New York, NY. September 17. The Lupus Research Alliance (LRA) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Career Development and Postdoctoral Awards to Promote Diversity in Lupus Research. Launched in 2021, the Diversity in Lupus Research (DLR) Awards aim to foster the development and productivity of exceptional early-career and postdoctoral scientists from underrepresented minority groups in science. Lupus is a debilitating autoimmune disease that disproportionately affects Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and Asian/Pacific Islander people. The LRA inaugurated the DLR Awards three years ...

Survey reveals that infectious disease experts see the need to address gaps in surveillance programs to identify emerging pathogens, public health funding and testing infrastructure capabilities They point to viral pathogens and mosquito-borne pathogens as likely to spark outbreaks as humans, animals and viruses overlap; and new viruses are as concerning as changes to existing viruses Experts believe robust tracking of changing insect range, animal habitats and their migrations and extreme weather events are important to understanding infectious diseases and changing risk patterns ABBOTT PARK, Ill., ...

In a new study, MIT physicists propose that if most of the dark matter in the universe is made up of microscopic primordial black holes — an idea first proposed in the 1970s — then these gravitational dwarfs should zoom through our solar system at least once per decade. A flyby like this, the researchers predict, would introduce a wobble into Mars’ orbit, to a degree that today’s technology could actually detect.  Such a detection could lend support to the idea that primordial black holes are a primary source of dark matter throughout the universe.  “Given decades of precision ...

Images A key step toward reusing CO2 to make sustainable fuels is chaining carbon atoms together, and an artificial photosynthesis system developed at the University of Michigan can bind two of them into hydrocarbons with field-leading performance.   The system produces ethylene with efficiency, yield and longevity well above other artificial photosynthesis systems. Ethylene is a hydrocarbon typically used in plastics, so one direct application of the system would be to harvest carbon dioxide that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere for making plastics.   "The performance, or the activity and stability, is about five to six times better than what is typically reported ...

Doctors and pharmacists treating people with blood thinners can reduce the rate of inappropriate dosing — as well as blood clots and strokes that can result from it — using an electronic patient management system, a study suggests. The online dashboard, developed by the United States Veterans Health Administration in 2016, was designed to highlight and optimize the treatment of patients with direct oral anticoagulants, or DOACs, the most commonly prescribed blood thinners.  Researchers led by Michigan Medicine used the tool to assess over 120,000 cases in which patients with atrial fibrillation or venous thromboembolism, blood clots in the veins, were treated with ...

UPTON, N.Y. — The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences have recognized chemical engineer Juan Jimenez as a Finalist in the 2024 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists. Jimenez’s catalysis science research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory opens doors for turning climate change-driving gases into industrially useful materials. The yearly honor is awarded to distinguished early career researchers at institutions in ...

NEW YORK – September 17, 2024 – The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences today announced the three Laureates and six Finalists of the 2024 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists. The Awards honor outstanding postdoctoral scientists from academic research institutions across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.   The Blavatnik Regional Awards jury, consisting of distinguished scientists and engineers, selected one Laureate in each category who will receive a $30,000 unrestricted prize and two Finalists in each category who will be awarded $10,000 ...

People selectively underestimate how rich the world’s richest people are, according to a study. Increasing income inequality in many countries is driven by steep gains among the top 1% of earners. In the United States, support for policies that would redistribute wealth has not increased since the 1970s, even as the share of incomes held by the top 1% of Americans jumped from 10% to 19%. Barnabas Szaszi and colleagues conducted four studies to explore how well people understand the wealth held by others. In one study, 990 US residents ...

A study finds that ChatGPT expresses cultural values resembling people in English-speaking and Protestant European countries. Large language models, including ChatGPT, are trained on data that overrepresent certain countries and cultures, raising the possibility that the output from these models may be culturally biased. René F Kizilcec and colleagues asked five different versions of OpenAI’s GPT to answer 10 questions drawn from the World Values Survey, an established measure of cultural values used for decades to collect data from countries around the world. The ten questions place respondents ...

A study of political speeches, social media posts from politicians, and Reddit discussions among everyday users finds a higher prevalence of abstract, moralized, and power-centric language in national versus local politics. Political dialogue and debate in the United States has largely shifted from the local to the national in recent years, in part due to the decline of local news media. However, national discussions lack the concrete common ground that comes from shared place-based knowledge. Danica Dillion and colleagues studied how this shift is affecting ...

A study uses body-worn camera footage as a source of data on police-community interactions. Nicholas Camp and colleagues analyzed transcripts from 615 police stops made in California by Oakland Police Department police officers before and after a procedural justice training, which focused on officer communication in routine traffic stops. The training included findings by the authors in a previous study that showed officers used more respectful language with White drivers than with Black drivers during traffic stops. The training ...

Historically, South Carolina has had some of the highest rates of intimate partner violence, or IPV, in the U.S. IPV encompasses any physical or sexual violence, stalking and psychological aggression by a current or previous partner or spouse. “There is an epidemic of intimate partner violence in South Carolina,” said Leslie A. Lenert, M.D., associate provost of Data Science and Informatics and director of the Biomedical Informatics Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. To address that epidemic, Lenert partnered with clinical psychologist Alyssa A. Rheingold, Ph.D., family physician Vanessa Diaz, M.D., and health services ...

Infrastructures often suffer severe damage due to geotechnical hazards of both natural kinds such as floods or earthquakes and man-made ones like underground construction work and excavations. The fields of civil engineering and disaster risk management have extensively studied methods to prevent these risks and are still looking for more effective ways of avoiding large-scale deformations associated with said hazards. The advent of computer-aided simulations has provided researchers with particle-based methods such as moving particle ...

ADHD is a developmental condition of brain with symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity or impulsivity. People with ADHD lack the ability of self-control and experience anxiety, depression, academic failure, and low self-confidence. These symptoms can be alleviated by a holistic approach such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. These practices encourage patients to pay attention to the present moment with purpose and without judgment. However, these practices involving meditation require sitting in certain postures which can be challenging for patients with high ADHD tendency. To address this, ...

Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that Indiana University has selected Symplectic Elements as its new faculty activity management and reporting system. This strategic decision marks a significant advancement toward the university’s goals of streamlining the management and reporting of the work and accomplishments of its faculty. Indiana University is internationally known for outstanding research and its world-class degree programs, from business and health to STEM and the arts at its flagship campus in Bloomington, the expanding ...

LOS ANGELES — City of Hope®, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S. and ranked among the nation’s top 5 cancer centers by U.S. News & World Report, has received a historic $150 million gift from entrepreneurs and philanthropists A. Emmet Stephenson Jr. and his daughter Tessa Stephenson Brand to immediately fund pancreatic cancer research.   The centerpiece of this gift is the $1 million Stephenson Prize, one of the largest ...

Thanks to nanoscale devices as small as human cells, researchers can create groundbreaking material properties, leading to smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient electronics. However, to fully unlock the potential of nanotechnology, addressing noise is crucial. A research team at Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, has taken a significant step toward unraveling fundamental constraints on noise, paving the way for future nanoelectronics. Nanotechnology is rapidly advancing, capturing ...

A reaction that puzzled scientists for 50 years has now been explained by researchers at Umeå University. Rapid structural snapshots captured how graphite transforms into graphite oxide during electrochemical oxidation, revealing intermediate structures that appear and disappear over time. The researchers describe this as a new type of oscillating reaction. Oscillating chemical reactions are fascinating to watch and important for developing an understanding of how complex systems work, both in chemistry and in nature. Classical visual examples of such reactions show how the colors of a solution change back and forth, cycling ...

Homing is an animal’s ability to navigate towards an original location, such as a breeding spot or foraging territory. Salmon and racing pigeons are famous for homing, but similar behaviors occur in groups as diverse as bees, frogs, rats, and sea turtles. There, homing individuals are known or suspected to rely on landmarks, the Earth’s magnetic field, or the sky’s pattern of polarized light to find their way back. Another group known to display homing are cave-dwelling mysid shrimp, also known as possum shrimp for the pouches in which females carry ...

People’s deep connection with the ocean – their “marine identity” – can help us reset society’s relationship with the seas, new research led by Dr Pamela Buchan, from the University of Exeter, suggests. A diverse, international group of marine researchers and practitioners met to discuss marine identity – based on testimony and photos from multiple countries. The group included Diz Glithero of the Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition, Dr Emma McKinley of Cardiff University who helped deliver the workshop, and others from across Europe, Africa, Indonesia, North America, and Australasia. They found many common themes, including traditions ...

New evidence shows that extended estrogen suppression treatment using an aromatase inhibitors for hormone receptor-positive postmenopausal breast cancer is safe; it does not increase the risk of coronary artery calcification, a sign of active coronary atherosclerosis, as some prior studies had indicated. An article in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier, details the findings from a retrospective, cross-sectional observational study that investigated the association between the duration of aromatase inhibitor treatment and the severity of coronary artery calcification in postoperative breast cancer patients. Coronary ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Injectable weight loss drugs are popular right now but can be hard to get because they are in short supply or too expensive without insurance. The result is that some people are skipping the doctor’s office and reaching out to potentially unreliable sources such as unlicensed online pharmacies or telehealth sites, which could expose patients to risks. A new national survey from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center reveals 1 in 4 (25%) of 1,006 adults surveyed would consider using an injectable weight loss medication without consulting their doctor. The reasons ...

Medication to reduce ovarian scarring helps extends overall health of reproductive system Freezing eggs only addresses age-related infertility, not ovarian hormone loss. New treatment would ‘fix the root of the issue’ Findings also have implications for developing treatments for ovarian cancer CHICAGO --- A woman’s ovaries are like a factory where eggs grow and produce hormones that regulate everything from menstruation and pregnancy to bone density and mood. As she and her factory age, production dwindles, and by the time she hits menopause ...

Osaka, Japan – While the link between diabetes and periodontal disease is known, the impact of diabetes treatment on periodontal health is less well understood. Recent research published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism demonstrates that periodontal inflammation can be positively affected just by receiving intensive diabetes treatment. It is widely believed that there is an interrelationship between diabetes and periodontal disease. While it has been shown that treatment of periodontal disease improves blood ...

University of Arizona researchers have developed a new biological sensing method that can detect substances at the zeptomolar level – an astonishingly miniscule amount. This level of sensing, immediately useful for drug testing and other research, has the potential to make new drug discoveries possible. Eventually, the advance could lead to portable sensors that can detect environmental toxins or chemical weapons, monitor food quality or screen for cancer.  A paper describing the results was published in the journal Nature Communications on Aug. 28. Judith Su, associate professor of biomedical engineering and optical ...