Sexual minority families—where parental sexual orientation or gender identity is considered outside cultural, societal, or physiological norms—fare as well as, or better than, ‘traditional’ families with parents of the opposite sex, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. Parental sexual orientation isn’t an important determinant of children’s development, the analysis shows. The number of children in families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender ...

Frequent socialising may extend the lifespan of older people, suggests a study of more than 28,000 Chinese people, published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Socialising nearly every day seems to be the most beneficial for a long life, the findings suggest. In 2017, 962 million people around the globe were over 60, and their number is projected to double by 2050. Consequently, considerable attention has focused on the concept of ‘active’ or ‘successful’ ageing, an important component of which seems to be an active social life, note the researchers. But most of the evidence for the health benefits of socialising ...

In a world first study of daily ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) across the globe, a Monash University study has found that only 0.18% of the global land area and 0.001% of the global population are exposed to levels of PM2.5 - the world’s leading environmental health risk factor – below levels of safety recommended by Word Health Organization (WHO). Importantly while daily levels have reduced in Europe and North America in the two decades to 2019, levels have increased Southern Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and the Caribbean, ...

Annual damage caused by flooding in the UK could increase by more than a fifth over the next century due to climate change unless all international pledges to reduce carbon emissions are met, according to new research. The study, led by the University of Bristol and global water risk modelling leader Fathom, reveals the first-ever dataset to assess flood hazard using the most recent Met Office climate projections which factor in the likely impact of climate change. Its findings show the forecasted annual increase in national direct flood losses, defined as physical damage to property and businesses, due to climate change in the UK can be kept below 5% above recent historical levels. ...

Astrophysicists in Australia have shed new light on the state of the universe 13 billion years ago by measuring the density of carbon in the gases surrounding ancient galaxies. The study adds another piece to the puzzle of the history of the universe. “We found that the fraction of carbon in warm gas increased rapidly about 13 billion years ago, which may be linked to large-scale heating of gas associated with the phenomenon known as the ‘Epoch of Reionisation’,” says Dr Rebecca Davies, ASTRO 3D Postdoctoral ...

Cities are bursting with life, both human and animal. The smallest of them, insects, spiders, and ants are easily overseen, but their presence – or absence – in cities has wide-reaching effects. Scientists in Austria have published a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, which found a correlation between the presence of arthropods – invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton; among them are bees, insects, and spiders – and level of urbanization. “We show that richness and diversity of arthropods on trees and bushes decreases along the rural-urban gradient,” said first author Dr Marion Chatelain, a postdoctoral ...

If you cool down low-density atomic gas to ultralow temperatures (−273°C), you get a new state of matter called the Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). A BEC has strongly coupled two-atom molecules behaving like a collective wave following quantum mechanics. Now if you reduce the pairing strength between them—for example, by increasing the magnetic field—the atoms form “Cooper-pairs” according to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory—a Nobel Prize winner. The process is called BCS-BEC crossover. And the theory forms the basis ...

There is increasing evidence that females of all ethnicities and ages are more salt sensitive than males, and that this propensity to hold onto more salt, which drives blood pressure up, increases after menopause. Another important emerging bottom line is that healthy blood pressures might differ between the sexes, which means females might benefit from earlier and different intervention to avoid damage to their heart and vasculature. “The realities are that women and men regulate our blood pressure differently and our blood pressures are different at baseline,” says Dr. Eric Belin de Chantemele, physiologist in the Vascular Biology Center at the Medical College of Georgia at ...

Recent studies have provided strong evidence that patients with heart failure can benefit from medical therapies that can reduce risk of worsening symptoms and extend patients’ lives. But, despite new guidelines, adoption of these therapies has been slow, incomplete and inequitable. A prospective clinical study by investigators from Mass General Brigham evaluated a new approach to improve use of these therapies by putting in place a virtual care team, consisting of physicians and pharmacists, to help guide treatment strategies for patients seeking care at three Mass General Brigham hospitals: Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital ...

Millions of people around the world undergo some type of orthodontic treatment each year due largely to developmental deformities in the jaw, skull, or face. Computed tomography (CT) imaging is the go-to technique for surgeons when planning such treatments, especially surgeries. This is because CT provides 3D images of the bones and teeth, which helps the surgeon analyze complex cases in detail and determine the best treatment procedure based on that. During the CT scan, surgeons typically try to pinpoint specific anatomical landmarks in the images. These are distinct points in the human body that can be used as a reference to make measurements and assess a condition ...

In August 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Signed by President Joe Biden, the legislation attempted to curb inflation, lower the deficit, and invest heavily into domestic clean energy. One aspect of the bill was setting a market value-based target for battery-critical mineral content in electric vehicles (EVs). By 2027, for an EV to be tax-credit eligible, 80 percent of the market value of critical minerals in its battery must be extracted or processed domestically or by US free-trade partners (FTPs).  While this goal is well-intended, there are reasons to believe the mandate is unreachable and could create new problems. In a commentary published ...

LA JOLLA (March 6, 2023)—The artificial intelligence (AI) language model ChatGPT has captured the world’s attention in recent months. This trained computer chatbot can generate text, answer questions, provide translations, and learn based on the user’s feedback. Large language models like ChatGPT may have many applications in science and business, but how much do these tools understand what we say to them and how do they decide what to say back?   In new paper published in Neural Computation on February 17, 2023, Salk Professor Terrence Sejnowski, ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — UC Santa Barbara professors Thuc-Quyen Nguyen and Carlos G. Levi are among 106 new members of the National Academy of Engineering. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.” “Our campus ...

A Rutgers-led team of scientists studying virus-host interactions of a globally abundant, armor-plated marine algae, Emiliania huxleyi, has found that the circular, chalk plates the algae produce can act as catalysts for viral infection, which has vast consequences for trillions of microscopic oceanic creatures and the global carbon cycle. “In a drop of seawater, there will be about 1,000 to 10,000 E. huxleyi cells, and about 10 million viruses,” said Kay Bidle, a professor in the Department of ...

A model for predicting the levels of oxygen in water, developed by West Virginia Universityresearcher Omar Abdul-Aziz, gives citizen scientists nationwide a tool for taking action on stream pollution.  “I have been looking at water quality data for 20 years,” said Abdul-Aziz, an associate professor at the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. “I can tell you that a big percentage of streams in the United States are polluted. Urban streams are getting dumpster runoff, stormwater ...

The cells that make up the human brain begin developing long before the physical shape of the brain has formed. This early organizing of a network of cells plays a major role in brain health throughout the course of a lifetime. Numerous studies have found that mothers with low iron levels during pregnancy have a higher risk of giving birth to a child that develops cognitive impairments like autism, attention deficit syndrome, and learning disabilities. However, iron deficiency is still prevalent in ...

Intermittent fasting, especially when done over the course of decades, can have positive effects on metabolic and cardiovascular health. Now, a new study by researchers at Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City finds that it may also add an extra layer of protection from heart-related COVID-19 complications in people who had already sought cardiac care. “We already know that regular fasting over long periods of time can lead to overall health improvements. Here we found that it may also lead to better outcomes in COVID-19 patients who required a cardiac catheterization,” said Benjamin Horne, PhD, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology ...

New evidence released today from a study of 31,245 patients already taking statin therapy indicates that inflammation may be a more powerful predictor of risk of future cardiovascular events—such as heart attack and stroke — than “bad” cholesterol. Treatments that aggressively lower vascular inflammation need to be incorporated into daily practice if doctors are to maximize patient outcomes, according to the study’s corresponding author, Paul Ridker, MD, a preventive cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General ...

The emergence of new COVID-19 variants has led to reduced accuracy across current rapid testing methods, but a recent University of Michigan study suggests that a patient’s breath might hold the key to a more precise diagnosis. Investigators from the University of Michigan’s Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation, including faculty and students from the College of Engineering and Michigan Medicine, used portable gas chromatography to examine breath samples collected during the pandemic’s Delta ...

In a survey of 545,531 people, 8.5% of those who said they were ‘fully accepting’ of gay people did not want gay neighbors. First study to explore stigmatizing behaviors expressed by avid supporters of sexual minorities ‘Simple legal inclusion can help mobilize the accepting population to their fullest potential’ CHICAGO --- When legal systems choose to offer no protections to sexual minorities, even avid LGBTQ supporters would reject their gay neighbors, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.  The study examined ...

Scientists find that a tubular nanomaterial of carbon makes for ideal host to keep quantum bits spinning in place for use in quantum information technologies. Scientists are vigorously competing to transform the counterintuitive discoveries about the quantum realm from a century past into technologies of the future. The building block in these technologies is the quantum bit, or qubit. Several different kinds are under development, including ones that use defects within the symmetrical structures of diamond and silicon. They may one day transform computing, accelerate drug discovery, generate unhackable networks and more. Working with researchers from several universities, scientists ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- LOINC® from Regenstrief Institute is issuing its semi-annual release, which contains 608 new concepts to help health systems, laboratories and other health organizations accurately exchange medical data. Some of the new information has been released in coordination with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “Aligning the release of LOINC with emerging healthcare trends is an important component of our mission and critical in promoting effective health information exchange among providers, patients and health systems,” said Marjorie Rallins, ...

New research pinpoints a key cause of metastasis from an aggressive form of brain cancer in children and provides a potential new therapy for treating these tumors in the future.    In a paper, published in Nature Cell Biology, physician-scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh discovered that medulloblastomas hijack a skill that normal brain cells use during their early development and then manipulate it to help tumors spread. “Children with medulloblastomas that have not yet metastasized may have a high likelihood of long-term survival, but if ...

March 6, 2023, Mountain View, CA – Wouldn’t finding life on other worlds be easier if we knew exactly where to look? Researchers have limited opportunities to collect samples on Mars or elsewhere or access remote sensing instruments when hunting for life beyond Earth. In a paper published in Nature Astronomy, an interdisciplinary study led by SETI Institute Senior Research Scientist Kim Warren-Rhodes, mapped the sparse life hidden away in salt domes, rocks and crystals at Salar de Pajonales at the boundary of the Chilean Atacama Desert and Altiplano. Then they trained a machine learning model to recognize the patterns and rules associated with their distributions ...

Boulder, Colo., USA: Oklahoma State University is hosting the 57th annual meeting of the Geological Society of America’s South-Central Section on 13–14 March. The meeting will have a diverse program of workshops, technical sessions, short courses, and field trips that covers a spectrum of geologic disciplines. The list below highlights a selection of environmental-related session topics you might like: · Tar Creek Superfund Site Field Trip (Field Trip) Managed Aquifer Recharge in the Arbuckle Simpson Aquifer (Field Trip) Geoscience Career Workshop: Career Planning and Networking · Hydrogeologic Challenges and Roles ...