Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), two teams of astronomers have observed the aftermath of the collision between NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft and the asteroid Dimorphos. The controlled impact was a test of planetary defence, but also gave astronomers a unique opportunity to learn more about the asteroid’s composition from the expelled material. On 26 September 2022 the DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos in a controlled test of our asteroid deflection capabilities. The impact took place 11 million kilometres away ...

WASHINGTON—Women with obesity may share risk for the disease with their daughters, but not their sons, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Obesity is a common, serious and costly disease affecting nearly half of the adults and 20 percent of children in the United States. It costs an estimated $173 billion in medical care costs. People with obesity are at higher risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, heart ...

DALLAS, March 21, 2023 — More than 2 million veterans are living with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) and require management of their high cholesterol, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Left unaddressed, high cholesterol increases the chance of experiencing heart attack and stroke. To control high cholesterol among veterans, the American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, in collaboration with the VA, ...

Large-scale, effective, and passive: these descriptions are aptly given to the integrated radiative and evaporative chiller (IREC), designed and tested by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. The goal of this technology is to come up with an energetically affordable method of cooling to aid in the rising consumption of energy while still minimizing carbon emissions through the process.   “Energy scarcity is a universal challenge to global development. The demand for ...

TAMEST (The Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology) has announced Florencia McAllister, M.D., The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as the recipient of the 2023 Mary Beth Maddox Award and Lectureship in cancer research. She was chosen for her seminal discoveries at the intersection of microbes, the immune system and pancreatic cancer, leading to insights into early detection, prevention and therapeutic strategies to fight the disease. The Mary Beth Maddox Award and Lectureship ...

SAN ANTONIO, March 21, 2023 – A real-world, retrospective analysis by the Family Heart Foundation, a leading non-profit research and advocacy organization, found that high-risk Americans who do not maintain levels of LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) recommended in the 2018 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association cholesterol treatment guidelines, had a 44% higher rate of cardiovascular events compared to those who did achieve and maintained recommended LDL-C levels. The study findings, which were based on data from the Family Heart DatabaseTM of more than 300 million Americans, will be ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The growing period of hardwood forests in eastern North America has increased by an average of one month over the past century as temperatures have steadily risen, a new study has found. The study compared present-day observations of the time span from budburst to peak leaf coloration in seven tree species to similar documentation that was collected by an Ohio farmer at the turn of the 20th century. An analysis of changes in those leaf patterns along with decades of temperature data for northwest Ohio showed a clear connection between increased warming during winter and spring and an extended period of tree growth. The implications of the longer growing period – ...

A new study investigates how an extinct, carnivorous marsupial relative with canines so large they extended across the top of its skull could hunt effectively despite having wide-set eyes, like a cow or a horse. The skulls of carnivores typically have forward-facing eye sockets, or orbits, which helps enable stereoscopic (3D) vision, a useful adaptation for judging the position of prey before pouncing. Scientists from the American Museum of Natural History and the Instituto Argentino de Nivología, ...

The virus responsible for E. coli infection has a secret weapon: teamwork. Always scrappy in its bid for survival, the virus alights on an unassuming host cell and grips the surface with the business end of its tubular tail. Then, the proteins in the tail contract in unison, flattening its structure like a stepped-on spring and reeling the virus's body in for the critical strike. Thanks to the proteins' teamwork, the tail can flex and flatten with ease. This process, called molecular cooperativity, is often observed in nature but rarely ...

LA JOLLA—(March 21, 2023) The spinal cord acts as a messenger, carrying signals between the brain and body to regulate everything from breathing to movement. While the spinal cord is known to play an essential role in relaying pain signals, technology has limited scientists’ understanding of how this process occurs on a cellular level. Now, Salk scientists have created wearable microscopes to enable unprecedented insight into the signaling patterns that occur within the spinal cords of mice.   This technological advancement, detailed in two papers published in Nature Communications ...

Los Angeles, Calif. – The AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), the world’s largest HIV research network, is announcing the publication of “Perspectives on Adherence from the ACTG 5360 MINMON Trial: A Minimum Monitoring Approach with 12 Weeks of Sofosbuvir/Velpatasvir in Chronic Hepatitis C Treatment” in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. This publication found that self-reported 100 percent adherence in the first four weeks of hepatitis C treatment with sofosbuvir/velpatasvir was associated with sustained virologic response (which is when no hepatitis C virus is found in the blood 12 weeks after completing ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.—New research shows that the built environment, not social and economic environments, is a strong predictor of adolescents’ body mass index (BMI), overweight and obesity status, and eating behaviors, according to a new study in Obesity, The Obesity Society’s (TOS) flagship journal. This study provides the first quasi-experimental empirical evidence of these environments on adolescents’ BMI, overweight, obesity and related behaviors. “Our research suggests that strategies for addressing ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass (3/21/2023) – Philip Landrigan, MD, director of the Program on Global Public Health and the Common Good and the Boston College Observatory on Planetary Health, is the lead author of a groundbreaking new report about the far-reaching health hazards of plastics manufacturing and pollution across the entire product life cycle. Published in the journal Annals of Global Public Health and released in Monaco during Monaco Ocean Week, the study was undertaken by an international group of scientists ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Increases in mortality among Douglas-fir in the Klamath Mountains are the result of multiple factors that have the iconic tree in a “decline spiral” in parts of the region, a new study by the Oregon State University College of Forestry and OSU Extension Service indicates. Findings, which include a tool landowners and managers can use to assess a stand of trees’ risk as the climate continues to change, were published in the Journal of Forestry. Douglas-fir, Oregon’s official state tree, is the most abundant tree species in the ...

1. Cases and transmission of highly contagious fungal infections see dramatic increase between 2019 and 2021 Many cases resistant to first-line treatment Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3469 URL goes live when the embargo lifts A study of national surveillance data found that cases of Candida auris, a highly contagious fungal infection, rose drastically between 2019 and 2021 reflecting increased transmission. The researchers also noted an increase in echinocandin-resistant cases and evidence of transmission, which is particularly concerning because echinocandins are first-line therapy for invasive Candida infections, including C auris. These findings ...

The new Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellows have been elected for their distinction in research and advancement of science, technology or the humanities to the highest international standards. The University of Auckland is New Zealand’s leading research-led university, which Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, Frank Bloomfield, says is largely due to the quality of its researchers, and the impact their work has within Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. “The research and scholarship of our new Fellows is regarded as world leading in their respective areas and as such, they have been recognised by the ...

Almost all countries around the globe criminalise abortion in some circumstances, despite the public health risks and impact on human rights, finds a review of the scope of penalties for the procedure in 182 nations, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. Some 134 countries penalise those seeking an abortion, while 181 penalise providers, and 159 those who assist in the procedure, the review shows. The evidence indicates that criminalisation doesn’t deter women from deciding to have an abortion; rather, it limits or delays access to safe abortion and increases the need to turn to unsafe and unregulated services, point out the researchers. Criminalisation ...

Pregnant women involved in road traffic collisions—even those with minor injuries—are at heightened risk of potentially serious birth complications, including dislodgement of the placenta (placental abruption), very heavy bleeding, and the need for a caesarean section, finds a Taiwanese study published online in the journal Injury Prevention. And the risks are even higher for those on scooters rather than in cars, the findings indicate. Road traffic collisions are the leading cause of traumatic injury during pregnancy, with previously published research suggesting they account for up to 70% of such injuries. But most of the evidence base to date on the ...

The renewable energy sector is facing a quandary: how Australia will dispose of 80 million solar panels in an environmentally friendly way when they reach the end of their life. Paradoxically, one of the reasons people are installing solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in huge numbers is to help the environment, but the industry is now grappling with the anticipated waste generated by 100,000 tonnes of panels due to be dismantled in Australia from 2035. A new study led by the University of South Australia has proposed a comprehensive ...

Research in languages other than English is critically important for biodiversity conservation and is shockingly under-utilised internationally, according to an international research team. Dr Tatsuya Amano, from The University of Queensland’s School of Biological Sciences, led a worldwide study that investigated national reports on biodiversity conservation in 37 countries and territories where English is not an official language. “Non-English-language literature is almost entirely neglected in global biodiversity assessments,” Dr Amano said. “This means there’s a serious ...

When matter falls into supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies, it unleashes enormous amounts of energy and is called an active galactic nuclei (or AGN). A fraction of AGN release part of this energy as jets that are detectable in radio wavelengths that travel at velocities close to light speed. While the jet travels across the galaxy, it collides with the clouds and gas around it and in some cases may push this material away in the form of winds. However, which conditions preferentially trigger these winds to blow out the gas from galaxies are still poorly understood. The ...

In Singapore, about 15 to 20 per cent of pregnancies are complicated by gestational diabetes, 5 to 10 per cent of pregnancies are affected by hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, and more than 10 per cent of pregnancies end as pre-term delivery. Pregnancy is a critical reproductive event for women, with substantial life-long health implications. This brings forward an important question: how would pregnancy complications inform women’s risk of mortality in the long-term? However, this is often understudied due to a lack of long-term ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. (March 21 , 2023) – Richard McIndoe, PhD, a bioinformatics expert and director of the Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia, is leading the Coordinating Unit of a new national research initiative designed to move science forward in understanding common, life-changing metabolic problems like diabetes and obesity. The National Centers for Metabolic Phenotyping in Live Models of Obesity and Diabetes, or MPMOD, is a multicenter initiative being established by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney ...

Scientists have calculated that the fastest changing Antarctic region - the Amundsen Sea Embayment - has lost more than 3,000 billion tonnes of ice over a 25-year period.    If all the lost ice was piled on London, it would stand over 2 km tall - or 7.4 times the height of the Shard. If it were to cover Manhattan, it would stand at 61 km – or 137 Empire State Buildings placed on top of one another.   Twenty major glaciers form the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica, which is more than four times the size of the UK, and they ...

A new UCLA-led study suggests that advanced genome editing technology could be used as a one-time treatment for the rare and deadly genetic disease CD3 delta severe combined immunodeficiency. The condition, also known as CD3 delta SCID, is caused by a mutation in the CD3D gene, which prevents the production of the CD3 delta protein that is needed for the normal development of T cells from blood stem cells. Without T cells, babies born with CD3 delta SCID are unable to fight off infections and, if untreated, often die within the first two years of life. Currently, ...