Researchers at KU Leuven (Belgium) have succeeded for the first time in measuring brain waves directly via a cochlear implant. These brainwaves indicate in an objective way how good or bad a person's hearing is. The research results are important for the further development of smart hearing aids. A cochlear implant enables people with severe hearing loss to hear again. An audiologist adjusts the device based on the user's input, but this is not always easy. Think of children who are born deaf or elderly people with dementia. They have more difficulty assessing and communicating ...

Artificial Intelligence is now capable of generating novel, functionally active proteins, thanks to recently published work by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. "What we are now able to demonstrate offers fantastic potential for a number of future applications, such as faster and more cost-efficient development of protein-based drugs," says Aleksej Zelezniak, Associate Professor at the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering at Chalmers. Proteins are large, complex molecules that play a crucial role in all living cells, building, modifying, and breaking down other molecules naturally inside our cells. They are also widely used in industrial processes and products, and in our daily lives. Protein-based drugs are very common - the diabetes drug ...

Working with fruit flies, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have identified a new molecular pathway that helps steer moving cells in specific directions. The set of interconnected proteins and enzymes in the pathway act as steering and rudder components that drive cells toward an "intended" rather than random destination, they say. In a report on the work, published March 2 in Cell Reports, these same molecular pathways, say the scientists, may drive cancer cells to metastasize or travel to distant areas of the body and may also be important for understanding how cells assemble and migrate in an embryo to form organs and other structures. The team of scientists was led by Deborah Andrew, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and associate director for faculty development for ...

Physical activity is important in preventing heart and blood vessel disease in young people so long as they don't undertake very strenuous activity on days when air pollution levels are high, according to a nationwide study of nearly 1.5 million people published today (Tuesday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. Until now, little has been known about the trade-offs between the health benefits of physical activity taking place outdoors and the potentially harmful effects of air pollution. Previous research by the authors of the current study had investigated the question in middle-aged people at a single point in time, but this is the first time that it has been investigated in people aged between 20-39 years over a period of several years. In addition, the researchers wanted to ...

Scientists have identified three genes associated with an increased risk of developing cervical cancer. The study, led by scientists from Imperial College London and published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, studied data from over 150,000 European women. The research is one of the first studies to pinpoint genetic variants associated with an increased risk of cervical precancer and cancer. The study team say the findings open avenues for identifying women at higher risk and monitoring their health more closely - particularly if genetic information is ...

Markers of the pandemic's impact - testing rates, positivity ratio (cases among total tests), case rates by overall population and deaths - are clustered in neighborhoods, with low-income and predominantly minority communities experiencing worse outcomes than wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods. The findings, part of the first research to look at comprehensive neighborhood-level data from March through September 2020 from three large U.S. cities - Chicago, New York and Philadelphia - were published today in Annals of Internal Medicine by researchers from Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health. The ...

March 29, 2021 - Acute kidney injury (AKI) occurred in nearly 20 percent of patients who underwent surgery with implantation of antibiotic-loaded "spacers" and intravenous (IV) antibiotics for the treatment of deep infections after total knee arthroplasty, reports a study in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer. Patients with preexisting chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at particularly high risk of AKI, according to the new research by Matthew P. Abdel, MD, and colleagues of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. High doses of antibiotics in bone cement linked to higher ...

Paris, Nairobi, London, 29 March 2021 - Five major cooling suppliers are racing to net zero but they represent fewer than ten per cent of the 54 suppliers assessed in a new report, meaning the industry has a lot of work to do to catch up on climate action and reduce pollution from the sector, currently estimated at 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. With the world still falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals of holding global temperature rise this century to under 2 degrees C, and pursue 1.5 degrees C, action to reduce the climate impact of cooling will be essential. According to the International Energy Agency, emissions from cooling are expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2100, driven by heat waves, population growth, urbanization, and a growing middle ...

A new study by Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Health Sciences researchers - published today in the American Journal of Epidemiology - found correlations between increased expressions of autistic-like behaviours in pre-school aged children to gestational exposure to select environmental toxicants, including metals, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), phthalates, and bisphenol-A (BPA). This population study measured the levels of 25 chemicals in blood and urine samples collected from 1,861 Canadian women during the first trimester of pregnancy. A follow up survey was conducted with 478 participants, using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) ...

Heavy caseloads, job stress and biases can strain relations between parole and probation officers and their clients, upping offenders' likelihood of landing back behind bars. On a more hopeful note, a new University of California, Berkeley, study suggests that nonjudgmental empathy training helps court-appointed supervision officers feel more emotionally connected to their clients and, arguably, better able to deter them from criminal backsliding. The findings, published March 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show, on average, a 13% decrease in recidivism among the clients of parole and probation officers who participated in the UC Berkeley empathy training experiment. "If an officer received this empathic ...

Psoriasis is a chronic disease that causes patients to develop patches of dry, scaly, and itchy skin. It is an autoimmune disorder, which means that it arises from a person's immune system inappropriately targeting that person's own healthy body parts. It is a deeply unpleasant condition, and patients commonly take various medications so that they can live their lives more comfortably. Professor Min Chen of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Peking Union Medical College has conducted extensive research on psoriasis. "There are many patients with psoriasis who also have cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and coronary heart disease," she notes. The presence of such cardiovascular diseases is an important consideration ...

One of the biggest longitudinal research studies of its kind in the world led by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) suggests that positive outcomes for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more common than previously thought. ASD refers to a group of neurodevelopmental conditions resulting in challenges related to communication, social understanding and behaviour. One in 100 people may have ASD and although a person can be diagnosed at any time, ASD symptoms generally appear and are diagnosed in the first few years ...

PRINCETON--Slanted media outlets are often blamed for growing polarization, but new research points to another consequence of consuming partisan news: an erosion of trust in the media. A team of researchers combined computational social science techniques and experimentation to study the long-term effects of online partisan media on political opinions and trust. Internet users were asked to change their default browser homepages to either the Huffington Post, a left-leaning news site, or Fox News, a more conservative outlet, during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. As participants went about their daily activities, they allowed the researchers to survey them multiple times ...

LA JOLLA, CA--A team led by scientists at Scripps Research has made a discovery suggesting that experimental antibody therapies for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's have an unintended adverse effect--brain inflammation--that may have to be countered if these treatments are to work as intended. Experimental antibody treatments for Parkinson's target abnormal clumps of the protein alpha-synuclein, while experimental antibody treatments for Alzheimer's target abnormal clumps of amyloid beta protein. Despite promising results in mice, these potential treatments so far have not seen much success in clinical trials. "Our findings provide a possible explanation for why antibody treatments have not yet succeeded ...

KANSAS CITY, MO--Since the beginning of the pandemic, a loss of smell has emerged as one of the telltale signs of COVID-19. Though most people regain their sense of smell within a matter of weeks, others can find that familiar odors become distorted. Coffee smells like gasoline; roses smell like cigarettes; fresh bread smells like rancid meat. This odd phenomenon is not just disconcerting. It also represents the disruption of the ancient olfactory circuitry that has helped to ensure the survival of our species and others by signaling when a reward (caffeine!) or a punishment (food poisoning!) is imminent. Scientists ...

Dwindling water supplies and a growing population will halve per capita water use in Jordan by the end of this century. Without intervention, few households in the arid nation will have access to even 40 liters (10.5 gallons) of piped water per person per day. Low-income neighborhoods will be the hardest hit, with 91 percent of households receiving less than 40 liters daily for 11 consecutive months per year by 2100. Those are among the sobering predictions of a peer-reviewed paper by an international team of 17 researchers published March 29 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jordan's deepening water crisis offers a glimpse of challenges ...

Materials such as gallium arsenide are extremely important for the production of electronic devices. As supplies of it are limited, or they can present health and environmental hazards, specialists are looking for alternative materials. So-called conjugated polymers are candidates. These organic macromolecules have semi-conductor properties, i.e. they can conduct electricity under certain conditions. One possible way of producing them in the desired two-dimensional - i.e. extremely flat - form is presented by surface chemistry, a field of research established in 2007. Since then, many reactions have been developed and interesting materials produced for possible applications. ...

When humans look out at a visual landscape like a sunset or a beautiful overlook, we experience something -- we have a conscious awareness of what that scene looks like. This awareness of the visual world around us is central to our everyday existence, but are humans the only species that experiences the world consciously? Or do other non-human animals have the same sort of conscious experience we do? Scientists and philosophers have asked versions of this question for millennia, yet finding answers -- or even appropriate ways to ask the question -- has proved elusive. But a team of Yale researchers recently devised an ingenious way to try to solve ...

One specific protein may be a master regulator for changing how cancer cells consume nutrients from their environments, preventing cell death and increasing the likelihood the cancer could spread, a study from the University of Notre Dame has shown. The study, published in Cell Reports, was completed in the laboratory of Zachary Schafer, the Coleman Foundation Associate Professor of Cancer Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences. Schafer and collaborators found a protein called SGK1, known to be activated in a variety of cancer cell types, signals the ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., March 29, 2021--A first-of-its-kind instrument that samples smoke from megafires and scans humidity will help researchers better understand the scale and long-term impact of fires--specifically how far and high the smoke will travel; when and where it will rain; and whether the wet smoke will warm the climate by absorbing sunlight. "Smoke containing soot and other toxic particles from megafires can travel thousands of kilometers at high altitudes where winds are fast and air is dry," said Manvendra Dubey, a Los Alamos National Laboratory atmospheric scientist and co-author on a paper published last week in Aerosol Science and Technology. "These smoke-filled clouds can absorb ...

Among patients who return to work after a heart attack, those who work more than 55 hours per week, compared to those working an average full-time job of 35-40 hours a week, increase their odds of having a second heart attack by about twofold, according to a prospective cohort study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Data from the International Labour Office estimates 1 in 5 workers worldwide work over 48 hours per week. Previous studies have found an association between working long hours and increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. This is the first study of its kind to examine the effect of long working hours and the risk of a second cardiovascular event ...

Firearm injuries are a leading and preventable cause of injury and death among youth - responsible for an estimated 5,000 deaths and 22,000 non-fatal injury hospital visits each year in American kids. And while hospital systems are poised to tackle this issue using a public health approach, prevention efforts and policies may be differentially effective. A new study led by researchers at Children's National Hospital, finds that sociodemographic factors related to intent of injury by firearm may be useful in guiding policy and informing tailored interventions for the prevention of firearm injuries in at-risk youth. "We sought to explore differences by injury intent in a ...

DALLAS - March. 29, 2021 - With NASA preparing to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, researchers are studying the physical effects of spending long periods in space. Now a new study by scientists at UT Southwestern shows that the heart of an astronaut who spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station shrank, even with regular exercise, although it continued to function well. The results were comparable with what the researchers found in a long-distance swimmer who spent nearly half a year trying to cross the Pacific Ocean. The study, published today in Circulation, reports that astronaut Scott Kelly, now retired, lost an average of 0.74 grams - about three-tenths of an ounce - per week in the mass ...

Although the development of secondary cancerous growths, called metastasis, is the primary cause of death in most cancers, the cellular changes that drive it are poorly understood. In a new study, published in Genome Biology, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new modeling approach to better understand how tumors become aggressive. "Researchers have identified several cellular pathways that change when a tumor becomes aggressive. However, it is difficult to understand how they affect the tumor," said Steven Offer, an assistant professor of molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at Mayo Clinic, Minnesota. "We wanted to develop a simple system that can model how cancer cells form ...

FINDINGS A new study by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found using percutaneous image guided needle based thermal ablation -- the precise application of extreme heat or cold to a tumor using sophisticated ultrasound, CT or MRI in a single outpatient session -- is a safe and effective adjunctive therapy for the local control of metastatic gynecologic cancers throughout lungs, liver, soft tissues in the abdomen and pelvis and bones in patients with advanced localized cancers unresponsive to systemic therapy. Nearly 96% of the patients in the study achieved a complete tumor response over a median follow up period of 10 months. The overall survival rate was 37.5 months and the progression-free ...