There’s a glaring gap in our knowledge of cell metabolism: in many cases, we still don’t know exactly how nutrients are transported into the cell. Without that understanding, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to develop treatments for the many diseases linked to the protein transporters that drive metabolism. Now, a new study in Nature Genetics presents a tool to map these metabolic gene functions more precisely. The platform, dubbed GeneMAP, has already identified one key gene-metabolite association at the heart of mitochondrial metabolism. GeneMAP was developed in the laboratory of Kivanç Birsoy, ...

iobhan Brady, a professor in the Department of Plant Biology and Genome Center at the University of California, Davis, has been selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. The prestigious Investigator program, which Brady describes as “life changing,” will provide her with roughly $9 million in research support over a seven-year term, with the option to renew. Brady’s research aims to understand how plants use their roots to respond to environmental stressors, and to use this information to develop plants that are better able to respond to climate ...

Long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) was safe and well tolerated as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) before and during pregnancy in the follow-up phase of a global study among cisgender women. The analysis of outcomes from more than 300 pregnancies and infants will be presented at the 2024 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024) in Munich, Germany.  “Cisgender women experience biological changes and social dynamics that can increase their likelihood of acquiring HIV during pregnancy and the postnatal period, and we need to offer them evidence-based options when they may need them most,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H., ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – One thing that makes large language models (LLMs) so powerful is the diversity of tasks to which they can be applied. The same machine-learning model that can help a graduate student draft an email could also aid a clinician in diagnosing cancer. However, the wide applicability of these models also makes them challenging to evaluate in a systematic way. It would be impossible to create a benchmark dataset to test a model on every type of question it can be asked. In a new paper, MIT researchers took a different approach. They ...

Researchers working at the forefront of an emerging photovoltaic (PV) technology are thinking ahead about how to scale, deploy, and design future solar panels to be easily recyclable. Solar panels made of perovskites may eventually play an important role amid global decarbonization efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the technology emerges from the testing stages, it is a perfect time to think critically about how best to design the solar panels to minimize their impact on the environment decades from now. “When you have a technology in its very early stages, you have the ability to design it better. It’s a cleaner slate,” said Joey Luther, a senior ...

Looking for a Medicare Advantage plan with a five-star quality rating? You’re less likely to find one available to you if you live in a county with higher poverty and unemployment, finds a new study published in JAMA Network Open. These geographic disparities may be contributing to unequal health outcomes and limiting federal funds from reaching the regions most in need, according to the researchers. “What this means is that Medicare beneficiaries living in counties with greater social disadvantage ...

The overarching goal of all carbon capture and storage projects is the same: Keep carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions out of the atmosphere by storing them in the subsurface for good. One way to do that is to inject the CO2 into a reservoir space that’s covered with a big lid – an impermeable caprock that can keep the gas in place and stop any upward flow in its tracks.  That’s the model that petroleum exploration has relied on for decades when searching for oil traps, and it works for both oil and CO2. But according to research led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology, subsurface ...

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI  10.29026/oea.2024.240036 , discusses sharp temperature reduction for quantum dots in polymer by highly efficient heat dissipation pathways.   Quantum dots (QDs), a kind of luminescent nanocrystals featuring size-tunable emission spectra and superior color purity are widely applied in optoelectronic fields. However, these particles are facing luminous efficiency degradation due to their temperature-sensitive characteristic and the high temperature in optoelectronic ...

A new automated system of monitoring and classifying persistent vibrations at active volcanoes can eliminate the hours of manual effort needed to document them. Graduate student researcher Darren Tan at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute led development of the system, which is based on machine learning. Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence focused on building systems that learn from data, identify patterns and make decisions with minimal human intervention.  Details about Tan’s automated ...

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Sciences; DOI 10.29026/oes.2024.240013 , discusses highly sensitive and real-simultaneous CH4/C2H2 dual-gas LITES sensor based on Lissajous pattern multi-pass cell.   Trace gases are atmospheric constituents with a volume fraction of less than 1%. Despite their low concentrations, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and sulfides in the atmosphere have a significant impact on the environment, closely related to phenomena such as acid rain, greenhouse effects, and ozone layer depletion. Therefore, race gas detection of is crucial for environmental ...

Genetic diversity is essential to the survival of a species. It’s easy enough to maintain if a species reproduces sexually; an egg and a sperm combine genetic material from two creatures into one, forming a genomically robust offspring with two distinct versions of the species’ genome. Without that combination of different genetic makeups, asexually reproducing species typically suffer from a lack of diversity that can doom them to a limited run on Earth. One such animal should be the clonal raider ant, which produces daughter after genetically identical daughter directly from an unfertilized ovum ...

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys, University of California San Diego and their international collaborators have reported that more types of lung cells can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 than previously thought, including those without known viral receptors. The research team also reported for the first time that the lung is capable of independently mustering an inflammatory antiviral response without help from the immune system when exposed to SARS-CoV-2. This work is especially timely, as cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in the scientists’ hometown of San Diego during a summertime spike. Looking beyond the region, more than half of the states in the country have reported “very ...

WHAT:  Current or previous use of the antiretroviral drug (ARV) abacavir was associated with an elevated risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in people with HIV, according to an exploratory analysis from a large international clinical trial primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There was no elevated MACE risk for the other antiretroviral drugs included in the analysis. The findings will be presented at the 2024 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024) in Munich, Germany. The Randomized Trial to Prevent Vascular Events in HIV (REPRIEVE) enrolled 7,769 study participants with HIV from 12 countries that found ...

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Sciences; DOI 10.29026/oes.2024.230051 , discusses control of light–matter interactions in two-dimensional materials with nanoparticle-on-mirror structures.   With the rapid development of high bit-rate wireless services driven by mobile internet, AI computing, high-definition videos, virtual reality/augmented reality (VAR) applications, and so on, the demand for wireless data rates has grown explosively in the past decades1, 2. Supporting such fast data rate at tens of Gbit/s pushes the carrier frequency to the THz (0.1-10 THz) ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University, University of Manitoba, Bern University of Applied Sciences, University of South Carolina, and California Baptist University published a new Journal of Marketing study that explores whether the onset of daylight saving time leads consumers to engage in unhealthy behaviors. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Spring Forward = Fall Back? The Effect of Daylight Saving Time Change on Consumers’ Unhealthy Behavior” and is authored by Ramkumar Janakiraman, Harsha ...

Research awards are an integral part of the universal “prestige economy” in science, but do they incentivize greater transparency, inclusivity, and openness? This study uses cross-disciplinary data to explore the level of transparency of publicly available award descriptions and assessment criteria, asking whether such awards contribute to or propagate existing reproducibility crises and inequities in science. ##### In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology:   http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002715 Article ...

Oligodendrocytes are an important source of amyloid beta (Aβ) and play a key role in promoting neuronal dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), according to a study published July 23, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Rikesh Rajani and Marc Aurel Busche from the UK Dementia Research Institute at University College London, and colleagues. AD is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder affecting millions of people worldwide. Accumulation of Aβ – peptides consisting of 36 to 43 amino acids – ...

“In this study, we explore the potential of the three largest, publicly available DNA methylation datasets in dogs to identify signals of biological age.” BUFFALO, NY- July 23, 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 13, entitled, “Co-analysis of methylation platforms for signatures of biological aging in the domestic dog reveals previously unexplored confounding factors.” Chronological age reveals the number of years an individual has lived since birth. By contrast, biological age varies between individuals of the same chronological ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- A research team led by faculty from Binghamton University, State University of New York has been exploring how mass layoffs and data breaches could be connected. Their theory: since layoffs create conditions where disgruntled employees face added stress or job insecurity, they are more likely to engage in risky behaviors that heighten the company’s vulnerability to data breaches. The research, outlined in a paper titled “The Impacts of Layoffs Announcement on Cybersecurity Breaches,” was presented by Binghamton ...

Nearly 40 million adults in the U.S. have sleep apnea, and more than 30 million of them use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine while sleeping. However, the machines tend to be expensive, clunky and uncomfortable — resulting in many users giving up on using them. High blood pressure is often linked with sleep apnea because the brain works harder to regulate blood flow and breathing during sleep. A recent study at the University of Missouri offers new insight into the underlying mechanisms within the brain contributing ...

Abu Dhabi, July 22, 2024: A team of researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi, led by Professor Sehamuddin Galadari, has discovered that the tumor suppressor protein Prostate apoptosis response-4 (Par-4) can cause a unique type of cell death called ferroptosis in human glioblastoma – the most common and aggressive type of brain tumor – while sparing healthy cells. This new understanding has the potential to inform the development of novel treatments for various hard-to-treat cancers and neurodegenerative diseases. Ferroptosis is triggered by the iron-mediated production of reactive ...

(BOSTON) – Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, has accepted the position of director of the Framingham Center for Population and Prevention Science, principal investigator of the Framingham Heart Study, and chief of the section of preventive medicine within the department of medicine at the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, effective January 1, 2025. Lloyd-Jones is the chair of preventive medicine and Eileen M. Foell Professor of Heart Research and professor of preventive medicine, medicine and pediatrics at Northwestern University. He previously served as senior associate dean for clinical and translational ...

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI   10.29026/oea.2024.240064, discusses advanced phase-controlled 3D biochemical imaging.   Three-dimensional (3D) imaging provides deep insights into understanding of complex biological and biomedical systems, which offers far more detailed information than traditional 2D methods. A standout in this field is nonlinear optical microscopy, particularly coherent Raman Scattering (CRS) microscopy (e.g., coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) and ...

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has established a new junior professorship in the field of Earth System Science, supported by funding provided by the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany's largest private, non-profit organization engaged in the promotion and support of academic research. This Junior Professorship for High-Resolution Sedimentology is part of the JGU Institute of Geosciences and held by Dr. Igor Obreht. He will be creating a unique lab for high-resolution imaging for the analysis of terrestrial and marine sediments that formed thousands to millions of years ago. The resulting data will ...

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI  10.29026/oea.2024.230202  , discusses an all-optical ultra-long-distance image acquisition and transmission system.   With the exponential growth of data globally, the demand for high-speed acquisition and long-distance transmission of multidimensional data is escalating. Online video surveillance in sectors like industrial manufacturing has significantly boosted productivity while mitigating security risks. Real-time global video calls have revolutionized people's daily lives. Existing systems can leverage ...