Berlin, Germany – 7 April 2024:  Exposure to secondhand smoke – even at small amounts – is linked with greater risk of a serious heart rhythm disorder, according to research presented at EHRA 2024, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The likelihood of atrial fibrillation increased as the duration of passive smoking lengthened.  “The dangers of secondhand smoke were significant regardless of whether individuals were at home, outdoors, or at work, indicating that exposure universally elevates the risk of atrial ...

Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) can be prevented for up to nine years in more than half of people given an oral spray-based vaccine and is a potential alternative to antibiotic treatments, finds research. Initial results from the first long-term follow-up study of the safety and effectiveness of the MV140 vaccine for recurrent UTIs are presented this weekend at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris. They show that in both men and women with recurrent UTIs, 54% of study participants remained UTI-free for nine years after the vaccine, with no notable side effects reported. Full results of the study are expected to be published ...

About The Study: This systematic review and meta-analysis including data on 1.1 million cases of infective endocarditis found that antibiotic prophylaxis was associated with a reduced risk of infective endocarditis following invasive dental procedures in individuals at high risk but not in those at moderate or low/unknown risk. Currently, there is insufficient data to support any benefit of antibiotic prophylaxis in individuals at moderate risk.  Authors: Federica Turati, Ph.D., of the ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of patients without severe aortic stenosis undergoing echocardiography or cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, a new artificial intelligence (AI)-based video biomarker was independently associated with aortic stenosis development and progression, enabling opportunistic risk stratification across cardiovascular imaging modalities as well as potential application on handheld devices.  Authors: Rohan Khera, M.D., M.S., of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2024.0595) Editor’s ...

Inter-atrial shunts—investigational devices that create a small pathway for blood to pass from the left to the right side of the heart in order to improve heart failure symptoms and outcomes—may be beneficial to heart failure patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) but harmful or even deadly for heart failure patients with preserved LVEF, a new Mount Sinai-led study shows.   The findings of the RELIEVE-HF trial were announced during the opening late-breaking trial session at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions on Saturday, April 6. This is the first study ...

About The Study: In this preliminary descriptive report from an ongoing randomized clinical trial, one additional high-grade cancer per 196 men and one low-grade cancer per 909 men were detected among those randomized to be invited to undergo a single prostate cancer screening intervention compared with those not invited to undergo screening. These preliminary findings from a single round of screening should be interpreted cautiously, pending results of the study’s primary mortality outcome.  Authors: Anssi ...

About The Study: A single invitation for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening compared with standard practice without routine screening reduced prostate cancer deaths at a median follow-up of 15 years in this secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial. However, the absolute reduction in deaths was small.  Authors: Richard M. Martin, B.M., B.S., Ph.D., of the University of Bristol in Bristol, United Kingdom, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.4011) Editor’s ...

The largest study to date investigating a single invitation to a PSA blood test* to screen for prostate cancer has found it had a small impact on reducing deaths, but also led to overdiagnosis and missed early detection of some aggressive cancers.  The CAP trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and carried out by researchers from the universities of Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge, involved over 400,000 men aged 50-69. Just under half received a single invitation for a PSA test as part of the trial.  After following up for 15 years, there was a small difference in the number of men who died from prostate cancer between the ...

A simple blood test every five years is sufficient to screen low risk men for prostate cancer, new research has shown. The PSA blood test checks the level of prostate-specific antigen, a marker for prostate cancer. In Europe, only Lithuania routinely screens men for prostate cancer based on their PSA levels, as the test has historically been seen as insufficiently reliable. The German study, presented at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris today [April 6, 2024], involved over 12,500 men aged between 45-50 taking part in the ongoing ...

A simple urine test can more than halve the number of cystoscopies necessary to follow up high-risk bladder cancer patients, new research has found. Cystoscopies involve inserting a flexible probe through the urethra into the bladder, which allows a clinician to look at the bladder lining for signs of cancer. While they are predominantly safe procedures, cystoscopies do incur some risk of urinary infections and bleeding. They can also cause pain and discomfort. Initial results from a two-year study, presented today ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new 16-week study of 204 adult epilepsy patients found that 98% of participants believe that all patients with epilepsy should have a seizure action plan (SAP), regardless of seizure status. These plans can help patients with epilepsy to safely manage seizure emergencies. But healthcare providers don’t always discuss them with their patients. Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine found that standardizing a structured SAP can help adults with epilepsy safely manage seizures. Study findings published online today in the journal Neurology: Clinical Practice. “Our work suggests that simple discussions between ...

By Shawn Ballard Optical sensors serve as the backbone of numerous scientific and technological endeavors, from detecting gravitational waves to imaging biological tissues for medical diagnostics. These sensors use light to detect changes in properties of the environment they’re monitoring, including chemical biomarkers and physical properties like temperature. A persistent challenge in optical sensing has been enhancing sensitivity to detect faint signals amid noise. New research from Lan Yang, the Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering in the McKelvey School ...

When you throw dinosaurs into the mix, sometimes you find that a rule simply isn’t. A new study led by scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Reading calls into question Bergmann’s rule, an 1800s-era scientific principle stating that animals in high-latitude, cooler climates tend to be larger than close relatives living in warmer climates. The fossil record shows otherwise. “Our study shows that the evolution of diverse body sizes in dinosaurs and mammals cannot be reduced to simply being a function of latitude or temperature,” said Lauren Wilson, a UAF graduate student and a lead author ...

WASHINGTON  –  U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) researchers have developed a patent-pending Continuous 3D-Cooled Atom Beam Interferometer derived from a patented cold and continuous beam of atoms to explore atom-interferometry-based inertial measurement systems as a path to reduce drift in Naval navigation systems.   Inertial navigation is a self-contained navigation technique in which measurements provided by accelerometers and gyroscopes are used to track the position and orientation of an object relative to a known starting point, orientation and velocity. Quantum inertial navigation is a new field of research and ...

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) have helped to detect a remarkable gravitational-wave signal, which could hold the key to solving a cosmic mystery. The discovery is from the latest set of results announced today (5 April) by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, which comprises more than 1,600 scientists from around the world, including members of the ICG, that seeks to detect gravitational waves and use them for exploration of fundamentals of science. In May 2023, shortly after ...

The Common Loon, an icon of the northern wilderness, is under threat from climate change due to reduced water clarity, according to a new study authored by Chapman University professor, Walter Piper.  The study, published April 1 in Ecology, followed up an earlier paper that showed substantial reproductive decline in the author’s study area in northern Wisconsin.  The paper is the first clear evidence demonstrating an effect of climate change on this charismatic species. Specifically, the paper shows that July rainfall results in reduced July water clarity in loon territories. Reduced water clarity, in turn, ...

The same class of artificial intelligence that made headlines coding software and passing the bar exam has learned to read a different kind of text — the genetic code. That code contains instructions for all of life’s functions and follows rules not unlike those that govern human languages. Each sequence in a genome adheres to an intricate grammar and syntax, the structures that give rise to meaning. Just as changing a few words can radically alter the impact of a sentence, small variations in a biological sequence can make a huge ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Before the evolution of legs from fins, the axial skeleton — including the bones of the head, neck, back and ribs — was already going through changes that would eventually help our ancestors support their bodies to walk on land. A research team including a Penn State biologist completed a new reconstruction of the skeleton of Tiktaalik, the 375-million-year-old fossil fish that is one of the closest relatives to limbed vertebrates. The new reconstruction shows that the fish’s ribs likely attached to its pelvis, an innovation thought to be crucial to supporting the body and for the eventual evolution of walking. A paper describing the new ...

A groundbreaking was held Friday, April 5, for the Roy Blunt Soil Testing and Research Laboratory at the University of Missouri’s Fisher Delta Research, Extension and Education Center (FD-REEC) in Portageville, Mo. “As a longtime Delta Day attendee and Delta Center advocate, I’m pleased to have been part of spearheading a new facility that will support existing university programs while inspiring research among future generations of students,” former Sen. Blunt said. “It is an honor to have my name connected with this world-class facility ...

From star-stuff to software; hoagies to humans, each entity is alive and occupies its own private place in the cosmos. Grant Strate University Professor in SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA) Laura U. Marks’ new book The Fold offers a practical philosophy and aesthetic theory for living in an infinitely connected cosmos. Analyzing fiction, film, interactive media, and everyday situations, Marks outlines methods for detecting and augmenting the connections between each living entity and the cosmos. The Fold shows it ...

By Jade Boyd Special Rice News Rice University physicists have discovered a phase-changing quantum material — and a method for finding more like it — that could potentially be used to create flash-like memory capable of storing quantum bits of information, or qubits, even when a quantum computer is powered down. Phase-changing materials have been used in commercially available non-volatile digital memory . In rewritable DVDs, for example, a laser is used to heat minute bits of material that cools to form either crystals or amorphous clumps. Two phases ...

The IEEE Photonics Journal, the IEEE Photonics Society’s open access journal providing rapid publication of top-quality peer-reviewed papers at the forefront of photonics research, has released a Special Issue on "Globalization in Photonics", which provides a several detailed overviews of various worldwide developments in photonics. This all-invited special issue is a collection based on a series of presentations from the “Symposium on Globalization in Photonics Research & Development” at the ...

  East Hanover, NJ – April 5, 2024 – March job numbers showed minimal changes for people with disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) semi-monthly update issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Despite small declines in the employment-to-population ratio over the past four months, employment remains at historically high levels for people with disabilities. The small gain in their labor force participation rate is a positive sign that people with disabilities are still engaging in the labor market by looking for ...

Irvine, Calif., April 5, 2024 — A research team led by the University of California, Irvine has built the first genetic reference maps for short lengths of DNA repeated multiple times which are known to cause more than 50 lethal human diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington’s disease and multiple cancers. The UC Irvine Tandem Genome Aggregation Database enables researchers to study how these mutations – called tandem repeat expansions – are connected to diseases, ...

NEW YORK—A study by New York and Rocky Mountain U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs researchers showed blast exposure can cause intestinal permeability, a condition that can lead to gut bacteria entering the bloodstream and causing problems in other parts of the body. The study was the first to show a connection between blasts and intestinal permeability in a real-world operational setting. Researchers found biomarkers of intestinal permeability and signs of bacteria in the blood in 23 of 30 military breachers who were exposed to controlled, low-level explosive blasts during training. The ...