Engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo are successfully using a robot to help keep children with learning disabilities focused on their work.  This was one of the key results in a new study that also found both the youngsters and their instructors valued the positive classroom contributions made by the robot. “There is definitely a great potential for using robots in the public education system,” said Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Overall, the findings imply ...

Most babies born to mothers with COVID-19 were separated after birth resulting in low breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact rates during the height of the pandemic, according to a new global study. The international research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in collaboration with the the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC), found that transmission of COVID-19 from mother to baby was rare and generally mild when it occurred. But despite this, almost half of all babies did not receive any breast milk, with ...

Social cohesion and connection decline in an ageing population, according to a new study of one of humanity’s closest relatives. For decades, researchers have been observing the rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago (known as “Monkey Island”) in Puerto Rico. Recent research showed that female macaques “actively reduce” the size of their social networks and prioritise existing connections as they age – something also seen in humans. The new study, by an international team led by the University of Exeter, examines how this affects the overall cohesion and connection of the groups older monkeys live in. While ...

The Internet of Things (IoT) requires the installation free of time and space, therefore, needs independent power sources that are not restricted by batteries or power lines. Energy harvesting technology harvests wasted energy such as vibration, heat, light, and electromagnetic waves from everyday settings, such as automobiles, buildings, and home appliances, and converts it into electrical energy. Energy harvesters can generate sufficient electricity to run small electronic devices by harvesting ambient energy sources without an external power supply. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon) announced ...

For many children, winter season comes with regular exposure to circulating viruses at school or daycare. And a warm forehead is often one of the first clear signs a child has caught a bug. But some parents may not be properly measuring or responding to elevated temperatures in children, a new national poll suggests. While most parents recognize that a low-grade fever helps a child’s body fight off infection, one in three would give fever-reducing medication for spiked temperatures below 100.4 – which isn’t recommended – according to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at University of Michigan Health. Half of parents ...

Correspondence shows troubling interactions between U.S. officials and the alcohol industry By Kimberly Flynn PISCATAWAY, NJ — Growing evidence exists that the alcohol industry uses a variety of strategies to influence public policy in a way that is advantageous to its own corporate interests, rather than the interest of public health. Recent communication between employees of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and alcohol industry groups shows extensive interaction on policy-relevant scientific issues, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Researchers at the University ...

New York, NY [February 20, 2023] – Analyzing the most extensive datasets in the United States, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have revealed that vaccination against COVID-19 is associated with fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular issues among people who were infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The research letter, “Impact of Vaccination on Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Patients with COVID-19 Infection,” was published in the Journal of the American College ...

Contact: Chip Colwell chip@sapiens.org 212.683.5000 New York, NY – SAPIENS magazine is excited to share news of its 2023 poet-in-residence: Toiba Naseema. Through this position, Naseema will use poetry, film, and music to reflect on memory, occupation, and resilience in Indian-occupied Kashmir.  Naseema earned a master’s degree in mass communication, specializing in documentary filmmaking, and she is currently pursuing a master’s in anthropology at the University of Kashmir. She has been involved as an international ...

A vaginal ring containing the antiretroviral drug dapivirine posed no safety concerns when used in the third trimester of pregnancy, according to results to date from the first study of the dapivirine ring during pregnancy and one of only a few studies of an HIV prevention product in pregnant cisgender women. The ongoing Phase IIIb study, known as DELIVER, or MTN-042, was designed to evaluate the safety and acceptability of the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring, a new HIV prevention method approved in several African countries and recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as ...

February 20, 2023 – Researchers from the University of Washington (UW), Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), and Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI) announced results at CROI from a clinical trial demonstrating that doxycycline taken after sex does not prevent bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – chlamydia or gonorrhea – among cisgender women. The dPEP Kenya Trial was conducted in Kisumu, Kenya, to evaluate the effectiveness of doxycycline postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent bacterial STIs. The results of the study have been highly anticipated, as this is the first study of doxycycline PEP among cisgender ...

Geckos can use their tongue to differentiate their own odor from that of other members of their species, as researchers from the University of Bern have shown in a new experimental study. The findings show that geckos are able to communicate socially, meaning that they are more intelligent than was previously assumed. Self-recognition is the ability to detect stimuli which come from oneself. We as people, and also some animals, can identify ourselves visually when we look in the mirror. However, not all animals rely on their sense of sight, first and foremost. Geckos, and also other lizards ...

Government officials and policymakers have tried to use numbers to grasp COVID-19's impact. Figures like the number of hospitalizations or deaths reflect part of this burden. Each datapoint tells only part of the story. But no one figure describes the true pervasiveness of the novel coronavirus by revealing the number of people actually infected at a given time -- an important figure to help scientists understand if herd immunity can be reached, even with vaccinations. Now, two University of Washington scientists have developed a statistical framework that incorporates key COVID-19 data -- such as case counts and deaths due to COVID-19 -- to model the true prevalence of this disease in the United States and individual states. Their approach, published the ...

New research has identified potential treatment that could improve the human immune system's ability to search out and destroy cancer cells within the body. Scientists have identified a way to restrict the activity of a group of cells which regulate the immune system, which in turn can unleash other immune cells to attack tumours in cancer patients. "A patient's immune system is more than able to detect and remove cancer cells and immunotherapy has recently emerged as a novel therapy for many different types of cancers." Explained Nullin Divecha, Professor of Cell Signalling at the University of Southampton who led the study. "However, cancer cells can generate a microenvironment ...

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes a new type of liquid in thin films, which forms a high-density glass. Results generated in this study, conducted by researchers in Penn's Department of Chemistry, demonstrate how these glasses and other similar materials can be fabricated to be denser and more stable, providing a framework for developing new applications and devices through better design. Glass is typically created through solidification, or falling out of equilibrium, of a liquid when it is cooled to a temperature where its motion arrests. The structure of a glass closely ...

Mice exposed to the opioid oxycodone before birth experience permanent changes in behavior and gene expression. The new research published in eNeuro highlights a need to develop safer types of painkillers for pregnant women. Opioids like oxycodone are prescribed to pregnant women to treat pain, but the drugs may affect the fetus, too. Opioids can pass through the placenta, binding to receptors in the fetal brain, which can lead to opioid withdrawal in newborn babies. The long-term consequences of prenatal opioid exposure haven't been fully studied, however. To explore this, Martin et al. administered oxycodone to female mice every day for the two weeks prior ...

A new MIT study of how a mammalian brain remembers what it sees shows that while individual images are stored in the visual cortex, the ability to recognize a sequence of sights critically depends on guidance from the hippocampus, a deeper structure strongly associated with memory but shrouded in mystery about exactly how. By suggesting that the hippocampus isn't needed for basic storage of images so much as identifying the chronological relationship they may have, the new research published in Current Biology can bring neuroscientists closer to understanding how the brain coordinates long-term visual memory across key regions. "This offers the ...

What The Study Did: Researchers examined the safety of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in patients who experienced an allergic reaction to the first dose. Authors: Kimberly G. Blumenthal, M.D., M.Sc., of Massachusetts General Hospital 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/jamainternmed.2021.3779) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding and support disclosures. ...

What The Study Did: The association between Medicare eligibility at age 65 and changes in racial and ethnic disparities in access to care and self-reported health was evaluated in this study. Authors: Jacob Wallace, Ph.D., of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut, 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/jamainternmed.2021.3922) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding and support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The full study and ...

What The Study Did: Survey data were used to investigate the relationship between loneliness and high-risk medication use in adults older than age 65. Authors: Ashwin A. Kotwal, M.D., M.S., of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, 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/jamainternmed.2021.3775) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding and support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

Lonely, older adults are nearly twice as likely to use opioids to ease pain and two-and-a-half times more likely to use sedatives and anti-anxiety medications, putting themselves at risk for drug dependency, impaired attention, falls and other accidents, and further cognitive impairment, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco. The study found that just over half of 6,000 respondents in a nationally representative survey of seniors living independently were not lonely, while 40 percent were moderately lonely, and 7 percent were highly lonely. The proportion of seniors ...

Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital and the University of Queensland have developed a new formulation based on regulatory T-cell exosomes (rEXS) to deliver vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) antibodies for choroidal neovascularization therapy. The study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering on July 26. Ocular neovascularization is often associated with age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other ocular diseases, which can cause severe vision loss. The present treatment for ocular neovascular disease in clinic is intravitreal injection of VEGF antibodies (aV) to block the activity of VEGF ...

BOSTON - In a multi-hospital analysis of individuals who experienced an allergic reaction to their first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose, all patients who went on to receive a second dose tolerated it without complications. The research, which was led by allergists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and is published in JAMA Internal Medicine, indicates that a first dose reaction to COVID-19 vaccination should not keep people from getting a second dose. Allergic reactions after mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations have been reported to be as high as 2%, with anaphylaxis--a life-threatening whole-body allergic reaction--occurring in up to 2.5 per 10,000 people. ...

Plants, including crops such as rice and wheat, obtain their essential mineral nutrients and water through their roots, making them an important interface between plants and the soil environment. The roots of land plants associate with a wide range of microbes - including bacteria - that are recruited from the surrounding soil and assemble into structured communities known as the root microbiota. These microbial communities are sustained by the plant host, which provides them with nutrients, primarily in the form of organic carbon compounds secreted by the root. In turn, these commensal bacteria mediate multiple processes ...

New York, NY (July 26, 2021) - Researchers have identified a rare class of genetic differences transmitted from parents without autism to their affected children with autism and determined that they are most prominent in "multiplex" families with more than one family member on the spectrum. These findings are reported in Recent ultra-rare inherited variants implicate new autism candidate risk genes, END ...

Bethesda, MD (July 26, 2021) -- There is an urgent need to develop and implement effective screening, diagnosis and treatment strategies for patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), common liver conditions with a rising burden in the U.S. and globally. This is particularly important for the most at-risk patients, those with diabetes and obesity. As a critical first step, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) -- in collaboration with seven professional associations -- convened an international conference of 32 experts to develop a multidisciplinary action plan to improve care for the growing population of patients with NAFLD ...