HOUSTON, May 29, 2024 – Mim Rahimi, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Houston, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his research proposal focusing on liquid-liquid interfaces for electrochemical carbon capture research. His research proposal is “Leveraging Liquid-Liquid Interfaces for Innovative Electrochemical Carbon Capture.” It was selected for $537,719 in funding, with research running through August 2029. “The project ...

An analysis of civilian injuries resulting from interactions with police in Illinois found that residents of all races and ethnicities are more likely to sustain injuries if they live in economically under-resourced areas. The risk of injury decreases as communities become more racially diverse, the researchers found.  The study from the University of Illinois Chicago analyzed information on nearly 5,000 injuries caused by police that were treated in Illinois hospitals between 2016 and 2022. The researchers then compared that information with socioeconomic data from the U.S. Census on each injured person’s home ZIP code. The study is published in the ...

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 80% of those living with dementia receive informal care from family members or friends. This equates to 16 million family caregivers in the U.S. However, caring for family members with dementia is often associated with increased caregiver burden (which includes emotional, physical, and financial strain), stress, and worse physical health for the caregiver.   A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Gerontology, led by George Mason University researchers, found that a 9-week online stress ...

Sticks and stones aren’t enough to thwart biological attraction, but sometimes those are the only tools available to pastoralists trying to prevent wildlife from eloping with their livestock.   A new study led by Colorado State University brings awareness to both the human impacts of these encounters – ranging from economic loss to death – and conservation concerns for the wild animals that are often endangered.     Conserving threatened and endangered species is a globally recognized priority, but justice and equity for the marginalized pastoralist populations around the world who experience conflict with these species are often ...

Leaders from the Mass General Cancer Center, a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, will present research discoveries and outcomes from clinical trials in cancer at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, held May 31-June 4, in Chicago. ASCO brings together leading experts in clinical oncology to share the latest breakthroughs in cancer research, science and medicine. Presentations from Mass General Cancer Center investigators include a plenary session on palliative care delivery via telehealth versus in-person for patients with advanced lung cancer. Oral presentations ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Physicist Holly Szumila-Vance has always been curious about how the world works. Throughout her career, she has never been afraid to tackle new and tough challenges to satisfy that curiosity. In doing so, she has helped reveal new details of how the ubiquitous proton interacts with the strong force inside matter. Now, her work to reveal the nature of matter at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has just won special recognition: the prestigious 2024 Guido Altarelli Award – Experimental ...

SEATTLE — May 29, 2024 — Foam mixed with medications is already used to treat conditions such as varicose veins, hemorrhoids, wounds on the skin and even hair loss. Now, Fred Hutch Cancer Center scientists have found that foam might also be used as a vehicle to deliver expensive gene therapies. Published May 28 in Nature Communications, bioengineer Matthias Stephan, MD, PhD, and his Fred Hutch team report that a foaming liquid worked better than a standard liquid formulation at transferring gene therapy components to cells in laboratory studies.  “Gene therapies are the new wave of medicine, but they are extremely ...

The waste generated by power generation utility companies could be a potential source of metals and minerals that are key components of modern electronics, batteries, vehicles, and the clean-energy industry as a whole. Zheng Yao, principal research scientist within Lehigh University’s Energy Research Center (ERC), and a multidisciplinary team of researchers recently received a $2.5 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to identify rare earth elements (REEs) and elements of interest (EOIs) in wastewater and solid waste streams, and to develop the technology that could extract those elements.  The project team includes ...

Darío Gil, Ph.D., IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research and a member of the Board of Trustees for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), has been elected chair of the National Science Board (NSB). The NSB is the governing board of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and adviser to Congress and the President on policy matters related to STEM research and STEM education. “Darío Gil’s insights and innovative thinking will be indispensable to his leadership of the NSB,” said RPI President Martin A. Schmidt, Ph.D. “His election speaks volumes about his exceptional talents ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study by Brown University researchers may help redefine how scientists map the surface of the Moon, making the process more streamlined and precise than ever before. Published in the Planetary Science Journal, the research by Brown scholars Benjamin Boatwright and James Head describes enhancements to a mapping technique called shape-from-shading. The technique is used to create detailed models of lunar terrain, outlining craters, ridges, slopes and other surface hazards. By analyzing the way light hits different surfaces of the Moon, it allows researchers to estimate the three-dimensional ...

Professor Dariusz Stramski of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has been selected by The Oceanography Society as the 2024 recipient of the Nils Gunnar Jerlov Medal in recognition of his significant and wide-ranging contributions to the field of optical oceanography. With a distinguished career spanning over 40 years, Dr. Stramski has made profound impacts on the study of ocean optics. Born in Poland, Stramski received his M.S. with honors in oceanography (1978) and Ph.D. in Earth ...

(Toronto, May 28, 2024) A new study in JMIR Cardio, published by JMIR Publications, shows that a fully digital, artificial intelligence (AI)–driven lifestyle coaching program can effectively reduce blood pressure (BP) in adults with hypertension. This AI-based program leverages data from wearable activity trackers and BP monitors as well as a mobile app questionnaire to tailor lifestyle guidance. The research team, led by Jared Leitner of the University of California, San Diego, used this innovative intervention to help manage ...

A team of researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new machine-learning method that detects hate speech on social media platforms with 88 per cent accuracy, saving employees from hundreds of hours of emotionally damaging work. The method, dubbed the Multi-Modal Discussion Transformer (mDT), can understand the relationship between text and images as well as put comments in greater context, unlike previous hate speech detection methods. This is particularly helpful in reducing false positives, which are often ...

A new method of drug delivery using proline, an amino acid found in chicken feathers and skin tissue, could be used to limit the side effects of chemotherapy and repair important enzymes, new research suggests. Published in the journal Chem today, researchers have designed a cage (a box made of single molecules) from biologically compatible peptides, short amino acids that form the basis of proteins. These cages can house drugs of different sizes and transport them in the body with high levels of precision.  The negative ...

It’s every driver’s nightmare: a pedestrian stepping out in front of the car seemingly out of nowhere, leaving only a fraction of a second to brake or steer the wheel and avoid the worst. Some cars now have camera systems that can alert the driver or activate emergency braking. But these systems are not yet fast or reliable enough, and they will need to improve dramatically if they are to be used in autonomous vehicles where there is no human behind the wheel. Quicker detection using less computational ...

Graphene has been called “the wonder material of the 21st century.” Since its discovery in 2004, the material—a single layer of carbon atoms—has been touted for its host of unique properties, which include ultra-high electrical conductivity and remarkable tensile strength. It has the potential to transform electronics, energy storage, sensors, biomedical devices, and more. But graphene has had a dirty little secret: it's dirty. Now, engineers at Columbia University and colleagues at the University of Montreal and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are poised to clean things up with an oxygen-free chemical vapor ...

In a study of Medicare beneficiaries, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that one year after hospitalization for heart failure, 6 percent of patients had progressed to dialysis. KEY TAKEAWAYS Study led by Brigham researchers found that among older adults hospitalized for heart failure, nearly 3 in 4 were discharged with reduced kidney function. Lower kidney function was associated with substantially higher risk of kidney complications and other adverse clinical outcomes among older adults, with more than 1 in 20 progressing to dialysis within one year after heart failure hospitalization. These findings emphasize the need ...

Joint research led by Yutaro Shuto, Ryoya Nakagawa, and Osamu Nureki of the University of Tokyo determined the spatial structure of various processes of a novel gene-editing tool called “prime editor.” Functional analysis based on these structures also revealed how a “prime editor” could achieve reverse transcription, synthesizing DNA from RNA, without “cutting” both strands of the double helix. Clarifying these molecular mechanisms contributes greatly to designing gene-editing tools accurate enough for gene therapy treatments. The findings were published in the journal Nature. The ...

Research led by Weill Cornell Medicine provides new evidence that most colorectal cancers begin with the loss of intestinal stem cells, even before cancer-causing genetic alterations appear. The results, published on May 29 in Developmental Cell, overturn the prevailing theory for colorectal tumor initiation and suggest new ways to diagnose the disease before it has a chance to become established. “Colorectal cancer is very, very heterogeneous, which has made it difficult for many years to classify these tumors in order to inform therapy,” said senior author Dr. ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions have discovered that a protein called hnRNPM helps protect the integrity of the process cells use to make proteins. hnRNPM works by preventing the cell from making mistakes while it is putting together the different components leading to newly produced proteins. In cancer cells, loss of hnRNPM triggers an interferon immune response, suggesting that this protein may hold clinical promise. The findings appeared in Molecular Cell. “Synthesizing a protein is like putting together the different parts of a machine. If during the assembly process parts that do not belong are incorporated ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – When a child peruses YouTube, the content recommended to them is not always age appropriate, a new study suggests. Researchers mimicked search behaviors of children using popular search terms, such as memes, Minecraft and Fortnite, and captured video thumbnails recommended at the end of each video. Among the 2,880 thumbnails analyzed, many contained problematic click bait, such as violence or frightening images, according to the Michigan Medicine led research in JAMA Network Open. “Children spend a significant amount of time on free video sharing platforms that ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Quantum computers hold the promise of being able to quickly solve extremely complex problems that might take the world’s most powerful supercomputer decades to crack. But achieving that performance involves building a system with millions of interconnected building blocks called qubits. Making and controlling so many qubits in a hardware architecture is an enormous challenge that scientists around the world are striving to meet. Toward this goal, researchers at MIT and MITRE have demonstrated a scalable, modular hardware platform that ...

Researchers from Lancaster University and Radboud University Nijmegen have managed to generate propagating spin waves at the nanoscale and discovered a novel pathway to modulate and amplify them. Their discovery, published in Nature, could pave the way for the development of dissipation free quantum information technologies. As the spin waves do not involve electric currents these chips will be free from associated losses of energy. The rapidly growing popularity of artificial intelligence comes with an increasing desire for fast and energy efficient computing devices and calls for novel ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) find that donor keratinocytes injected into mouse embryos form sheets of epidermis that can be used as autologous skin grafts Tokyo, Japan – Skin grafting is an essential procedure used to treat severe skin wounds. In the case of extensive wounds, however, it can be challenging to harvest enough donor skin, and generating artificial skin substitutes that include hair follicles and sweat glands and can engraft on deep wounds has not been successful. Now, researchers from Japan report a new way to “grow your own” donor skin that could help improve the success of skin graft generation. In a study published last ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, May 29, 2024 – A recent collaborative research endeavor, published in the prestigious Cell Press journal Cell Reports Medicine, highlights a promising therapeutic avenue for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Led by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in conjunction with counterparts from Germany, the USA, and Canada, the study delves into the potential of augmenting macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) protein levels as a novel approach to tackling ALS. ALS, often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a devastating neurodegenerative condition characterized by the progressive loss of motor neurons, leading to muscle ...