New, non-native plant species are constantly being discovered in Svalbard, and researchers are working to ascertain what threat these species pose to the native plants. So far, the Arctic has managed to avoid one of the most serious threats to biodiversity on Earth. This is also true for Svalbard, but things could change very quickly, and researchers want to find out how to counteract this threat. “Increased human activity heightens the risk of new plant species being introduced. And climate change increases the risk of invasive species establishing themselves,” says Kristine Bakke Westergaard. She is an associate ...

Available to anyone, anywhere, at anytime, Texl.org allows individuals and organizations to create scientifically valid surveys in less than five minutes. In drag-and-drop fashion, survey creators can choose from an ever-growing list of 50 validated scales, measuring aspects ranging from team conflict to personal initiative and transformational leadership. “The point of science is to develop knowledge that ultimately is to the benefit of society. Unfortunately, we are not always great in translating our knowledge so that it is usable for practitioners out there. With Texl we’re changing that,” explains Professor Niels Van Quaquebeke, ...

While chemotherapy has advanced in personalization, personalized radiation therapy for cancer remains underdeveloped. Current cancer treatment methods – including radiation therapy – are intricate, lack personalization, and rely heavily on the expertise of medical teams. Medical image analysis and machine learning hold great promise for enhancing personalized oncology. However, challenges persist such as limited high-quality data and data complexity. Wazir Muhammad, Ph.D., principal investigator and ...

HOUSTON and MIAMI ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Summit Therapeutics, Inc. today announced a strategic five-year collaboration agreement for the purpose of accelerating the development of ivonescimab. Leveraging MD Anderson’s clinical infrastructure and research expertise together with Summit’s innovative, investigational, potential first-in-class PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody, the collaboration is designed to quickly discover additional opportunities for ivonescimab, including several tumors outside of its current development plan. MD Anderson will lead multiple clinical trials in several tumor types to evaluate the safety and potential clinical ...

Scientists have known from ice core research that it's easier to melt an ice sheet than to freeze it up again. Now, they know at least part of the reason why, and it has to do with ice's "sponginess," according to a new study published July 24 in The Cryosphere. The study uses a physics-based numerical model to assess the impacts of warming and cooling on firn, the porous layer between snow and glacial ice, over the entire Greenland Ice Sheet. Megan Thompson-Munson, a CIRES and ATOC PhD student, led the study alongside ...

Houston, Texas, July 25, 2024 – The Texas Heart Institute (THI) and BiVACOR®, a clinical-stage medical device company, announced today the successful first-in-human implantation of the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart (TAH) as part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Early Feasibility Study (EFS) on July 9, 2024. BiVACOR’s TAH is a titanium-constructed biventricular rotary blood pump with a single moving part that utilizes a magnetically levitated rotor that pumps the blood and replaces both ventricles of a failing heart. The first-in-human clinical ...

University of Washington Researchers Take Flight with New Insights on Bat Evolution Video Interview with Authors - https://youtu.be/6rogrh2_HN0 In new research published in PeerJ Life & Environment, researchers from the University of Washington, University of Texas at Austin and Oregon Institute of Technology, led by undergraduate student Abby Burtner, have advanced our understanding of the evolutionary origins of flight in bats. The study, titled "Gliding toward an Understanding of the Origin of Flight in Bats," employs phylogenetic comparative methods to explore the evolutionary transition from gliding to powered flight in these unique mammals. Bats ...

HOUSTON – (June 25, 2024) – Rice University President Reginald DesRoches joined Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies Co-Director Maria Oden and Rice360 supporters on a trip to Africa this summer marking significant milestones on the road to ending preventable newborn deaths in the sub-Saharan region. Rice360 is one of 22 organizations in the Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies (NEST360) international alliance, and this trip signified Rice’s continued collaboration ...

4D Medicine, a spin-out from the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick has raised £3.4m ($4.4m) in a Series A investment.  The funding round was backed by Oshen Holdings, DSW Ventures, SFC Capital, Boundary Capital and private investors including several leading scientists and surgeons. It will enable the company to complete pre-clinical testing of its first product range and seek FDA clearance for entry into the US market. 4D is a UK-based company whose innovative biomaterial has potential to be used for a wide range of 3D printed implants and surgical devices.  Its product 4Degra is a resorbable biomaterial that is being used to develop ...

The findings, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, sheds light on some core principles of the evolution of modern biodiversity. In current oceans, molluscs such as clams, oysters, and snails are hugely diverse, with over 50,000 species, whereas brachiopods are rare by comparison with only 394 species known. But this was not always the case. The team have found that brachiopods were evolving new shell shapes and ecological behaviours following the end-Permian mass extinction which compromised their numbers. “In the Palaeozoic, from 540 to 250 million years ago, brachiopods ruled the seabed,” ...

In a scientific breakthrough, an international research team from Germany's Forschungszentrum Jülich and Korea's IBS Center for Quantum Nanoscience (QNS) developed a quantum sensor capable of detecting minute magnetic fields at the atomic length scale. This pioneering work realizes a long-held dream of scientists: an MRI-like tool for quantum materials. The research team utilized the expertise of bottom up single-molecule fabrication from the Jülich group while conducting experiments at QNS, utilizing the Korean team’s leading-edge ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ – Probably everyone has heard the conventional wisdom that a glass of wine a day is good for you--or you’ve heard some variation of it. The problem is that it’s based on flawed scientific research, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Over the years, many studies have suggested that moderate drinkers enjoy longer lives with lower risks of heart disease and other chronic ills than abstainers do. That spurred the widespread belief that alcohol, in moderation, can be a health tonic. However, not all studies have painted such a rosy picture--and the ...

The proliferation of all things digital doesn’t mean that printing technology is no longer relevant. In fact, printing technology is required to make the semiconductors necessary for the digital world. And as an Osaka Metropolitan University-led team has shown using a new printing technique, printable magnetic devices for high-density data storage might soon be realized. Dr. Ken-ichi Yuyama, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Science, and his colleagues report in APL Materials on the development of a new type of laser-induced forward transfer ...

A new major study by the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Oulu and Neurocenter Finland explored early-onset dementia in the working-age population in Finland. The study cohort was one of the largest in the world to date, and the findings were published on 24th of July 2024 in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Current epidemiological data on early-onset dementia is scarce and based on small study cohorts, with no recent data from Finland available. For the present ...

In modern day agriculture, pesticides are essential to ensure high enough crop yields and food security. These chemicals, however, can adversely affect plant and animal life as well as the people exposed to them. Now, in a population-based, nation-wide study, researchers in the US have put increased cancer risk through agricultural pesticide use into context with smoking, a better understood cancer risk factor. The results were published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society. “In our study we found that for some cancers, the effect of agricultural pesticide usage is comparable in magnitude to the effect of smoking,” said the study’s ...

Ubiquitous wireless technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 5G rely on radio frequency (RF) signals to send and receive data. A new prototype of an energy harvesting module – developed by a team led by scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) – can now convert ambient or ‘waste’ RF signals into direct current (DC) voltage. This can be used to power small electronic devices without the use of batteries. RF energy harvesting technologies, such as this, is essential as they reduce battery dependency, extend device lifetimes, minimise environmental impact, and enhance the feasibility of wireless sensor networks and IoT devices in remote ...

Researchers from the University of Otago, Christchurch, have spearheaded the discovery of a protein function which has the potential to guide the development of novel cancer treatment options and improve the diagnosis of various cancers. The exciting research finding, carried out alongside Dr Vanessa Morris from the University of Canterbury’s School of Biological Sciences as well as researchers in Australia and Denmark, centres on the activity of a tumour- suppressing protein called p16. The discovery, published in the British scientific journal Nature Communications and first authored by ...

LA JOLLA, CA—When seemingly healthy people receive an alert from a wearable sensor telling them they might have a respiratory virus—based on small changes in their unique heartrate, sleep and activity patterns—what do they do? According to a new study by Scripps Research scientists carried out at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, only a quarter of people follow up such an alert with an at-home viral test. That is just one conclusion of the new study, published in The Lancet Digital Health on July 24, 2024, which tested the feasibility ...

INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana University School of Medicine researchers have made a significant breakthrough in developing a new gene therapy approach that restores full-length dystrophin protein, which could lead to new treatments for people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The study, recently published in Nature Communications, demonstrates the effectiveness of their novel gene therapy technology in improving muscle tissue and overall strength in mice models with Duchenne ...

In the Middle Ages, alchemists were notoriously secretive and didn’t share their knowledge with others. Danish Tycho Brahe was no exception. Consequently, we don’t know precisely what he did in the alchemical laboratory located beneath his combined residence and observatory, Uraniborg, on the now Swedish island of Ven. Only a few of his alchemical recipes have survived, and today, there are very few remnants of his laboratory. Uraniborg was demolished after his death in 1601, and the building materials were scattered for reuse. However, during an excavation ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—The Pacific Northwest is set to begin work building out a clean hydrogen economy with today’s announcement of a Phase 1 funding award from the Department of Energy. The $27.5 million award to the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association (PNWH2), a multi-state nonprofit organization, will be matched by industry partners up to $125 million in Phase 1 of the project. DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will serve as an advisor to the PNWH2 by conducting life-cycle analysis to predict and understand the planned hydrogen energy infrastructure impact on decreasing emissions and aiding in community engagement.   Public ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Millions of adults have atrial fibrillation — an irregular beating of the upper chambers of the heart that yields increased risk of heart failure, stroke and death. Many genetic mutations in the developing fetus can lead to adult atrial fibrillation, including mutations that shorten the massive protein titin in cardiac muscle cells. Now, in a study in zebrafish and human heart muscle cells, researchers show that a tiny deletion in the A-band of titin — the loss of just nine amino acids out of more than 27,000 to 35,000 amino acids of an intact titin protein — causes a developmental ...

Prescribing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to people at high risk of harm from them is estimated to cost the NHS in England around £31 million and cause more than 6,000 lost years of good health over 10 years, finds a study published by The BMJ today. NSAIDs continue to be a source of avoidable harm and healthcare costs, and more needs to be done to address this, especially in high risk groups, say the researchers. NSAIDs are used for pain and inflammation and are one of the most widely prescribed groups of medicines in the world, But they are known to increase the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, heart attacks, stroke, and kidney damage. Yet ...

Wearing a surgical face mask in public spaces reduces the risk of self-reported respiratory symptoms, finds a trial of adults in Norway published by The BMJ today.  The effect was moderate - a 3.2% reduction in symptoms, equivalent to around 3,300 fewer infections per 100,000 people - but the researchers say these results support the claim that face masks may be an effective measure to reduce the rate of self-reported symptoms consistent with respiratory tract infections. Observational studies suggest that face masks reduce the risk of respiratory tract infections, but findings from randomised ...

Some private UK biobanks may be misleading expectant parents about the value of storing umbilical cord blood to treat life-threatening diseases that may arise in their child in the future, reveals an investigation by The BMJ, published today. Over the past decade growing numbers of parents have chosen to store blood from the umbilical cord, which contains stem cells, in case their infant develops a condition that could be treated with stem cell therapy. Parents must use a private biobank which charges around £550 ...