About The Study: This cross-sectional study of Black and white older individuals found that childhood exposure to school segregation was associated with late-life cognition among the Black population. Given the increasing amount of school segregation in the U.S., educational policies aimed at reducing segregation are needed to address health inequities. Clinicians may leverage patients’ early-life educational circumstances to promote screening, prevention, and management of cognitive disorders. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Xi Chen, PhD, email xi.chen@yale.edu. To ...

A new study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center shows that clinical alerts driven by artificial intelligence (AI) can help doctors identify patients at risk for suicide, potentially improving prevention efforts in routine medical settings.  A team led by Colin Walsh, MD, MA, associate professor of Biomedical Informatics, Medicine and Psychiatry, tested whether their AI system, called the Vanderbilt Suicide Attempt and Ideation Likelihood model (VSAIL), could effectively prompt doctors in three neurology clinics at VUMC to screen patients for suicide risk during regular clinic visits.   The study, reported in JAMA Network Open, compared two approaches — automatic ...

A new study led by researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that many cases of high-risk nonmetastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer may be more advanced than previously thought. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, found that nearly half of high-risk prostate cancer patients previously classified as nonmetastatic by conventional imaging actually have metastatic disease when evaluated with advanced prostate-specific membrane antigen–positron emission tomography (PSMA-PET) ...

A new study led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History presents the oldest known example in the fossil record of an evolutionary arms race. These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred in the ocean covering what is now South Australia between a small, shelled animal distantly related to brachiopods and an unknown marine animal capable of piercing its shell. Described today in the journal Current Biology, the study provides the first demonstrable record of an evolutionary arms race in the Cambrian. “Predator-prey interactions are often touted as a major driver of the Cambrian explosion, ...

In April 2021, a provision in the 21st Century Cures act took effect which required that all medical test results be released to a patient’s electronic medical record as soon as they become available. As a result of this newer law, many patients are seeing and reading their test results even before their doctor has. The problem is that many medical reports aren’t written with patients in mind.  For example, “a standard pathology report is written by a pathologist for a clinical specialist like a surgeon or ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- For many nursing home residents, a trip to the hospital can be a jarring experience — one that leaves them confused and stressed. Yet avoidable transfers happen far too often, not only disrupting a resident’s routine but also costing the U.S. healthcare system $2.6 billion annually. When researchers at the University of Missouri recently looked at the decision-making process for whether or not to transfer nursing home residents to the hospital, they quickly discovered that it’s complicated — particularly for residents with cognitive impairment who may not ...

About 1 in 3 adults in the United States have prediabetes, a condition where blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.  Affecting 98 million adults, prediabetes can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. While it can be reversed, 8 in 10 adults are unaware that they even have prediabetes.  To counter this growing problem, the National Diabetes Prevention Program was created by the Centers for Disease Control and ...

Kosali Simon, PhD, M.A., a professor with the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a Regenstrief Institute research scientist; and Katherine Baicker, PhD, University of Chicago provost, will co-lead an expected nearly $16 million National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Aging (NIA) program to explore critical aspects of healthcare delivery for individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). This five-year research initiative aims to identify and address barriers to equitable and effective healthcare for this growing patient population. The ...

HOUSTON – (Jan. 3, 2025) – Rice University bioengineers have developed a new construction kit for building custom sense-and-respond circuits in human cells. The research, published in the journal Science, represents a major breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology that could revolutionize therapies for complex conditions like autoimmune disease and cancer. “Imagine tiny processors inside cells made of proteins that can ‘decide’ how to respond to specific signals like inflammation, tumor growth markers or blood sugar levels,” said Xiaoyu Yang, a graduate ...

Acetaldehyde is a vital chemical used in making everything from perfumes to plastics. Today, its production largely relies on ethylene, a petrochemical. But increasing environmental concerns are pushing the chemical industry to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, so scientists have been searching for greener ways to produce acetaldehyde. Currently, acetaldehyde is produced through the so-called “Wacker process”, a chemical synthesis method that uses ethylene from oil and natural gas with other chemicals such as strong acids, i.e. hydrochloric acid. The Wacker process not only has a large carbon footprint ...

Scientists have uncovered a powerful ally in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases: a nucleolar complex that plays a pivotal role in maintaining cellular health through protein homeostasis (proteostasis), by which cells maintain the balance and proper functioning of their proteins. By suppressing this complex, researchers have shown it’s possible to dramatically reduce the toxic effects of Alzheimer’s-causing proteins, boosting the cell’s natural defenses through enhanced degradation of hazardous proteins. This mechanism regulates proteostasis across tissues by modulating TGF-β signaling, a pathway involved in cell growth, differentiation, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Scientists including an Oregon State University chemistry researcher have taken a key step toward faster, more energy-efficient artificial intelligence, and data processing in general, with the discovery of luminescent nanocrystals that can be quickly toggled from light to dark and back again. “The extraordinary switching and memory capabilities of these nanocrystals may one day become integral to optical computing – a way to rapidly process and store information using light particles, which travel faster than anything in the ...

Brazil’s Bolsa Família Program (BFP), one of the world’s largest conditional cash transfer programmes, was responsible for the reduction of more than half the number of tuberculosis cases and deaths among those living in extreme poverty and indigenous groups, shows a large study coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by “la Caixa” Foundation, the Institute of Collective Health, and the CIDACS-FIOCRUZ in Bahia, Brazil. The findings, published in Nature ...

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 10AM (UK TIME) FRIDAY 3 JANUARY 2025.  Peer reviewed | Observational study | Cells      A genetic fault long believed to drive the development of oesophageal cancer may in fact play a protective role early in the disease, according to new research published in Nature Cancer. This unexpected discovery could help doctors identify which individuals are at greater risk of developing cancer, potentially leading to more personalised and effective preventive strategies.  “We ...

“In high-income countries like the U.S. or Germany, farmers receive less than a quarter of food spending, compared to over 70 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, where farming costs make up a larger portion of food prices,” says David Meng-Chuen Chen, PIK scientist and lead author of the study published in Nature Food. “This gap underscores how differently food systems function across regions.” The researchers project that as economies develop and food systems industrialise, farmers will increasingly receive a smaller share of consumer spending, a measure known as the ‘farm ...

Tumor cells circulating in the blood are the “germ cells” of breast cancer metastases. They are very rare and could not be propagated in the culture dish until now, which made research into therapy resistance difficult. A team from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the Heidelberg Stem Cell Institute HI-STEM* and the NCT Heidelberg** has now succeeded for the first time in cultivating stable tumor organoids directly from blood samples of breast cancer patients. Using these mini-tumors, the researchers ...

Interactions with friends and family may keep us healthy because they boost our immune system and reduce our risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests. Researchers from the UK and China drew this conclusion after studying proteins from blood samples taken from over 42,000 adults recruited to the UK Biobank. Their findings are published today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Social relationships play an important role in our wellbeing. Evidence increasingly ...

Like Bill Murray in the movie “Groundhog Day,” bacteria species in a Wisconsin lake are in a kind of endless loop that they can’t seem to shake. Except in this case, it’s more like Groundhog Year. According to a new study in Nature Microbiology, researchers found that through the course of a year, most individual species of bacteria in Lake Mendota rapidly evolved, apparently in response to dramatically changing seasons. Gene variants would rise and fall over generations, yet hundreds of separate species would return, almost fully, to near copies of what they had been genetically prior to a thousand or so generations of evolutionary pressures. (Individual microbes ...

Achilles tendon injuries are common but challenging to monitor during recovery due to the limitations of current imaging techniques. Researchers, led by Associate Professor Zeng Nan from the International Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, have applied Mueller matrix polarimetry, a non-invasive imaging method, to more accurately observe and evaluate the healing of Achilles tendon injuries. This technique offers unique insights by capturing the subtle changes in tendon tissue without needing labels or dyes, allowing for more natural tissue characterization. The study used Mueller ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (Jan. 2, 2025) – Many people are surprised by the intensity of their response when a well-known person dies, and their feelings of sadness may last longer than they expect. In fact, that sadness and grief can be intense, and preliminary research suggests that grief after the death of a public figure looks very similar to grief over our personal relationships and can have comparable levels of intensity. Wendy Lichtenthal, Ph.D., a bereavement science researcher, is available to discuss “parasocial grief” – that which occurs when a celebrity, political ...

A groundbreaking method for bridge construction is set to enhance performance, reduce construction time, and cut costs for future bridges across Texas.  Dr. Kinsey Skillen, assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Texas A&M University, was named Principal Investigator (PI) of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) research project titled “Develop/Refine Design Provisions for Headed and Hooked Reinforcement.”   The 42-month project, which received nearly $1 million in funding, is a joint effort between the Texas Transportation Institute and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) exploring more efficient methods ...

To stay healthy, plants balance the energy they put into growing with the amount they use to defend against harmful bacteria. The mechanisms behind this equilibrium have largely remained mysterious. Now, engineers at Princeton have found an answer in an unexpected place: the harmless, or sometimes beneficial, bacteria that cluster around plants’ roots. In an article published Dec. 24 in the journal Cell Reports, researchers showed that some types of soil bacteria can influence a plant’s ...

Genomics is being integrated into biomedical research, medicine, and public health at a rapid pace, but the capacities necessary to ensure the fair, global distribution of benefits are lagging. A new special report outlines opportunities to enhance justice in genomics, toward a world in which genomic medicine promotes health equity, protects privacy, and respects the rights and values of individuals and communities.   The report, “Envisioning a More Just Genomics,” is a collaboration between ...

UC Riverside scientists have developed a nanopore-based tool that could help diagnose illnesses much faster and with greater precision than current tests allow, by capturing signals from individual molecules.  Since the molecules scientists want to detect -- generally certain DNA or protein molecules -- are roughly one-billionth of a meter wide, the electrical signals they produce are very small and require specialized detection instruments.  “Right now, you need millions of molecules to detect ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – For nearly half a century, Robert D. “Bob” McKeown has probed nuclear particles and educated rising generations of physicists. Now, the former deputy director for science at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is being honored for his outstanding career contributions with the 2024 American Physical Society’s Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) Distinguished Service Award. McKeown is recognized for his work in experimental physics and his extensive leadership in the broader ...