Tokyo, Japan - Guillain-Barré syndrome is an infamous autoimmune neuropathy, yet genetic variants predisposing individuals to this disease have yet to be described. In a new study, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) discovered two novel genetic variants in a protein made by antibody-forming immune cells, providing a mechanism for the development of the disease. The body's immune system is supposed to fight off invaders; however, in autoimmune diseases this defense goes rogue and attacks the host instead through the production of autoantibodies. Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an acutely developing, autoimmune peripheral neuropathy that leads to muscle ...

Using synchrotron radiation at SPring-8 - a large-scale synchrotron radiation facility - Tohoku University, Toshiba Corporation, and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) have successfully imaged the magnetization dynamics of a hard disk drive (HDD) write head for the first time, with a precision of one ten-billionth of a second. The method makes possible precise analysis of write head operations, accelerating the development of the next-generation write heads and further increasing HDD capacity. Details of the research were published in the Journal of Applied Physics on October 6 and presented at the 44th Annual Conference on Magnetics in Japan, on December 14. International Data Corporation predicts a five-fold increase ...

The genomes of egg-laying monotreme mammals, platypus and echidna, have been published in the prestigious journal Nature, providing a valuable public resource for research in mammalian biology and evolution, with applications for their conservation and health. Monotremes display a unique mix of mammalian and reptilian features and form the most distantly related, and least understood, group of living mammals. Their genetic blueprint provides fundamental insights into their unique biology and into the evolution of all mammals. "The platypus and ...

The perception of our own voice depends on sound transmission through air (air-conducted) as well as through the skull bone (bone-conducted or BC). The transmission properties of BC speech are, however, not well understood. Now, scientists from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology report their latest findings on BC transmission under the influence of oral cavity sound pressure, which can boost BC-based technology and basic research on hearing loss and speech impairment. Ever wondered why your voice sounds different in a recording compared to how you perceive it as you speak? You are not alone. The ...

Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites. The treatment of bacterial and fungal infections relies particularly on antimicrobial drugs, while the focus in treating viral infections is the alleviation of symptoms. Initial therapy for infection is often empiric and guided by clinical presentation. Its efficacy on the pathogen is, however, only seldom understood at therapy initiation. Although methods for assessing treatment responses exist, the effectiveness is mainly determined through monitoring symptoms and signs of infections. Advances in sequencing technology have made characterization of genomes and gene expression products increasingly practical. The technology has also made it possible ...

Combining electronic structure calculations and machine learning (ML) techniques has become a common approach in the atomistic modelling of matter. Using the two techniques together has allowed researchers, for instance, to create models that use atomic coordinates as the only inputs to inexpensively predict any property that can be computed by the first-principles calculations that had been used to train them. While the earliest and by now most advanced efforts have focused on using predictions of total energies and atomic forces to construct interatomic potentials, more recent efforts have targeted additional properties of crystals and molecules such as ionization energies, NMR chemical shieldings, dielectric response properties and charge density. In the paper "Learning ...

It is during rare merging events that galaxies undergo dramatic changes in their appearance and in their stellar content. These systems are excellent laboratories to trace the formation of star clusters under extreme physical conditions. The Milky Way typically forms star clusters with masses that are 10 thousand times the mass of our Sun. This doesn't compare to the masses of the star clusters forming in colliding galaxies, which can reach millions of times the mass of our Sun. These dense stellar systems are also very luminous. Even after the collision, when the resulting galactic system begins to fade into a more quiescent phase, these very massive star clusters will shine throughout their host galaxy, as long-lasting witnesses of past merging events. By studying the six galaxy ...

Autoimmune diseases are diseases of "mistaken identity", where the immune system - which is supposed to protect us against infectious diseases and neoplasias - mistakenly attacks and destroys components of our own body. The incidence of autoimmune diseases is increasing on a worldwide basis, and these diseases - including type 1 diabetes (T1D), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), multiple sclerosis (MS) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) - now affect up to 5% of the population in different regions. There is no cure for autoimmune diseases, and while the immune target of T1D, SLE, MS, and RA are distinct, they share several similar elements, including up to 50% common genetic risk, chronic local inflammation and mechanisms ...

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg now suggest a possible cure for children with hard-to-treat forms of neuroblastoma using a new combination of drugs. In a new study in the journal Cancer Research, they describe how a two small molecule-based drug combination likely inhibit the tumor's growth. Neuroblastoma is the most common form of childhood cancer, derived from the peripheral nervous system, i.e., the part of the nervous system that is not the brain or spinal cord. The disease can occur in the chest, neck, abdomen and adrenal glands and can also spread to the spine. Symptoms include general aches, anemia and skeletal pain. The ...

Stomach cancer, or gastric cancer, is a common gastrointestinal malignancy. Peritoneal metastasis occurs in a majority of patients with advanced stomach cancer and is considered as an aggressive disease with poor outcomes. Patients with peritoneal metastasis are typically not eligible for curative surgery. Therefore, preoperative detection and diagnosis of peritoneal metastasis are critical to inform treatment decision-making and avoid unnecessary surgery. A new study published in the JAMA Network Open on Jan. 5 shows that deep learning can help predicting the occult peritoneal metastasis in stomach cancer. It provides a novel and noninvasive approach for ...

Olduvai (now Oldupai) Gorge, known as the Cradle of Humankind, is a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tanzania, made famous by Louis and Mary Leakey. New interdisciplinary field work has led to the discovery of the oldest archaeological site in Oldupai Gorge as reported in Nature Communications, which shows that early human used a wide diversity of habitats amidst environmental changes across a 200,000 year-long period. Located in the heart of eastern Africa, the Rift System is a prime region for human origins research, boasting extraordinary records of extinct human species and environmental records spanning several million years. For more than a century, archaeologists and human palaeontologists have been exploring the East African Rift outcrops and unearthing hominin fossils in surveys ...

New research by scientists at the University of Bristol explains how a 'stop-start' pattern of evolution, governed by environmental change, could explain why crocodiles have changed so little since the age of the dinosaurs. Crocodiles today look very similar to ones from the Jurassic period some 200 million years ago. There are also very few species alive today - just 25. Other animals such as lizards and birds have achieved a diversity of many thousands of species in the same amount of time or less. Prehistory also saw types of crocodile we don't see today, including giants as big as dinosaurs, plant-eaters, fast ...

Scientists at the University of Birmingham, UK, have shown that a novel low molecular weight dextran-sulphate, ILB® could play a key role in treating open angle glaucoma (OAG), a neurodegenerative disease that affects over 70 million people worldwide and causes irreversible blindness. OAG develops slowly over many years. Excessive matrix deposition (fibrosis) within the eye's main fluid drainage site can lead to increased intraocular pressure (IOP), resulting in damage to the optic nerve.1 The research, reported in npj Regenerative Medicine, has ...

The North Sea is a heavily trafficked area, with major shipping routes crossing its waters, and fisheries, offshore oil rigs, and wind farms populating its waves. All this activity inevitably has an effect on marine wildlife, and scientists are particularly interested in how the harbor porpoise population has fared in the face of such disturbances. The harbor porpoise is known as a "sentinel species" - animals which indicate the health of an ecosystem and point to potential risks (think of the canary in the coal mine). According to a recent study published in Frontiers ...

A new study in the Oxford Economic Papers finds that migration flows the last 500 years from high sunlight regions to low sunlight regions influence contemporary health outcomes in destination countries. The researchers here noted that people's ability to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight declines with skin pigmentation, and that vitamin D deficiency is directly associated with higher risk of mortality, from illnesses including cardiovascular disease, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and certain cancers. Recent research even .finds that vitamin D affects the severity of COVID-19. Researchers here focused on ...

Sophia Antipolis, 7 January 2021: Patients with acute heart failure nearly double their risk of dying if they get COVID-19, according to research published today in ESC Heart Failure, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The small, single centre study highlights the need for patients with heart failure to take extra precautions to avoid catching COVID-19. "Our results support prioritising heart failure patients for COVID-19 vaccination once it is available," said study lead investigator Dr. Amardeep Dastidar, a consultant interventional cardiologist at North Bristol NHS Trust and Bristol Heart Institute, UK. "In the meantime, heart failure patients of all ages should ...

Modelling study suggests that pregnant women in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, who are exposed to poor air quality, may be at higher risk of stillbirths and miscarriages. An estimated 349,681 pregnancy losses per year in south Asia were associated with exposure to PM2.5 concentrations that exceeded India's air quality standard (more than 40 μg/m³), accounting for 7% of annual pregnancy loss in the region from 2000-2016. First study to estimate the effect of air pollution on pregnancy loss across the region indicates that air pollution could be a major contributor to pregnancy loss in south Asia, so controlling air pollution is vital for improving maternal ...

WHO H. Gilbert Welch MD, MPH, Senior Investigator, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital; co-author of a new Sounding Board article published in The New England Journal of Medicine. WHAT Melanoma of the skin is now the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S. Diagnoses of melanoma are six times as high today as they were 40 years ago. While incidence of melanoma has been rising steeply, melanoma mortality has been generally stable. In a Sounding Board article, Welch and colleagues present evidence for why they believe that increased diagnostic scrutiny is the primary driver of the rapid rise in melanoma diagnoses. "Melanoma is now the posterchild for overdiagnosis," said Welch. "Although the conventional response has been ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Before the pandemic, one-third of U.S. households with children were already "net worth poor," lacking enough financial resources to sustain their families for three months at a poverty level, finds new research from Duke University. In 2019, 57 percent of Black families and 50 percent of Latino families with children were poor in terms of net worth. By comparison, the rate for white families was 24 percent. "These 'net worth poor' households have no assets to withstand a sudden economic loss, like we have seen with COVID-19," said Christina Gibson-Davis, co-author of the study and professor of public policy and sociology at Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy. "Their savings are virtually nil, ...

The exponential growth of data traffic in our digital age poses some real challenges on processing power. And with the advent of machine learning and AI in, for example, self-driving vehicles and speech recognition, the upward trend is set to continue. All this places a heavy burden on the ability of current computer processors to keep up with demand. Now, an international team of scientists has turned to light to tackle the problem. The researchers developed a new approach and architecture that combines processing and data storage onto a single chip by using light-based, or "photonic" processors, which ...

A study led by University of Ottawa researchers provides empirical evidence that mindfulness has a significant impact on the brain of women suffering from neuropathic pain related to breast cancer treatment. The researchers showed that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) helps modulate neuropathic pain. Their findings could make a difference in the lives of many women. In Canada, over a quarter of a million women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer - the most diagnosed cancer among women worldwide - in 2020. In addition to the psychological impacts of breast cancer, approximately 20 to 50 percent of survivors report experiencing chronic neuropathic pain following treatment. We talked to senior author Dr. Andra Smith, Full Professor at the uOttawa School of Psychology, ...

Physicians have long known that necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a potentially lethal inflammatory condition that destroys a premature infant's intestinal lining, is often connected to the development of severe brain injury in those infants who survive. However, the means by which the diseased intestine "communicates" its devastation to the newborn brain has remained largely unknown. Now, working with mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have identified that missing link -- an immune system cell that they say travels from the gut to the ...

Indianapolis, Ind. - A team of researchers led by the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute Diabetes Center's Scientific Director Decio L. Eizirik, MD, PhD, has found that identifying new treatments for autoimmune diseases requires studying together the immune system AND target tissues. This study, "Gene expression signatures of target tissues in type 1 diabetes, lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis," is featured in the Jan. 6, 2021, edition of Science Advances. "We must move away from the present "immune-centric-only" view of autoimmune diseases," explains Eizirik. "Indeed, trying to understand these diseases focusing on the immune system only, ...

Researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found that opioid use might increase a person's risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Published Jan. 6, the study, titled "Opioid Use as a Potential Risk Factor for Pancreatic Cancer in the United States," is the first in the country to show evidence that opioid use may be an unidentified risk factor contributing to the increasing incidence of pancreatic cancer. In fact, opioid misuse and overdose have evolved into a public health crisis. Approximately 70,000 drug overdose deaths were reported in 2017, 68% of which involved an opioid.¹ The use of prescription opioids for the management of chronic pain ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Before the pandemic, one-third of U.S. households with children were already "net worth poor," lacking enough financial resources to sustain their families for three months at a poverty level, finds new research from Duke University. In 2019, 57 percent of Black families and 50 percent of Latino families with children were poor in terms of net worth. By comparison, the rate for white families was 24 percent. "These 'net worth poor' households have no assets to withstand a sudden economic loss, like we have seen with COVID-19," said Christina Gibson-Davis, co-author of the study and professor of public policy and sociology at Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy. "Their ...