A new model developed by researchers could help inform guidelines and improve evidence-based advice on the risks and benefits of fish consumption, especially during pregnancy. In a paper published in The American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of Mass General Brigham; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; University of Rochester Medical Center; and Cornell University present a new framework that takes into account estimated average mercury content in consumed fish, helping weigh the detrimental effects of mercury against the potential ...

Engaging in meaningful social interactions with peers is associated with lower loneliness and greater affective well-being, new research finds. Researchers followed three cohorts of university students over three years, collecting data on their social interactions and momentary well-being. Prior research has focused on the impacts of social interactions and the contexts in which interactions occur, such as places and activities. However, the new research specifically examines the impact of meaningful interactions on well-being. “Our research indicates that engaging in meaningful social interactions have net positive outcomes for affective well-being, stress, and loneliness,” ...

South Korean researchers have successfully developed technology to mass-produce quantum dot lasers, widely used in data centers and quantum communications. This breakthrough paves the way for reducing the production cost of semiconductor lasers to one-sixth of the current cost. Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced that they have developed, for the first time in Korea, technology to mass-produce quantum dot lasers, previously only used for research, using Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) systems. The ETRI Optical Communication Components Research Section has successfully developed indium arsenide/gallium ...

TAMPA, Fla. (June 28, 2024) -- An interdisciplinary study led by researchers at the University of South Florida and Indiana University has uncovered significant findings on the long-term effects of one of the most common forms of chemotherapy on cancer survivors. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Oncology, the study tracked a cohort of testicular cancer survivors who received cisplatin-based chemotherapy for an average of 14 years, revealing that 78% experience significant difficulties in everyday listening situations, negatively impacting their quality of life. This collaborative research is the first to measure real-world listening challenges and hearing ...

Artificial intelligence models often play a role in medical diagnoses, especially when it comes to analyzing images such as X-rays. However, studies have found that these models don’t always perform well across all demographic groups, usually faring worse on women and people of color.  These models have also been shown to develop some surprising abilities. In 2022, MIT researchers reported that AI models can make accurate predictions about a patient’s race from their chest X-rays — something that the most skilled radiologists can’t do.  That research team has now found that the models that are most accurate at making demographic predictions ...

In brief: For the first time, researchers use seismic data to estimate a global meteorite impact rate showing meteoroids the size of a basketball impact Mars on a near daily basis. Impact-generated seismic signals show meteorite impacts to be 5-times more abundant than previously thought. Seismic data offers a new tool, in addition to observational data, for calculating meteorite impact rates and planning future Mars missions An international team of researchers, co-lead by ETH Zurich and Imperial College London, have derived the first estimate of global meteorite impacts on Mars using seismic data. Their findings indicate between 280 to 360 meteorites strike ...

When Michael Pirovolakis received an individualized gene therapy in a single-patient clinical trial at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in March 2022, the course of his condition was dramatically altered.  Michael has spastic paraplegia type 50 (SPG50), an “ultra-rare” progressive neurodegenerative disorder that causes developmental delays, speech impairment, seizures, a progressive paralysis of all four limbs, and typically fatal by adulthood. Approximately 80 children around the world ...

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine with an international team have used liver biopsies to identify cellular and molecular markers that can potentially be used to predict whether and when pancreatic cancer will spread to an individual’s liver or elsewhere, such as the lung. The study, published on June 28 in Nature Medicine, proposes that information from a liver biopsy—a small tissue sample collected for lab analysis—when pancreatic cancer is diagnosed may help guide doctors in personalizing treatment, such as liver-directed immunotherapies, before cancer cells have the chance to metastasize. Only 10 percent of people with pancreatic ...

  A study led by a UC Riverside atmospheric scientist predicts that unchecked carbon emissions will force tropical rains to shift northward in the coming decades, which would profoundly impact agriculture and economies near the Earth's equator. The northward rain shift would be caused by complex changes in the atmosphere spurred by carbon emissions that influence the formation of the intertropical convergence zones. Those zones are essentially atmospheric engines that drive about a third of the world’s precipitation, Liu and his co-authors report in a paper published Friday, June 28, in the journal Nature Climate Change. Tropical ...

LOS ANGELES — Physician scientists from City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, found that people with metastatic kidney cancer who orally took a live biotherapeutic product called CBM588 while in treatment with immunotherapy and enzymatic tyrosine kinase inhibitors experienced improved health outcomes. The phase 1 trial was published today in Nature Medicine. Microorganisms in the gut modulate the immune system. City of Hope researchers are now in discussions with the global SWOG Cancer ...

Seismic signals have suggested Mars gets hit by around 300 basketball-sized meteorites every year, providing a new tool for dating planetary surfaces. The new research, led by scientists at Imperial College London and ETH Zurich working as part of NASA's InSight mission, has shed light on how often ‘marsquakes’ caused by meteorite impacts occur on Mars. The researchers found that Mars experiences around 280 to 360 meteorite impacts every year that produce craters larger than eight metres in diameter and shake the red planet’s ...

A new study brings fresh revelations about the connection between early-life exposure to air pollution and lung health later in life. A research team led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC has shown that exposure to air pollution during childhood is directly associated with bronchitis symptoms as an adult. To date, many investigations in the field have established intuitive links that are less direct than that: Air pollution exposure while young is consistently associated with lung problems during childhood — and childhood lung problems are consistently associated with lung issues as an adult.   The current study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory ...

Children learn much about self-regulation – that is affective, mental, and behavioral responses to certain situations – during their first few years of life. Some of these behaviors are about children’s ability to choose a deliberate response over an automatic one. This is known as effortful control, which is learned from the environment, first and foremost through children’s relationship with their parents. In recent years, giving children digital devices to control their responses to emotions, especially if they’re negative, has ...

A new legal requirement for developers to demonstrate a biodiversity boost in planning applications could make a more meaningful impact on nature recovery if improvements are made to the way nature’s value is calculated, say researchers at the University of Cambridge. From 2024, the UK’s Environment Act requires planning applications to demonstrate an overall biodiversity net gain of at least 10% as calculated using a new statutory biodiversity metric. The researchers trialled the metric by using it to calculate the biodiversity value of 24 sites across England. These sites have all been monitored over the long-term, allowing the team to compare biodiversity ...

A group of researchers has successfully demonstrated automatic charge state recognition in quantum dot devices using machine learning techniques, representing a significant step towards automating the preparation and tuning of quantum bits (qubits) for quantum information processing. Semiconductor qubits use semiconductor materials to create quantum bits. These materials are common in traditional electronics, making them integrable with conventional semiconductor technology. This compatibility is why scientists consider them strong candidates for future ...

A research team led by Professor Hyoung Seop Kim from the Graduate Institute of Ferrous & Eco Materials Technology and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Jeong Ah Lee, a PhD candidate, from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, in recent collaboration with Professor Figueiredo from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais's Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in Brazil, has developed an optimal artificial intelligence model to predict the yield strength of various metals, effectively addressing traditional cost and time limitations. This research has been published in the online edition of Acta Materialia, an ...

The results of the longitudinal study “Prognostic value of tissue bridges in cervical spinal cord injury” have the potential to change clinical practice. They have just been published in The Lancet Neurology, the world’s leading journal of clinical neurology. The team led by lead author Dr. Dario Pfyffer and senior author Prof. Dr. med. Patrick Freund from Balgrist University Hospital and the University of Zurich, which includes SCI experts from around the world, has successfully developed models that incorporate tissue bridges in the spinal cord in a large, multicenter cohort of patients with cervical SCI for improved prognosis of clinical outcomes. These ...

Several indicative factors, including junior rank, male sex, and younger age, are strongly linked to ‘harmful gambling’ among serving UK military personnel, finds an analysis of survey responses, published online in the journal BMJ Military Health. Harmful gambling refers to the toll taken on finances, health, personal relationships, and  work: nearly 1 in 4 respondents reported one or other of these effects over the past year. The findings prompt the researchers to call for the prioritisation of better, earlier, and targeted support to stave off the harmful consequences of ...

A lower level of mental ability during the teenage years may be linked to as much as a tripling in the risk of having a stroke before the age of 50, finds research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. The observed associations held true even after factoring in current diabetes and limiting the age of a first stroke up to 40, prompting the researchers to suggest that more comprehensive assessments beyond traditional stroke risk factors are now needed to stave off disability and death. Recent evidence suggests that cases of stroke ...

Children conceived by using egg or sperm donors have the same well-being outcomes as non-donor conceived people. However, they are more likely to have identity difficulties and issues with trust. Secrecy and anonymity about their genetic parentage can have a profound impact on well-being say authors. They warn that children and adults conceived using donor gametes have not been centred in the assisted reproductive industry and more information is needed about adult wellbeing. The study is published today in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology by researchers King’s College London. The study is the first systematic ...

Scientists at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil and the University of Cadiz (UCA) in Spain have successfully deployed a novel method of extracting high-value-added chemical compounds from the peel of jabuticaba (Plinia cauliflora). The method, which simplifies the process and enhances its efficiency, is described in an article published in Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.  The aim was to optimize extraction of anthocyanin, a potent antioxidant found in strawberries, blackberries and raspberries as well as jabuticabas, among other sources. It has anti-inflammatory effects and is also a natural ...

Vienna, Austria: Researchers have found that nerve cells in the hippocampus region of the brain encode complex information on numerous characteristics of other individuals in the same social group.   The work, which is being carried out in bats, is the first to show this in a large, mixed-sex group of wild, social animals, and is important because it sheds light on how the brain operates and generates thinking processes and behaviour.   Professor Nachum Ulanovsky, Head of the Center for Learning, Memory and Cognition at the Weizmann Institute of Science, ...

Despite gaining a bad rap in mainstream media in recent years, nanoparticles have been successfully used for decades in targeted drug delivery systems. Drug molecules can be encapsulated within biodegradable nanoparticles to be delivered to specific cells or diseased tissues. However, blood flow dynamics can significantly affect the nanoparticle’s ability to bind at the target site and stay adhered long enough for the drug to be released. Drawing inspiration from civil, mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professors Arif Masud and Hyunjoon Kong have developed and tested a new mathematical model to accurately simulate ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — What if you could take an ecologically degraded environment that presents a public health problem, and devise a powerful and elegant solution that not only restores its functionality but also reduces its health impacts while addressing food and water access and alleviating poverty? An international team of biologists, social scientists and medical researchers in the U.S. and Senegal did just that, and for their innovation and research, published in the journal Nature, has received several prestigious awards. “It feels gratifying to be recognized for work finding win-win solutions for the environment and people,” said UC Santa ...

State-level officials such as governors, state legislators and attorneys general are shaping U.S.-China relations as the two countries navigate a strained geopolitical relationship, according to new research by political scientist Kyle Jaros. “The state level has independent importance in the U.S.-China relationship — it’s not just a reflection of what’s happening at the national level,” said Jaros, associate professor of global affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. “The actions taken by state and local officials — and their Chinese counterparts — not only affect their own communities, ...