Two years after launching a new mathematics outreach program, a team of Texas A&M University professors has been awarded a Dolciani Mathematics Enrichment Grant to support their program's efforts to promote math enrichment for high school students. The Program for Research in Mathematics (PReMa) was established in 2022 by four members of Texas A&M’s Department of Mathematics: Dr. Sherry Gong, Dr. Wencai Liu, Dr. Kun Wang and Dr. Zhizhang Xie. The program, directed by Wang, targets high school students living in Texas and neighboring states. Designed to cultivate a deep appreciation and understanding of advanced ...

Los Angeles, California - May 20, 2024 - Researchers at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) have unveiled a pioneering study shedding light on the intricate mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD). The study, titled "Effects of amyloid-β-mimicking peptide hydrogel matrix on neuronal progenitor cell phenotype," represents a significant leap forward in understanding the interplay between amyloid-like structures and neuronal cells. Led by Natashya Falcone and co-first authors Tess Grett Mathes and Mahsa Monirizad, the research team delved into the realm of self-assembling ...

In recent years, tree-planting campaigns have been underway in the United States, especially in cities, as part of climate mitigation efforts.  Urban forests can help improve air quality, generate cooling effects, and provide green spaces for outdoor recreation while also serving as an ecological habitat.  Just last year, the U.S. Forest Service announced a $1 billion campaign to expand access to trees and green spaces throughout the country, including in cities. But a new Dartmouth-led study finds that some areas within urban forests in the U.S., may be more capable than trees growing around city home lawns in adapting to a warmer climate. The findings are published ...

Key takeaways Landslides triggered by intense rainfall can sometimes be predicted along with incoming storms, but dry-season landslides often take people by surprise. The July 2023 Rolling Hills Estates landslide that destroyed 12 homes seemed to come out of nowhere, but new research shows it began as early as December 2022. Researchers are developing a database that will enable scientists to plug in new data to monitor potential landslides in real time and possibly predict them. Californians are familiar with landslides that occur around storms, when saturated soil and ...

Systems designed to treat arsenic in private well water may be malfunctioning and endangering the health of people who count on them to keep their water safe, according to Rutgers researchers. Megan Rockafellow-Baldoni, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health and justice at the Rutgers School of Public Health, together with co-authors including Rutgers alum Steven Spayd, a retired research scientist formerly with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, tested the water of 62 New Jersey homes with whole-house arsenic-removing water treatment systems. Their study was ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Because machine-learning models can give false predictions, researchers often equip them with the ability to tell a user how confident they are about a certain decision. This is especially important in high-stake settings, such as when models are used to help identify disease in medical images or filter job applications. But a model’s uncertainty quantifications are only useful if they are accurate. If a model says it is 49% confident that a medical image shows a pleural effusion, then 49% of the time, the model should be right. MIT ...

TORONTO - What happens when online investment trading platforms start to resemble games that keep people playing for hours, with badges and exploding confetti to reward investors for their engagement? For those who know what they’re doing, it won’t make much of a difference. New research from the University of Toronto engaging nearly 1,000 volunteers in artificial investment scenarios shows that more informational features such as price change notifications might even help savvy investors execute ...

RESEARCH SUMMARY Study Title: CAR memory-like NK cells targeting the membrane proximal domain of mesothelin demonstrate promising activity in ovarian cancer Publication: Science Advances Dana-Farber Cancer Institute authors include: Rizwan Romee, MD, senior author; and Mubin Tarannum, PhD, KhanhLinh Dinh, and Juliana Vergara, MD, MMSc, co-first authors Summary: Natural killer, or NK, cells endowed with memory-like abilities and armed with a novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) have generated encouraging results in experiments in epithelial ovarian cancer ...

“We are optimistic that the incorporation of ADCs into the treatment of aggressive tumors and treatment refractory gynecologic cancers will improve quality of life and survival outcomes in our patients.” BUFFALO, NY- July 12, 2024 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 11) on May 20, 2024, entitled, “Entering the golden age for antibody-drug conjugates in gynecologic cancer.” In this new editorial, researchers Michelle Greenman, Blair McNamara, Levent Mutlu, and Alessandro D. Santin from Yale University School of Medicine discuss gynecologic cancers. Biologically aggressive ...

SAN ANGELO, Texas —Tom Green County District Court Judge Barbara L. Walther ruled Thursday, July 11, 2024, that Angelo State University must release public records relating to an experiment conducted on dozens of mice that resulted in the animals’ unnecessary suffering and death, reportedly to study the impact of the foster care system on human children. The ruling overturns Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Nov. 17, 2022 decision to side with the university in denying the records. On July 13, 2023, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington, D.C. based health advocacy group of more than 17,000 doctor members that encourages higher standards ...

One of the challenges of creating realistic-looking and delectable plant-based meat is mimicking the marbled effect of animal fat that many carnivores expect and enjoy. A University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientist has a plan to tackle this quandary by developing new technology supported by a $250,000 grant from the Good Food Institute. The not-for-profit think tank promotes plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy and eggs, as well as cultivated “clean meat” grown from animal cells in a facility. The technology proposed ...

In a revelation that highlights the fragile balance of our planet's atmosphere, scientists from China, Germany, and the USA have uncovered an unexpected link between massive wildfire events and the chemistry of the ozone layer. Published in Science Advances, this study reveals how wildfires, such as the catastrophic 2019/20 Australian bushfires, impact the stratosphere in previously unseen ways. The ozone layer, a crucial shield protecting life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation, has been on a path to ...

Infections and neurodegenerative diseases cause inflammation in the brain. But for unknown reasons, patients with brain inflammation often develop muscle problems that seem to be independent of the central nervous system. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have revealed how brain inflammation releases a specific protein that travels from the brain to the muscles and causes a loss of muscle function. The study, in fruit flies and mice, also identified ways to block this process, which could have ...

Researchers from University of California San Diego have found that two of the most frequently administered stem cell therapies, which are often used interchangeably, actually contain completely different types of cells. The results challenge the current “one-cell-cures-all” paradigm in orthopedic stem cell therapeutics and highlight the need for more informed and rigorous characterization of injectable stem cell therapies before they are marketed for use in patients. The researchers analyzed cell populations of autologous bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) and adipose-derived ...

The ozone layer, a crucial shield protecting life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation, has been on a path to recovery thanks to the Montreal Protocol. This landmark international treaty, adopted in 1987, successfully led to phasing out the production of numerous substances responsible for ozone depletion. Over the past decades, the ozone layer has shown significant signs of healing, a testament to global cooperation and environmental policy. However, the stability of this vital atmospheric layer is now facing a new and unexpected challenge. During the 2019/20 Australian wildfires, ...

Stories written with AI assistance have been deemed to be more creative, better written and more enjoyable. A new study published in the journal Science Advances finds that AI enhances creativity by boosting the novelty of story ideas as well as the ‘usefulness’ of stories – their ability to engage the target audience and potential for publication. It finds that AI “professionalizes” stories, making them more enjoyable, more likely to have plot twists, better written and less boring. In ...

Researchers at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) have uncovered how natural selection “rewilds” domestic rabbits. The study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, helps answer the question of how normally tame rabbits — which have many natural predators — can become a force of ecological destruction when purposefully or accidentally reintroduced to the wild. Here Comes Peter Cottontail Every gardener knows how much of a nuisance rabbits can be, but ...

By Leah Shaffer You can think of our atmosphere as a big chemistry set, a global churn of gaseous molecules and particles that constantly bounce off and change each other in complicated ways. While the particles are very small, often less than 1% of the thickness of human hair, they have outsized impacts. For example, particles are the seeds of cloud droplets, and the abundance of the particles changes the reflectivity and the amount of clouds, rainfall and climate. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. ...

A recent study from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital has identified a specific neural activity pattern as a novel biomarker to accurately predict and monitor the clinical status of individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who have undergone deep brain stimulation (DBS),  a rapidly emerging therapeutic approach for severe psychiatric disorders. The study, led by led by Drs. Sameer Sheth and Wayne Goodman along with co-lead authors, Drs. Nicole Provenza, ...

Two for two! A duo of interacting galaxies commemorates the second science anniversary of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which takes constant observations, including images and highly detailed data known as spectra. Its operations have led to a “parade” of discoveries by astronomers around the world. “Since President Biden and Vice President Harris unveiled the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope two years ago, Webb has continued to unlock the mysteries of the universe,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “With remarkable images from the ...

University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher Thomas Mackie has received a $2.1 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to advance the meaningful engagement of communities that are affected by mental health disparities and underrepresented in research partnerships. The study, entitled “Improving Research Partnership With Engagement Mapping: A Pilot Study to Advance Engagement Science” and co-led by Karen Tabb, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher, is designed to empower community partners to have a greater role ...

Researchers have used gene editing to restore hearing in adult mice with a type of inherited hearing loss. They showed that shutting down a damaged copy of a gene called a microRNA (miRNA) enabled the animals to regain hearing. The approach by a research team supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reported in Science Translational Medicine, may eventually lead to potential treatments for inherited hearing loss in people. Zheng-Yi Chen, DPhil., and his colleagues at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston and other institutions studied a rare form of genetic deafness called autosomal dominant deafness-50 (DFNA50). ...

Sant Pau researchers discover a new gene that causes ALS   Researchers from the Neuromuscular Diseases Group and the Dementia Neurobiology Group of the Sant Pau Research Institute (IR Sant Pau) and the Memory Unit of the Sant Pau Hospital, led by neurologist Dr. Ricard Rojas-García, have identified a new mutation in the ARPP21 gene that could be the cause of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a devastating neurodegenerative disease. Specifically, it is a shared mutation (c.1586C>T; p.Pro529Leu) in the ARPP21 gene that ...

Long before photosynthesis brought free oxygen into the world, the earth was already populated by numerous organisms. Oxygen was life-threatening for them and therefore they developed completely different metabolic pathways to those we know from plants, animals and humans. Anaerobic bacteria have survived the ages in special, oxygen-free niches, some of them very close to us: as an essential part of the intestinal microbiome, where they are of enormous importance for the well-being of the organism. However, certain anaerobes can ...

Solaris Vita, a startup created by students at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), has won second place in the "Innovation of the Year" category at Gen-E 2024, the largest European youth entrepreneurship competition, organized by Junior Achievement Europe. This is the first time that a Spanish university team has won this award. The promoters of Solaris Vita, Miguel Iglesias (Industrial Engineering graduate from UC3M) and Yann Guichard (Economics student at the University), competed ...