Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are critical to sustaining our planet, but they come with a big challenge: they don't always generate power when it's needed. To make the most of them, we need efficient and affordable ways to store the energy they produce, so we have power even when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. Columbia Engineering material scientists have been focused on developing new kinds of batteries to transform how we store renewable energy. In a new study published September 5 by Nature Communications, the team used K-Na/S batteries that combine inexpensive, readily-found elements -- ...

Stanford researchers have developed an artificial intelligence-based tool – dubbed SandAI – that can reveal the history of quartz sand grains going back hundreds of millions of years. With SandAI, researchers can tell with high accuracy if wind, rivers, waves, or glacial movements shaped and deposited motes of sand. The tool gives researchers a unique window into the past for geological and archeological studies, especially for eras and environments where few other clues, such as fossils, are preserved ...

Scientists have discovered that certain plants can survive stressful, dry conditions by controlling water loss through their leaves without relying on their usual mechanism - tiny pores known as ‘stomata’.    Nonstomatal control of transpiration in maize, sorghum, and proso millet – all C4 crops which are critical for global food security – gives these plants an advantage in maintaining a beneficial microclimate for photosynthesis within their leaves.   This allows the plants to absorb carbon dioxide ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (09/16/2024) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2030 plan sets a national objective to increase youth sports participation from 50% to 63% over the next five years. For adolescents, staying active offers benefits to their overall health and their social and academic lives. However, the number of youths participating in physical activity and sports is on the decline. While participation gaps based on single social identities ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Researchers in Purdue University’s College of Engineering have developed a patent-pending optical counterfeit detection method for chips used in semiconductor devices. The Purdue method is called RAPTOR, or residual attention-based processing of tampered optical responses. It leverages deep learning to identify tampering. It improves upon traditional methods, which face challenges in scalability and discriminating between natural degradation and adversarial tampering. Alexander Kildishev, professor in the Elmore ...

A new systematic review of pharmacogenomics clinical decision support systems used in clinical practice in the peer-reviewed OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology suggests that these e-health tools can help accelerate pharmacogenomics, precision/personalized medicine, and digital health emergence in everyday clinical practice worldwide. Click here to read the article now.  Anastasia Farmaki, MSc, from the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Thessaloniki, and coauthors in Greece, conducted a systematic review that examined and mapped the pharmacogenomics-clinical decision support ...

A University of Houston engineering team has developed wearable sensors to examine eye movement to assess brain disorders or damage to the brain. Many brain diseases and problems show up as eye symptoms, often before other symptoms appear.  You see, eyes are not merely a window into the soul, as poets would have it. These incredibly precious organs are also an extension of the brain and can provide early warning signs of brain-related disorders and information on what causes them. Examining the eyes can also help track the progression and symptoms of physical and mental shocks to the brain.  Researchers say ...

Hebrew University of Jerusalem is proud to announce that Professor Haitham Amal is among a large $17M grant consortium for pioneering autism research. This grant is part of an American funding initiative awarded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), aimed at advancing cutting-edge autism studies. A world-renowned expert in nitric oxide and brain disorders, Professor Amal has made groundbreaking discoveries in autism research. His team was the first to identify a direct link between nitric oxide levels in the brain and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a finding with profound implications for the ...

Those mesmerizing blue and orange hues in the sky at the start and end of a sunny day might have an essential role in setting humans’ internal clocks. In new research from the University of Washington in Seattle, a novel LED light that emits alternating wavelengths of orange and blue outpaced two other light devices in advancing melatonin levels in a small group of study participants.  Published in the Journal of Biological Rhythms, the finding appears to establish a new benchmark in humans’ ability to influence their circadian rhythms, and reflects an effective new approach to counteract seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  A ...

Embargoed until Monday, September 16, noon EDT          Contact: development@sfn.org   CHICAGO – The Society of Neuroscience (SfN) will honor leading researchers whose groundbreaking work has transformed neuroscience — including the understanding of pain, addiction, stress, synaptic transport, vision, and sleep — with this year’s Outstanding Career and Research Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented during SfN’s annual ...

Embargoed until Monday, September 16, noon EDT               Contact: development@sfn.org     CHICAGO – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will honor nine early career researchers whose work will be presented during Neuroscience 2024, SfN's annual meeting. “Early career researchers are often the ones who bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the field,” said SfN President Marina Picciotto. “These awardees and their novel approaches to microscopy, machine learning, circuits and behavior ...

Embargoed until Monday, September 16, noon EDT          Contact: development@sfn.org   CHICAGO – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will present six neuroscientists with this year’s Science Education and Outreach Awards, comprising the Award for Education in Neuroscience, the Science Educator Award, and the Next Generation Awards. The awards will be presented during SfN’s annual meeting. “The Society is honored to recognize these passionate neuroscientists ...

Embargoed until Monday, September 16, noon EDT               Contact: development@sfn.org   CHICAGO — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will honor seven researchers who have made significant contributions to the advancement of women in neuroscience. The awards will be presented during Neuroscience 2024, SfN's annual meeting. “Neuroscience is both a field of research and a community of researchers,” said SfN President Marina Picciotto. “These awardees not only advance our field’s understanding of the brain through their own research, they strengthen and support ...

Baek Conducting Air Quality Monitoring & Simulation Analysis B.H. Baek, Research Associate Professor, Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, College of Science, received funding for: “EPA Air Quality Modeling and Simulation Analysis (AQM- Office of Air Quality, Planning Standards (OAQPS) Program.” Baek will perform work in support of the U.S. EPA Office of Air Quality Policy and Standards (OAQPS) Air Quality Modeling and Simulation Analysis. Baek received $27,316 from General ...

Massimiliano Albanese, Associate Professor, Information Sciences and Technology; Associate Chair for Research, School of Computing; College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), received funding for: “DoD Cyber Scholarship Grant Program.” George Mason will continue administering its Cybersecurity Scholarship Program during the 2024-2025 academic year, under the Department of Defense (DoD) Cyber Service Academy (CSA) program, formerly known as the DoD Cybersecurity Scholarship Program (CySP). The objective ...

A new study from Mass General Brigham researchers provides evidence that large language models (LLMs), used for generative artificial intelligence (AI), ChatGPT-4 and Google’s Gemini, demonstrated no differences in suggested opioid treatment regimens for different races or sexes. Results are published in PAIN.  “I see AI algorithms in the short term as augmenting tools that can essentially serve as a second set of eyes, running in parallel with medical professionals,” said corresponding author Marc Succi, ...

Key Takeaways: A new study led by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute examined whether neighborhood food access in early life is associated with trajectories of child body mass index and obesity risk. Study results show that neighborhood food access matters. Residing in low-income, low-food-access neighborhoods during pregnancy or early childhood is linked to a higher body mass index (BMI) z-score and a more than 50% increased risk of obesity and severe obesity from childhood to adolescence. Investing in neighborhood resources to improve food access ...

About The Study: In this study, monthly, 140 mg erenumab injections safely and effectively achieved medication overuse headaches remission in patients with nonopioid chronic migraine and medication overuse headaches within 6 months. Quote from corresponding author Stewart J. Tepper, MD: “Those patients with medication overuse headache (MOH) have higher disability and a significant unmet clinical need. Erenumab proved effective versus placebo in significantly higher rates of MOH remission and marked reduction in days in which acute migraine treatment was taken in a randomized controlled trial, with these benefits sustained through ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that a reduction in air pollution may help reduce Parkinson disease risk, modifying the Parkinson disease phenotype and the risk of dyskinesia in patients with Parkinson disease.  Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Brittany Krzyzanowski, PhD, (brittany.krzyzanowski@barrowneuro.org) and Rodolfo Savica, MD, PhD, (savica.rodolfo@mayo.edu). To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.33602) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Residence in low-income, low–food access neighborhoods in early life was associated with higher subsequent child body mass index and higher risk of obesity and severe obesity. Future studies should examine the effectiveness of investments in neighborhood resources to improve food access in preventing child obesity. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Izzuddin M. Aris, PhD, email izzuddin_aris@hphci.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.3459) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This intensive longitudinal cohort study found that suicidal ideation intensity modestly increased in the hours immediately following exposure to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) negative news or media among LGBTQ+ young adults. These findings have timely implications for research and intervention, particularly within sociopolitical and geographic contexts where news or media coverage about LGBTQ+ topics is intensified. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kirsty A. Clark, MPH, PhD, email kirsty.clark@vanderbilt.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Sept. 16, 2024 – Food insecurity, which is the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, is associated with poor health outcomes and the increased need to use health care services. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, food insecurity impacts 10.2% of U.S. households. In families with children in the home, food insecurity is even higher, at 12.5%.  A new study from researchers at Wake Forest ...

Children who faced food insecurity during early childhood—or whose mothers experienced it during pregnancy—had a higher body mass index (BMI) and more than 50% increased chance of developing obesity or severe obesity in childhood and adolescence, according to a new study funded by the NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program. While previous research has linked food insecurity to obesity in adults, its impact on children is less clear. ECHO Cohort researchers explored how food insecurity during early life and pregnancy may ...

What: West African genetic ancestry was associated with increased prostate cancer among men living in disadvantaged neighborhoods but not among men living in more affluent neighborhoods, according to a new study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The findings suggest that neighborhood environment may play a role in determining how genetic ancestry influences prostate cancer risk. The study was published Sept. 16, 2024, in JAMA Network Open. In the United States, most Black Americans have West African genetic ancestry, the researchers noted. Previous studies have shown that West African genetic ancestry is linked to increased prostate cancer risk among Black men, ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif) — Pregnancy is a transformative time in a person’s life where the body undergoes rapid physiological adaptations to prepare for motherhood — that we all know. What has remained something of a mystery is what the sweeping hormonal shifts brought on by pregnancy are doing to the brain. Researchers in Professor Emily Jacobs’ lab at UC Santa Barbara have shed light on this understudied area with the first-ever map of a human brain over the course of pregnancy. “We wanted to look at the trajectory of brain changes specifically within the gestational window,” said Laura Pritschet, lead ...