2nd February 2025 Greifswald/Aarhus/Helsinki - On time for World Wetlands Day, the European Wetland Map (‘EWM’) significantly enhances knowledge of wetlands across Europe by locating, assessing and merging the latest geospatial data. It combines various geographic information system (GIS) data on wetland types and their distribution on mineral soil in coastal environments, floodplains, and a large variety of peatlands in one most comprehensive, easily accessible resource.   "Over a period of two years, we collected, checked and merged more than 200 geodata on wetlands and especially ...

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago launched a newborn screening awareness campaign, with signage on public transit and billboards across Chicago urging parents to contact their child’s pediatrician immediately if results are out of normal range. For some conditions, such as cystic fibrosis, that are included in newborn screening, timely diagnosis and early treatment are key to optimal health, while delays can lead to more severe disease. All U.S. states screen for at least 33 metabolic and ...

A new study from the University of Chicago Medicine reveals that people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and depression experience high levels of stimulation and pleasure when intoxicated, similar to drinkers who do not have depression. The findings counter the long-held belief that the pleasure people experience when drinking alcohol decreases with addiction and that drinking to intoxication is mainly to reduce negative feelings as a form of self-medication.  "We have this folklore that people drink excessively when they're feeling depressed ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have studied how nurses perceive words showing high and low risk ailments. They looked for directional bias, e.g. whether words denoting lower (higher) risk led to a quicker response when placed on the left (right) side or vice versa. They found faster response for significantly higher or lower risk, but different people had different directional biases. Their findings might inform better ways to present clinical information.   With every incoming medical emergency, nurses are required ...

High-risk pregnancy specialists from the Raquel and Jaime Gilinski Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are presenting research at the Annual Pregnancy Meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) in Denver from January 27- February 1. The Mount Sinai doctors are available for interview about their research findings, and can also provide commentary on other women’s health topics, breaking news, and studies. PRESENTATIONS and POSTER SESSIONS *All abstracts are under embargo until the below listed times* Thursday, ...

University of Cambridge media release   ‘Altar tent’ discovery puts Islamic art at the heart of medieval Christianity   UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01AM (UK TIME) ON SATURDAY 1ST FEBRUARY 2025   A 13th-century fresco rediscovered in Ferrara, Italy, provides unique evidence of medieval churches using Islamic tents to conceal their high altars. The 700-year-old fresco is thought to be the only surviving image of its kind, offering precious evidence of a little-known Christian practice.   The partially-visible fresco, identified by Cambridge University historian Dr Federica Gigante, almost certainly depicts a real tent, ...

Prison violence remains a significant yet underreported issue in the U.S. criminal justice system, leading to unsafe conditions for both incarcerated persons and staff. To address this pressing problem, a team of researchers has conducted a study aimed at understanding prison violence to develop strategies for reducing and preventing it in correctional facilities nationwide. The researchers present their work in two recently released policy briefs — “The Dark Figure of Prison Violence: A Multi-Strategy Approach to Uncovering the Prevalence of Prison Violence” and “Sources and Consequences ...

New research from the University of Minnesota and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) shows that death rates for early adults, or adults aged 25-44, rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic and remain higher than expected post-pandemic. Heightened death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic intensified an already negative trend for early adults, which began around 2010. As a result, early adult death rates in 2023 were about 70 percent higher than they might have been if death rates had not begun to rise about a decade before the pandemic.  The researchers analyzed death rates between 1999-2023. Published in JAMA ...

Recycling lithium-ion batteries to recover their critical metals has significantly lower environmental impacts than mining virgin metals, according to a new Stanford University lifecycle analysis published in Nature Communications. On a large scale, recycling could also help relieve the long-term supply insecurity – physically and geopolitically – of critical battery minerals. Lithium-ion battery recyclers source materials from two main streams: defective scrap material from battery manufacturers, and so-called “dead” batteries, mostly ...

People undergoing hemodialysis treatment for kidney failure often experience chronic pain related to their condition, but it can be difficult to manage with opioid medication and other conventional treatments. A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that offering these patients pain coping skills training (PCST) significantly reduced their suffering and improved their quality of life. “This is particularly important for these patients, since the therapeutic choices for pain management are limited and the use of opioids has been shown ...

Much like the windy weather patterns that affect the Earth’s surface, our planet’s oceans experience their own distinct weather patterns. These weather patterns, known as eddies, are circular currents of water that are typically about 100 kilometers wide. A new study of satellite imagery and high-resolution climate model data by scientists at the University of Rochester upends previous assumptions and provides insight about how those surface and ocean weather patterns interact. Scientists formerly believed atmospheric wind had a damping effect, ...

The ambitious project PIPEON* will develop new robotic and AI-based technologies for mapping, monitoring, and maintaining Europe’s sewer networks using autonomous “thinking” robots and AI-based modelling and analysis tools. The development and application of such new technologies would have major societal, environmental and economic impact. Instead of repairing in-sewer defects and removing blockages after streets and homes have been flooded with sewage, defects can be quickly identified and repaired and blockages removed when they are still small. Early, preventative repair and maintenance actions will limit the frequency and ...

Microsoft's Azure AI Speech platform achieved “significant improvements” in recognizing non-standard English speech thanks to recordings and transcripts from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Speech Accessibility Project participants. Its accuracy gains range from 18% to 60%, depending on the speaker’s disability. The changes are currently rolling out on Microsoft's Cloud endpoint for third-party customers. Until now, the majority of voice recognition technology trained using recordings and transcriptions from audiobooks. But an audiobook narrator and an individual with aphasia after a stroke sound different. When the Speech ...

In India, tigers haven’t just survived − they’ve made a comeback. Despite a growing population and increasing pressure on their habitats, the number of wild tigers is rising. The reason? A combination of ecological restoration, economic initiatives, and political stability. And just as important: a deeply rooted reverence for tigers that has fostered a culture where humans and predators can coexist. How do you protect an endangered species when that species is a tiger − a predator that also poses a threat to humans? India has found a way by combining protected reserves with areas where tigers and people share space. The result? A 30% increase in ...

Arthur Paul Pedersen, faculty research scientist with the CUNY Remote Sensing Earth Systems (CREST) Institute and adjunct assistant professor of computer science at The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering, is lead author of a critical essay on measurement in scientific discourse. The essay, published in the journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, warns of the dangerous implications of measurement illiteracy in contemporary scientific discourse and urges broad, ...

TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 31, 2025) — A new study from Moffitt Cancer Center could help doctors predict how well patients with a specific type of lung cancer will respond to new therapies. The research, published in Clinical Cancer Research, found that measuring the interaction between two proteins, RAS and RAF, could provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of treatments for patients with KRASG12C-mutant non-small cell lung cancer, a type of lung cancer known for being particularly difficult to treat. The findings revealed that tumors with higher levels ...

Red blood cell transfusions (RBCTs) are life-saving treatments for critically ill patients suffering from anemia, a condition where the body lacks enough healthy red blood cells to deliver oxygen effectively. While effective in increasing oxygen levels in the blood, transfusions can disrupt blood flow and oxygen distribution, potentially causing harm to vital organs like the brain. To address this, researchers are exploring new tools to monitor these effects more precisely. A recent study reported in Biophotonics Discovery investigated a novel technology called hybrid diffuse optics (DO), which uses near-infrared light to continuously measure changes in blood flow and oxygen ...

  Powerful legal and financial service industries are enabling kleptocracy and corrupt elites to operate with relative impunity, a new study shows. The research details how “enablers” from these industries exploit deregulation and the under-enforcement of the law to game the system. They can offshore their clients' wealth, and enhance their reputations and influence via philanthropy, political donations, and the use of the UK's punitive libel regime. Most of this “enabling” is likely ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Constructed wetlands do a good job in their early years of capturing carbon in the environment that contributes to climate change – but that ability does diminish with time as the wetlands mature, a new study suggests. Researchers examined soil core samples taken from two constructed freshwater wetlands and compared them to data from previous studies of the same wetlands over 29 years to determine how well human-made wetlands sequester — or capture and store — ...

Men undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer who experience side effects early in treatment may face a higher risk of developing more serious long-term urinary and bowel health issues, according to a new study led by investigators from the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. The study found that patients who experienced moderate acute urinary side effects in the first three months after radiation were nearly twice as likely to develop late urinary complications years later compared to those without early symptoms. Similarly, patients with early bowel side effects had nearly double the risk of chronic bowel issues. The findings, ...

As insect populations decrease worldwide in what some have called an "insect apocalypse," biologists are desperate to determine how the six-legged creatures are responding to a warming world and to predict the long-term winners and losers. A new study of Colorado grasshoppers shows that, while the answers are complicated, biologists have much of the knowledge they need to make these predictions and prepare for the consequences. The findings, published Jan. 30 in the journal PLOS Biology, come thanks to the serendipitous ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Every cell in your body contains the same genetic sequence, yet each cell expresses only a subset of those genes. These cell-specific gene expression patterns, which ensure that a brain cell is different from a skin cell, are partly determined by the three-dimensional structure of the genetic material, which controls the accessibility of each gene. MIT chemists have now come up with a new way to determine those 3D genome structures, using generative artificial intelligence. Their technique can predict thousands of structures in just minutes, making it much speedier than existing experimental methods for analyzing the structures. Using this technique, researchers could more ...

Scientists led by the Institute of Nanotechnology in Italy, in collaboration with the ESRF, the European Synchrotron in Grenoble, France, have discovered how X-ray micro- and nano- tomography can provide clues on the processes that link the gut neurons with those in the brain and may trigger Alzheimer’s. The results are published in Science Advances. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by brain alteration including synaptic loss, chronic inflammation and neuronal cell death. In recent years, scientists have found evidence that the gut and the brain communicate through the neurons placed in ...

A clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is testing an experimental treatment designed to help people suffering the effects of dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease. The study is supported by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and will involve exposing adult volunteers to a weakened strain of dengue virus that causes a mild form of the disease and administering an investigational therapeutic at various doses to assess its safety and ability to lessen symptoms.   Dengue ...

Sound plays a significant and often poignant part of skateboarders’ relationship with their sport, a new study shows. Skateboarders develop the skill to tune into the noise of urban surfaces. They both hear and feel noise and this means images and videos alone are a poor insight into the sport. They use sound to verify the success of their manoeuvres, judge the veracity and capacity of surfaces for use and as a social cue. For some the sensory overload of skateboarding is therapeutic and it helps them connect with others skating nearby. But ...