One in ten early deaths could be prevented if everyone managed at least half the recommended level of physical activity, say a team led by researchers at the University of Cambridge. In a study published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers say that 11 minutes a day (75 minutes a week) of moderate-intensity physical activity – such as a brisk walk – would be sufficient to lower the risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and a number of cancers. Cardiovascular diseases – such as heart disease and stroke – are the leading cause of death globally, ...

The Pink-throated Brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa gularis, has, unsurprisingly, a brilliant pink throat. So does its cousin, the Rufous-webbed Brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa branickii. When scientists found a Heliodoxa hummingbird with a glittering gold throat, they thought they might have found a new species. DNA revealed a different story: the gold-throated bird was a never-before-documented hybrid of the two pink-throated species. John Bates, the senior author of a new study in the journal Royal Society Open Science reporting on the hybrid, first encountered the unusual bird while doing fieldwork in Peru’s Cordillera ...

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), one of the most common forms of dementia, has no cure. Previous studies suggested that gut bacteria, the microorganisms that live in the human digestive tract, play a role in Parkinson’s disease, another neurodegenerative disorder, but the bacteria involved in DLB had not been identified. Now, a group led by researchers at the Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan has identified three bacteria involved in DLB: Collinsella, Ruminococcus, and Bifidobacterium. Their findings, reported in npj Parkinson's ...

Greater numbers of Bison in Yellowstone National Park may come at a cost to the biological diversity of the important streamside habitats of the Park according to a new report in the journal Ecosphere Bison influences on composition and diversity of riparian plant communities in Yellowstone National Park.  Riparian areas (streamside zones) form the interface between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and are hotspots of biodiversity and productivity in the public lands of the Western USA.  The study findings are that ...

For those on keto or paleo diets, this may be tough to swallow. A new study from Tulane University which compared popular diets on both nutritional quality and environmental impact found that the keto and paleo diets, as eaten by American adults, scored among the lowest on overall nutrition quality and were among the highest on carbon emissions. The keto diet, which prioritizes high amounts of fat and low amounts of carbs, was estimated to generate almost 3 kg of carbon dioxide for every ...

Southern right whales adjusted their foraging grounds over the past 30 years as climate change altered where prey could be found, according to a University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau scientist. Dr Emma Carroll, of the School of Biological Sciences, was senior author of a paper which used data gleaned from contemporary whale skin samples along with whaling records stretching back to 1792. Over the past three decades, the whales increased their use of mid-latitude foraging grounds in the south Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans in the late summer and autumn, according to Carroll and dozens of collaborators including lead author Solène Derville, of Oregon State University. The ...

Long COVID is associated with reduced brain oxygen levels, worse performance on cognitive tests and increased psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety, according to new research studying the impacts of the disease.   Researchers from the University of Waterloo combined the results of two new parallel studies: a laboratory study involving cognitive testing and imaging of oxygen levels in the brain, and a national population survey of Canadians in 2021 and 2022.  The laboratory study found that individuals who had experienced symptomatic COVID-19 illness performed worse on two computer tasks. One is measuring inhibition and another impulsive decision-making. ...

Stars are formed by molecular gas and dust coalescing in space. These molecular gases are so dilute and cold that they are invisible to the human eye, but they do emit faint radio waves that can be observed by radio telescopes. Observing from Earth, a lot of matter lies ahead and behind these molecular clouds and these overlapping features make it difficult to determine their distance and physical properties such as size and mass. So, even though our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is the only galaxy close ...

Conventional mechanics of materials books treat elastic deformations of solids through one-dimensional models for extension of rods, torsion of shafts and bending of beams. In functional materials, elastic, thermal, electric and magnetic fields interact. A systematic treatment of these fields and their interactions for one-dimensional models of extension, torsion and bending of beams in addition to the underlying three-dimensional theory is presented in new book, Mechanics of Functional Materials, by Professor of Mechanical and Materials ...

FAIRFAX, Va. (March 1, 2023)—A minimally invasive treatment that injects allograft disc tissue into the spine to relieve pain associated with degenerative disc disease provides significant improvement in pain and function over a sustained period, according to new research to be presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting in Phoenix. The treatment, known as viable disc allograft supplementation, injects specialized cells and fluid into a patient’s damaged disc. The cells ...

FAIRFAX, Va. (March 1, 2023)—Prostate artery embolization (PAE) provides long-term effectiveness in treating urinary symptoms from an enlarged prostate gland, according to new research to be presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting in Phoenix. In the largest long-term North American study, 1,000 patients who underwent PAE reported significant sustained relief, up to six years, from lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) or urinary retention due to benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). BPH is the most common benign condition in men, affecting more than 50 percent of men over age 60. The ...

FAIRFAX, Va. (March 1, 2023) — Genicular nerve radiofrequency ablation is a minimally invasive treatment for knee pain due to osteoarthritis of the knee, and can significantly reduce pain, especially for adults who are 50 and older, according to new research to be presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting in Phoenix. This is the first time a study has examined patient demographics, prior surgical history and other clinical characteristics that may predict the level of pain reduction after treatment. “We ...

A new study has shown that sexting was associated with depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and compulsive sexual behaviors. The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Click here to read the article now. Sexting is defined as sending a sexually explicit image of oneself over text messaging. Sexting can include sending only, receiving only or “reciprocal” (sending and receiving) use of messages.  Nicholas C. Borgogna PhD, from Texas Tech University, and coauthors, found that participants who had only ever sent (but not received) sexts reported more depression, anxiety, and sleep problems than the other groups. They ...

Washington, February 28, 2023—Janelle Scott, professor and the Birgeneau Distinguished Chair in Educational Disparities at the University of California, Berkeley, in the School of Education, has been voted president-elect of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Scott joins the AERA Council in 2023–2024 as president-elect. Her presidency begins at the conclusion of the association’s 2024 Annual Meeting. Scott served as the 2019–2022 AERA Division L Vice President and as an AERA Council and Executive Board member. She is an AERA Fellow and received the AERA Committee on ...

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have repeatedly been the subject of negative news coverage. As a result, the positive aspects associated with digital platforms have been overlooked. In light of this, a recent study has explored the social media activity of a carefully selected group of individuals who use the microblogging platform Twitter. The authors, Dr. Roman Lietz from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and Dr. Fergal Lenehan from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, observe that socially engaged Twitter users share unexpected similarities despite their different backgrounds. "These digital cosmopolitans share similar ...

NEWPORT, Ore. – A new study of New Zealand blue whales’ vocalizations indicates the whales are present year-round in the South Taranaki Bight and their behavior is influenced by environmental conditions in the region. The findings are a significant advancement in researchers’ understanding of the habitat use and behavior of this population of blue whales, which Oregon State University researchers first identified as genetically distinct from other blue whale populations less than a decade ago.   “We ...

  ·  When scientists reduce level of a gene, brain activity and behavior return to normal in mice ·  Approach could be used more broadly in other neurodevelopmental disorders ·  Neurodevelopmental disorders affect 10 million people in U.S. CHICAGO --- Northwestern Medicine scientists have identified the cause of a genetic subtype of autism and schizophrenia that results in social deficits and seizures in mice and humans.  Scientists have discovered a key feature of this ...

Americans are drinking more caffeinated beverages than ever before, but Rutgers researchers found one group that tops the charts in caffeine consumption: adult smokers with mental illness.   In a study published online ahead of print in the January issue of the journal Psychiatry Research, Jill M. Williams, director of the division of addiction psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, found not only do adult smokers with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia drink the most caffeine, they are at the highest risk of negative health ...

An on-going, worldwide shortage of bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) means that many patients with a common and serious type of bladder cancer have limited access to this effective standard of care treatment. But, for the first time in almost 50 years, there appears to be a viable treatment alternative.  A new study from the University of Iowa finds that a safe, inexpensive combo-chemotherapy is better tolerated than BCG and is better at preventing high-grade cancer recurrence in patients with non-muscle invasive ...

Whether it’s Flo from Progressive or the Geico gecko, the average TV viewer may not give much thought to commercials outside of whether they’re entertaining or not. However, there is a rather complex science behind what commercials you see and when you see them. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Sebastian Souyris, an assistant professor of supply chain and analytics who holds the Dean R. Wellington ’83 Teaching Professorship in Management at the Lally School of Management, along with his ...

A study by an international and interdisciplinary team headed by Freiburg archaeologist Dr. Ralph Araque Gonzalez from the Faculty of Humanities has proven that steel tools were already in use in Europe around 2900 years ago. Using geochemicalanalyses, the researchers were able to prove that stone stelae on the Iberian peninsula that date back to the Final Bronze Age feature complex engravings that could only have been done using tempered steel. This was backed up by metallographic analyses of an iron chisel from the same period and region (Rocha do Vigio, Portugal, ca. 900 BCE) that showed the necessary carbon content to be proper steel. The result was also confirmed ...

An updated metric for prioritizing species’ conservation that incorporates scientific uncertainty and complementarity between species, in addition to extinction risk and evolutionary distinctiveness, is publishing February 28th in the open access journal PLOS Biology, authored by Rikki Gumbs from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), UK, and colleagues. In 2007, ZSL established the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) metric to prioritise species for conservation based on preserving evolutionary history embodied within endangered species. The approach ...

A review of evidence from prior research provides new support for the possibility that the evolution of larger brains in some species was enabled through increased energy investment by parents in their offspring. Carel van Schaik of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany, and colleagues present their arguments in a paper publishing February 28th in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Between different species, larger relative brain size is associated with cognitive benefits that favor survival. However, larger brains ...

Multiple factors including a women’s age, marriage status, education and how many living children she has, are associated with pregnancy termination in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Djibril Ba of Penn State College of Medicine, US, and colleagues. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy is often impacted by a patriarchal structure of society, restrictive abortion laws, cultural and religious beliefs and economic factors. About 45% ...

An MUSC Hollings Cancer Center research team has created what team members believe to be among the first small molecules designed to stimulate immune cells to fight cancer. More importantly, these compounds inhibit a specific enzyme that hasn’t been targeted with small molecules for the treatment of cancer.    Small molecules are, quite literally, small. They’re hundreds of times smaller than monoclonal antibodies currently used in therapy, and they’re also structurally much simpler. Because of their low molecular mass, they are much more likely to enter cells. Aspirin, for example, is a small molecule ...