A Global Heat Early Warning system is now essential, and requires planning in four key areas to overcome barriers and enable successful implementation, per new review. #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000437 Article Title: Preventing heat-related deaths: The urgent need for a global early warning system for heat Author Countries: Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, US Funding: CB,IMO, CG and JT are funded by Horizon Europe through the HIGH horizon project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme (grant number 101057843). IMO and CG are also ...

Electrons have an intrinsic angular momentum, the so-called spin, which means that they can align themselves along a magnetic field, much like a compass needle. In addition to the electric charge of electrons, which determines their behaviour in electronic circuits, their spin is increasingly used for storing and processing data. Already now, one can buy MRAM memory elements (magnetic random access memories), in which information is stored in very small but still classical magnets – that is, ...

Already at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of Brazilian researchers pioneered in showing why SARS-CoV-2 infection tends to be more severe in diabetic patients. Now, the same team based at the Institute of Biology of the State University of Campinas (IB-UNICAMP) has discovered one of the reasons why obese people who do not have diabetes or even insulin resistance also have an increased risk of developing the severe form of the disease.  “New experiments show that the molecular mechanisms are quite different in the two cases,” Pedro Moraes-Vieira, a professor at IB-UNICAMP, who is coordinating ...

Getting individuals to act in the best interest of society can be a tricky balancing act, one that often walks a fine line between trying to convince people to act of their own volition, versus passing laws and regulations that make these actions compulsory.  In a new paper, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, SFI External Professor Stefani Crabtree (Utah State University) and Science Board Fellow Simon Levin (Princeton University), together with Colin Wren (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs) and Avinash ...

“If there was any doubt, this discovery demonstrates that genomics, extensively deployed over the past two decades, still has much to reveal to us.” BUFFALO, NY- July 2, 2024 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on June 20, 2024, entitled, “Genomics has more to reveal.” In this new editorial, researchers Laurène Fenwarth and Nicolas Duployez from the University of Lille and CHU Lille discuss molecular and cytogenetic analyses that are now used to identify mutations and structural variants defining distinct subtypes of acute myeloid leukemias (AML) ...

The incidence of low birth weight rose sharply in India amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame. Globally, 1 in 4 newborns has a low birth weight (less than 5.5 pounds), and the problem disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries — particularly in South Asia, home to approximately one-fourth of the world’s population. Santosh Kumar, associate professor of development and global health economics at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, co-authored the study published in Communications Medicine, a Nature series journal. “This research shows that low birth weight became more common in India ...

With a $300,000 grant, the Welch Foundation is supporting University of Texas at Arlington research into creating new materials to safely and effectively deliver medications to treat diseases such as cancer. Since its founding in 1954, the Houston-based Welch Foundation has contributed over $1.1 billion to the advancement of chemistry through research grants, departmental programs, endowed chairs and other special projects in Texas. “As one of the nation’s largest private funding sources for chemical research, we are committed to supporting the field in a way that advances science while ...

A common infection-causing bacteria was much less likely to evolve antibiotic resistance when treated with a mixture of antimicrobial peptides rather than a single peptide, making these mixtures a viable strategy for developing new antibiotic treatments. Jens Rolff of the Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany, and colleagues report these findings in a new study publishing July 2nd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a major threat to public health. The World Health Organization estimates ...

The Mediterranean Diet is a powerful ally for health even after a cancer diagnosis. This is the key result of an Italian study carried out as part of the UMBERTO Project, conducted by the Joint Research Platform Umberto Veronesi Foundation - Department of Epidemiology and Prevention of the I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed of Pozzilli, in collaboration with the LUM "Giuseppe Degennaro" University of Casamassima (BA). According to this research, people diagnosed with any type of tumor, who had a high adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in the year preceding their enrollment into the study, live longer and have a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality, ...

The International Biogeography Society (TIBS) has relaunched its flagship open-access scientific journal, Frontiers of Biogeography (FoB), on the ARPHA platform, where it will be co-published with Pensoft Publishers. This collaboration underscores the society’s commitment to maintaining high-quality, high-visibility and low-cost open-access publishing for the biogeographical community. "This switch of our journal to a cutting-edge platform, and its committed team of editors, should continue to raise the journal's ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- National Science Foundation (NSF) officials joined Binghamton University, State University of New York to officially launch the Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine. After winning the designation earlier this year, Binghamton University and its New Energy New York and Engine coalition partners gathered to celebrate what this all means to the region. At a press conference on Thursday, Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger welcomed NSF Assistant Director of the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate Erwin Gianchandani to Binghamton to help launch the Engine program. Erwin ...

In 2023, the American Library Association documented hundreds of attempts to remove more than 4,000 books from schools and libraries across nearly all states in the U.S.  In one of the first comprehensive analyses of book bans in the U.S., a University of Colorado Boulder researcher and her collaborators revealed that these bans disproportionally target women authors of color, and a large portion of the banned books feature characters of color.  The findings appeared June 11 in the journal ...

The American Society for Nutrition (ASN) has announced that next year’s meeting is scheduled to be held May 31 – June 3, 2025, in Orlando, Florida. NUTRITION is the premier meeting for the nutrition community, exploring developments in clinical and translational nutrition, food science and systems, diet and disease, basic science, global health and more. In its seventh year, the event has continued to evolve and grow with innovative scientific sessions and networking opportunities for scientists, clinicians and healthcare professionals interested in ...

MADISON — A promising therapy that treats blood cancers by harnessing the power of the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells could now treat solid tumors more efficiently. Thanks to a recent study published in Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development from Dan Cappabianca and Krishanu Saha at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy can be improved by altering the conditions the T cells are grown in. And it was all discovered by chance.                   ...

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA. – A study published today by a University of Oklahoma researcher shows that financial incentives can make a big difference in helping smokers quit. The study found that when people with low socioeconomic staus are offered small financial incentives to stop smoking (in addition to receiving counseling and pharmacotherapy, primarily nicotine replacement therapy), they achieve higher quit rates, with some measures doubling the quit rates, when compared to study participants who received the same treatments without incentives. This finding is particularly important because adults with socioeconomic challanges ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – July 2, 2024) Biomolecular condensates are membraneless hubs of condensed proteins and nucleic acids within cells, which researchers are realizing are tied to an increasing number of cellular processes and diseases. Studies of biomolecular condensate formation have uncovered layers of complexity, including their ability to behave like a viscoelastic material. However, the molecular basis for this putty-like property was unknown. Through a multi-institution collaboration, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists examined the interaction networks within condensates ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Randomized controlled trials, or RCTs, are believed to be the best way to study the safety and efficacy of new treatments in clinical research. However, a recent study from Michigan State University found that people of color and white women are significantly underrepresented in RCTs due to systematic biases.  The study, published in the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, reviewed 18 RCTs conducted over the last 15 years that tested treatments for post-traumatic stress and alcohol use disorder. The researchers ...

Key takeaways Raising the energy state of an atom’s nucleus using a laser, or exciting it, would enable development of the most accurate atomic clocks ever to exist. This has been hard to do because electrons, which surround the nucleus, react easily with light, increasing the amount of light needed to reach the nucleus. By causing the electrons to bond with fluorine in a transparent crystal, UCLA physicists have finally succeeded in exciting the neutrons in a thorium atom’s nucleus using a moderate amount of laser light. This accomplishment means that measurements of time, gravity and other fields that are currently performed ...

EDMONTON — A new groundbreaking study sheds light on a medical question scientists have long wondered: why do 40 per cent of children with the rare neurodevelopmental disorder KBG syndrome have heart defects? The research now points to a critical link between the heart and the brain. KBG syndrome can cause unusual facial development, skeletal abnormalities, intellectual underdevelopment and heart defects. The syndrome is caused by mutations in the ANKRD11 gene, which plays a crucial role in brain development, but it wasn’t until now ...

A research effort led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices. The researchers, whose previous innovation included incorporating a perovskite layer that allowed the creation of a new type of polarized light-emitting diode (LED) that emits spin-controlled photons at room temperature without the use of magnetic fields or ferromagnetic contacts, now have gone a step further by integrating a III-V semiconductor ...

A colder nose and warmer cheeks may be a telltale sign of rising blood pressure. Researchers discovered that temperatures in different face regions are associated with various chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. These temperature differences are not easily perceptible by one’s own touch but can instead be identified using specific AI-derived spatial temperature patterns that require a thermal camera and a data-trained model. The results appear July 2 in the journal Cell Metabolism. With ...

Researchers show for the first time that engineered human plasma B cells can be used to treat a disease—specifically leukemia—in a humanized animal model. The results mark a key step in the realization of ePCs as therapies to treat cancer, auto-immune disorders, and protein deficiency disorders. The results appear July 2 in the journal Molecular Therapy. “We hope that this proof-of-concept study is the first of many applications of engineered plasma B cells, and eventually will lead to a single-shot therapeutic,” says senior study author Richard James (@ScienceRicker) of the Seattle Children’s ...

When it comes to managing blood sugar levels, most people think about counting carbs. But new research from the University of British Columbia shows that, for some, it may be just as important to consider the proteins and fats in their diet. The study, published today in Cell Metabolism, is the first large-scale comparison of how different people produce insulin in response to each of the three macronutrients: carbohydrates (glucose), proteins (amino acids) and fats (fatty acids). The findings reveal that production of the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin is much more dynamic and individualized than previously ...

Melting of glaciers in a major Alaskan icefield has accelerated and could reach an irreversible tipping point earlier than previously thought, new research suggests. The research, led by scientists at Newcastle University, UK, found that glacier loss on Juneau Icefield, which straddles the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia, Canada, has increased dramatically since 2010. The team, which also included universities in the UK, USA and Europe, looked at records going back to 1770 and identified three distinct periods in how icefield volume changed. They saw that glacier volume loss remained fairly ...

Scientists have identified a gene which, when missing or impaired, can cause obesity, behavioural problems and, in mothers, postnatal depression. The discovery, reported today in Cell, may have wider implications for the treatment of postnatal depression, with a study in mice suggesting that oxytocin may alleviate symptoms. Obesity and postnatal depression are significant global health problems. Postnatal depression affects more than one in 10 women within a year of giving birth and is linked to an increased risk of ...