Curtin researchers have discovered how long ago the Australian Nullarbor plain dried out, with a new approach shedding light on how ancient climate change altered some of the driest regions of our planet. Iron-rich layers formed in ancient sediments were used to narrow down when an area dried out in response to changes in climate, such as the dramatic decline of groundwater in southern Australia. These ‘relics of drying’ suggest the Nullarbor drastically shifted to dry conditions between 2.4 and 2.7 million years ago, uncovering how these environmental changes were key in shaping Australia’s diverse ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—Scrap aluminum can now be collected and transformed directly into new vehicle parts using an innovative process being developed by the automotive industry, in particular for electric vehicles. Today, the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in collaboration with leading mobility technology company Magna, unveils a new manufacturing process that reduces more than 50% of the embodied energy and more than 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions by eliminating the need to mine and refine the same amount of raw aluminum ore. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Having a four-year college degree and a low level of stress are strongly linked to psychological resilience in American women aged 80 and older, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed data from the Women’s Health Initiative to identify factors that are associated with higher self-rated resilience – the ability to weather storms and rebound from setbacks – among almost 30,000 women with an average age of 84. Other characteristics linked to higher resilience included stronger social support, higher self-rated health and a lower risk of depression than levels among women ...

UC Riverside scientists are taking a modern approach to studying a murky subject — the quantity, quality, and sources of microplastics in Los Angeles County’s urban streams. Microplastics are particles with a maximum diameter of 5 millimeters, roughly the size of a pencil eraser. The category can include nanoplastics, which are far smaller than the width of an average human hair.  Scientists have been aware that these particles have been filtering through the environment for decades, but concern about them has only started to ramp up more recently.  “There is mounting evidence that these materials are toxic,” said Andrew Gray, UCR assistant professor of ...

PULLMAN, Wash. -- A viable formula for a carbon-negative, environmentally friendly concrete that is nearly as strong as regular concrete has been developed at Washington State University.   In a proof-of-concept work, the researchers infused regular cement with environmentally friendly biochar, a type of charcoal made from organic waste, that had been strengthened beforehand with concrete wastewater. The biochar was able to suck up to 23% of its weight in carbon dioxide from the air while still reaching a strength comparable to ordinary cement.    The research could significantly reduce carbon emissions of the concrete industry, which is one ...

Barcelona, Spain – 18 April 2023:  A score based on four readily available clinical and imaging parameters identifies the heart failure patients who benefit most from atrial fibrillation ablation, according to late breaking science presented at EHRA 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1   Atrial fibrillation and heart failure often coexist.2 It is estimated that approximately 30% of patients with heart failure will develop atrial fibrillation and patients with atrial fibrillation have a five-fold increased risk of developing heart failure.3 Each condition aggravates the prognosis of the other. Atrial fibrillation patients who develop ...

Responding to the increasing demand for sustainable energy research, IOP Publishing is launching a new open access (OA) environmental research journal. Environmental Research: Energy (EREN) will openly publish the latest findings around clean and sustainable energy for all. Aligned with a number of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the journal launch comes at a time when research output around renewable energy and sustainability has seen a 600% increase compared to ten years ago.  Environmental Research: Energy is the latest addition to IOP Publishing's expanding Environmental Research ...

Barcelona, Spain – 18 April 2023:  An innovative three-step ablation approach including ethanol infusion of the vein of Marshall improves freedom from arrhythmias in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation compared to pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) alone, according to late breaking science presented at EHRA 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 Preliminary results at 10 months are presented, with follow up ongoing until 12 months.   The cornerstone of catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation is complete isolation of the pulmonary veins.2 However, only 50–60% of patients remain in sinus rhythm at two years.3 Numerous ...

Barcelona, Spain – 18 April 2023:  A novel software tool set to improve the management of elderly atrial fibrillation patients with multiple conditions is being designed by the EU-funded and ESC-coordinated EHRA-PATHS consortium. The latest updates on this clinical innovation will be presented at EHRA 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1   Scientific coordinator Professor Hein Heidbuchel said: “EHRA-PATHS is developing a standardised approach to ensure that patients with atrial fibrillation receive evidenced-based therapies for the comorbidities that underlie or complicate their heart rhythm disorder.”   Atrial ...

Honolulu, HI | April 18, 2023—Findings from an award-winning Scientific Online Poster presented during the 2023 ARRS Annual Meeting on the island of Oahu determined that assessing the vascularity and elastography in suspect TIRADS categories can efficiently diagnose malignancy of thyroid nodules. Acknowledging that sonographic TIRADS scoring remains the first method of imaging assessment for diagnosing malignant thyroid nodules, “we assessed the added value of shear-wave elastography (SWE) to classic TIRADS assessment,” said Leila Aghaghazvini, MD, from the department of radiology at Shariati Hospital and Iran’s University ...

Honolulu, HI | April 18, 2023—The American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) is pleased to announce that The Roentgen Fund® 2023 Honorary Lecture, “Advanced High-Resolution CT (HRCT),” will be dedicated to W. Richard “Rick” Webb, MD—the late University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) radiologist who transformed the practice of thoracic imaging. Exploring multiple conditions diagnosed via HRCT, as well as the radiologist’s role on today’s multidisciplinary teams, “Advanced HRCT” will take place on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 1:00–2:20 PM local time, during the 2023 ARRS Annual Meeting in Honolulu, HI. A high-profile presentation ...

1. Background and objectives The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) that is the joint mission of the Ministry of Environment, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has observed almost continuously since its launch and is currently in operation.   Thermal And Near-infrared Sensor for carbon Observation – Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) onboard GOSAT observes the shortwave infrared (SWIR) spectra(*1). The carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) concentrations can be estimated by ...

The time has come and gone for universal masking in healthcare settings, according to healthcare epidemiologists and infectious diseases experts from healthcare systems throughout Boston and beyond. In a commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine and co-authored by experts from Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Tufts Medicine, the VA Healthcare System Boston, and other healthcare systems across the country, the authors describe the changing context and conditions of the pandemic and outline why universal masking should no longer be required in healthcare settings. “While critically important in the earlier ...

Hospital inpatients have better prospects of surviving a cardiac arrest in large hospitals and well-resourced wards, and daytime cardiac arrests are also associated with better chances of survival, a University of Gothenburg thesis shows. Cardiac arrest means that the heart stops pumping blood. Within seconds, unconsciousness occurs; within minutes, brain cells start dying, causing irreparable damage. The key to enhancing the patients’ chances of survival is restoring the circulation of oxygenated blood in the body. ...

A randomised clinical trial is looking at whether faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from healthy donors into adults with early-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS – one of the most common forms of motor neurone disease) can modulate the immune reaction during inflammation responses that characterise disease progression, and aims to investigate the relationship between specific gut bacteria and their action on immune system cells. The preliminary findings by Dr Alessandra Guarnaccia from Columbus-Gemelli University Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy and ...

The steps taken by a London hospital to prevent an outbreak of measles will be detailed at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (15-18 April). Measles, which is highly contagious, can cause serious and potentially life-threating illness and complications including blindness, encephalitis (swelling of the brain) and pneumonia.  Pregnant women, infants and severely immunocompromised individuals are at highest risk. Contracted when pregnant, it can cause low birth weight babies, premature birth, miscarriage or stillbirth. It usually starts with cold-like symptoms, followed by a rash a few days later.  ...

AI software can accurately detect TB from chest X-rays, a study being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark, (15-18 April), shows. Tuberculosis (TB) is a major cause of death and disease worldwide. It causes 1.6 million deaths a year, making it is the 13th leading cause of death globally and the second biggest infectious killer, after COVID-19. In low-resource settings, chest X-rays play an important role in the diagnosis of patients ...

New research presented at this week’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (Copenhagen, 15-18 April) shows how interventions focused on so called ‘supercontactors’ in hospitals and other long term care facilities (LTCF) can optimise infection control and reduce the spread of infectious diseases. The study is by Dr Quentin Leclerc and colleagues at Institut Pasteur and the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Paris, France). Hospitals and ...

Researchers at the University of California, Davis College of Engineering are using machine learning to identify new materials for high-efficiency solar cells. Using high-throughput experiments and machine learning-based algorithms, they have found it is possible to forecast the materials’ dynamic behavior with very high accuracy, without the need to perform as many experiments.  The work is featured on the cover of the April issue of ACS Energy Letters.  Hybrid perovskites are organic-inorganic molecules that have received a lot of attention ...

Salmonella infections cause about a million deaths a year worldwide, and there is an urgent need for better vaccines for both typhoid fever and non-typhoidal Salmonella disease. New work from researchers at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine shows how memory T cells, crucial for a vaccine that induces a powerful immune response, can be recruited into the liver in a mouse model of Salmonella.  The work was published April 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  “Understanding the immunology is key to developing a better vaccine,” said Professor Stephen McSorley, ...

This planet of 8 billion people is bumping up against its ecological limits, and researchers are trying to quantify the effect of human activity on these finite resources. Some keep tallies of how much carbon they contribute to the atmosphere, others measure direct and indirect water consumption or keep tabs on the amount of land that our food habits demand. Each of these “footprints” offers an estimate of the impacts individuals and institutions have on the wider world, and are useful — but are flawed, according to geographer Chris ...

Berkeley — Rates of school discipline fluctuate widely and predictably throughout a school year and increase significantly faster for Black students than for their white counterparts, University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found.   A new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documents for the first time the “dynamic” nature of student discipline during an academic year. Daily rates of punishment across all schools in the study ratchet up in the weeks before Thanksgiving break, decline immediately ...

Chronic wounds are a major health problem for diabetic patients and the elderly – in extreme cases they can even lead to amputation. Using electric stimulation, researchers in a project at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Freiburg, Germany, have developed a method that speeds up the healing process, making wounds heal three times faster. There is an old Swedish saying that one should never neglect a small wound or a friend in need. For most people, a small wound does not lead to any serious complications, but many common diagnoses ...

Spiders that don’t weave good silk don’t get to eat. The silk spiders produce which creates their webs is key to their survival – but spiders live in many different places which require webs fine-tuned for local success. Scientists studied the glue that makes orb weaver spiders’ webs sticky to understand how its material properties vary in different conditions. “Discovering the sticky protein components of biological glues opens the doors to determining how material properties evolve,” said Dr Nadia Ayoub of Washington and Lee University, co-corresponding author of the study ...

As regulators and providers grapple with the dual challenges of protecting younger social media users from harassment and bullying, while also taking steps to safeguard their privacy, a team of researchers from four leading universities has proposed a way to use machine learning technology to flag risky conversations on Instagram without having to eavesdrop on them. The discovery could open opportunities for platforms and parents to protect vulnerable, younger users, while preserving their privacy. The team, led by researchers from Drexel University, Boston University, Georgia Institute of Technology ...