Energy efficiency is crucial for sustainability, yet vast amounts of low-temperature waste heat remain unused in industrial processes. Now, researchers from Japan have investigated erythritol slurry as a promising heat transfer medium for thermal storage and transport. By analyzing its flow behavior and non-Newtonian properties, they developed a predictive equation for its rheological characteristics. Their findings could help guide the design of industrial waste heat recovery systems, advancing energy efficiency and carbon neutrality. Energy efficiency is one of the most important pillars of our global sustainability goals. Simply put, one of the most straightforward and effective ...

Osaka, Japan – Vaccine effectiveness relies on creating a strong antibody response that can be reactivated to fight future infections. Now, researchers from Japan report that antibody-producing cells are destined for longevity from the moment they are born. In a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, a multi-institutional research team led by Osaka University reveals that a key cell population involved in long-term immunity to infection is programmed early in its lifecycle to travel to protected sites in the body. Plasma cells originate in lymphoid ...

Ann Arbor, March 11, 2025 – An analysis of the global burden and temporal trends of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias (ADODs) reveals significant cross-country inequalities associated with a series of sociodemographic development-related risk factors, such as education, income, fertility, and health expenditure. The new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, calls for the development of targeted prevention and control strategies in different countries. The burden of ADODs has risen globally over the past three decades. The authors of this first systematic and comprehensive global study analyzing ...

What do albatrosses searching for food, stock market fluctuations, and the dispersal patterns of seeds in the wind have in common? They all exhibit a type of movement pattern called Lévy walk, which is characterized by a flurry of short, localized movements interspersed with occasional, long leaps. For living organisms, this is an optimal strategy for balancing the exploitation of nearby resources with the exploration of new opportunities when the distribution of resources is sparse and unknown. Originally described in the context of particles drifting through liquid, Lévy walk has been found to accurately describe a very wide range of phenomena, from cold atom dynamics to ...

CAM is proposed to highlight the class-related activation regions for an image classification network, where feature positions related to the specific object class are activated and have higher scores while other regions are suppressed and have lower scores. For specific visual tasks, CAM can be used to infer the object bounding boxes in weakly-supervised object location(WSOL) and generate pseudo-masks of training images in weakly-supervised semantic segmentation (WSSS). Therefore, obtaining the high-quality CAM is very important to improve the recognition performance of weakly supervised pixel-wise ...

Fukuoka, Japan — Medical researchers in Japan have discovered a way to predict a potentially life-threatening side effect of cancer immunotherapy before it occurs. By analyzing cerebrospinal fluid collected pre-treatment, researchers at Kyushu University identified specific proteins associated with a damaging immune response that can affect the central nervous system after therapy. Their findings, published in Leukemia on 11 March, 2025, could make immunotherapy cancer treatment safer by helping doctors identify high-risk patients in advance, ...

Juveniles grow up hearing a multitude of adages about life, such as: “True friends are forever,” “Fake it ’til you make it,” and “Change is a good thing.” However, these adages — and other life advice about behavior in society — are difficult to process for juveniles who were incarcerated at a young age and served long sentences, says J.Z. Bennett, a criminologist at the University of Cincinnati whose research focuses on prison reform. “Spending decades in prison removes individuals from social structures and sources of informal social control, such as education, employment, marriage and parenting,” he writes ...

Conservation scientists from UNSW Sydney have used DNA technology to identify feral cats as the primary predators responsible for the deaths of reintroduced native animals at two conservation sites in South Australia. The finding fits in with research data that suggests feral cats have killed more native animals than any other feral predators in Australia, and are believed to be responsible for two thirds of mammal extinctions since European settlement. But in a study published recently in the ...

After taking the helm of Plant Physiology 2022, Yunde Zhao's celebrated term as Editor-in-Chief of the journal, during which he introduced changes that saw the journal flourish, will come to a close on December 31, 2026. The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) is seeking a prominent plant scientist to assume the duties and responsibilities of Editor-in-Chief of Plant Physiology effective January 1, 2027. ASPB’s EIC Search Committee is charged with evaluating candidates for the position and invites members of the plant science community to participate in the process by nominating someone who they ...

Researchers from the University of Michigan are hoping their new study will inspire some Americans to rethink their relationship with laundry. Because, no matter how you spin it, clothes dryers use a lot of comparatively costly energy when air works for free. Household dryers in the U.S. consume about 3% of our residential energy budget, about six times that used by washing machines. Collectively, dryers cost more than $7 billion to power each year in this country, and generating that energy emits the equivalent of more than ...

This new article published in Genes & Diseases highlights the critical role of tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) in digestive tract diseases, positioning these molecules as potential biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and targeted therapies. The comprehensive review explores the biogenesis, classification, and biological functions of tsRNAs, shedding light on their influence over cellular processes such as translation regulation, epigenetic modification, and protein interactions.   Recent findings emphasize the significance of tsRNAs in both tumor and non-tumor digestive diseases, demonstrating their ability to regulate cell proliferation, ...

Does triggering certain emotions increase willingness to pay for sustainably produced food? In social media, emotional messages are often used to influence users' consumer behaviour. An international research team including the University of Göttingen investigated the short- and medium-term effects of such content on consumers' willingness to pay for bars of chocolate. They found that in the short term, provoking certain emotions increases willingness to pay, but the effect weakens after a very short time. The results were published in the journal Q Open.   Food ...

Prostate cancer statistics can look scary: 34,250 U.S. deaths in 2024. 1.4 million new cases worldwide in 2022.   Dr. Bruce Montgomery, a UW Medicine oncologist, hopes that patients won’t see these numbers and just throw up their hands in fear or resignation.   “Being diagnosed with prostate cancer is not a death knell,” said Montgomery, senior author of a literature and trial review that appeared in JAMA today. Montgomery is the clinical director of Genitourinary Oncology at Fred Hutch Cancer ...

  A new review article published in Genes & Diseases sheds light on the complex molecular mechanisms through which tumor-infiltrating immune cells regulate endometrial carcinoma (EC). As one of the most prevalent gynecological cancers, EC continues to challenge researchers and clinicians due to its dynamic interaction with the immune microenvironment. This comprehensive review presents crucial insights into how immune cells influence tumor progression and how immune evasion strategies enable cancer cells to thrive. The tumor microenvironment ...

Innovative insights into the role of ferroptosis, a unique form of programmed cell death, are reshaping the landscape of disease treatment. This growing field highlights how Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can effectively modulate ferroptosis, offering novel therapeutic approaches for various conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and organ injuries. The powerful bioactive compounds in TCM have demonstrated the ability to regulate iron metabolism, lipid peroxidation, and redox balance, positioning them as key players in advancing modern medicine.   With its rich history of holistic ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. EAST LANSING, Mich. – A team of researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan found new insights on the timing of prenatal stress and its effect on infant stress reactivity and temperament — including differences between genders. The study, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, is the first to examine weekly stress across 27 weeks of pregnancy to pinpoint when it most affects a newborn’s stress response and temperament — two measures that indicate infant biobehavioral reactivity. “Prenatal ...

Kayunta Johnson-Winters, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been named a 2025 fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The honor recognition recognizes her contributions to biochemistry and molecular biology and her efforts to support junior faculty, women in science and student mentorship. “This is a tremendous honor and recognizes Kay’s important work in advancing our understanding of disease while mentoring junior faculty and student researchers,” said Morteza Khaledi, dean of UTA’s College of Science. “I’m pleased ...

ELF4, a transcription factor belonging to the ETS family, has emerged as a pivotal regulator in cell differentiation, immune system function, and cancer progression. This newly published review underscores its molecular complexity and clinical significance, shedding light on its dual role in tumor suppression and oncogenesis.   ELF4 is highly expressed in various tissues, including hematopoietic cells, placenta, and the gastrointestinal tract. Its activity is tightly controlled through post-translational modifications and intricate signaling pathways, allowing it to modulate key physiological processes. Notably, ELF4 plays a critical ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 10 March 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, threads, and Linkedin Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.          ----------------------------       1. ...

In today’s economy, many workers have transitioned from manual labor toward knowledge work, a move driven primarily by technological advances, and workers in this domain face challenges around managing non-routine work, which is inherently uncertain. Automated interventions can help workers understand their work and boost performance and trust. In a new study, researchers explored how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance performance and trust in knowledge work environments. They found that when AI systems provided feedback in real-time, performance and trust increased. The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon ...

LA JOLLA, CA—The herb rosemary has long been linked with memory: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,” says Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. So it is fitting that researchers would study a compound found in rosemary and sage—carnosic acid—for its impact on Alzheimer’s disease. In the disease, which is the leading cause of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the US, inflammation is one component that often leads to cognitive decline. Carnosic acid is an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compound that works by activating enzymes that make up the body’s natural defense system. ...

Researchers at McMaster University have started a phase-2 clinical trial on a next-generation, inhaled COVID-19 vaccine. The AeroVax study, supported by $8M in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), will test needle-free vaccines developed to provide protection from SARS-CoV-2. Led by Fiona Smaill and Zhou Xing, members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster, the multi-centre trial will evaluate the new vaccine in a broad study group, while also confirming ...

A decades-old riddle poses the following scenario: A boy is injured in a car crash in which the father dies and is taken to the emergency room, where the doctor says, “I cannot operate on him—he’s my son.” Who, then, is the doctor? Many over the years have been stumped in not recognizing the answer: the mother.  Similarly, research has shown that adults instinctively think of men when asked to think of a person—they describe the most “typical” person they can imagine as male and assume storybook characters without a specified gender are men. A new study by psychology researchers shows that the way parents ...

In multiple sclerosis (MS), antibodies to the common Epstein-Barr virus can accidentally attack a protein in the brain and spinal cord. New research shows that the combination of certain viral antibodies and genetic risk factors can be linked to a greatly increased risk of MS. The study has been published in the journal PNAS and led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Stanford University School of Medicine, USA. An estimated 90 to 95 percent of adults are carriers of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and have formed antibodies against it. Many become infected as children with few or no symptoms, but in young adults, the virus can cause glandular ...

University of Queensland research has found discrimination based on sexual orientation is common in the gig economy, but only for tasks requiring close physical proximity. Dr David Smerdon, Dr Samuel Pearson and Dr Sabina Albrecht ran an experiment on a popular online marketplace involving more than 1,100 job posts across 6 Australian cities. “To test whether workers discriminate against gay men, we created hundreds of fictitious male ‘requester’ profiles, with some clearly signalling they were gay by referring to their male partner or with a couple profile photo,” Dr Pearson said. “The requested tasks were either inside the home – such as moving ...