UCLA Health Tip Sheet Feb. 21, 2023 Below is a brief roundup of news and story ideas from the experts at UCLA Health. For more information on these stories or for help on other stories, please contact us at uclahealthnews@mednet.ucla.edu. Body composition, not BMI, may signal risk for cardiovascular disease  Body mass index has long been a measure of a person’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease, but body composition and its role in the disease have not been well studied. In a new study, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Current state-of-the-art instrumentation being sent to Mars to collect and analyze evidence of life might not be sensitive enough to make accurate assessments, according to a research team co-led by a Cornell University astronomer. In a paper published in Nature Communications, visiting planetary scientist Alberto Fairén, and an international team of researchers, claim that ancient organic material in Martian rocks could be difficult, if not impossible, to detect with current instruments and techniques. Fairén – also a research professor at the Center ...

Different cell types—say, heart, liver, blood, and sperm cells—possess characteristics that help them carry out their unique jobs in the body. In general, those characteristics are hard-wired. Without intervention, a heart cell won’t spontaneously transform into a liver cell. Yet researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, working with collaborators from the University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas Biomedical Research Institute, have prompted marmoset blood cells to acquire the flexibility of stem cells. Then they directed those stem cells to take on the characteristics of sperm ...

When Prof. Markus Scholz, who teaches archaeology and the history of Roman provinces at Goethe University, returned to Bad Ems toward the end of the excavation work, he was astonished: After all, all the photos sent by his colleague Frederic Auth showed but a few pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, Scholz was ill-prepared for what he saw next: a wooden defense construction consisting of sharpened wooden stakes, designed to prevent the enemy’s approach. The martial-looking structure was intended to deter enemies from attacking the camp. Such installations – ...

Elevated levels of air pollutants are associated with bone damage among postmenopausal women, according to new research led by scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The effects were most evident on the lumbar spine, with nitrous oxides twice as damaging to the area than seen with normal aging. The research findings appear in the peer-reviewed journal eClinicalMedicine, part of The Lancet Discovery Science suite of open-access journals. Previous studies on ...

February 21, 2022 – For men undergoing surgery to repair scarring in the urethra (urethroplasty), a new approach to pain management can reduce the need for strong opioid drugs without compromising pain control, reports a study in Urology Practice®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Over-prescribing of opioids for postoperative pain control has been a major contributor to the opioid epidemic,” comments senior author ...

CEE researchers will help the Department of Defense develop better systems to evaluate the structural health of rail lines and modernize pavement design and evaluation procedures in a new project funded by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and led by Applied Research Associates Inc. Within CEE, Professor Erol Tutumluer and Research Associate Professor J. Riley Edwards (MS 06, PhD 19) are leading the work for this multi-year research project called Advancing Power Projection through Lines of Communication (APPLoC). In the first year, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will receive $2.1 million in grant funding. As a whole, the ...

Living organisms have a knack for persisting in the face of challenges. For instance, when genes malfunction, organisms may be able to compensate by activating redundant genes with similar functions, called paralogs. One example of such compensation are two genes of the muscleblind-like (MBNL) family of RNA-binding proteins that lose their function in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1, the most common cause of adult-onset muscular dystrophy. Loss of MBNL1 increases the levels of its paralog MBNL2 in tissues where protein expression is low, allowing MBNL2 to functionally compensate for MBNL1 loss. In animal models, loss of one paralog results in ...

Thanhvu Nguyen, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, is set to receive funding for the project: "CAREER: NeuralSAT: A Constraint-Solving Framework for Verifying Deep Neural Networks."  Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have emerged as an effective approach to tackling real-world problems. However, just like traditional software, DNNs can have bugs and be attacked. This naturally raises the question of how DNNs should be tested, validated, and ultimately verified to meet the ...

Parth Pathak, Associate Professor, Computer Science, and Robert Simon, Professor, Computer Science, received funding for the project: "Airborne and Vehicular Millimeter-wave Wireless Networking."  Pathak and Simon are developing a state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) mmWave wireless networking and computing software/hardware platform at George Mason University. The platform will consist of battery-powered and gas-electric hybrid hexacopters, vehicular nodes, and ground robots that will be augmented with mmWave ...

AMES, Iowa – Let’s see, thought James Vary, how can we have a little fun with the name of our $1 million nuclear physics project?   Hmm, can we work in the term hack?   So, it’s “Nuclei and Hadrons with Quantum Computers.” Or, “NuHaQ,” for short.   “It’s a takeoff on ‘hack,’” said Vary, an Iowa State University professor of physics and astronomy and leader of a new project supported by a three-year, $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. In academic computing circles, “to be a good hacker is a positive compliment. Hackers ...

INFORMS Journal Organization Science New Study Key Takeaways: Choosing who to speak to greatly impacts how ideas are heard and implemented in the workplace. Employees who speak to managers or bosses who have the authority and resources to address an issue, led to a 12%-15% increase in implementing ideas and subsequent sales performance. Speaking to peers was associated with a 10% decrease in implemented ideas and subsequent sales performance.   BALTIMORE, MD, February 21, 2023 – Is speaking up at work worth it? New research in the INFORMS journal Organization Science finds that new ideas can be heard and implemented in the office, but it depends on who employees talk to. “There ...

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have generated the first induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from bats, gaining valuable insights into the close relationship between bats and viruses. This research opens the door to studying how viruses like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, survive, spread, and evade the immune system through molecular adaptations to new hosts. The team’s findings, published February 21 in Cell, may also shed light on the unique properties of bats that underlie their remarkable defenses against aging and cancer. “Our study suggests that bats have evolved mechanisms to tolerate a large ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2023 – It is a cruel paradox that on a planet with a surface mostly covered by water, hundreds of millions of people don’t have access to clean drinking water. As for the pollution of potable and natural water sources, one of the main culprits is arsenic, an abundant and toxic element in the earth’s crust. Arsenic is currently known as the cause of groundwater contamination in more than 100 countries – and can produce life-threatening diseases, especially for populations in developing ...

In 2015, scientists for the first time detected gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that occur when major cosmic events—like the collision and merging of two black holes—disrupt the cosmos. The observation of these waves confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which predicted such waves would occur if space-time worked as he believed it did. In the seven years since, nearly 100 merging black holes have been detected by observing the gravitational waves that these extraterrestrial events emit. Now, thanks to new research from a team of 14 led by Caltech ...

About The Study: Sustained low-wage earning in midlife may be associated with elevated mortality risk and excess deaths, especially when experienced alongside unstable employment, according to the results of this study including 4,000 workers. If causal, the findings suggest that social and economic policies that improve the financial standing of low-wage workers (e.g., minimum wage laws) could improve mortality outcomes.  Authors: Katrina L. Kezios, Ph.D., of Columbia University in New York, 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/jama.2023.0367) Editor’s ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2023 – Solar-thermal technology is a promising environmentally friendly energy harvesting method with a potential role to play in solving the fossil fuel energy crisis. The technology transforms sunlight into thermal energy, but it’s challenging to suppress energy dissipation while maintaining high absorption. Existing solar energy harvesters that rely on micro- or nanoengineering don’t have sufficient scalability and flexibility, and will require a novel strategy for high-performance ...

About The Study: This study found that COVID-19 treatment information on U.S. public health websites was poorly accessible, particularly for people with low literacy or limited English language proficiency, with worse accessibility for states and territories with Republican governors. The results suggest the need for national guidelines on accessibility and readability for public health websites.  Authors: Kevin A. Fiscella, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

About The Study: The results of this neuroimaging study of 8,900 children ages 9 to 11 suggest that the observed sex differences in cognitive performance and brain connectivity likely reflect faster brain maturation in girls than boys. The findings are relevant to the future creation of brain developmental trajectory charts to monitor for deviations associated with impairments in cognition or behavior, including those due to psychiatric or neurological disorders.  Authors: Dardo Tomasi, Ph.D., of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ...

Tokyo, Japan – A retrovirus known as human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is known to cause a number of diseases, including inflammatory diseases of the eye. Recently, researchers in Japan have investigated an antibody treatment for inflammatory eye disease in ocular cells infected with HTLV-1.   In a new study published in Frontiers in Immunology, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) evaluated the safety of an anti-VEGF drug, Aflibercept, in a cell culture model exposed to HTLV-1. HTLV-1 infection can cause such diseases as adult T-cell leukemia and HTLV-1 uveitis, an inflammatory eye condition.   Vascular ...

  When two black holes collide into each other to form a new bigger black hole, they violently roil spacetime around them, sending ripples called gravitational waves outward in all directions. Previous studies of black hole collisions modeled the behavior of the gravitational waves using what is known as linear math, which means that the gravitational waves rippling outward did not influence, or interact, with each other. Now, a new analysis has modeled the same collisions in more detail and revealed so-called nonlinear ...

Data captured from seismic waves caused by earthquakes has shed new light on the deepest parts of Earth’s inner core, according to seismologists from The Australian National University (ANU).   By measuring the different speeds at which these waves penetrate and pass through the Earth’s inner core, the researchers believe they’ve documented evidence of a distinct layer inside Earth known as the innermost inner core -- a solid “metallic ball” that sits within the centre of the inner core.  Not long ago it was thought Earth’s structure was comprised of four distinct layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. The ...

In a bid to understand why mosquitoes may be more attracted to one human than another, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have mapped specialized receptors on the insects’ nerve cells that are able to fine-tune their ability to detect particularly “welcoming” odors in human skin. Receptors on mosquito neurons have an important role in the insects’ ability to identify people who present an attractive source of a blood meal, according to Christopher Potter, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Understanding ...

Computer scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science have designed a “reconstruction attack” that proves U.S. Census data is vulnerable to exposure and theft. Aaron Roth, Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer & Cognitive Science in Computer and Information Science (CIS), and Michael Kearns, National Center Professor of Management & Technology in CIS, led a recent PNAS study demonstrating that statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau can be reverse engineered to reveal ...

Woods Hole, Mass. (Feb. 21, 2023) -- When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020 with associated travel restrictions, Matthew Long thought his students could shift their overseas research projects to instead study the seagrass meadow ecosystem in Waquoit Bay. It’s a shallow, micro-tidal estuary on the south side of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, near the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) where Long is an associate scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department. However, when Long and his students looked for seagrass meadows where he had seen them in previous years, there were only a few shoots of dying Zostera marina eelgrass, ...