Malaria kills over 600,000 people a year, and as the climate warms, the potential range of the disease is growing. While some drugs can effectively prevent and treat malaria, resistance to those drugs is also on the rise.   New research from University of Utah Health has identified a promising target for new antimalarial drugs: a protein called DMT1, which allows single-celled malaria parasites to use iron, which is critical for parasites to survive and reproduce.   The results suggest that medications that block DMT1 might be very effective against malaria.   The new results are published in PNAS. An ironic mystery Paul Sigala, ...

U.S. immigration law and the legal categorizations it imposes on migrants shape the journeys of migrant children from Central America as they move through Mexico toward the southern U.S. border, according to a new Yale study. In the study, sociologist Ángel Escamilla García documents the various hard decisions Central American youth are forced to make during their journeys to maximize their chances of not being deported once they reach the United States. Those choices include concealing sexual assaults, beatings, and other crimes ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—Scientists are gathering at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory this week for a first-ever conference to consider ways to protect critical systems such as our electrical grid, water treatment plants and financial networks that are vulnerable in new ways.   The Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management Conference, known as CySCRM 2024, is being held on the PNNL campus Tuesday-Wednesday, Oct. 29-30.   It’s a new kind of science meeting, one that scientist Jess Smith and colleagues felt compelled to create as they eye a new kind of risk—a ...

Newly available blood tests to screen for colorectal cancer sound far more appealing than a standard colonoscopy. Instead of clearing your bowels and undergoing an invasive procedure, the tests require only a simple blood draw. But are the tests effective? A study led by researchers at Stanford Medicine concluded that the new tests are ideal for people who shy away from other colorectal cancer screening. However, if too many people who would have undergone colonoscopies or stool-based tests switch to the blood tests, colorectal cancer death rates will rise. Because the more established colonoscopies and stool tests ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 28 October 2024     @Annalsofim          Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.     ...

Derek Urwin has a special stake in his work as a cancer control researcher. After undergraduate studies in applied mathematics at UCLA, he became a firefighter. His inspiration to launch a second career as a scientist was the loss of his brother, Isaac, who died of leukemia at only 33 despite no history of cancer in their family. Working with Anastassia Alexandrova, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the UCLA College, he earned his doctorate. Urwin is now a UCLA adjunct professor of chemistry — and still a full-time firefighter with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. In a recent publication, his science shed new light on the chemical underpinnings of exposures ...

PHILADELPHIA (October 28, 2024) – The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) has been awarded a $3.2 million, 5-year grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) to scale out an evidence-based secure firearm storage intervention at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Firearms are now the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens, driving the largest spike in children’s mortality in more than 50 years. The study aims to keep children safer from firearm injury and mortality by promoting secure firearm storage. The intervention, ...

Taking inspiration from bird feathers, Princeton engineers have found that adding rows of flaps to a remote-controlled aircraft’s wings improves flight performance and helps prevent stalling, a condition that can jeopardize a plane’s ability to stay aloft.  “These flaps can both help the plane avoid stall and make it easier to regain control when stall does occur,” said Aimy Wissa, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and principal investigator of the study, published in the Proceedings ...

Marine phytoplankton are fundamental to Earth’s ecology and biogeochemistry. Our understanding of the large-scale dynamics of phytoplankton biomass has greatly benefited from, and is largely based on, satellite ocean color observations from which chlorophyll-a (Chla), a commonly used proxy for carbon biomass, can be estimated. However, ocean color satellites only measure a small portion of the surface ocean, meaning that subsurface phytoplankton biomass is not directly monitored. Chla is also an imperfect ...

    Images There's a famous piece of advice from hockey, attributed to Wayne Gretzky, about how it's better to skate to where the puck is headed rather than where it is.   Research is now showing that regulations designed to protect Lake Erie's water quality are heeding the Great One's words when it comes to safeguarding the Great Lake's fisheries.   Specifically, the currently recommended limits on the flow of nutrients into Lake Erie from agriculture may be too restrictive for some species of fish. They are, however, suited to maintain healthy fisheries until the ...

201.6 million years ago, one of the Earth's five great mass extinctions took place, when three-quarters of all living species suddenly disappeared. The wipeout coincided with massive volcanic eruptions that split apart Pangaea, a giant continent then comprising almost all the planet's land. Millions of cubic miles of lava erupted over some 600,000 years, separating what are now the Americas, Europe and North Africa. It marked the end of the Triassic period and the beginning of the Jurassic, the period when dinosaurs arose to take the place of Triassic creatures and dominate the planet. The exact mechanisms of the End Triassic Extinction have long been debated, ...

“We found that 30 percent of the regions with available data have fully decoupled carbon emissions from economic growth. Regions with high incomes and a history of carbon-intensive industries, as well as those with significant shares of service and manufacturing sectors were particularly successful in reducing carbon emissions while still experiencing economic growth,“ says Anders Levermann, co-author and head of the research department “Complexity Science” at PIK. “A stabilization of the global mean temperature is only possible with net-zero carbon emissions. That ...

A landmark study led by WEHI and La Trobe University has found a potential new diagnostic marker that could be used to better detect the level of tissue damage in our bodies.  Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small ‘delivery trucks’ released by our cells that deliver important materials to other cells to aid cellular communication. This study revealed, for the first time, a link between levels of EVs in the blood and tissue damage caused by diseases such as leukaemia. Researchers hope to leverage the ...

Public and community engagement in decision making is key to enhancing urban living conditions and the environment in China, a new study says. There has been significant progress through legislation to promote the role of citizens in environment and nature-based solutions (NBS), but progress in involving the public in projects has been limited, the research shows. However, there has been some work in gathering public opinion and involving them in the project design and decision-making of government-led and large NBS projects. Researchers found smaller local NBS projects tend to see higher levels of public participation, ...

Bagheri To Leverage Recycled Polyurethane Foam For Real-World Applications Shaghayegh Bagheri, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), received funding for the project: “Leveraging Recycled Polyurethane Foam for Real-world Applications.”                                                                                            Bagheri ...

Image Research led by the University of Michigan has pored over more than two decades' worth of data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory to show there's new knotty science to discover around black holes.   In particular, the study looks at the high-energy jet of particles being blasted across space by the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Centaurus A.    Jets are visible to different types of telescopes, including those that detect radio waves and others that collect X-rays. Since Chandra's 1999 launch, many astronomers have been particularly interested ...

An engineer with decades of experience in industry and higher education will serve as the CEO of the Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine led by Binghamton University. Meera Sampath, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, previously was the associate dean of research in Binghamton’s Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science. Sampath spent the first 20 years of her career with Xerox Corp., including time as the vice president for innovation and business transformation at Xerox Services and as founding director of the Xerox Research Center India. From there, she ...

(Philadelphia, PA) – A team at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, part of Temple Health, has been awarded nearly $1 million by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help improve antibiotic prescribing for children with acute respiratory tract infections. “Many children with symptoms of upper respiratory tract illness who are taken to see a pediatrician end up being prescribed antibiotics, even though they aren’t always needed,” explained Janet Lee, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Lewis Katz School of Medicine. Dr. Lee and Claire Raab, MD, President ...

CRISPR-Cas9 has long been likened to a kind of genetic scissors, thanks to its ability to snip out any desired section of DNA with elegant precision. But it turns out that CRISPR systems have more than one strategy in their toolkit. A mechanism originally discovered in bacteria, where it has operated as an adaptive immune system for eons, CRISPR is naturally deployed by certain singled-cell organisms to protect themselves against viruses (called phages) and other foreign genetic fragments. Now, researchers at Rockefeller’s Laboratory ...

The giant clam, known for its colorful cape-like mantle, wavy shell and astonishing size, is in danger of going extinct after its population plunged by more than 80% over the last century, according to a new assessment by a University of Colorado Boulder biologist and collaborators. The assessment, led by Ruiqi Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the CU Museum of Natural History, prompted the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) today to update the conservation status of this animal from “vulnerable” to ...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently granted the Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) $12 million to expand research and development in marine energy initiatives. AMEC comprises four universities including the University of New Hampshire, Stony Brook University, the Coastal Studies Institute, and Lehigh University. In total, DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office invested more than $41 million in this latest round of funding using the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to four university-led National Marine Energy Centers located across the country. The centers will use the funds to support research, infrastructure improvements, strategy, administration, outreach, ...

Burmese pythons can consume prey even larger than scientists realized, according to a new study. That means more animals are on the menu across southern Florida, where the nonnative, invasive snakes have decimated populations of foxes, bobcats, raccoons and other animals. Pythons swallow deer, alligators and other prey whole. What they eat is limited in part by how big an animal they can wrap their flexible, stretchy jaws around. Researchers call this the snake’s gape. University of Cincinnati Professor Bruce Jayne said measurements of snakes captured in and around Everglades National Park show that the biggest pythons have an even bigger gape than mathematical ...

    Image Almost 14 billion years ago, at the very beginning of the Big Bang, a mysterious energy drove an exponential expansion of the infant universe and produced all known matter, according to the prevailing inflationary universe theory.   That ancient energy shared key features of the current universe's dark energy, which is the largest mystery of our time by at least one objective standard: It makes up the majority—roughly 70%—of the universe, but scientists ...

In recent years, advancements in artificial intelligence have enabled intelligent machines to generate visual art, compose music, and create videos. They converse with us, help with homework, and have even begun competing for our jobs. Amid these advances, machines evoke powerful reactions from humans—sparking concerns about control, fairness, and the potential for misuse. Many feel unsettled by the growing presence of intelligent machines when they inadvertently reinforce power imbalances and perpetuate injustices. Amid all of this disruption and mistrust, we are comforted to know that machines can`t have emotions. Yet, recent advancements in language-based AI have demonstrated ...

About The Study: In asymptomatic patients with severe aortic stenosis and myocardial fibrosis, early aortic valve intervention had no demonstrable effect on all-cause death or unplanned aortic stenosis–related hospitalization. The trial had a wide 95% CI around the primary end point, with further research needed to confirm these findings. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Marc R. Dweck, PhD, email marc.dweck@ed.ac.uk. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...