A new scientific review of 148 studies enrolling over 4.3 million adult chronic pain patients treated with prescription opioid painkillers has found that nearly one in ten patients experiences opioid dependence or opioid use disorder and nearly one in three shows symptoms of dependence and opioid use disorder.  This review provides a more accurate -- and more concerning -- rate of opioid misuse than has previously been calculated.  It was conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol, funded by the National Institute for ...

Mammoths, the massive pre-historic ice age cousins of the modern-day elephant, have always been understood to have inhabited parts of British Columbia, but the question of when has always been a bit woolly. Now, a new study from Simon Fraser University has given scientists the clearest picture yet when the giant mammals roamed Vancouver Island.   As part of SFU researcher Laura Termes’ PhD and published earlier this month in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, the study examined 32 suspected mammoth samples collected on Vancouver Island. Of those samples, just 16 ...

Lafayette, La. – Ochsner Health is excited to announce that Mary Claire Curet, MD, is joining the team at St. Martinville Family Medicine, an Ochsner primary care practice. Dr. Curet, a native of New Iberia, is the first Ochsner Physician Scholar and brings a wealth of knowledge and a deep commitment to her community. “We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Curet to the Ochsner family,” said Leonardo Seoane, MD, Founding Dean of Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine and Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Ochsner Health. “Her dedication and passion for primary care, particularly in underserved ...

Researchers at Michigan State University have discovered two proteins that work together to determine the fate of cells in plants facing certain stresses. Ironically, a key discovery in this finding, published recently in Nature Communications, was made right as the project's leader was getting ready to destress. Postdoctoral researcher Noelia Pastor-Cantizano was riding a bus to the airport to fly out for vacation, when she decided to share a promising result she had helped gather a day earlier. “I didn’t want to wait ten days until I came back to send it. It took almost two years to get there,” said Pastor-Cantizano, who then worked ...

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 7, 2024 — From costing society an estimated $11 trillion to hindering new discoveries in medicine and preventing access to effective interventions, underrepresentation of women, older adults and minorities in clinical research has several significant consequences, according to recent analyses commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.   Jonathan Watanabe, UC Irvine professor of clinical pharmacy practice and director of the campus’s Center for Data-Driven Drugs Research and Policy, ...

How do foraging animals find their food? A new study by New York University researchers shows that lemurs use smell, social cues, and long-term memory to locate hidden fruit—a combination of factors that may have deep evolutionary roots. “Our study provides evidence that lemurs can integrate sensory information with ecological and social knowledge, which demonstrates their ability to consider multiple aspects of a problem,” said anthropologist Elena Cunningham, a clinical professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry and the lead author of the study, published in the International Journal of Primatology. Animals rely on ...

Scientists at the University of Akron and the University of Pittsburgh have overturned long-held assumptions in new research that finds water can be a help for adhesion. Dr. Ali Dhinojwala, distinguished W. Gerald Austen Endowed Chair and H.A. Morton Professor at The University of Akron’s School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, lead a team whose significant breakthrough — that water can unexpectedly enhance adhesion under controlled conditions — was published Aug. 7 in Science Advances. The implications of this research are profound, particularly in biomedical applications ...

  The first-ever archeological survey in space has provided new insights into how astronauts use and adapt their living space on the International Space Station, which could influence the design of new space stations after the ISS is decommissioned.    Findings from the research team behind the International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) were published today in the journal PLOS ONE. Archaeologist Justin Walsh of Chapman University is available to discuss the discoveries of the team’s first on-orbit project, the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE). While Earth-bound archaeologists dig one-meter squares to understand ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Over the course of life, memory fades with varying degrees, robbing older people of the ability to recollect personal experiences. This progressive, nearly inevitable process has long been hypothesized as a consequence of nature’s removal of dendritic spines, a key component of synapses, from brain neurons as they age. A study published in Science Advances led by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, now provides evidence that the preservation of past life experiences ...

Pregnant mothers have taken part in a clinical study (the UNITY trial) in Birmingham, which has found that nipocalimab, an investigational, fully human, monoclonal antibody, has the potential to improve the survival rate of unborn babies with rare, early-onset fetal anaemia, as a result of haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (EOS-HDFN).   The study investigated pregnancies complicated by severe EOS-HDFN (RhD (D) or Kell (K) alloimmunized pregnant individuals with singleton pregnancies) and evaluated the effects of nipocalimab at weekly intervals from 14-35 ...

AUSTIN, Texas — Data from a new investigational drug that could alter the standard treatment for a rare blood disease suggests it has the potential to delay or prevent anemia and the need for intrauterine blood transfusions in babies who are at high risk for the condition, known as Hemolytic Disease of the Fetus and Newborn (HDFN). Results of the Phase 2 clinical trial of the drug nipocalimab were published today in The New England Journal of Medicine. HDFN is a serious condition in which the blood types of the mother and her fetus do not match, potentially causing life-threatening anemia in the baby. The current ...

Organofluorine compounds — sometimes called ‘forever chemicals’ — are increasingly turning up in our drinking water, oceans and even human blood, posing a potential threat to the environment and human health. Now, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a way to fingerprint them, which could help authorities trace them to their source when they end up in aquifers, waterways or soil. The technique involves passing samples through a strong magnetic field then reading the burst of radio waves their atoms emit. This reveals ...

Every year, life-threating invasive fungal infections afflict more than 2 million individuals globally. Mortality rates for these infections are high, even when patients receive treatment. Aspergillus fumigatus, the most frequent cause of invasive fungal infection in people with suppressed immune systems, is responsible for approximately 100,000 deaths annually around the world. Poor treatment outcomes result from therapeutic failures and the fungi’s resistance to existing drugs. A new multi-institutional study led by researchers at Michigan State University has characterized how fungi adapt to restructure their cell walls, effectively ...

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Cardiological Society of India will host ACC Asia 2024 on August 16-18 in Delhi, India. This conference will bring together all members of the cardiac care team to examine emerging trends and best practices for cardiovascular disease patient care. “One of the most meaningful outcomes of the annual ACC Asia conference is the ability to communicate with other cardiologists to strategize and innovate new ideas,” said Eugene Yang, MD, MS, FACC, one of the ACC Asia conference co-chairs. “As ...

Solving a decades-old problem, a multidisciplinary team of Caltech researchers has figured out a method to noninvasively and continually measure blood pressure anywhere on the body with next to no disruption to the patient. A device based on the new technique holds the promise to enable better vital-sign monitoring at home, in hospitals, and possibly even in remote locations where resources are limited.   The new patented technique, called resonance sonomanometry, uses sound waves to gently stimulate resonance ...

Researchers working on large artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT have vast swaths of internet text, photos and videos to train systems. But roboticists training physical machines face barriers: Robot data is expensive, and because there aren’t fleets of robots roaming the world at large, there simply isn’t enough data easily available to make them perform well in dynamic environments, such as people’s homes. Some researchers have turned to simulations to train robots. Yet even that process, which often involves a graphic designer ...

CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE FOR RELEASE: August 7, 2024 Kaitlyn Serrao 607-882-1140 kms465@cornell.edu When is too much knowledge a bad thing? ITHACA, N.Y. – A new study finds an increase in knowledge could be a bad thing when people use it to act in their own self-interest rather than in the best interests of the larger group. Cornell University economics professor Kaushik Basu and Jörgen Weibull, professor emeritus at the Stockholm School of Economics, are co-authors ...

Many organisms react to the smell of deadly pathogens by reflexively avoiding them. But a recent study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the nematode C. elegans also reacts to the odor of pathogenic bacteria by preparing its intestinal cells to withstand a potential onslaught. As with humans, nematodes’ guts are a common target of disease-causing bacteria. The nematode reacts by destroying iron-containing organelles called mitochondria, which produce a cell's energy, to protect this critical element from iron-stealing bacteria. Iron is a key catalyst in many enzymatic reactions in cells — in particular, ...

"This report suggests that a simple assay may allow cost-effective prediction of medication response." BUFFALO, NY- August 7, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science), Volume 16, Issue 14 on July 26, 2024, entitled, “mTORC1 activation in presumed classical monocytes: observed correlation with human size variation and neuropsychiatric disease.” In this new study, researchers Karl Berner, Naci Oz, Alaattin Kaya, Animesh Acharjee, and Jon Berner ...

MINNEAPOLIS – There’s some good news for people with Parkinson’s disease: The risk of developing dementia may be lower than previously thought, or dementia may occur later in the course of the disease than previously reported, according to a study published in the August 7, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “The development of dementia is feared by people with Parkinson’s, and the combination of both a movement disorder and a cognitive disorder can be devastating to them and their loved ones,” said study author Daniel Weintraub, MD, ...

Long-term exposure to contaminants such as arsenic and nitrate in water is linked to an increased risk of various diseases, including cancers, cardiovascular diseases, developmental disorders and birth defects in infants. In the United States, there is a striking disparity in exposure to contaminants in tap water provided by community water systems (CWSs), with historically marginalized communities at greater risks compared to other populations. Often, CWSs that distribute water with higher contamination levels exist in areas that lack adequate public infrastructure or sociopolitical and financial resources. In ...

Living less than about one-third of a mile from pesticide use prior to conception and during early pregnancy could increase the risk of stillbirths, according to new research led by researchers at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center. Researchers found that during a 90-day pre-conception window and the first trimester of pregnancy, select pesticides, including organophosphates as a class, were associated with stillbirth. The paper, “Pre-Conception ...

Affective sensitivity to air pollution (ASAP) describes the extent to which affect, or mood, fluctuates in accordance with daily changes in air pollution, which can vary between individuals, according to a study published August 7, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Michelle Ng from Stanford University, USA, and colleagues. Individuals’ sensitivity to climate hazards is a central component of their vulnerability to climate change. Building on known associations between air pollution exposure and ...

Climate science supporters rated climate-skeptical statements as “truer” after just a single repetition, according to a study published August 7, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE led by Mary Jiang from The Australian National University, Australia, and coauthored by Norbert Schwarz from the University of Southern California, USA, and colleagues. The results held true even for the strongest climate science supporters surveyed. Amidst the influx of content that a person consumes each day, the principle of motivated ...

New York City subway commuters who are economically disadvantaged or belong to racial minority groups have the highest exposure to fine particulate matter during their commutes, according to a new study published August 7, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Shams Azad of New York University, USA. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a type of air pollution that, due to its small size, when inhaled by a person can enter the bloodstream. PM2.5 is known to cause short- and long-term health complications. For the last few decades, cities have promoted public transportation to reduce traffic congestion and improve ambient outdoor air quality. Subway systems reduce pollution by decreasing ...