Since its discovery in the 1990s, “programmed cell death protein 1,” or PD-1, has been regarded as a leading target in cancer treatments. A “checkpoint” receptor that often resides on the surface of immune system cells, the PD-1 molecule works as a type of off switch that keeps immune cells from attacking other cells. After its discovery, which revolutionized oncology and earned a 2018 Nobel Prize, researchers developed new drugs to block PD-1 and unleash the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Yet treatments leveraging PD-1 are only effective in a small fraction of cancer patients, highlighting ...

A NASA X-ray imager is heading to the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis campaign, where it will capture the first global images of the magnetic field that shields Earth from solar radiation. The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager, or LEXI, instrument is one of 10 payloads aboard the next lunar delivery through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, set to launch from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than mid-January, with Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Lander. The instrument will support ...

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have attracted extensive attention due to their high safety, abundant reserves, and environmental friendliness. Iodine with high abundance in seawater (55 μg L−1) is highly promising to fabricate zinc-iodine batteries due to high theoretical capacity (211 mAh g−1) and appropriate redox potential (0.54 V). However, the low electrical conductivity of iodine hinders the redox conversion for the efficient energy storage process with zinc. Additionally, the formed soluble polyiodides are prone to migirate to Zn anode, leading to capacity degration and ...

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Many of these articles are available for early online access–they are peer-reviewed, but not yet in their final published form. Below is a selection of articles published early online recently. Some articles are open-access; to view others, members of the media can contact kpflaumer@ametsoc.org for press login credentials. JOURNAL ARTICLES The Impact of Snowoff Timing and Associated Atmospheric Drivers on the Alaska Wildfire Season Earth Interactions Earlier ...

AURORA, Colo. (Jan. 3, 2025) – A first of its kind study, published today in Pediatrics, has provided full-picture assessment of youth homelessness in Denver, Colorado. The findings reveal that nearly 25% of youth in Denver experienced homelessness or housing insecurity in 2021, with rates increasing almost every year since 2017. Researchers across Colorado, led by Josh Barocas, MD and resident Matthew Westfall, MD of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, combined multiple data sources for youth aged 14 to 17 in the City of Denver, to estimate the total number ...

The synchronization function of quantum memories can be employed to connect multiple short-distance entanglement into long-distance entanglement, so that to effectively overcome the transmission loss of photons and enable the construction of large-scale quantum networks. The rare-earth ions doped crystals is a candidate system for implementation of quantum memories with excellent performances, and integrated solid-state quantum memories have been successfully demonstrated with various micro- and nano- fabrication techniques. All previous demonstrations of integrated quantum memories for light are limited to the storage ...

University of Arizona researchers have revealed new insights into one of the most common complications faced by Parkinson's disease patients: uncontrollable movements that develop after years of treatment. Parkinson's disease – a neurological disorder of the brain that affects a person's movement – develops when the level of dopamine, a chemical in the brain that's responsible for bodily movements, begins to dwindle. To counter the loss of dopamine, a drug called levodopa is administered and later gets converted into dopamine in the brain. However, long-term treatment with levodopa induces ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, prenatal exposure to glucocorticoids was associated with higher risk of some mental disorders. These data support continued caution in the use of glucocorticoids in pregnant people. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kristina Laugesen, PhD, email kristina.laugesen@clin.au.dk. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.53245) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

About The Study: In this survey-based cross-sectional study of U.S. physician practices, social risk screening increased substantially from 2017 to 2022, although still less than one-third of practices systematically screened for a set of 5 common social risks (food, housing, utilities, interpersonal violence, and transportation). What remains to be seen is whether practices use these data to help improve patient health by adjusting health care or referring patients for assistance with social needs. As policies and incentives increasingly emphasize social risk screening, it will be important to assess the association of screening and referrals with patient ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study of Black and white older individuals found that childhood exposure to school segregation was associated with late-life cognition among the Black population. Given the increasing amount of school segregation in the U.S., educational policies aimed at reducing segregation are needed to address health inequities. Clinicians may leverage patients’ early-life educational circumstances to promote screening, prevention, and management of cognitive disorders. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Xi Chen, PhD, email xi.chen@yale.edu. To ...

A new study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center shows that clinical alerts driven by artificial intelligence (AI) can help doctors identify patients at risk for suicide, potentially improving prevention efforts in routine medical settings.  A team led by Colin Walsh, MD, MA, associate professor of Biomedical Informatics, Medicine and Psychiatry, tested whether their AI system, called the Vanderbilt Suicide Attempt and Ideation Likelihood model (VSAIL), could effectively prompt doctors in three neurology clinics at VUMC to screen patients for suicide risk during regular clinic visits.   The study, reported in JAMA Network Open, compared two approaches — automatic ...

A new study led by researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that many cases of high-risk nonmetastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer may be more advanced than previously thought. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, found that nearly half of high-risk prostate cancer patients previously classified as nonmetastatic by conventional imaging actually have metastatic disease when evaluated with advanced prostate-specific membrane antigen–positron emission tomography (PSMA-PET) ...

A new study led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History presents the oldest known example in the fossil record of an evolutionary arms race. These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred in the ocean covering what is now South Australia between a small, shelled animal distantly related to brachiopods and an unknown marine animal capable of piercing its shell. Described today in the journal Current Biology, the study provides the first demonstrable record of an evolutionary arms race in the Cambrian. “Predator-prey interactions are often touted as a major driver of the Cambrian explosion, ...

In April 2021, a provision in the 21st Century Cures act took effect which required that all medical test results be released to a patient’s electronic medical record as soon as they become available. As a result of this newer law, many patients are seeing and reading their test results even before their doctor has. The problem is that many medical reports aren’t written with patients in mind.  For example, “a standard pathology report is written by a pathologist for a clinical specialist like a surgeon or ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- For many nursing home residents, a trip to the hospital can be a jarring experience — one that leaves them confused and stressed. Yet avoidable transfers happen far too often, not only disrupting a resident’s routine but also costing the U.S. healthcare system $2.6 billion annually. When researchers at the University of Missouri recently looked at the decision-making process for whether or not to transfer nursing home residents to the hospital, they quickly discovered that it’s complicated — particularly for residents with cognitive impairment who may not ...

About 1 in 3 adults in the United States have prediabetes, a condition where blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.  Affecting 98 million adults, prediabetes can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. While it can be reversed, 8 in 10 adults are unaware that they even have prediabetes.  To counter this growing problem, the National Diabetes Prevention Program was created by the Centers for Disease Control and ...

Kosali Simon, PhD, M.A., a professor with the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a Regenstrief Institute research scientist; and Katherine Baicker, PhD, University of Chicago provost, will co-lead an expected nearly $16 million National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Aging (NIA) program to explore critical aspects of healthcare delivery for individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). This five-year research initiative aims to identify and address barriers to equitable and effective healthcare for this growing patient population. The ...

HOUSTON – (Jan. 3, 2025) – Rice University bioengineers have developed a new construction kit for building custom sense-and-respond circuits in human cells. The research, published in the journal Science, represents a major breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology that could revolutionize therapies for complex conditions like autoimmune disease and cancer. “Imagine tiny processors inside cells made of proteins that can ‘decide’ how to respond to specific signals like inflammation, tumor growth markers or blood sugar levels,” said Xiaoyu Yang, a graduate ...

Acetaldehyde is a vital chemical used in making everything from perfumes to plastics. Today, its production largely relies on ethylene, a petrochemical. But increasing environmental concerns are pushing the chemical industry to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, so scientists have been searching for greener ways to produce acetaldehyde. Currently, acetaldehyde is produced through the so-called “Wacker process”, a chemical synthesis method that uses ethylene from oil and natural gas with other chemicals such as strong acids, i.e. hydrochloric acid. The Wacker process not only has a large carbon footprint ...

Scientists have uncovered a powerful ally in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases: a nucleolar complex that plays a pivotal role in maintaining cellular health through protein homeostasis (proteostasis), by which cells maintain the balance and proper functioning of their proteins. By suppressing this complex, researchers have shown it’s possible to dramatically reduce the toxic effects of Alzheimer’s-causing proteins, boosting the cell’s natural defenses through enhanced degradation of hazardous proteins. This mechanism regulates proteostasis across tissues by modulating TGF-β signaling, a pathway involved in cell growth, differentiation, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Scientists including an Oregon State University chemistry researcher have taken a key step toward faster, more energy-efficient artificial intelligence, and data processing in general, with the discovery of luminescent nanocrystals that can be quickly toggled from light to dark and back again. “The extraordinary switching and memory capabilities of these nanocrystals may one day become integral to optical computing – a way to rapidly process and store information using light particles, which travel faster than anything in the ...

Brazil’s Bolsa Família Program (BFP), one of the world’s largest conditional cash transfer programmes, was responsible for the reduction of more than half the number of tuberculosis cases and deaths among those living in extreme poverty and indigenous groups, shows a large study coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by “la Caixa” Foundation, the Institute of Collective Health, and the CIDACS-FIOCRUZ in Bahia, Brazil. The findings, published in Nature ...

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 10AM (UK TIME) FRIDAY 3 JANUARY 2025.  Peer reviewed | Observational study | Cells      A genetic fault long believed to drive the development of oesophageal cancer may in fact play a protective role early in the disease, according to new research published in Nature Cancer. This unexpected discovery could help doctors identify which individuals are at greater risk of developing cancer, potentially leading to more personalised and effective preventive strategies.  “We ...

“In high-income countries like the U.S. or Germany, farmers receive less than a quarter of food spending, compared to over 70 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, where farming costs make up a larger portion of food prices,” says David Meng-Chuen Chen, PIK scientist and lead author of the study published in Nature Food. “This gap underscores how differently food systems function across regions.” The researchers project that as economies develop and food systems industrialise, farmers will increasingly receive a smaller share of consumer spending, a measure known as the ‘farm ...

Tumor cells circulating in the blood are the “germ cells” of breast cancer metastases. They are very rare and could not be propagated in the culture dish until now, which made research into therapy resistance difficult. A team from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the Heidelberg Stem Cell Institute HI-STEM* and the NCT Heidelberg** has now succeeded for the first time in cultivating stable tumor organoids directly from blood samples of breast cancer patients. Using these mini-tumors, the researchers ...