After more than two years since its discovery, six million deaths, and half a billion reported cases, there is still no effective cure for COVID-19. Even though vaccines have lowered the impact of outbreaks, patients that contract the disease can only receive supportive care while they wait for their own body to clear the infection. A promising COVID-19 treatment strategy that has been gaining traction lately is targeting angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). This is a receptor found on the cell membrane that allows entry of the virus into the cell due to its ...

Quantum entanglement refers to a phenomenon in quantum mechanics in which two or more particles become linked such that the state of each particle cannot be described independently of the others, even when they are separated by a large distance. The principle, referred to by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance", is now utilized in quantum networks to transfer information. The building blocks of these networks—quantum nodes—can generate and measure quantum states. Among the candidates that can function as ...

February 24, 2023 – Demographic factors including low income and living in a rural area are linked to low telemedicine literacy – which may limit access to plastic surgeons and other healthcare providers at a time of expanding use of telehealth and video visits, according to a report in the March issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Our ...

Although genetic mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 are associated with a younger onset of breast and ovarian cancer, women with these genetic mutations continue to face a high risk of cancer incidence after age 50, even if they have not been previously diagnosed with cancer. This is according to a new study led by Kelly Metcalfe, a professor at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing. The study published recently in the American Cancer Society Journal Cancer, followed over 2000 women between the ages of 50 to 75, from 16 countries, who were aware they had a BRCA mutation ...

February 24, 2023 – Plastic surgery procedures performed to correct cleft lip and palate deformities in infants and children are economically undervalued, relative to pediatric craniofacial procedures, concludes an analysis in the March issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. The study finds unbalanced allocation of relative value units (RVUs) used in billing and compensation for cleft surgery in children, compared to craniofacial procedures, report Roberto L. Flores, MD, of Hansjörg ...

People who suffer from insomnia were 69% more likely to have a heart attack compared to those who didn’t have the sleep disorder during an average nine years of follow-up, according to new research being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. In addition, when looking at sleep duration as an objective measure of insomnia, researchers found that people who clocked five or fewer hours of sleep a night had the greatest risk of experiencing a heart attack. People with ...

Rising rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, preterm birth and low birthweight, over the past 10 years are largely attributable to the health status of a person before they get pregnant, rather than age, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. The study found that the average age of pregnant individuals rose from 27.9 years in 2011 to 29.1 years in 2019, yet age accounted for only a small portion of the marked increase ...

People who became pregnant using assisted reproductive technologies were found to be over twice as likely to develop preeclampsia than those with traditional pregnancies, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. The study, based on an analysis of health records from over 2.2 million patients, is the first to assess how reproductive technologies may affect the risk of cardiovascular complications during pregnancy on a national scale. Preeclampsia is a pregnancy-related complication involving new onset high ...

People who used marijuana daily were found to be about one-third more likely to develop coronary artery disease (CAD) compared with people who have never used the drug, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology.        As cannabis becomes legal in an increasing number of U.S. states, this study is among the largest and most comprehensive to date to examine the potential long-term cardiovascular implications of using the drug. CAD is the most common form of heart disease and occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the heart ...

People with Type 2 diabetes who were given a smartphone app that delivers personalized cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) saw significantly greater reductions in their blood sugar and less need for higher doses of diabetes medications at six months compared with those who only received standard diabetes care and a control app, in a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. A clear “dose effect” was seen, with patients completing more CBT lessons seeing the greatest benefits. “When studied in a large randomized controlled ...

More than 100 years ago, Charles Doolittle Walcott from the Smithsonian Institution was asked to examine strange star-shaped fossils with lobes hailing from the ~ 514-million-year-old Conasauga Formation in Alabama. Walcott described these odd fossils as jellyfish that likely floated in the middle Cambrian seas of what is now the southeastern United States. Little did he know that the Cambrian fossil he named would cause over 100 years of controversy. The controversy hinged on the interpretation of what Brooksella really was: Was it truly a jellyfish ...

ROCKVILLE, MD – Carlas S. Smith, PhD, of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands was honored as the recipient of the Biophysical Journal Paper of the Year-Early Career Investigator Award at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, held February 18-22 in San Diego, California. This award recognizes the work of outstanding early career investigators in biophysics. The winning paper is titled “Precision in Iterative Modulation Enhanced Single-Molecule Localization Microscopy.” The paper was published in ...

Astronomers from the University of Texas and the University of Arizona have discovered a rapidly growing black hole in one of the most extreme galaxies known in the very early Universe. The discovery of the galaxy and the black hole at its centre provides new clues on the formation of the very first supermassive black holes. The new work is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Using observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a radio observatory sited in Chile, the team have determined that the galaxy, named COS-87259, containing this new supermassive ...

By illuminating a sample surface with short laser beam pulses, it is possible to film sequences of various chemical and physical reactions. A research team that included researchers from the University of Gothenburg has now developed the world’s fastest single-shot laser camera, which is at least a thousand times faster than today’s most modern equipment for combustion diagnostics. The discovery has enormous significance for studying the lightning-fast combustion of hydrocarbons. What happens ...

University of South Australia researchers are calling for exercise to be a mainstay approach for managing depression as a new study shows that physical activity is 1.5 times more effective than counselling or the leading medications.   Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the review is the most comprehensive to date, encompassing 97 reviews, 1039 trials and 128,119 participants. It shows that physical activity is extremely beneficial for improving symptoms of depression, anxiety, and distress.   Specifically, the review showed that exercise interventions ...

It takes a few moments for the sound of thunder to reach our ears after a flash of lightning. This phenomenon is due to the photoacoustic (PA) effect where materials near the lightning instantly expand as the optical energy of the lightning is absorbed and converted into thermal energy. Using this PA effect, photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) has become a premier preclinical and clinical imaging modality to take images inside the body without using a contrast medium. However, its low-quality images, which can be improved with multiple ultrasound sensors and a multi-channel data acquisition (DAQ) system, ...

· Diseased neurons have pathology in which proteins become misfolded and toxic · Normally supportive cells attack the diseased neurons and destroy them · This pathology occurs in 90% of ALS patient brains and in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease CHICAGO --- Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered two ways to preserve diseased upper motor neurons that would normally be destroyed in ALS, based on a study in mice. Upper motor neurons initiate movement, ...

Curtin University researchers believe rising sea temperatures are to blame for the plummeting number of invertebrates such as molluscs and sea urchins at Rottnest Island off Western Australia, with some species having declined by up to 90 per cent between 2007 and 2021. Lead author Adjunct Professor Fred Wells, from Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said the west end of Rottnest Island had suffered a “catastrophic decline” in biodiversity. “Since 1982, we have monitored biodiversity of marine molluscs and echinoderms ...

This study is led by Dr. Shaowei Chen (University of California). Natural gas reforming accounts for 95% of the hydrogen gas produced in the United States; yet the hydrogen is non-sustainable and “grey”, as it originates from fossil fuels . To obtain sustainable “green” hydrogen gas, electrochemical water splitting by using renewable electricity has emerged as one of the most promising technologies, which consists of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at the cathode and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode . Yet, due to the sluggish electron-transfer kinetics and complex reaction pathways, OER typically entails a large overpotential and severely ...

By Jovina Ang SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – There are many reasons why knowledge management is important for an organisation. Among the many reasons, the most mentioned are: Speed up access to information and knowledge, or to people who hold the information you need; Improve decision-making processes; Promote innovation due to the sharing of ideas, collaboration and access to the latest information; Improve the efficiency and productivity via reducing the tendency to “reinvent the wheel”; Increase customer ...

After competing in the finals with the University College London, which presented Bubble Worlds, the research team led by Dr. Sona Kwak from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST; President Seok Jin Yoon) presented "CollaBot" and received the best award in the "hardware, design, and interface" category at the Robot Design Competition hosted by the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) 2022, which was held at the Chamber of Commerce in Florence, Italy (December 13-16, 2022). Previous studies on social robots were primarily based on humanoid robots that understand the context of situations and provide a range ...

By Alvin Lee SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – When Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi (小米) listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK) in June 2018, it followed the well-beaten path travelled by earlier mainland companies, ranging from high-tech predecessors Tencent (腾讯, 0700.HK) to non-tech companies such as Tsingtao Brewery (0168.HK) and China Eastern Airlines (0670.HK). While the IPO raised US$4.72 billion in the tech world’s biggest float in four years, it garnered extra attention for being the first SEHK listing with dual-class shares ...

By Alistair Jones SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – The life of a researcher is not for everyone, but for Yuliya Dzyuban, a Research Fellow in the new College of Integrative Studies at Singapore Management University (SMU), it's a perfect fit. “With time, I realised that studying is what I do best and enjoy the most. Research offers opportunities for endless learning,” she says. “There are always new projects, new challenges, new ideas and evolving methods. I love the fact that I can learn something ...

By Alistair Jones SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – Despite hero moments in movies where fingers clatter at dizzying speed across computer keyboards, not everyone in the real world finds code fascinating, nor algorithms intriguing. In fact, there is a worldwide shortage of skilled data scientists and software engineers. David Lo, a Professor of Computer Science at Singapore Management University (SMU), suggests two reasons for the shortfall. “First, software today is everywhere; organisations, companies, governments ...

An analysis of fossils of non-avialan theropod dinosaurs – a dinosaur clade that includes an array of body sizes – has provided findings that run contrary to expectations regarding the factors that inform the evolution of body size diversity. “Once quantified and analyzed in a phylogenetic framework [like this], we predict that diverse growth strategies will be recognized in other clades,” say the study’s authors. Over evolutionary history, many taxa have evolved very large and very small body sizes, and even closely related species can exhibit widely disparate sizes. ...