Patients who receive umbilical cord blood transplants for blood cancers now live equally long regardless of their race, new research from UVA Cancer Center shows. The findings, from UVA Health’s Karen Ballen, MD, and collaborators, suggests that a previously identified survival gap for Black recipients has closed and that overall survival for all recipients has increased.  The retrospective analysis looked at more than 2,600 adults and children with blood cancers who received cord blood between 2007 and 2017 ...

DALLAS, Oct. 1, 2024 – Strokes can strike at any age, challenging survivors to overcome physical, emotional and cognitive changes. Nominations are open now for the 2025 Stroke Hero Awards from the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, which is celebrating a century of lifesaving impact this year. The awards recognize stroke survivors, caregivers, advocates and experts making a difference in the stroke community. Every 40 seconds someone in the U.S. has a stroke[1], according to the American Heart Association’s 2024 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update. Nearly 1 in 4 stroke survivors face the ...

Seven years after actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet launched the #MeToo movement into the global consciousness, attitudes towards sexual harassment and assault have shifted in many countries. A new study shows that the movement’s impact doesn’t stop there.  INSEAD professors Frédéric Godart and David Dubois, alongside Clément Bellet of Erasmus University Rotterdam, found that #MeToo triggered far-reaching changes in consumer behaviour. Sales of stereotypically feminine shoes like high heels dropped significantly weeks after the #MeToo movement swept the media ...

INDIANAPOLIS – The pandemic has highlighted the acute shortage of nurses and nursing assistants needed to care for the growing number of older adults in long-term care facilities. Yet getting nursing students excited, engaged and feeling competent to take on the challenges of caring for nursing home patients has proved elusive. To address this critical workforce gap, researchers from Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University School of Medicine have developed and tested an innovative curriculum for nursing students, exposing ...

The first-ever nationwide study into how Australians use and dispose of clothing has revealed people are buying too many clothes and are unsure how to discard them responsibly. Conducted by RMIT University and commissioned by the Kmart Group and the Queensland Government, a study of 3,080 Australians explored how they acquired, used and disposed of their clothing. Australians are among the world’s biggest clothing consumers, importing 1.4 billion units or over 383,000 tonnes annually. But each year, more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing is sent to landfill. The authors recommend establishing a national textile collection program for unwearable clothing that ...

Scientists need fine spatial and temporal resolution land surface temperature (LST) data for many types of research and applications. Spatio-temporal fusion, a technique that combines data from multiple sources to create high-resolution images with both spatial (space) and temporal (time) details, is an important solution for researchers needing fine spatio-temporal resolution LST data. A team of researchers propose a new spatio-temporal fusion method based on Restormer (RES-STF).   Their work is published in the Journal of Remote Sensing on August 21, 2024.   LST data, the measurement ...

Recent advances in computing and artificial intelligence, along with insights into infant learning, suggest that machine and deep learning techniques can help us study how infants transition from random exploratory movements to purposeful actions. Most research has focused on babies’ spontaneous movements, distinguishing between fidgety and non-fidgety behaviors. While early movements may seem chaotic, they reveal meaningful patterns as infants interact with their environment. However, we still lack understanding of how infants intentionally engage with their surroundings and the principles guiding their ...

NEW YORK, NY (Oct. 1, 2024) – Systemic racism remains a significant challenge in efforts to address health disparities in childhood asthma. A new American Thoracic Society report provides practical frameworks to begin the research necessary to make real progress in treating asthma in Black and Latino children, who are more likely than their white counterparts to report to emergency rooms in the U.S. Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir, MD, and a diverse group of researchers, clinicians, social scientists and community health workers shared their findings in the report published online this week in ...

Dr. Jaeyeon Pyo of the Smart 3D Printing Research Team at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) has developed a breakthrough technology that uses light to visualize nanoscale glass microcapillary tips, enabling precise and delicate contact with other objects. A “‘Microcapillary” is a precision tool with a very small aperture (0.1 mm to 0.000010 mm in diameter) fabricated from a glass tube. It is utilized as a vital tool in various fields, from biotechnology to manipulate cells, to micro electroplating and nano 3D printing. Specifically, it is used in biotechnology faor tasks such as injecting sperm into an egg during in vitro fertilization (IVF) ...

Seattle, WA – October 1, 2024 – The BRAIN Initiative® Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) has launched its first major data release, marking a significant milestone in the ambitious effort to map the whole human brain. The data, accessible through the BICAN Rapid Release Inventory, includes single-cell and single-nucleus transcriptomic and epigenomic profiles from humans, mice, and 10 other mammalian species. Sourced from multiple grants and labs within the consortium, including the Allen Institute, these data are from projects that aim to identify and define brain cell types based on molecular profiles.    “The ...

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to our Sun. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus, a year lasts just over three Earth days. The team’s observations also hint at the existence of three more exoplanet candidates, in various orbits around the star. Located just six light-years away, Barnard’s star is the second-closest stellar system — after Alpha Centauri’s three-star group — and the closest individual star to us. Owing to its proximity, it is a primary target in ...

The American Cancer Society (ACS) today released Breast Cancer Statistics, 2024, the organization’s biennial update on breast cancer occurrence and trends in the United States. The new report finds breast cancer mortality rates overall have dropped by 44% since 1989, averting approximately 517,900 breast cancer deaths. However, not all women have benefited from this progress, notably American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women, whose rates have remained unchanged over the past three decades. Also concerning ...

Children of immigrants to the United States typically incorporate themselves into US economic and cultural life, and this pattern of assimilation has not markedly changed in over a century. Today, one in seven US residents was born abroad, rates similar to those seen in the late nineteenth century. As immigrants’ countries of origin have shifted from Europe to Asia and the Americas, a narrative has developed that contemporary immigrants do not assimilate as thoroughly as older immigrants. But is this true? In a Perspective, Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan summarize their long-running research program matching individuals across historical US Censuses. The authors compare ...

A model suggests that vaccinating children and teens against the flu can help protect the elderly in tropical countries. Influenza kills up to 650,000 people worldwide every year. In part due to the lack of strong seasonality and differences in vaccine supply, optimal vaccination strategies for the tropics may differ from those in temperate zones. Joseph Servadio and colleagues parameterized an age-structured mathematical model of influenza transmission to the asynchronous, non-annual epidemiology of tropical influenza in Vietnam, a country with low vaccine coverage. The model includes three subtypes of the flu virus. Vaccinating year-round was found to be ...

A study links an unusual plankton bloom off the coast of Madagascar to drought in Southern Africa. Climate warming has intensified droughts around the world. When vegetation dies from lack of water, the wind can pick up and carry unprotected soil particles for thousands of kilometers. These dust particles can then act as fertilizer when deposited in seawater. Dionysios Raitsos and colleagues show that dust from drought-stricken Southern Africa caused a bloom of marine phytoplankton off the southeast Madagascar coast from November 2019 through February 2020. The team used standardized anomalies of dust aerosol optical depth from the Copernicus ...

Seven nudges aiming to reduce hateful speech online all failed—but the nudges unexpectedly succeeded in increasing engagement with harmless and wholesome content. Controlling hate speech is an ongoing challenge for online communities. In a pre-registered experiment, Tatiana Celadin and colleagues compared the effects of seven “nudges,” messages designed to promote prosocial behaviors: reminding posters of descriptive norms, injunctive norms, or personal norms; cooling down negative emotions; stimulating deliberation or empathy; and highlighting reputation. Over 4,000 Americans recruited through the online platform ...

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) molecules hold immense potential for treating diseases by silencing specific genes. Encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), siRNA can be delivered efficiently to target cells. However, the effectiveness of these therapies hinges on the internal structure of the LNPs, which can significantly impact their ability to deliver siRNA. Traditional methods often fall short in providing the detailed molecular insights needed to fine-tune LNP design for optimal therapeutic efficacy. A study published in the Journal of Controlled Release on August 02, 2024, led by Assistant Professor Keisuke Ueda from ...

Mount Sinai Health System’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Emergency Department Chair at Mount Sinai Queens have been recognized with top honors for their outstanding achievements at the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) 2024 Scientific Assembly in Las Vegas during a special ceremony on Monday, September 30. Brendan G. Carr, MD, MS, FACEP, CEO, Professor and Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Distinguished Chair of the Mount Sinai Health System, received the Colin C. Rorrie, Jr, PhD Award for Excellence in Health Policy. This award is an extraordinary ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – To appeal to the majority of consumers, winemakers may want to pay as much attention to what’s on the bottle as what’s in it. A three-part experimental study led by Washington State University researchers found that women were more inclined to purchase wine that had labels with feminine gender cues. The more strongly the participants identified with other women, a phenomenon called “in-group identification,” the greater this effect was. A feminine label also influenced their expectation that they would like the wine better. With women representing 59% ...

The effects of climate change are not distant future scenarios or confined to remote parts of the world—they are unfolding now, right in our own backyards. In 2023, extreme weather events impacted communities across every inhabited continent, causing major flooding, droughts, and wildfires. While worldwide changes, such as increases in global mean temperature, often dominate discussions of mitigation actions, a detailed understanding of the regional impacts of a warming world is crucial for protecting communities from escalating risks. A team of researchers writing in Frontiers in Science synthesized results ...

UCLA researchers have developed a deep-learning framework that teaches itself quickly to automatically analyze and diagnose MRIs and other 3D medical images – with accuracy matching that of medical specialists in a fraction of the time. An article describing the work and the system’s capabilities is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Unlike the few other models being developed to analyze 3D images, the new framework has wide adaptability across a variety of imaging modalities. The developers have studied it with 3D retinal scans (optical coherence tomography) for disease ...

As many as 249 lives could have been saved in London during the 2018 record-setting hot summer had the city widely adopted cool roofs, estimates a new study by researchers at UCL and the University of Exeter. The paper, published in Nature Cities, analysed the cooling effect that roofs painted white or other reflective colours would have on London’s ambient temperature between June and August 2018, the city’s hottest summer. From June through August, the average temperature around London was 19.2 degrees C, about ...

While divisive social media posts get more traction in countries such as the US, a new study shows that celebrating national unity is the way to go viral in Ukraine. “Ingroup solidarity” statements got far more likes and shares than hostile posts about Russians – a trend that only grew stronger in the wake of the invasion. The first major study of social media behaviour during wartime has found that posts celebrating national and cultural unity in a country under attack receive significantly more online engagement than derogatory posts about the aggressors.   University of Cambridge psychologists analysed a total of 1.6 million ...

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 10AM (UK TIME) ON TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER 2024.   Peer reviewed | Observational study | People    Research led by scientists at Queen Mary University of London is heralding in a new era for genetic sequencing and testing.   In the largest study of its kind to date, published today in Nature Medicine, an international group of researchers led by Queen Mary used new bioinformatics techniques to scan the genetic profiles of 80,000 people to understand the frequency of specific expansions of short repetitive DNA sequences in the general population.  These expansions are the most common cause of inherited neurological ...

Deep brain stimulation may provide immediate improvement in arm and hand strength and function weakened by traumatic brain injury or stroke, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report today in Nature Communications. Encouraging results from extensive tests in monkeys and humans open a path for a new clinical application of an already widely used brain stimulation technology and offer insights into neural mechanisms underlying movement deficits caused by brain injury. “Arm and hand paralysis significantly impacts the quality ...