The air inside all personal vehicles is polluted with harmful flame retardants—including those known or suspected to cause cancer—according to a new peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Science & Technology. Car manufacturers add these chemicals to seat foam and other materials to meet an outdated federal flammability standard with no proven fire-safety benefit. “Our research found that interior materials release harmful chemicals into the cabin air of our cars,” said lead author Rebecca ...

Jonah Berger and Olivier Toubia used natural language processing to understand what drives academic success. The authors analyzed over 20,000 college application essays from a large public university that attracts students from a range of racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds and found that the semantic volume of the writing, or how much ground an application essay covered predicted college performance, as measured by grade point average. Essays that covered more semantic ground predicted higher grades. Similarly, essays with smaller conceptual jumps between successive parts of ...

A study finds that most engineering PhD graduates will never secure a tenure-track faculty position. Over the past 50 years, the number of full-time faculty positions in US universities has steadily declined while production of science and engineering PhD graduates has nearly doubled. Siddhartha Roy and colleagues analyzed data on PhD graduates and tenure-track and tenured faculty members across all engineering disciplines from 2006–2021. The average annual likelihood of securing a tenure-track faculty position in engineering during this 16-year period was 12.4%. The likelihood of securing a tenure-track faculty position was 18.5% in ...

In the scientific literature, a citation acts as a mechanism to signal prior knowledge, enhance credibility, and protect against plagiarism. But it also gives credit to the individual or team who established or discovered the knowledge in question, and citations have thus emerged as a metric to measure the impact of a work or researcher. However, when a discovery or technique becomes common knowledge, scientists often stop bothering to cite it. Thus, the most impactful work is often undercited. Albert-László Barabási ...

A Perspective explores lessons learned from recent deadly wildfires and proposes a strategy for managing wildfire risk. Wildfire risk and wildfire deaths are on the rise due to climate change, policies of fire suppression, and development in the wildland-urban interface. The August 8, 2023, fire that destroyed the historic town of Lahaina, Hawaii, claimed 98 lives, in part due to a failure to alert residents to the danger. In 2018, 104 lives were lost in a fire in Mati, Greece, for which there were also no alerts. For both ...

A smart neckband allows wearers to monitor their dietary intake. Automatically monitoring food and fluid intake can be useful when managing conditions including diabetes and obesity, or when maximizing fitness. But wearable technologies must be able to distinguish eating and drinking from similar movements, such as speaking and walking. Chi Hwan Lee and colleagues propose a machine-learning enabled neckband that can differentiate body movements, speech, and fluid and food intake. The neckband’s sensor module includes ...

Gut microbiota or the population of microbial inhabitants in the intestine, plays a key role in digestion and maintenance of overall health. Any disturbance in the gut microbiota can, therefore, have a systemic impact. Intestinal microbes metabolize dietary components into beneficial fatty acids (FAs), supporting metabolism and maintaining host body homeostasis. Metabolites originating from polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), influenced by gut microbes such as Lactobacillus plantarum, exhibit potent effects on ...

A group of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, University of Freiburg and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience have created an exceptionally small implant, with electrodes the size of a single neuron that can also remain intact in the body over time – a unique combination that holds promise for future vision implants for the blind.   Often when a person is blind, some or part of the eye is damaged, but the visual cortex in the brain is still functioning and waiting for ...

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – A sharp rise in exposures to synthetic cannabis products among youth — some leading to hospitalization — highlights the need for increased education around the dangers of exposure and increased focus on safe storage and packaging, according to pediatricians and researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center. A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center examined trends in calls to poison ...

A new study led by University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center researchers shows that an enzyme called PARP1 is involved in repair of telomeres, the lengths of DNA that protect the tips of chromosomes, and that impairing this process can lead to telomere shortening and genomic instability that can cause cancer. PARP1’s job is genome surveillance: When it senses breaks or lesions in DNA, it adds a molecule called ADP-ribose to specific proteins, which act as a beacon to recruit other ...

A feast cooked up by UBC researchers has revealed singlet oxygen indoors for the first time. Oxi-don’t Singlet oxygen is an oxidant. These chemical compounds can be beneficial—ozone in the stratosphere is one example—but can also cause stress to our lungs, contributing to the development of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease in the long term. Cooking foods can release brown carbon, molecules with the potential to create oxidants when they absorb light. In addition, exposure to cooking emissions has been linked to chronic diseases in chefs. Historically, it was thought there wasn’t enough light indoors to have much ...

More than 100 years ago, scientists at The University of Manchester changed the world when they discovered the nucleus in atoms, marking the birth of nuclear physics. Fast forward to today, and history repeats itself, this time in quantum computing. Building on the same pioneering method forged by Ernest Rutherford – "the founder of nuclear physics" – scientists at the University, in collaboration with the University of Melbourne in Australia, have produced an enhanced, ultra-pure form of silicon that allows ...

Researchers at the Universities of Melbourne and Manchester have invented a breakthrough technique for manufacturing highly purified silicon that brings powerful quantum computers a big step closer. The new technique to engineer ultra-pure silicon makes it the perfect material to make quantum computers at scale and with high accuracy, the researchers say. Project co-supervisor Professor David Jamieson, from the University of Melbourne, said the innovation – published today in Communication Materials, a Nature journal – uses qubits of phosphorous atoms implanted ...

Discharge from ships with so-called scrubbers cause great damage to the Baltic Sea. A new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, shows that these emissions caused pollution corresponding to socio-economic costs of more than EUR 680 million between 2014 and 2022. At the same time, the researchers note that the shipping companies' investments in the much-discussed technology, where exhaust gases are "washed" and discharged into the sea, have already been recouped for most of the ships. This means that the industry is now making billions ...

The natural vein structure found within leaves – which has inspired the structural design of porous materials that can maximise mass transfer – could unlock improvements in energy storage, catalysis, and sensing thanks to a new twist on a century-old biophysical law. An international team of researchers, led by the NanoEngineering Group at the Cambridge Graphene Centre, has developed a new materials theory based on ‘Murray’s Law’, applicable to a wide range of next-generation functional ...

A small, implantable cardiac pump that could help children await heart transplants at home, not in the hospital, has performed well in the first stage of human testing. The pump, a new type of ventricular assist device, or VAD, is surgically attached to the heart to augment its blood-pumping action in individuals with heart failure, allowing time to find a donor heart. The new pump could close an important gap in heart transplant care for children. In a feasibility trial of seven children who received the new pump to support their failing hearts, six ultimately underwent heart transplants ...

Tallinn, Estonia – 7th May 2024, 10 AM CET –  Haut.AI, a leader in responsible skincare artificial intelligence (AI) development, today announced a breakthrough research paper demonstrating the effectiveness of using hand images for accurate age prediction. This innovative approach offers a viable alternative to traditional facial photo methods and promotes fairer AI solutions. The study, titled “Predicting human chronological age via AI analysis of dorsal hand versus facial images: A study in a cohort of Indian females,”  shows that AI models trained on hand images achieve comparable accuracy to those using facial images, with an average error of ...

Following a quinquennial review by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Babraham Institute will receive £48m for the period 2024-2028 to advance research on the mechanisms that maintain the health of our cells, tissues and organs across the life course. This work is key in driving BBSRC’s strategic research priorities around an integrated understanding of health, developing and applying transformative technologies and advancing our understanding of the rules of life. As one of eight UK bioscience ...

An increase in sedentary time from childhood caused progressing heart enlargement, a new study shows. However, light physical activity could reduce the risk. The study was conducted in collaboration between the Universities of Bristol and Exeter, and the University of Eastern Finland, and the results were published in the prestigious European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Left ventricular hypetrophy refers to an excessive increase in heart mass and size. In adults, it is known to increase the risk for heart attacks, stroke, and premature death. In the present study, 1,682 children ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ – Teenagers are less likely to drink, smoke or use drugs when their parents keep tabs on their activities--but not necessarily because kids are more likely to be punished for substance use, suggests a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Researchers found that, contrary to common belief, parents’ “monitoring” does not seem to boost the odds of catching their kids using substances. However, when kids simply are aware that their parents are monitoring behavior, they avoid trying alcohol or drugs in the first place.  It is the fear of being caught, rather than actually being punished. Many studies ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Distant, far away galaxies. Interacting galaxies, whose shape has been forged by the mutual gravitational influence, but also galaxies forming groups and clusters, kept together by gravity. They are the protagonists of three new images released by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). VST is an optical telescope with a 2,6 diameter mirror, entirely built in Italy, that has been operating since 2011 at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile. Since 2022, the telescope has been fully managed by INAF through the National Coordination Centre for VST, ...

In the early 20th century, the development of a catalyst for ammonia synthesis by the Haber-Bosch method took more than 10,000 experiments before it was successful. The development of new materials is a time-consuming and costly process from design to commercialization. However, in recent years, researchers have been working to shorten the development period by using artificial intelligence (AI). When combined with robots, it is possible to conduct material development research 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without human ...

CCU (Carbon Capture & Utilization), which captures CO2 and converts it into useful compounds, is crucial for rapidly transitioning to a carbon-neutral society. While CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage), which only involves CO2 storage, has entered the initial commercialization stage due to its relatively simple process and low operational costs, CCU has only been explored at the research level due to the complexity of conversion processes and high production costs of compounds. Dr. Lee Ung's team at the Clean Energy Research Center ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 6 May 2024     Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet      @Annalsofim     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 ...

  KEY TAKEAWAYS In a study of outpatient sites, researchers found that 7% of patients experienced at least one adverse event and 1.9% of patients experienced at least one preventable adverse event. The most common adverse events in the outpatient setting were adverse drug events. The findings highlight an urgent need to develop interventions to prevent both inpatient and outpatient harm. Over the last several decades, research has brought nationwide awareness to issues of patient harm in the “inpatient” setting, where patients ...