Researchers have succeeded for the first time in adding a highly purified form of curcumin to yogurt in a way that ensures it remains dissolved in the dairy product and preserves it, while tasting good.   Their discovery, which is published today (Monday) in Frontiers in Nutrition, makes it possible to create a probiotic yogurt that contains no artificial preservatives but that still has a long shelf life and properties that may enhance good health.    Curcumin is a naturally-occurring chemical that provides the yellow colour in turmeric. Studies have shown that it has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties, that it can inhibit the growth ...

A linguistic bias in the English language that leads us to ‘improve’ things by adding to them, rather than taking away, is so common that it is even ingrained in AI chatbots, a new study reveals. Language related to the concept of ‘improvement’ is more closely aligned with addition, rather than subtraction. This can lead us to make decisions which can overcomplicate things we are trying to make better. The study is published today (Monday 3rd April) in Cognitive Science, by an international ...

Government-assisted refugees were less likely to receive adequate prenatal care than privately sponsored refugees, found a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.221207. Canada has 2 main pathways to resettle refugees: government assistance and private sponsorship by family members or non-family volunteers. To determine whether refugees receive adequate prenatal care (defined as initiation of prenatal care by 13 weeks' gestation; receipt of a minimum number of prenatal care visits, as recommended by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada; and receipt of a prenatal fetal anatomy ultrasound ...

The quality and integrity of peer review in Higher Education research has been put firmly in the spotlight by the European Journal of Higher Education (EJHE), published by Taylor & Francis. All articles submitted from April 2023 will, if accepted, have their reviewer reports published at the same time, as part of a one-year pilot. The EJHE peer review process itself will remain the same, with reports on manuscripts under consideration received from two or three referees before an editorial decision is made. ...

The human brain begins to assemble itself shortly after conception as a growing number of brain cells connect to create circuits across the brain. Genes provide the blueprint for construction, but occasionally the blueprint is incomplete, connections aren’t made, and circuits fail — sometimes long before the problem can be recognized, let alone fixed. That’s the case with DiGeorge syndrome, also called 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting about one in 3,000 babies. It begins with a deletion of one of two copies of a small number of genes on human chromosome 22, whose cascading effects include cardiovascular problems, craniofacial ...

Polyamorists face stigma and discrimination in their day-to-day lives, yet research shows that having a romantic relationship with more than one person at a time may offer emotional and physical benefits to all parties. Monogamy is frequently portrayed as the ideal form of romantic love in many modern societies. From the stories we read as children, to the films and books we consume as adults – we are told that to achieve happiness we need to find our one true soulmate to share the rest of our lives with. At the same time, states and governments offer financial, legal, and social incentives to married couples. Meanwhile men and women who deviate from these monogamous ...

Aston University is one of eight research intensive universities in the Midlands to establish a new investment company to accelerate the commercialisation of university spinouts and early-stage IP rich businesses in the region.  Midlands Mindforge Limited has been co-founded by Aston University, University of Birmingham, Cranfield University, Keele University, University of Leicester, Loughborough University, University of Nottingham and University of Warwick, collectively Midlands Innovation. This ambitious, patient capital ...

**Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April). Please credit the conference if you use this story**   Embargo: 2301H UK time Saturday 1 April A large outbreak of typhoid on a ship in the Netherlands has been traced to contaminated water, this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April) will hear. Seventy-two cases of typhoid were confirmed in the spring 2022 outbreak on the Liberty Ann, an old cruise ship which was being ...

A study from the National Eye Institute (NEI) identified rare genetic variants that could point to one of the general mechanisms driving age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common cause of vision loss in older adults. The variants generate malformed proteins that alter the stability of the membrane attack complex (MAC), which may drive a chronic inflammatory response in the retina. The findings, published in the journal iScience, point to MAC as a potential therapeutic target to slow or prevent the development of AMD. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health. There are many known genetic variants that raise or lower ...

For nearly 50 years, a jawless fish called the lamprey has interested scientists because of its remarkable ability to recover from spinal cord injuries. A new study reveals a possible technique lampreys may use to swim again, despite sparse neural regeneration. Christina Hamlet of Bucknell University and collaborators, including Jennifer R. Morgan of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), used a mathematical model to demonstrate how lampreys may use body-sensing feedback to regain swimming abilities after spinal injury. The ...

Pawel Olszewski, a University of Wisconsin Oshkosh associate mechanical engineering technology professor, recently was granted a U.S. patent for his flameless impingement oven, designed and built in the Teaching and Energy Research Industrial Lab (TERIL) on the Oshkosh campus. Olszewski began the patent process back in 2019 with WiSys, the Wisconsin-based nonprofit dedicated to helping inventors protect their intellectual property, and received the news of approval in February. Titled “flameless impingement oven,” the invention is patent number US 11,585,601 ...

A new study from a Washington University researcher offers fresh insights into how the brain goes to great lengths to processes and remember everyday events. Zachariah Reagh, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and co-author Charan Ranganath of the University of California, Davis, used functional MRI scanners to monitor the brains of subjects watching short videos of scenes that could have come from real life. These included men and women working ...

**Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April). Please credit the conference if you use this story** Embargo: 2301H UK time Friday 31 March   **Note – the press release is available in Spanish and Portuguese, see links below** A 3-year-old girl was infected with an unusual Mycobacterium marinum infection, that developed following an iguana bite while she was on holiday in Costa Rica, report the doctors who treated her ...

Study Title: Belzutifan plus cabozantinib for patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma previously treated with immunotherapy: an open-label, single-arm, phase 2 study Publication: The Lancet Oncology, March 31, 2023, 6:30pm ET, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(23)00097-9/fulltext Dana-Farber Cancer Institute author: Toni K. Choueiri, MD Summary: Immunotherapies, such as anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1, have become standard first line therapies for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer). Most patients, however, eventually experience disease progression, with no consensus on what therapy to use next. In this ...

The ten-year European Flagship Human Brain Project (HBP) links brain research with computing and technology in a large-scale, interdisciplinary approach. During the HBP Summit, researchers presented the abundant scientific achievements of the project and the legacy that it will leave for the research community. With the project approaching its conclusion in September 2023, a focal point of the final HBP Summit in Marseille was the discussion of the future of digital brain research. One of the lasting contributions of the project is the research infrastructure EBRAINS, which provides open access to advanced technologies, tools, data and services for brain research and will ...

“Cellular senescence and disrupted proteostasis induced by myotube atrophy are prevented with low-dose metformin and leucine cocktail.” BUFFALO, NY- March 31, 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 6, entitled, “Cellular senescence and disrupted proteostasis induced by myotube atrophy are prevented with low-dose metformin and leucine cocktail.” Aging coincides with the accumulation of senescent cells within skeletal muscle that produce inflammatory products, known as the senescence-associated secretory ...

Molecules in our body send faint biochemical signals when health issues arise New technology boosts these signals by 1,000 times New approach paves way for sensing signals in real-time in the body without sending blood or saliva samples to a lab EVANSTON, Ill. — The molecules in our bodies are in constant communication. Some of these molecules provide a biochemical fingerprint that could indicate how a wound is healing, whether or not a cancer treatment is working or that a virus has invaded the body. If we could sense these signals in ...

Half as many children in the United States were diagnosed with asthma in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years, and Rutgers researchers think fewer colds may be part of the reason.   In a new Rutgers study, published in Respiratory Research, researchers examined the rates of new asthma diagnoses in a large commercial insurance claims database during the first year of the pandemic compared with rates of new diagnoses during the previous three years.   Using the Health Core Integrated Research ...

A common anesthesia drug could be beneficial in reducing pressure inside the skull of children with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), according to a study published in Critical Care Medicine.   Ketamine, a drug that has been used for anesthesia since the 1970s, has traditionally been avoided for patients with TBI due to early studies suggesting that it could raise the pressure inside of the skull, known as intracranial pressure (ICP).   More recent studies have suggested otherwise, said lead author Michael Wolf, MD, assistant professor of Pediatrics and Neurological ...

Photos   For the first time, researchers have pinpointed a date when elite Mongol Empire people were drinking yak milk, according to a study co-led by a University of Michigan researcher.   By analyzing proteins found within ancient dental calculus, an international team of researchers provides direct evidence for consumption of milk from multiple ruminants, including yak. In addition, they discovered milk and blood proteins associated with both horses and ruminants. The team's results are published in Communication Biology.   The study presents novel protein findings from an elite Mongol Era cemetery ...

URBANA, Ill. – For tiny salamanders squirming skin-to-soil, big-picture weather patterns may seem as far away as outer space. But for decades, scientists have mostly relied on free-air temperature data at large spatial scales to predict future salamander distributions under climate change. The outlook was dire for the mini ecosystem engineers, suggesting near elimination of habitat in crucial areas. Now, University of Illinois researchers are tuning into the microclimates that really matter to the imperiled amphibians and forecasting a somewhat more hopeful future. “The ...

BOSTON-- Humans are colonized with thousands of bacterial strains. Researchers are now focused on genetically modifying such bacteria to enhance their intrinsic therapeutic properties. One goal is to develop smart microbes that release therapeutic payloads at sites of disease, thus maintaining therapeutic efficacy while limiting many of the side effects that can be associated with the systemic administration of conventional drugs. Investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), have engineered a strain of the probiotic Escherichia ...

An interdisciplinary research team of the Institutes of Physical Chemistry and Physics of the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt-am-Main has discovered a new, direction-dependent friction in proteins called anisotropic friction. “Until now, nobody had observed that friction in biomolecules was dependent on direction,” says physicist Dr. Steffen Wolf of the University of Freiburg. The results have been published as cover story in the scientific journal “Nano Letters.” Experiments on model complex of protein-ligands Proteins constitute the microscopic machinery of cells. They perform work during their functional cycles. Accordingly, ...

When Hurricane Florence made landfall on North Carolina’s coast in 2018, it brought record rainfall causing catastrophic flooding and damages to communities across the eastern portion of the state. Estimating the financial impacts of household flooding is complex because direct damages often snowball into other financial risks, like a decrease in property value or loss of equity. Generally, post-disaster damage assessments focus on insured and uninsured losses, but these numbers do not account for the secondary impacts to households, lenders, local governments and other stakeholders who may also share in the financial consequences if a property owner defaults ...

The Forex market, also known as the foreign exchange market or simply Forex (short for "foreign exchange"), is a decentralized global market where various currencies are traded. It is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily trading volume exceeding $6 trillion. The primary purpose of the Forex market is to facilitate international trade and investment by allowing businesses, governments, and individuals to convert one currency into another.