In an analysis of perinatal care provided in the United States, investigators found few differences by race for care that was based on guidelines or expert recommendations; however, discretionary care (for which professional recommendations or guidelines do not exist) varied by race. The analysis, which is published in Birth, included information from the electronic health records for 7,056 women who delivered infants within a large hospital system between 2012 and 2018. Compared with Non-Hispanic white women, Non-Hispanic Black women were ...

New research published in Human Brain Mapping reveals sex differences and developmental changes in the brain’s white matter—which provides communication between different parts of the brain—in healthy, typically developing infants and 5-year-olds. The results, which highlighted sexual dimorphism in brain structure during development with significant detectable differences in multiple regions at the age of 5 years, agree with prior studies showing earlier brain development in females. Also, changes in white matter asymmetry patterns occurred during early childhood, and in 5-year-olds the pattern already resembled adult-like patterns. “We observed sex differences ...

Dysregulation of microRNAs, which are molecules involved in controlling gene expression, can promote tumor formation and progression. A study in The FASEB Journal found that the miR-145 microRNA can suppress the growth of cervical cancer cells. miR-145 was expressed at lower than normal levels in human cervical cancer cells, and lower levels correlated with more advanced clinical stages of cervical cancer in patients.  Experiments in cells and mice revealed the mechanisms behind miR-145 effects and pointed to potential targets that could be ...

Temperature influences how badly pesticides affect bees’ behaviour, suggesting uncertain impacts under climate change, according to a new study. The findings indicate that future extreme temperature events under climate change could increase the impact of pesticides on bee populations and their pollination services. Certain pesticides, particularly a class called neonicotinoids, are known to impact bees and other important insects, and are thought to be contributing to population declines. However, bees’ reported responses to this threat across the world often seem to vary, suggesting other interacting factors ...

Findings paint a bleak picture of little or no financial and health support from governments for their citizens stuck overseas. At least two-thirds of those stranded aboard experienced financial distress and moderate-to-severe levels of depression—a rate that is substantially higher than the general population and health care professionals in the pandemic. **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 congress if you use this story** **Note – the press release is available in Spanish and ...

The University of Texas at Arlington-based Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center (TMAC) has received a grant worth nearly $500,000 to assist manufacturers in developing and adopting pollution prevention practices that reduce costs and environmental impacts. The $498,836 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Pollution Prevention Program allows both the TMAC Sustainability team and Process Automation Design Engineering (PADE) team to work with manufacturers to prevent pollution in areas considered environmental justice regions. An environmental ...

A University of Texas at Arlington researcher is working to optimize supply chain management to allow for flexibility from forces outside the supply chain, such as policy changes that can cause major disruptions. Linda Wang, assistant professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at UTA, has earned a five-year, $503,000 Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her research. CAREER awards are the NSF’s most prestigious honor for early-career ...

Cambridge University scientists have come up with a system of measuring animal welfare that enables reliable comparison across different types of pig farming. This means that animal welfare can now, for the first time, be properly considered alongside other impacts of farming to help identify which farming systems are best. This is vital for improving animal welfare in livestock production, at a time when demand for meat is rising globally and the way animals are farmed is changing - with concerns about the welfare of intensive and indoor systems. Animal welfare assessments could also enable consumers to be better informed when choosing what to eat. Britain ...

Several scientific journals have amended their submission guidelines after an analysis identified numerous research studies that had been published with crucial information missing. The finding emerged from an analysis by academics at the University of Cambridge, which reviewed reports from trials evaluating new school-based programmes to increase the amount of children’s physical exercise. It found that 98% of these reports left out key details about how teachers had been trained to deliver the interventions. The trial reports ...

New research has debunked the idea that there is an “obesity paradox”, whereby patients with heart failure who are overweight or obese are thought to be less likely to end up in hospital or die than people of normal weight.   The study, which is published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Wednesday), shows that if doctors measure the ratio of waist to height of their patients, rather than looking at their body mass index (BMI), the supposed survival advantage for people with a BMI of 25kg/m2 or more disappears.   The “obesity paradox” relates to counter-intuitive findings suggesting that, although people are at greater risk of developing ...

Osaka, Japan – The Haber–Bosch reaction helps feed the world by converting nitrogen into ammonia, a fertilizer precursor. However, its carbon footprint is huge: this one reaction is the source of nearly 2% of global carbon emissions. Now, in a study recently published in ACS Energy Letters, researchers from Osaka University have helped re-imagine this reaction to improve the sustainability of the chemical industry. Replacing the Haber–Bosch reaction with a more sustainable alternative has been an active area of research for many years. These efforts have led to a globally well-established electrochemical reaction for ammonia ...

The rapid evolution and emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, such as the Omicron variant, renders it highly capable of evading the host immunity. At the same time, vaccines based on original wild-type strain of SARS CoV-2 shows reduced protection against newer variants, particularly for the Omicron variant. This results in break-through infections among those vaccinated and highly infectious among non-vaccinated individuals. Thus, it remains uncertain whether new emerging variants of the COVID-19 disease can escape the protective immune response ...

Up-and-coming local biotech startup BetaLife Pte Ltd (“BetaLife”) is collaborating with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to accelerate the development of next generation cell-based therapy for diabetes. BetaLife, a stem cell therapy company focused on developing regenerative medicine for diabetes, has acquired the rights to human induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) technology from A*STAR. This technology enables the generation of iPSCs, which are cells that have similar properties to embryonic ...

The Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus) - also known as Black Vulture, Monk Vulture or Eurasian Black Vulture - is the largest bird of prey in Europe. Globally classified as Near Threatened, its populations in southern Europe, once abundant, have been experiencing a dramatic decline since the late 1800s. So dramatic, in fact, that by the mid-1900s, these birds had already been nowhere to be seen throughout most of their distributional range across the Old Continent. In Bulgaria, the species has been considered locally extinct since 1985. Thanks to the re-introduction initiative that was started in 2015 by three Bulgarian non-governmental organisations: ...

Nine in ten women in England enter pregnancy with at least one indicator that may increase health risks to them and their baby, according to new research. Common indicators were women not quitting smoking, failing to take folic acid before pregnancy or having a previous pregnancy loss. Researchers from the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, hosted by University Hospital Southampton and University of Southampton, analysed data from over 650,000 mothers. They created a first national picture of women’s health before ...

"Have you ever wondered about life on a leaf?" Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) researcher Ashley Shade asks a simple question, but it’s one well worth investigation. The aboveground part of plants where microbes reside, or the phyllosphere, represents the largest environmental surface area on the plant. Much of this area is grown as cultivated agriculture, and understanding the interactions between plants and the microorganisms that live on their surfaces may help us develop agricultural management practices that can increase crop productivity and resilience. In their newly published study, Department ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Moderate levels of artificial light at night – like the fixture illuminating your backyard – bring more caterpillar predators and reduce the chance that these lepidoptera larvae grow up to become moths and serve as food for larger prey. This ecological impact was demonstrated in a new Cornell University study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The scientists placed more than 550 lifelike caterpillar replicas made of soft clay in a forest, setting to ascertain how the mockups were attacked and hunted by predators compared to a control group. “We measured predation ...

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is proud to announce that Anne Kornahrens, Director of Community, has been selected as a 2023 U.S. delegate to the International Younger Chemists Network (IYCN) Assembly. Kornahrens will attend the 52nd International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) General Assembly and World Chemistry Congress, to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, August 18–25, 2023.  The IUPAC Young Observer Program strives to introduce the work of IUPAC to a new generation of distinguished researchers and to provide them with an opportunity to address international science policy issues. IYCN, an affiliated ...

SAN ANTONIO (March 21, 2023) — Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) have developed a small-molecule drug that prevents weight gain and adverse liver changes in mice fed a high-sugar, high-fat Western diet throughout life. “When we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim,” said Madesh Muniswamy, PhD, professor of medicine in the health science center’s Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. Findings by the collaborators, also from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, were published Feb. 27 in the high-impact journal Cell ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $150 million for research into the crosscutting foundational science for multiple Energy Earthshots. This funding, provided by the Office of Science, will support fundamental research to accelerate breakthroughs in support of the Energy Earthshots Initiative. “Our Energy Earthshot solutions start with science,” said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, DOE’s Director of the Office of Science. “The Office of Science is working to find those solutions by supporting research that will target the remaining and emerging scientific challenges underlaying ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. – While listening to a favorite song is a known mood booster, researchers at Michigan State University have discovered that music-listening interventions also can make medicines more effective.  “Music-listening interventions are like over-the-counter medications,” said Jason Kiernan, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing. “You don’t need a doctor to prescribe them.”  While previous research studies have used music-listening interventions as a tool to treat pain and anxiety, Kiernan took a novel approach by studying the effects of music-listening interventions ...

URBANA, Ill. – Animal agriculture is a major source of water pollution in the United States, as manure runoff carries excess nutrients into rivers and lakes. Because of their non-point source nature, most farms are not regulated under the federal Clean Water Act. This leaves pollution control up to the states, resulting in a patchwork of different approaches that are difficult to evaluate. A new study from the University of Illinois focuses on local manure management regulations in Wisconsin and how they affect water ...

Abu Dhabi, UAE, March 21, 2023 –  A team of NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) researchers, including data and computational social scientists, is reporting new findings that highlight previously unknown ways through which non-White scientists suffer from inequalities when it comes to the process of having their research considered, published, and cited, potentially hindering the advancement of their academic careers. Specifically, the NYUAD team’s analysis found fewer non-White editors than would be expected based on their share of authorship. In addition, non-White scientists endure longer waiting times between the submission ...

Reston, VA—A novel imaging modality that can visualize the distribution of medical radiopharmaceuticals with very fine resolution has been developed and successfully tested, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Known as the lensless radiomicroscope, the palm-sized instrument offers the same level of imaging performance as its closest imaging equivalent but comes with significantly larger field of view and costs less than $100. “While many nuclear medicine imaging modalities can quantitively measure ...

East Hanover, NJ. March 21, 2023. Researchers from Kessler Foundation and Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation (collectively “Kessler”) conducted the first prospective study to assess whether transcutaneous spinal stimulation (TSS) interacts with implanted intrathecal baclofen (ITB) pump delivery systems for managing spasticity. The article, "Transcutaneous spinal stimulation in patients with intrathecal baclofen pump delivery system: A preliminary safety study," (doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.1075293), was published December 21, 2022, in Frontiers in Neuroscience. It is ...