May 16, 2024    To Optimize Guide-Dog Robots, First Listen to the Visually Impaired     Award-winning research led by UMass Amherst shows to be successful, Guide-dog users and trainers need to provide insight into features that make robotic helpers useful in the real world    AMHERST, Mass. — What features does a robotic guide dog need? Ask the blind, say the authors of an award-winning paper. Led by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a study identifying how to develop robot guide dogs with insights from guide dog users and trainers won a Best Paper Award at ...

Researchers provide an innovative approach to understanding ocular pathologies by visualizing the fiber structure of the sclera, the outermost eye layer   Tokyo, Japan – Eye diseases are extremely prevalent worldwide, with recent estimates suggesting that one-third of the global population suffers from some type of vision impairment. Given the high complexity of the human eye, the precise origin and nature of many eye diseases remain unclear, leaving affected people with limited diagnostic and treatment options.   Now, in a study made available online on March 7, 2024 and published in Volume 142, Number 4 of JAMA Ophthalmology on ...

“We have found a correlation between loneliness and several mental health problems,” says Associate Professor Rubén Rodríguez-Cano at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU’s) Department of Psychology. In a new study, researchers are looking at whether lonely people are more prone to problems such as depression and psychosis. Based on medication use, the correlation is clear. “The risk of a lonely person also struggling with mental health problems is greater than for people who ...

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [May 16, 2024] — Daniel M. Geynisman, MD, is being announced as the new Editor-in-Chief for JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Dr. Geynisman has a long history of working with NCCN in a variety of roles and served as medical oncology section editor for Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations since 2018 and authored more than 130 peer-reviewed publications. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Hematology/Medical Oncology and Chief of the Division of Genitourinary Medical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center. “We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Geynisman into this ...

Worldwide news media are facing increasing pressure from autocrats to report favourably about their leaders and party politics. Political scientists launch a new computational method that can detect such media censorship by states while it is happening. This method provides valuable insights for  communicating regime-driven media capture to the public. It is now described in detail in the scientific journal ‘Democratization’. One of the first steps of would-be autocrats is to control the ...

Spinal muscular atrophy or “SMA” for short is a terrible disease in which a genetic mutation causes certain nerves responsible for sending signals to muscles to degenerate. This leads to muscles wasting away, and many patients have died a painful death due to this rare condition. Genetic treatments have only been available for a few years. Now, a team led by Emmanuel Nedoschill, Ferdinand Knieling and Adrian Regensburger from the “Translational Pediatrics” working group at the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Uniklinikum Erlangen have devised ...

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 16, 2024 – The best microphone in the world might have an unexpected source: spider silk. Spiders weave webs to trap their insect snacks, but the sticky strands also help spiders hear. Unlike human eardrums and conventional microphones that detect sound pressure waves, spider silk responds to changes in the velocities of air particles as they are thrust about by a sound field. This sound velocity detection method remains largely underexplored compared to pressure sensing, but it holds great potential for high-sensitivity, long-distance sound detection. Researchers ...

INDIANAPOLIS – An Expert Insight, published in the journal Transplantation, highlights health equity, disparity and inequality in organ transplantation along the continuum of care and across organ types. The authors provide a guide to transplant centers for the use of disparity-sensitive measures to monitor and address health disparities in transplantation and to redress long-standing inequities and inequalities in this vital arena. “Our goal is to ensure that all patients who need a transplant have ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Disc-related back pain may one day meet its therapeutic match: gene therapy delivered by naturally derived nanocarriers that, a new study shows, repairs damaged discs in the spine and lowers pain symptoms in mice. Scientists engineered nanocarriers using mouse connective-tissue cells called fibroblasts as a model of skin cells and loaded them with genetic material for a protein key to tissue development. The team injected a solution containing the carriers into damaged discs in mice at the same time the back injury ...

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 16, 2024 – As a hockey player, Andrew Bray was familiar with the slang thrown around the “barn” (hockey arena). As a linguist, he wanted to understand how sport-specific jargon evolved and permeated across teams, regions, and countries. In pursuit of the sociolinguistic “biscuit” (puck), he faced an unexpected question. “It was while conducting this initial study that I was asked a question that has since shaped the direction of my subsequent research,” said Bray. “‘Are you trying to figure out why the Americans sound like fake Canadians?’”  Canadian ...

If you tend to do other things or get distracted while eating dinner, you may be running the risk of over-consuming everyday pleasures later, possibly because the distraction caused you to enjoy yourself less, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.  The study looked at how distraction affects “hedonic consumption,” or buying and using products and experiences because they make us feel good and not necessarily because we need them.  “On any given day, a person may take great pleasure from one or more of these activities, yet people often consume more hedonic ...

WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society is delighted to announce that Lily Ng, PhD, and Douglas Forrest, Ph.D., have won the Society's 2024 Endocrine Images Art Competition for their image of the astrocyte cell that expresses type 2 deiodinase.   Now in its third year, the Art Competition celebrates the beauty of endocrine science as seen through the lens of a microscope. This year’s 19 entries were judged by a panel of Society members who based their assessments on aesthetic value of the images and their significance ...

DALLAS, May 16, 2024 — Pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. have risen 140% over the past three decades and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause.[1] Despite existing medical guidance on pregnancy and cardiovascular health, current trends in health outcomes suggest a significant opportunity for an improved system of care, particularly in the postpartum period.  The American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization focused on heart and brain health and this year ...

When a patient is experiencing heart failure, a leading cause of death worldwide, they begin to lose healthy and functioning cardiac cells. Heart failure causes these once-flexible cells to develop into fibrotic cells that are no longer able to contract and relax. This stiffening of the cardiac cells compromises their ability to carry blood efficiently to the rest of the organs in the human system. Because humans cannot regenerate these cardiac cells, the patient faces a long road to recovery marked by preventative or symptomatic treatments. However, some ...

Vanilla extract is one of the most widely used flavoring compounds in food products and cosmetics. The pleasant and sweet smell of this classic flavor is imparted by the chemical compound ‘vanillin’ found in the seed pods of vanilla plants belonging to the orchid family. In plants, vanillin is synthesized by the conversion of ferulic acid by the enzyme - VpVAN. However, laboratory biosynthesis of vanillin from plant-derived VpVAN yields only very small quantities of vanillin, and is, therefore, commercially impractical. Further, although chemically derived ...

NEW YORK, NY — Perceiving something – anything – in your surroundings is to become aware of what your senses are detecting. Today, Columbia University neuroscientists identify, for the first time, brain-cell circuitry in fruit flies that converts raw sensory signals into color perceptions that can guide behavior.    Their findings were pulbished in the journal Nature Neuroscience.   “Many of us take for granted the rich colors we see every day – the red of a ripe strawberry ...

After spinning for under two years, a wind farm can offset the carbon emissions generated across its entire 30-year lifespan, when compared to thermal power plants. That’s according to a new peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand – which also shows within six months a turbine can generate all the energy consumed across its life-cycle. The research uses data from the Harapaki onshore wind farm in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand – however the authors of the paper explain that their findings would be replicated across most, if not all, wind farms internationally. “The wind turbine technology employed in New Zealand ...

One in three people around the world die from cardiovascular disease, which is mainly caused by atherosclerosis. This makes atherosclerosis the leading cause of death globally. Additionally, many people live with serious manifestations of atherosclerosis, for example, following a heart attack or a stroke. Atherosclerosis not only represents a significant burden for these individuals, but also a heavy burden on healthcare systems and societies in all parts of the world. “Atherosclerosis may develop from an early age and often remains 'silent’, that is, without symptoms, ...

While ethanol in alcoholic beverages impairs drinkers’ motor functions, it is that same substance that can power motor vehicles in a cleaner, more sustainable manner. What is necessary for the production of ethanol is yeast, but ethanol is among the environmental factors that add stress to yeasts, hindering their growth. To promote efficient bioethanol production, scientists have been searching for substances that can help yeasts better withstand ethanol, but few effective ones have been found. An Osaka Metropolitan ...

Fukuoka, Japan—Researchers at Kyushu University have published a comprehensive analysis on the carbon footprint of constructing a wooden house in Japan. The study covered the total amount of emissions produced, taking into consideration the entire supply chain including the processing and transport of the raw materials that go into building a house. The team hopes that by identifying emission hot spots in the supply chain that go into building a house, policy makers can implement strategies to reduce its climate impact. Their analysis was published in the Journal of Environmental ...

  Scientists at the University of Oregon have discovered that colonies of gelatinous sea animals swim through the ocean in giant corkscrew shapes using coordinated jet propulsion, an unusual kind of locomotion that could inspire new designs for efficient underwater vehicles.  The research involves salps, small creatures that look similar to jellyfish that take a nightly journey from the depths of the ocean to the surface. Observing that migration with special cameras helped UO researchers and their colleagues capture the macroplankton’s graceful, coordinated swimming behavior.  “The largest migration on the planet ...

New research led by Flinders University and international experts is expanding understanding of vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (known as VITT). At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021,VITT emerged as a new disease following adenovirus vector-based vaccines – notably the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. VITT was found to be caused by an unusually dangerous blood autoantibody directed against a protein termed platelet factor 4 (or PF4).    In separate research in 2023, ...

BATON ROUGE – Ochsner Baton Rouge has opened the new Ochsner Outpatient and Home Infusion Pharmacy – Baton Rouge at 4730 Bluebonnet Blvd., Suite 401. This advanced facility provides treatment for chronic, specialty and acute home infusions. The pharmacy is conveniently located and designed with patient comfort and accessibility in mind. Each of its six patient rooms offers a spa-like environment, providing patient care in a peaceful, supportive setting that promotes healing. Ochsner’s pharmacists work closely with patients’ healthcare providers to create customized treatment plans, ensuring personalized and effective ...

Key takeaways A new study by UCLA sociologists found that using the word “please” does not always indicate respect or politeness. In the study, “please” was used only 7% of the time, mostly when there was an inhospitable interactional environment to overcome. Findings will help researchers in their understanding of politeness in the flow of social behavior and norms. By kindergarten age, most children have been taught that “please” is a magic word. “Please” is an expression of politeness that shows courtesy and respect, turning a potential demand into a request that will – ...

The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC), the organization leading an unprecedented global response to Alzheimer’s, today announced the first-ever brain health and dementia conference in Africa, held in Nairobi, Kenya from September 11-12 in partnership with Nature Conferences and the Aga Khan University’s Brain & Mind Institute.  The conference, “The Future of Dementia in Africa: Advancing Global Partnerships,” focuses on scientific advancements in understanding the impact of dementia, risk ...