Millions of patients worldwide suffer from a chronic itching condition with no identifiable cause – a condition known as chronic pruritus of unknown origin (CPUO) – that has no targeted therapies approved to treat it. Many of these patients suffer for years with little relief, but a new University of Maryland School of Medicine study may provide hope for future treatments. Patients were found to have lower than normal levels of metabolite biomarkers in the blood plasma that could point to a cause of their excruciating symptoms. Findings were recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. “Our study found a distinct deficit in certain metabolite ...

PHILADELPHIA (August 14, 2024) – A research team – co-led by Penn Nursing – has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the complex neural circuitry underlying reward and addiction by identifying 34 distinct subtypes of medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a key brain region involved in pleasure and motivation. The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports by Nature, offer insights into the diversity of these neurons and their potential roles in substance ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People 60 and older with untreated high blood pressure may have an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease compared to both people who have been or are being treated for high blood pressure as well as people without the chronic condition. The new research, a meta-analysis, is published in the August 14, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. These results do not prove that untreated high blood pressure causes Alzheimer’s disease, they only show ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People with multiple sclerosis (MS) have an increased risk of severe coronavirus infection, but there has been concern regarding potential relapse after vaccination. A new study finds that people with MS may not have a higher risk of relapse after COVID-19 vaccination. The study is published in the August 14, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “People with MS have an increased risk of severe ...

The Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (TLI) is pleased to announce that its WIC Program has received the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) 2024 WIC Breastfeeding Gold Award of Excellence. The FNS notes that the “intent is to provide models and motivate other local agencies to strengthen their breastfeeding promotion and support activities and ultimately increase breastfeeding initiation and duration rates among WIC participants.” The FNS award letter recognizes the TLI WIC Program “for its exemplary efforts in WIC breastfeeding promotion and ...

The Access for All in ALS Consortium (ALL ALS) announced the successful enrollment of the first participant. Established in the autumn of 2023 with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ALL ALS is a multi-institutional effort, and aims to disrupt the ALS clinical research landscape using open science methods to build broadly accessible resources to advance ALS research. The consortium brings together research scientists from across the country, combining their efforts to collect clinical and biomarker data from people with ALS symptoms, asymptomatic individuals at risk of developing inherited forms of ALS, and control participants. The ALL ALS ...

Washington, D.C. - Current U.S. Ph.D. students in qualified graduate programs at accredited U.S. academic institutions who are conducting their graduate thesis research in targeted areas of importance to the DOE Office of Science are invited to apply for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program.    Helpful application assistance workshops will be held on Thursday, September 12, 2024, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT and Thursday, October 10, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT.     Applications are due at 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on November 6, 2024.     The September 12, ...

Brian Peters, PhD, First Tennessee Endowed Chair of Excellence in Clinical Pharmacy and professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Translational Science at the UT Health Science Center, was recently awarded $3.9 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for a project aimed at unravelling intricate mysteries surrounding complex fungal-bacterial infections. James Cassat, MD, PhD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Paul Fidel, PhD, LSU Health New Orleans, are also principal investigators. Infections caused by both fungi ...

Study Title: Parsing digital or analog TCR performance through piconewton forces Publication: Science Advances Dana-Farber Cancer Institute authors: Aoi Akitsu, Kristine N. Brazin, Robert J. Mallis, Jonathan S. Duke-Cohan, Matthew A. Booker, Vincenzo Cinella, Jonathan Lee, Michael Y. Tolstorukov and Ellis L. Reinherz, MD Summary: Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigate new features of T cell performance, delineating a class of digital cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) that are optimal in providing protection against virally infected or otherwise altered body cells, and by extension, most useful for immunotherapy. These digital ...

A team of researchers has made strides in understanding the formation of massif-type anorthosites, enigmatic rocks that only formed during the middle part of Earth’s history. These plagioclase-rich igneous rock formations, which can cover areas as large as 42,000 square kilometers and host titanium ore deposits, have puzzled scientists for decades due to conflicting theories about their origins. A new study published in Science Advances on Aug. 14 highlights the intricate connections between Earth’s evolving ...

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is launching the Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation, a new interdisciplinary research and innovation hub that will leverage the expertise of faculty and students from various disciplines across campus to address complex challenges in risk management and insurance. “The institute will address the financial risks arising from a growing number of threats to our state and beyond, ranging from extreme weather to cybersecurity,” explains Vice Chancellor for Research Penny Gordon-Larsen. “UNC-Chapel Hill is a world leader in translating extreme environmental events into financial risk and now seeks to expand ...

A new Roundtable Discussion in the peer-reviewed journal Autism in Adulthood explores how the two fields of positive psychology and autism might integrate and benefit each other, and the autism community at large. Click here to read the Roundtable. The Roundtable was co-moderated by Patricia Wright, PhD, MPH who is the Executive Director of Proof Positive: Autism Wellbeing Alliance, an organization committed to integrating autism services and the field of positive psychology and Rachel Moseley, ...

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 14, 2024 — University of California, Irvine scientists recently discovered a one-dimensional nanoscale material whose color changes as temperature changes. The team’s results appeared in Advanced Materials.    “We found that we can make really small and sensitive thermometers,” said Maxx Arguilla, UC Irvine professor of chemistry whose research group led the study. “It’s one of the most applied and translatable works to come out of our lab.”     Arguilla ...

Understanding why the popularity of organised events steeped in themes of death, disaster and suffering, such as the well-known Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Jack the Ripper Walking Tours and Remembrance Sunday, could be key to a deeper understanding of society, say researchers from the University of Surrey. In a study published by Annals of Tourism Research, researchers introduce a comprehensive framework to analyse these events, drawing from fields as diverse as thanatology (the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it), dark tourism, and collective memory ...

A collaboration between researchers from Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering (WSE) and Portland State University (PSU) aims to help unlock the vast potential of floating offshore windfarms in the United States by improving understanding of wind-wave-turbine interactions, which if not accounted for properly, can greatly reduce the power output of a group of wind turbines. The project combines developing a new computational method for enhancing the accuracy of Large Eddy Simulations (LES) – a mathematical computer model that depicts the wind field within floating offshore windfarms, with advanced experimental ...

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Twelve Ochsner Health owned and affiliated hospitals are among the more than 3,000 nationwide that participate in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® (GWTG) and other programs to improve outcomes for Americans who experience heart disease or stroke. Heart disease and stroke are the No. 1 and No. 5 causes of death in the United States, respectively. These health crises require swift and proven treatment to ensure the best outcomes for patients. The American Heart Association, celebrating 100 years of work to advance health and hope for everyone, everywhere, ...

An analysis of 12 years of data collected from over 500 hospitals in 25 different states shows that weather, geographic location, and urban or rural location all appear to influence hospitalizations for waterborne infectious diseases, according to a study published August 7, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS Water by Victoria Lynch and Jeffrey Shaman from Columbia University. Waterborne infectious diseases caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses still affect over 7,000,000 people annually in the United States. Lynch and Shaman analyzed potential links between weather and hospitalizations for waterborne ...

Older age, female sex, irregular heart rhythms, and daily activity levels can help to predict how much Alzheimer’s Disease patients’ cognitive function will decline, and how much they will depend on their caregivers over the next two years. The results suggest new ways to predict cognitive decline in patients, and that caregivers need to be considered in treatment plans. 'Liane Kaufmann from the Ernst von Bergmann Clinic in Potsdam, Germany, Josef Marksteiner from the General Hospital in Hall, Austria, and colleagues present these findings in the open access journal PLOS ...

A new study suggests that the use of gender-sensitive language in the title of job advertisements may influence the level of interest demonstrated by female potential applicants. Dominik Hetjens of Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, and Stefan Hartmann of Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 14, 2024. German is one of many languages in which every noun is grammatically masculine, feminine, or neutral. For instance, ...

"We have discovered a muscle-brain pathway that controls the eagerness to train more when we exercise," explains Guadalupe Sabio, a researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO). One of the proteins identified activates the area of the brain that controls movement. Obese patients have lower blood levels of this protein. This result suggest it may be possible to develop drugs for people specially in need of the benefits that come from exercise, but are reluctant to do it. The ...

Nitrogenases are among the most geochemically important enzymes on Earth, providing all forms of life with bioavailable nitrogen in the form of ammonia (NH3). Some nitrogenases can also directly convert CO2 into hydrocarbon chains, making them an exciting target for the development of biotechnological processes. A team of researchers in Marburg, Germany, led by Max Planck scientist Johannes Rebelein, has now provided a comprehensive insight into the substrate specificity and preferences of nitrogenase. Their results challenge the current understanding of nitrogenases and highlight their potential for sustainable bioproduction. Nitrogen is one of the main building blocks ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — U.S. firms that use cloud computing services are more likely to export their products and services, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The team said the findings were stronger for firms located outside of large cities and demonstrate the need for expanded availability of the high-speed internet required for cloud computing to support economic development. The study, which also found that cloud-using firms exported goods and services even more than exporting firms ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Parent size and the conditions in which actively spawning adults lived are the most influential factors affecting growth of Lake Erie walleye, a new study has found. The findings surprised the scientists, who expected recent temperatures and food availability to have the highest impact on walleye growth. Cold winters and more sizable mothers were associated with faster growth in 3- to 5-year-old walleye offspring, the analysis showed, suggesting that warmer winters that come with ...

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has selected Texas Tech University as one of nine university and industry-led projects to split $44.5 million in federal funding to advance commercial-scale carbon capture, transport and storage across the U.S. With an award just over $6.2 million, Texas Tech intends to implement and accelerate the equitable and environmentally responsible deployment of storage-based carbon management projects in the Permian Basin. The team will provide technical and engagement support for stakeholders to develop a framework ...

Digital wallets — like Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal — are projected to be used by more than 5.3 billion people by 2026. While these wallets promote increased security over traditional payment methods, reliance on outdated authentication methods and prioritizing convenience over security leaves digital wallets vulnerable, according to new research led by computer engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  “What we have discovered is [that] these digital wallets are not secure,” says Taqi Raza, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and an author on the paper. “The main reason is that they have unconditional trust between ...