Prolonged use of certain progestogen hormone drugs is associated with an increased risk of developing a type of brain tumour known as an intracranial meningioma, finds a study from France published by The BMJ today. The researchers say this study is the first to assess the risk associated with progestogens used by millions of women worldwide, and further studies are urgently needed to gain a better understanding of this risk. Progestogens are similar to the natural hormone progesterone, which are widely used for gynaecological conditions such ...

Delirium is a strong risk factor for dementia and death among older people, finds the largest study of its kind published by The BMJ today.  The findings show that, among hospital patients with at least one episode of delirium, the risk of receiving a new dementia diagnosis was three times higher than for patients without delirium and each additional episode of delirium increased that risk by 20%.  The researchers say their findings support the theory that delirium has a strong independent effect on dementia risk in this clinical population. Delirium is a sudden change in a person’s usual mental state. Symptoms include agitation, confusion or being unable to stay ...

London, ON, March 27, 2024 – Dementia in unhoused people was 1.9 times greater than the general population, with a higher prevalence for age groups younger than 85 years, according to new research from Lawson Health Research Institute and ICES. In one of the first population-based studies of its kind and published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers compared dementia prevalence in people experiencing homeless with the general population and people living in low-income neighbourhoods in Ontario, Canada. “Not only did we find that dementia was more common among unhoused individuals, but the difference was greatest between the ages of 55 to ...

Metalenses, nano-artificial structures capable of manipulating light, offer a technology that can significantly reduce the size and thickness of traditional optical components. Particularly effective in the near-infrared region, this technology holds great promise for various applications such as LiDAR which is called the ‘eyes of the self-driving car’, miniature drones, and blood vessel detectors. Despite its potential, the current technology requires tens of millions of won even for fabricating a ...

A new cultural history of the 1970s wellness industry offers urgent lessons for today. It reveals that in the seventies, wellness was neither narcissistic nor self-indulgent, and nor did its practice involve buying expensive, on-trend luxury products. Instead, wellness emphasised social well-being just as much as it focused on the needs of the individual. Wellness practitioners thought of self-care as a way of empowering people to prioritise their health so that they could also enhance the well-being of those around them.   Today’s wellness industry generates trillions of dollars in revenue, ...

Curtin University-led research has discovered a rare dust particle trapped in an ancient extra-terrestrial meteorite that was formed by a star other than our sun. The discovery was made by lead author Dr Nicole Nevill and colleagues during her PhD studies at Curtin, now working at the Lunar and Planetary Science Institute in collaboration with NASA’s Johnson Space Centre. Meteorites are mostly made up of material that formed in our solar system and can also contain tiny particles which originate from stars born long before our sun. Clues that these particles, known as presolar grains, are relics from other stars ...

An investigation published by The BMJ today reveals new details of requests to recall striking junior doctors from picket lines for patient safety reasons.  Documents show that while most trusts in England did not make such requests, those that did were rejected by the BMA in most cases. Some of these trusts warned of potential harm to patients from cancelling operations at the last minute and short staffing, reports assistant news editor Gareth Iacobucci. However, the BMA said it takes ...

The University of Texas at Arlington is hosting an April 8 watch party that is open to the public so the community can join Maverick students, faculty and staff in viewing the first total solar eclipse visible in North Texas since 1878.   The party will offer food trucks, an audio program featuring eclipse experts from UTA’s faculty, and more. Visit UTA’s Solar-bration website for details, including parking information. The event is sponsored in part by Whataburger. For visitors, UTA is offering a limited number of free eclipse glasses available for pickup at viewing locations across campus. If you wish to guarantee that you will have glasses, or you need more ...

A team of researchers from Hiroshima University has discovered a molecule that promotes the production of cancer cells. This molecule may prove to be a potential therapeutic target in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of breast cancer. Their work was published in the journal Molecular Cancer Research on January 18, 2024.   Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer, ranking fifth among all cancers in cancer-related deaths. In 2020, there were 2.3 million new cases of breast cancers reported around the globe. In that year, breast cancer caused ...

MADISON — Researchers can use the light naturally thrown off by biological specimens to better study the different states of stem cells in the nervous system, thanks to a tool developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, brightening their chances for studying the way stem cells age. The UW–Madison team combined autofluorescence — that natural light emission — and sequencing genetic material in single cells to study the behavior of neural stem cells. Autofluorescence is often considered a hindrance, as it can obscure the glowing labels researchers use to track specific signals within a cell. In their new technique, however, the ...

*Please mention the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, 27-30 April) if using this material* A new research review to be presented at a pre-congress day for this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) will focus on the growing prevalence of HIV in older adults, with, using England as an example, half of adults accessing care aged now 50 years and older, and around 1 in 11 aged 65 years and older. Similar trends exist in Italy and other ...

Infectious disease expert addresses how to manage the rise in sexually transmitted infections in older adults. STIs in Americans aged 55 to 64 years have more than doubled over the past decade; in England the number of over 45s diagnosed with gonorrhoea and syphilis doubled between 2015 and 2019. Availability of sildenafil (Viagra) in late 1990s had an impact on STIs in older men. Sexual health campaigns overlook the needs and experiences of the baby boom generation. Health professionals must be proactive in discussing sexual concerns and making sexual health a routine part of general health care for older adults. **Note: ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (3/27/2024) — University of Minnesota Medical School researchers have introduced a new, refined method for analyzing brain signals, enhancing our understanding of brain functionality. This research has the potential to improve treatments for neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease, pain, epilepsy and depression. The findings were recently published in NeuroImage.  "This breakthrough provides a more detailed understanding of the brain's complex activity, akin to upgrading from a basic telescope to a sophisticated space observatory,” said David Darrow, MD, MPH, an assistant ...

•    New centre specifically focuses on using AI to improve society •    Current research is designed to improve transport, health and industry •    “There have been a lot of reports focusing on the negative use of AI...this is why the centre is so       important now.” Aston University researchers have marked the opening of a new centre which focuses on harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to improve people’s lives. The Aston ...

What would you do if you walked up to a robot with a human-like head and it smiled at you first? You’d likely smile back and perhaps feel the two of you were genuinely interacting. But how does a robot know how to do this? Or a better question, how does it know to get you to smile back? While we’re getting accustomed to robots that are adept at verbal communication, thanks in part to advancements in large language models like ChatGPT, their nonverbal communication skills, especially facial expressions, have lagged far behind. Designing a robot that can not only make a wide range ...

A community-led water-testing project made up of households that rely on private well water with high arsenic levels saw on average a 47 percent drop in participants’ urinary arsenic levels after filters were installed and a digital health program was implemented, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Over the two-year study period, participating households received phone calls to encourage use of the filter and a reminder to replace the filter cartridge.  For the study—a ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. — By engaging regularly with their family dog and teaching it a series of tricks and commands, children with developmental disabilities experienced a significant increase in their daily physical activity, a new study from Oregon State University researchers found. Children in the experimental group increased their moderate to vigorous physical activity by 17 minutes per day, while simultaneously reducing their sedentary time by nearly an hour per day. “We often talk about physical activity as just fitness or exercise, but ...

The emergence of ultrafast laser pulse generation, marking a significant milestone in laser science, has triggered incredible progress across a wide array of disciplines, encompassing industrial applications, energy technologies, life sciences, and beyond. Among the various laser platforms that have been developed, fiber femtosecond oscillators, esteemed for their compact design, outstanding performance, and cost-effectiveness, have become one of the mainstream technologies for femtosecond pulse generation. However, their operating wavelengths ...

The Sun’s differential rotation pattern has puzzled scientists for decades: while the poles rotate with a period of approximately 34 days, mid-latitudes rotate faster and the equatorial region requires only approximately 24 days for a full rotation. In addition, in past years advances in helioseismology, i.e. probing the solar interior with the help of solar acoustic waves, have established that this rotational profile is nearly constant throughout the entire convection zone. This layer of the Sun stretches ...

BOSTON – Tuberculosis (TB) is often overlooked in developed countries such as the United States, but this bacterial infection remains one of the deadliest diseases globally and results in millions of deaths annually. Deaths can occur even with treatment, sometimes because of drug resistance in TB bacteria and other times due to poor delivery of TB-targeting drugs to patients’ infected lung tissue. To address the latter challenge, a team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in collaboration with scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – Artificial intelligence (AI) may serve as a future tool for neurologists to help locate where in the brain a stroke occurred. In a new study, AI processed text from health histories and neurologic examinations to locate lesions in the brain. The study, which looked specifically at the large language model called generative pre-trained transformer 4 (GPT-4), is published in the March 27, 2024, online issue of Neurology® Clinical Practice, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology. A stroke can ...

High fat/low protein diets in rats during pregnancy and postnatally may cause altered glucose control and other "maladaptive" metabolic changes in their offspring ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299554 Article Title: Intrauterine and early-life malnutrition in rats disrupts the circadian rhythm programming of energy metabolites through adulthood Author Countries: México Funding: This research was partially supported by PD-LBAE-FC UNAM 2015-2019, DGAPA ...

Just 1 in 14 adults across 55 LMICs who have both hypertension and diabetes have both conditions under adequate control, with only 20-30% of patients taking medications, indicating a lack of adequate healthcare in these settings. ====== Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0003019 Article Title: Multiple cardiovascular risk factor care in 55 low- and middle-income countries: A cross-sectional analysis of nationally-representative, individual-level data from 280,783 adults Author Countries: ...

Emotional reactions to climate change may lead to specific policy preferences, according to a study published March 27, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Teresa A. Myers of George Mason University and colleagues. A politician, public speaker, or journalist may opt for an emotional appeal when communicating about climate change. Indeed, research shows that emotional investment can raise awareness of important issues and galvanize an otherwise apathetic public. However, existing research has not explored the unique links between specific ...

At the heart of a far-off galaxy, a supermassive black hole appears to have had a case of the hiccups.  Astronomers from MIT, Italy, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere have found that a previously quiet black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy about 800 million light years away, has suddenly erupted, giving off plumes of gas every 8.5 days before settling back to its normal, quiet state.  The periodic hiccups are a new behavior that has not been observed in black ...