At a glance: A small population of airway neurons alerts the brain about a flu infection, according to a new study in mice The results help explain how drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin reduce flu symptoms The findings could help scientists develop more-effective flu therapies A new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School illuminates how the brain becomes aware that there is an infection in the body. Studying mice, the team discovered that a small group of neurons in the airway plays a pivotal role in alerting the brain about ...

Scientists studying a nearby protostar have detected the presence of water in its circumstellar disk. The new observations made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) mark the first detection of water being inherited into a protoplanetary disk without significant changes to its composition. These results further suggest that the water in our Solar System formed billions of years before the Sun. The new observations are published today in Nature. V883 Orionis is a protostar located roughly 1,305 light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion. ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – If a newborn tests positive for certain drugs after birth, mandated reporters in many states – including health care professionals and social workers – are required to report it to Child Protective Services. But guidelines on what should trigger these tests are often unclear and inconsistent, which studies have shown may contribute to racial inequities in who gets tested. Residents, faculty, medical students and researchers at Michigan Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine and Antiracism and Health Equity Program wanted to determine rates of newborn drug testing and if these rates varied by ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 11:00 AM EST Wednesday, March 8, 2023 Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## Gun violence—and racial disparities in gun violence—have increased substantially during the pandemic, particularly among children. Now a new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researcher shows just how stark these differences in risk of firearm injury are between White and non-White children. Published as a research letter in JAMA Network Open, the study examined gun injuries among children in four major US cities—New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia—and ...

Rice is one of the most important crops in the world and constitutes the primary food source for over half of Earth’s population. Protecting rice plantations from disease is therefore an essential endeavor in modern agriculture. Of the many pathogens that can infect rice plants, the bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae, which is responsible for bacterial blight (BB), is among the worst. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of crops are lost each year due to BB, and millions of dollars are spent in preventive measures and research. One of the most fruitful strategies to control BB and other crop diseases is to grow genetically resistant cultivars. However, as pathogens can ...

BOSTON – Mass General researchers have discovered a novel molecular mechanism responsible for the most common forms of acquired hydrocephalus, potentially opening the door to the first-ever nonsurgical treatment for a life-threatening disease that affects about a million Americans. As reported in the journal Cell, the team uncovered in animal models the pathway through which infection or bleeding in the brain triggers a massive neuroinflammatory response that results in increased production of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) ...

About The Study: Child firearm assaults increased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic in four major U.S. cities, according to the results of this study. Racial and ethnic disparities increased, as Hispanic, Asian, and especially Black children experienced disproportionate shares of the increased violence.  Authors: Jonathan Jay, Dr.P.H., J.D., of the Boston University School of Public Health in Boston, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.3125) Editor’s ...

Curtin researchers have uncovered new evidence of western pygmy possums interacting with native flowers, providing the first eDNA study to simultaneously detect mammal, insect and bird DNA on flowers. The new research, published today in Environmental DNA, examined DNA traces left by animal pollinators on native flora and detected both insect and animal pollinators from multiple flowering plant species at once - a game changer in the face of declining animal pollinators globally. In North America, some pollinator species have fallen by more than 95 per cent while ...

The 2023 SIAM Conference on Computational Geometric Design, organized by the SIAM Activity Group on Geometric Design, is part of the International Geometry Summit bringing together the Symposium on Physical and Solid Modeling 2023, Shape Modeling International 2023, EG Symposium on Geometry Processing 2023, and Geometric Modeling and Processing 2023. The 2023 SIAM Conference on Computational Geometric Design seeks high quality, original research contributions that strive to advance all aspects ...

The link between symptoms of COVID-19 and physical inactivity is increasingly evident. An article recently published in the journal Scientific Reports by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil describes a study in which COVID-19 survivors with at least one persistent symptom of the disease were 57% more likely to be sedentary, and the presence of five or more post-acute sequelae of infection by SARS-CoV-2 increased the odds of physical inactivity by 138%. “Although this was a cross-sectional study, the findings underscore the importance of discussing and encouraging physical activity at all times, including during the pandemic,” ...

Mezcal is a distilled alcohol made from the boiled and fermented sap of agave plants. Most mezcal beverages — including all brands of tequila — are sold as pure distillates, but a few have an added stowaway bottled inside: worms.   Called gusanos de maguey (Spanish for agave worms), these odd organic chasers aren’t actually worms, but instead a type of insect larva, and their addition to mezcal is a recent one. Mezcal production has a storied history, dating back to the first Spanish inhabitants of Mexico, but larvae were only added to the drink in ...

WASHINGTON, March 8, 2023—The American Educational Research Association (AERA) has announced the selection of 24 exemplary scholars as 2023 AERA Fellows. The AERA Fellows Program honors scholars for their exceptional contributions to, and excellence in, education research. Nominated by their peers, the 2023 Fellows were selected by the Fellows Committee and approved by the AERA Council, the association’s elected governing body. They will be inducted during a ceremony at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Chicago on April 14. They join a total of 714 AERA Fellows. “AERA Fellows demonstrate the highest standards ...

Fertilizers are one of the main reasons that we are able to grow enough crops to feed the almost 8 billion humans living on Earth. Modern agriculture depends largely on nitrogen-based fertilizers, which significantly increase the yield of crops. Unfortunately, a great portion of these fertilizers are produced at an industrial level, consuming fossil fuel energy and causing nitrogen pollution. One attractive way to minimize our use of industrially produced fertilizers is to harness the power of nitrogenases. ...

Research from the University of Cincinnati finds a lack of federal funding for incarceration-related research. The study looked at data from the Department of Justice, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation, some of which dated back to 1985. The study was published recently in the journal JAMA Network Open. “We have very little evidence-based research on how and when to intervene with children and families when someone is removed from the home due to incarceration, especially on how to ...

PET, the plastic used to make bottles, for example, is ubiquitous in our natural environment. In a joint study, scientists from Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) investigated the negative effects that tiny plastic PET particles can have on the metabolism and development of an organism. Their findings have now been published in the journal Scientific Reports. The increasing use of plastic is threatening ecosystems around the world. One of the big concerns is the presence of plastics in the form of small particles, also called microplastics and nanoplastics. ...

The traditional line of thought is that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is caused by directly experiencing the traumatic event. However, about 10 percent of diagnosed PTSD occurs when people witness these events versus experiencing it directly themselves. Little is known about these cases of PTSD, but that’s something that Tim Jarome, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences School of Animal Sciences, is aiming to change with a $430,000 grant from the National Institute ...

(WASHINGTON, March 8, 2023) – Sickle cell disease (SCD), a rare chronic, progressive, life-threatening, inherited blood disorder, often affects individuals with chronic pain that can be debilitating to their quality of life. Yet less than 4% of people living with SCD who experience chronic pain episodes have prescriptions for newer FDA-approved pain-relieving drugs, including l-glutamine, voxelotor, and crizanlizumab, according to a new study published in Blood Advances. Further, researchers found that less than a third of patients with pain episodes have prescriptions for hydroxyurea, ...

Metastatic breast cancer has no cure and has proven stubbornly resistant to one of the most innovative and promising new cancer treatments: immunotherapy. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a way to treat the area surrounding breast tumors that have spread to bone so that such tumors become vulnerable to attack by the body’s immune system. When the researchers boosted the activity of certain immune cells, called T cells and macrophages, these immune cells worked together to clear metastatic breast tumors that had spread to the bones of mice, and continued to eliminate tumor cells ...

Researchers have found a way to predict the behavior of many-body quantum systems coupled to their environment. The work represents a way to protect quantum information in quantum devices, which is crucial for real-world applications of quantum technology. In a study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers at Aalto University in Finland and IAS Tsinghua University in China report a new way to predict how quantum systems, such as groups of particles, behave when they are connected to the external environment. ...

The nitrate ingested over the course of a person’s adult lifetime through the consumption of tap water and bottled water could be a risk factor for prostate cancer, particularly in the case of aggressive tumours and in younger men. This is the conclusion of a study conducted in Spain and led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation. The findings have been published in Environmental Health Perspectives.   The study also suggests that diet plays an important role. The researchers found that eating plenty of fibre, fruit/vegetables and vitamin C could reduce the negative effect ...

UNIST and BNK Kyongnam Bank recently held a donation agreement ceremony in pursuit of creating a beautiful, biodiverse, and sustainable kitchen garden on UNIST campus. A ceremony to commemorate and display gratitude for BNK Kyongnam Bank also took place on Friday, February 24, 2023. As part of its Carbon Neutral Campus Project, UNIST has been implementing a number of projects to improve sustainability on campus and in the surrounding community, including the creation of an ecological garden that ...

A team of researchers has discovered a potential therapeutic that can synergize with existing drugs to more effectively kill certain leukemia cells. The authors published their results on Jan. 19 in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics.   Acute myeloid leukemia is a cancer of developing immune cells. It can manifest in all individuals, including the elderly and children. Only 30% of patients survive beyond five years of diagnosis Unlike cancers of solid organs, AML is found in bodily fluids, such as blood. Like passengers ...

Each year, more than 3 million people ages 65 and older are treated in emergency departments for fall injuries. Head trauma is the leading cause of serious injury with skull fractures being reported as a serious outcome. According to the 2016 National Trauma Database annual report, females account for 58 percent of these falls. Because geriatric females have an increased rate of falls and facial fractures, determining if they also are at an increased risk of skull fractures is crucial. Currently, research ...

Researchers from Fudan University, China Europe International Business School, and Peking University published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines how marketers can use different messaging to persuade individuals to contribute to a collective goal. The study addresses the specific question of the type of message—fact-based vs. affected-based—that is more effective in eliciting participation based on how near the goal is to completion. The study, forthcoming in the Journal ...

It sounds like a party trick: Add water to the clear, licorice-flavored ouzo liquor, and watch it turn cloudy. This “ouzo effect” is an example of an easy way to make highly stable emulsions — or mixtures of liquids that don’t like being together, like vinaigrettes — but nobody has yet fully understood how it works. Now, researchers report in ACS Central Science that the secret may lie in the unique structure of the emulsion’s droplets. Ouzo is a popular liquor enjoyed throughout Greece, ...