging it. However, it was not previously known how early in the evolution of plants woody species became capable of forming such defences.  Published ...

By looking at where people were born instead of where they ultimately move to and die, geographic disparities in mortality look different than previously assumed, according to a new study published on April 1, 2023, in the journal Demography. interstate migration may mitigate regional inequalities in mortality according to “Understanding Geographic Disparities in Mortality,” a paper led by Jason Fletcher, professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging with an appointment in Population Health Sciences. “At a time when nearly ...

DENVER/April 21, 2023 – A new study is testing whether the addition of CBD can improve pain management in dogs following orthopedic surgery. The study, funded by Morris Animal Foundation, will be conducted by a veterinary research team at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. CBD use in pets has gained in popularity in the last decade, but there are few controlled studies closely examining its efficacy as a pain management tool. This study hopes to help partially close this knowledge gap. The research team, led by Dr. Alan Chicoine, Assistant Professor, Department ...