The number of adults in England who report vaping for more than six months has increased substantially from around one in 80 in 2013 to one in 10 in 2023, finds a study published by The BMJ today. Much of this increase has occurred since 2021, coinciding with the rapid rise in popularity of disposable e-cigarettes, especially among young adults, including those who had never regularly smoked, the results show. It was already established that vaping rates have increased substantially in England since new disposable e-cigarettes became ...

Neither covid-19 infection nor vaccination during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with increased risk of major birth defects, finds a study from Scandinavia published by The BMJ today. It’s well known that women who experience covid-19 infection during pregnancy are at increased risk of severe illness and have a higher risk of complications, including preterm birth and stillbirth. Less clear is the risk of birth defects (congenital anomalies) after infection with or vaccination against covid-19 as it has only recently become ...

Some of the UK’s most recognisable TV doctors are increasingly being “deepfaked” in videos to sell scam products across social media, finds The BMJ today. Trusted names including Hilary Jones, Michael Mosley and Rangan Chatterjee are being used to promote products claiming to fix high blood pressure and diabetes, and to sell hemp gummies, explains journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. Deepfaking is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to map a digital likeness of a real-life human being onto a video of a body that isn’t theirs. Reliable evidence on how ...

A new collaboration between researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Chieti explores the neural substrates of blushing in a MRI scanner. Most of us know what it feels like to blush. The face becomes warm and red, and we experience self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment, shyness, shame, and pride. It is perhaps no wonder that Charles Darwin referred to it as “the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions”. But why do we blush, and what ...

The introduction of new data protection rules significantly reduced breaches by firms but negatively impacted their market value, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Texas. Researchers looked at what happened when the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) started being enforced in 2018. Using its extraterritorial reach, the authors explore variation in US firms’ exposure to the EU GDPR to see how stricter data privacy laws affected their value, ...

A landmark study from researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (the U), the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the U, and Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine found that women with severe endometriosis are 10 times more likely to get ovarian cancer, compared to women who do not have the disease. Prior studies have shown a causal connection between endometriosis and ovarian cancer. But in using the Utah Population Database—a repository of linked health records housed at Huntsman ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Peter Lichtenberg, PhD, ABPP, FGSA, of Wayne State University as the 2024 recipient of the Donald P. Kent Award. This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member who best exemplifies the highest standards for professional leadership in gerontology through teaching, service, and interpretation of gerontology to the larger society. It was established in 1973 in memory of Donald P. Kent, PhD, for his outstanding leadership in translating research findings ...

It might be an exaggeration to claim that “sitting is the new smoking,” but significant research indicates that people who are sedentary face more health challenges than their active counterparts. Office workers who spend most of their eight-hour workdays seated, for example, more often experience symptoms such as daytime exhaustion, hypertension and musculoskeletal discomfort than those who are less sedentary. Although devices such as standing desks have been found to alleviate physical symptoms and increase worker productivity, questions remain regarding the best use of the primary types of workstations—stand-biased, ...

There’s still much to learn about how doxorubicin, a 50-year-old chemotherapy drug, causes its most concerning side effects. While responsible for saving many lives, this treatment sometimes causes cardiac damage that stiffens the heart and puts a subset of patients at risk for future heart failure. To better understand and potentially control such complications, Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences researchers have isolated the immune cells that become overactive when patients take doxorubicin. The team’s findings appear July 17 in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research. Doxorubicin ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Jiska Cohen-Mansfield, PhD, FGSA, of Tel Aviv University as the 2024 recipient of the Robert W. Kleemeier Award. This distinguished honor is given annually to a GSA member in recognition for outstanding research in the field of gerontology.  It was established in 1965 in memory of Robert W. Kleemeier, PhD, a former president of the Society whose contributions to the quality of life through research in aging were exemplary.  The award presentation will take place at GSA’s ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Lisa L. Barnes, PhD, FGSA, of Rush University Medical Center as the 2024 recipient of the James Jackson Outstanding Mentorship Award. This distinguished honor is given annually and recognizes individuals who have exemplified outstanding commitment and dedication to mentoring minority researchers in the field of aging. It was renamed in 2021 in memory of James Jackson, PhD, FGSA, a pioneering psychologist ...

The Science Polyphenols are a diverse group of organic compounds produced by plants. These compounds are often toxic to microorganisms. In peatlands, scientists thought that microorganisms avoided this toxicity by degrading polyphenols using an enzyme that requires oxygen. However, when there is little or no oxygen, like after flooding due to climate induced thawing, the enzyme is inactive, and polyphenols accumulate. This inhibits microbes’ carbon cycling. In this study, scientists mined data for thousands of microbial genomes recovered from Stordalen Mire, an Arctic peatland in Sweden. They discovered that these microorganisms used alternative polyphenol-active ...

The risk of developing long COVID has decreased significantly over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of data led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Researchers attributed about 70% of the risk reduction to vaccination against COVID-19 and 30% to changes over time, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s evolving characteristics and improved detection and management of COVID-19. The research is published July 17 in The New England Journal of Medicine. “The research on declining rates ...

The University of Freiburg is establishing a new tenure track professorship in Earth and Planetary Geodynamics at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, made possible by a 1.71 million euro grant from the Volkswagen Foundation. The new tenure track professorship is part of a comprehensive strategic initiative for combining Earth system sciences with planetary sciences at the University that also includes the establishment of a new Earth System Simulation Lab (EaSySim) and the introduction of an Earth Sciences ...

A research team at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) has received a $5 million grant from the United States Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency to support the detection and prevention of brucellosis in Armenia. Brucellosis, which is caused by several bacterial species of Brucella, is a zoonotic disease that can spread to humans from dogs and major livestock species, including cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. It can have a major impact on a country’s public health and agricultural economy. The team of Texas A&M researchers, led by VMBS Associate Professor Dr. Angela Arenas, will ...

MINNEAPOLIS – For people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), a new study has found that the drug ofatumumab is more effective than teriflunomide at helping people across racial and ethnic groups reach a period of no disease activity. The study is published in the July 17, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Ofatumumab, a monoclonal antibody, is a newer drug for treating MS. Teriflunomide, an immunomodulatory agent, has been available for over a decade. MS is a disease in ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Insurance coverage, ethnicity and location may all play a role in a person’s ability to receive care after a stroke, according to a study published in the July 17, 2024, online issue of Neurology® Clinical Practice, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Receiving the right care after a stroke is crucial to recovery and minimizing disability,” said study author Shumei Man, MD, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Unfortunately, decisions about care may be influenced by factors such as race, insurance, and geographic location. Our study ...

A majority of people in Afghanistan support human rights for Afghan women, and men are especially likely to support women’s rights when primed to think about their eldest daughters, according to a study published July 17, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, by Kristina Becvar and colleagues from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Human rights groups have been concerned for the rights of Afghan women in particular since the Taliban took control of Kabul in 2021. Since then, Afghan ...

Scientists at the University of Sydney and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine have made a remarkable discovery: a commonly used blood thinner, heparin, can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom. Cobras kill thousands of people a year worldwide and perhaps a hundred thousand more are seriously maimed by necrosis – the death of body tissue and cells – caused by the venom, which can lead to amputation. Current antivenom treatment is expensive and does not effectively ...

Have you ever wondered how insects are able to go so far beyond their home and still find their way? The answer to this question is not only relevant to biology but also to making the AI for tiny, autonomous robots.  TU Delft drone-researchers felt inspired by biological findings on how ants visually recognize their environment and combine it with counting their steps in order to get safely back home. They have used these insights to create an insect-inspired autonomous navigation strategy for tiny, lightweight robots. The strategy allows such robots to come back home after long trajectories, while requiring extremely little computation and memory (0.65 kiloByte per ...

Researchers have developed soft, stretchable ‘jelly batteries’ that could be used for wearable devices or soft robotics, or even implanted in the brain to deliver drugs or treat conditions such as epilepsy. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, took their inspiration from electric eels, which stun their prey with modified muscle cells called electrocytes. Like electrocytes, the jelly-like materials developed by the Cambridge researchers have a layered structure, like sticky Lego, that makes them capable of delivering an electric current.   The self-healing jelly batteries can stretch ...

The most threatened reef fishes are also the most overlooked by scientists and the general public. That is the startling finding of a team of scientists led by a CNRS researcher.1 In a study to be published in Science Advances on July 17, they measured the level of human interest in 2,408 species of marine reef fish and found that the attention of the scientific community is attracted by the commercial value more than the ecological value of the fishes. The public, on the other hand, is primarily influenced by the aesthetic characteristics of certain species, such as the red lionfish ...

Mindfulness training may lead participants to experience disembodiment and unity – so-called altered states of consciousness – according to a new study from researchers at the University of Cambridge. The team say that while these experiences can be very positive, that is not always the case. Mindfulness teachers and students need to be aware that they can be a side-effect of training, and students should feel empowered to share their experiences with their teacher or doctor if they have any concerns. Mindfulness-based programmes have ...

When electronic devices like laptops or smartphones overheat, they are fundamentally suffering from a nanoscale heat transfer problem. Pinpointing the source of that problem can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. “The building blocks of our modern electronics are transistors with nanoscale features, so to understand which parts of overheating, the first step is to get a detailed temperature map,” says Andrea Pickel, an assistant professor from the University of Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “But you need something with nanoscale ...

Peek inside the human genome and, among the 20,000 or so genes that serve as building blocks of life, you’ll also find flecks of DNA left behind by viruses that infected primate ancestors tens of millions of years ago. These ancient hitchhikers, known as endogenous retroviruses, were long considered inert or ‘junk’ DNA, defanged of any ability to do damage. New CU Boulder research published July 17 in the journal Science Advances shows that, when reawakened, they can play a critical role in helping cancer survive and thrive. The study also suggests that silencing certain endogenous retroviruses can make cancer treatments work better. “Our study shows that diseases ...