EMBARGOED UNTIL: 2:15 p.m. PT, May 21, 2024 Session:  C94 - Asthma Quality Improvement, Health Services Research, and Disparities Utilization of Single Maintenance and Reliever Therapy (SMART) for Moderate and Severe Asthma Date and Time: Tuesday, May 21, 2024, 2:15 p.m. Location:  San Diego Convention Center, Room 28A-B (Upper Level)   ATS 2024, San Diego – Only 14.5 percent of adult patients with moderate or severe asthma are prescribed the recommended SMART combination inhaler regimen and over 40 percent of academic pulmonary and allergy clinicians have not adopted this optimal therapy, according to research published ...

Hemangiosarcoma is a common and aggressive type of cancer in dogs that arises from blood vessel cells and spreads very quickly, throughout the body, frequently affecting the spleen, liver, heart and muscles, among other organs. “Because this type of cancer comes from blood vessels, it is common for these tumors to suddenly cause massive bleeding into the abdomen or chest,” says Heather Gardner, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACVIM (Oncology), GBS20. “Often when a dog is diagnosed, it is an emergency due to the blood loss associated with tumor rupture. They can have other problems related to hemangiosarcoma, such as lethargy, weakness, and ...

The skin or peel of the Jaboticaba berry (Plinia jaboticaba), a native of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, is usually thrown away because of its astringency (due to an abundance of mouth-puckering tannins), yet it can be a powerful ally in the treatment of obesity and metabolic syndrome, according to an article published in the journal Nutrition Research. Conducted by researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo state (Brazil), the study showed that inflammation and blood sugar levels improved in volunteers with obesity and metabolic syndrome who took 15 g per day of powdered jaboticaba peel as a dietary supplement for five weeks. “The ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 21, 2024—A new study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Neurotrauma contends that a significant fraction of traumatic intracranial aneurysms (TICAs) is missed on initial contrasted scans of patients suffering a civilian gunshot wound to the head (cGSWH). The study was designed to characterize acute TICAs using admission CT angiography (aCTA). Click here to read the article now. The study showed that the presence of an intracerebral hematoma was the main predictor of TICA in cGSWH. Larger intracerebral hematomas in patients with cGSWH suggest hidden TICAs. “When CTA was performed acutely, TICAs were ...

With more than 70 countries hosting national elections, 2024 is the biggest election year in history, according to The Economist.    But how misinformation impacts elections, especially with the rise in content generated by artificial intelligence, continues to be of concern.   A research team examined misinformation narratives on social media in 2023 regarding the Taiwanese presidential election on January 13, 2024. They were especially interested in how narratives targeted relations between Taiwan and the United States.   Misinformation targeted mistrust and skepticism toward the U.S. rather ...

OAKLAND, CA – Officials throughout the state of California have developed plans to start deploying green hydrogen at scale in the coming decade in order to reach California’s 2045 climate neutrality targets. A new analysis, published by scientists at PSE Healthy Energy, finds that while certain applications of green hydrogen may present opportunities to lower greenhouse gas emissions, many challenges remain and misalignments between current proposals could ​​undermine progress toward state climate goals.  “Many state and local agencies are counting on massive build outs of green hydrogen infrastructure in the coming decades to achieve their climate targets,” ...

Giving high-risk patients access to an obesity specialist through their regular primary care clinic increased their chances of receiving at least one evidence-based weight-management treatment, and led to more weight lost in just a year, a new University of Michigan study finds.  Primary care clinicians commonly struggle to help patients develop an individualized weight-management treatment plan during short clinic visits. Previous U-M research showed that most primary care patients with obesity do not lose at least 5% of their body weight, a goal that’s been shown to reduce obesity-related ...

Whether it’s the wafting aroma of our favorite meal or the dangerous fumes seeping from a toxic chemical, the human sense of smell has evolved into a sophisticated system that processes scents through several intricate stages. The brains of mammals have billions of neurons at their disposal to recognize odors they are exposed to, from pleasant to pungent. Insects such as fruit flies, on the other hand, have a mere 100,000 neurons to work with. Yet their survival is dependent upon their ability to decipher the meaning of complex odor mixtures around them to locate food, seek potential mates and avoid predators. Scientists have pondered how insects are able to smell, or extract ...

A low-cost, tin-based catalyst can selectively convert carbon dioxide to three widely produced chemicals — ethanol, acetic acid and formic acid. Lurking within the emissions from many industrial operations is an untapped resource — carbon dioxide (CO2). A contributor of greenhouse gas and global warming, it could instead be captured and converted to value-added chemicals. In a collaborative project involving the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, Northern Illinois University and Valparaiso University, ...

DETROIT — The International Association for Great Lakes Research today announced its new board of directors and has named Donna Kashian, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences and director of environmental sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wayne State University, as president. Kashian previously served as vice president of the board. Founded in 1967, the International Association for Great Lakes Research is a scientific organization made up of researchers studying the Laurentian Great Lakes, other large lakes of the world and their watersheds, as well as those ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 21, 2024—A new study in the peer-reviewed journal Telemedicine and e-Health found that access to consultative support can increase pediatric primary care provider comfort providing gender-affirming care. Click here to read the article now. The literature suggests that access to gender-affirming medical care is associated with improved medical outcomes among adolescents who identify as gender diverse or endorse a gender identity that differs from their sex assigned at birth. An increasing number of gender diverse youth seek guidance and support from their pediatric primary care providers (PPCPs), who often lack adequate training in this ...

Dozens of Alaska’s most remote streams and rivers are turning from a crystal clear blue into a cloudy orange, and the staining could be the result of minerals exposed by thawing permafrost, new research in the Nature journal Communications: Earth and Environment finds. For the first time, a team of researchers from the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, the University of California, Davis, and other institutions have documented and sampled some of the impaired waters, pinpointing ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Stuart Henderson, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, has been named to the Hampton Roads Power List by Inside Business. The list recognizes the major players in Hampton Roads’ economy. According to Inside Business, the 2024 list considered milestones and current events, and it features “the talk of Hampton Roads and the change that’s coming.” “I am honored to be included in this list of people who are moving Hampton ...

Irvine, Calif., May 21, 2024 — In a study published in Nature Materials, scientists from the University of California, Irvine describe a new method to make very thin crystals of the element bismuth – a process that may aid the manufacturing of cheap flexible electronics an everyday reality.    “Bismuth has fascinated scientists for over a hundred years due to its low melting point and unique electronic properties,” said Javier Sanchez-Yamagishi, assistant professor of physics & astronomy at UC Irvine and a co-author of the study. “We developed a new method to make very thin crystals ...

CLEVELAND - When it comes to skin cancer, most people think of warnings about sunburn and tanning beds. Thoughts of “cancer genes” or inherited risks are reserved for diseases like breast cancer or colon cancer. A new study challenges this status quo by showing that genetics play a larger role in melanoma risk than recognized.   Physicians rarely order genetic screens to assess risk factors for patients with a family history of melanoma because, according to the previous, limited studies, only 2-2.5% of all cases are genetic. For the same reason, insurance companies rarely cover these tests outside of the most extreme ...

Two Promising UCF Researchers Earn 2024 NSF CAREER Awards Early-career professors Fan Yao and Li Fang are receiving significant research funding to continue catalyzing their work as part of an annual NSF grant program. By Eddy Duryea ’13 ORLANDO, May 21, 2024 – UCF assistant professors Li Fang and Fan Yao have been named 2024 U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development program (CAREER) award winners. The recipients were awarded funding through five years for their submitted projects. Fang, who is an assistant professor in UCF’s Department of Physics within the College of Sciences, is using the ...

Giving high-risk patients access to an obesity specialist through their regular primary care clinic increased their chances of receiving at least one evidence-based weight-management treatment, and led to more weight lost in just a year, a new University of Michigan study finds.  Primary care clinicians commonly struggle to help patients develop an individualized weight-management treatment plan during short clinic visits. Previous U-M research showed that most primary care patients with ...

[BOSTON, MAY 21, 2024] – Stuart Orkin, MD, a researcher at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, has been honored with The Shaw Prize in Life Science & Medicine for his pioneering work discovering the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the switch from fetal to adult hemoglobin. Dr. Orkin shares the prize with Swee Lay Thein, PhD, Senior Investigator and Chief of the Sickle Cell Branch of National Heart, ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Currently available flu medications only target the virus after it has already established an infection, but what if a drug could prevent infection in the first place? Now, scientists at Scripps Research and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have designed drug-like molecules to do just that, by thwarting the first stage of influenza infection. The drug-like inhibitors block the virus from entering the body’s respiratory cells—specifically, they target hemagglutinin, a protein on the surface of type A influenza viruses. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ...

In a new review paper, Carlo Maley and Arizona State University colleagues describe cell-in-cell phenomena in which one cell engulfs and sometimes consumes another. The study shows that cases of this behavior, including cell cannibalism, are widespread across the tree of life.  The findings challenge the common perception that cell-in-cell events are largely restricted to cancer cells. Rather, these events appear to be common across diverse organisms, from single-celled amoebas to complex multicellular animals. The widespread occurrence of such interactions in non-cancer cells suggests that these events are not inherently "selfish" or "cancerous" ...

“Despite the potential advantages of utilizing UV-C radiation for deactivating pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, the prevailing conclusion remains that UV-C radiation poses concurrent risks to human health.” BUFFALO, NY- May 21, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 9, entitled, “Germicidal lamps using UV-C radiation may pose health safety issues: a biomolecular analysis of their effects on apoptosis and senescence.” The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a heightened state of vigilance in global healthcare, ...

“Our research findings suggest that miR-377 could potentially serve as a valuable therapeutic strategy for the treatment of prostate cancer (PCa).” BUFFALO, NY- May 21, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Genes & Cancer on May 16, 2024, entitled, “Inhibitory effect of miR-377 on the proliferative and invasive behaviors of prostate cancer cells through the modulation of MYC mRNA via its interaction with BCL-2/Bax, PTEN, and CDK4.” The MYC gene is a regulatory and proto-oncogenic gene that is overexpressed in the majority of prostate cancers (PCa). Numerous studies have indicated that aberrant expression of microRNAs is involved in the ...

In a groundbreaking study, scientists have explored a novel approach to detect electrothermal ureteral injuries, a common complication during pelvic surgery. The ureters, delicate tubes that transport urine from the kidneys to the bladder, are particularly vulnerable due to their proximity to other anatomical structures. Unfortunately, current detection methods often fall short in promptly identifying subtle thermal injuries, which can take days or even weeks to manifest. Enter optical coherence tomography ...

To achieve global biodiversity targets, conservationists and governments must prioritize the establishment and effective management of large, interconnected protected areas with high ecological integrity, John G. Robinson from the Wildlife Conservation Society, US, and colleagues argue in an essay publishing May 21st in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), signed at the 2022 Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, recognized the importance of protecting large areas of natural habitat to maintain the resilience and integrity of ecosystems.  To halt biodiversity ...

A new laboratory study suggests that human body lice are more efficient at transmitting Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, than previously thought, supporting the possibility that they may have contributed to past pandemics. David Bland and colleagues at the United States’ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Biology on May 21st. Y. pestis has been the culprit behind numerous pandemics, including the Black Death of the Middle Ages that ...