Researchers Toru Miyamoto, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita of the University of Tokyo have discovered the first species pollinated by sap beetles in the genus Pandanus, a group of palm-like plants native to the tropics and subtropics of Africa and Eurasia. The discovery overturned the long-held belief that these plants were pollinated by wind. The researchers also found that fragrant screw pines’ male and female flowers produced heat at night stably, making them the first such species in the family Pandanaceae. The findings were published in ...

A new Kaiser Permanente study found that a health coaching intervention successfully reduced sitting time for a group of older adults by just over 30 minutes a day. Study participants also showed meaningful improvements in blood pressure, comparable to the effect of other interventions focused on physical activity.  The study was published March 27 in JAMA Network Open and included 283 Kaiser Permanente Washington members aged 60-89. Older adults typically sit for between 65 and 80 percent of the hours that they are awake, and strong evidence shows that ...

About The Study: Individuals at high genetic risk of obesity needed higher daily step counts to reduce the risk of obesity than those at moderate or low genetic risk in this study of 3,124 adults. Population-based recommendations may underestimate physical activity needed to prevent obesity among those at high genetic risk.  Authors: Evan L. Brittain, M.D., M.Sc., and Douglas M. Ruderfer, Ph.D., of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/   (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3821) Editor’s Note: Please ...

Using patient data from six major U.S. cancer centers, Brigham researchers and collaborators developed a risk prediction model for moderate-to-severe kidney injury after receiving the chemotherapy drug cisplatin in the largest, first generalizable study of its kind Cisplatin is a highly effective chemotherapy that has been used to treat cancer for decades, but it can cause kidney injury that can potentially lead to the discontinuation of life-saving cancer treatments. Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, with researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other institutions, ...

About The Study: High prices limit access to newer diabetes medicines in many countries. The findings of this study suggest that robust generic and biosimilar competition could reduce prices to more affordable levels and enable expansion of diabetes treatment globally.  Authors: Melissa J. Barber, Ph.D., of the Yale Collaboration for Regulatory Rigor, Integrity, and Transparency 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/jamanetworkopen.2024.3474) Editor’s ...

Persons with a higher genetic risk of obesity need to work out harder than those of moderate or low genetic risk to avoid becoming obese, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) paper published in JAMA Network Open.   Study authors used activity, clinical and genetic data from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program to explore the association of genetic risk of higher body mass index and the level of physical activity needed to reduce incident obesity.   “Physical activity guidelines do not ...

Evanston, IL – The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is pleased to announce the results of its 2024 election. Lorenz Studer, MD, founding director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and member of the Developmental Biology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA, will become the next Vice President. All terms of office for the new leaders will begin on 1 July 2024. The following three members were newly elected to the ISSCR Board of Directors for a three-year term: Jacqueline Barry, PhD, ...

McGill researchers have discovered a safer and more efficient technique for testing new drugs while they are in development. “Because this approach is so much more streamlined, it could help accelerate this step in the drug development process and make it less dangerous, since probing the distribution and fate of a drug in the body is required for any pharmaceutical candidate to be approved,” says Bruce A. Arndtsen, a James McGill Professor who teaches in the Department of Chemistry at McGill and is the senior author on the paper describing the new process, published recently in Nature Chemistry. “This research replaces what can be a days’ long, dangerous and ...

FRANKFURT. In 2022, scientists of the EHT unveiled the first image of Sgr A* – which is approximately 27,000 light-years away from Earth – revealing that the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole looks remarkably similar to M87’s, even though it is more than a thousand times smaller and less massive.  This made scientists wonder whether the two shared common traits outside of their looks. To find out, the team decided to study Sgr A* in polarized light. Previous studies of light around M87* had shown that the magnetic fields around the gigantic black hole allowed it to launch powerful jets of material back into the surrounding environment. ...

Imagine being middle aged and starting to feel that you are off balance a lot and that you are having a hard time coordinating your movements. Those are among the symptoms of Spinocerebellar ataxia type 6, known as SCA6, a rare neurodegenerative disease which typically appears in adulthood and worsens over time. Over time, other problems such as slurred speech and difficulty seeing or seeing double, may also appear. It is estimated that fewer than 5,000 people in the US have the condition, which is the result of genetic mutations in the cerebellum. The disease currently has no cure. But this may change, thanks to a new discovery made by McGill researchers. In ...

Elevated surface ozone concentrations in China are posing a significant threat to both human health and crop yields. Extreme heat can greatly exacerbate ozone pollution through both complex chemical and physical processes. For example, extreme heat is often accompanied by stagnant weather conditions, which can lead to the accumulation and subsequent elevation of ozone. Considering that extreme heat events have been becoming increasingly frequent in recent decades, and are also expected to do so on into the future, effective control strategies to reduce ozone pollution risks are urgently needed. Therefore, a research group led by Prof. Ke ...

AURORA, Colo. (March 27, 2024) – Researchers have identified a protein that, when targeted, enables cisplatin-resistant cancer cells to become responsive to treatment. Cisplatin, and other similar platinum drugs, are incredibly effective at killing rapidly growing cancer cells, which is why they have been used in treating cancers for over 45 years. However, these drugs are non-targeted and can cause debilitating toxic side effects, resulting in a diminished lifestyle, and patients in poor health are deemed ineligible for use. In a study, published today in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers say they ...

Dedicated memory tests on smartphones enable the detection of “mild cognitive impairment”, a condition that may indicate Alzheimer’s disease, with high accuracy. Researchers from DZNE, the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States who collaborated with the Magdeburg-based company “neotiv” report these findings in the scientific journal npj Digital Medicine. Their study is based on data from 199 older adults. The results underline the potential of mobile apps for Alzheimer’s disease research, clinical trials and routine medical care. The app that ...

Washington, D.C.—With resistance to chemical antibiotics on the rise, the world needs entirely new forms of antibiotics. A new study published in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, shows that an enzymatic cocktail can kill a variety of mycobacterial species of bacteria, including those that cause tuberculosis. The research was carried out by scientists at Colorado State University and Endolytix Technologies. “We have a mycobacterial drug that works for Nontuberculous Mycobacteria and M. tuberculosis that is biological, not phage therapy, and not small molecule antibiotics,” said Jason Holder, Ph.D., a study coauthor ...

New research from Cedars-Sinai suggests people who are scheduled for certain medical procedures should stop taking popular weight loss drugs in the days or weeks prior to avoid complications. Investigators found glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) —medications like Ozempic and Wegovy that are used to treat diabetes and obesity—are associated with an increased risk of aspiration pneumonia following endoscopy. The large, population-based study is published in the leading ...

SOMERVILLE, TEXAS, March 27, 2024- The Pecan Breeding and Genetics Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) recently completed a $2.5 million laboratory modernization to accelerate pecan breeding through innovations in genetics and plant disease research. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on March 26 to commemorate the completion of the project. Pecan trees represent North America's native nut tree and a multimillion-dollar crop. These trees have been cultivated commercially for less than 150 years. It takes an average of 28 years from planting ...

Liver disease is a major health concern, causing millions of deaths worldwide each year. One serious complication is liver fibrosis, scarring that can lead to liver failure. There is currently no effective treatment, but new research suggests promise for exosomes, tiny sacs released by cells. Non-parenchymal cells like hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), Kupffer cells (KCs), and liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) play a key role in fibrosis development. These cells are involved in inflammation, scar formation, and tissue repair. Understanding ...

Flexible solar cells have many potential applications in aerospace and flexible electronics, but low energy conversion efficiency has limited their practical use. A new manufacturing method has increased the power efficiency of flexible solar cells made from perovskite, a class of compounds with a specific crystalline structure that facilitates the conversion of solar energy into electricity.   Current flexible perovskite solar cells (FPSCs) suffer from lower power conversion efficiency than ...

A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration— which includes scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA)— has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This similarity also hints toward a hidden ...

People with specific genetic traits and those who have anxiety or depression have a significantly higher heart attack risk during periods of social or political stress than at other times, according to a new study being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. Researchers said the findings suggest opportunities to identify those at elevated risk and perhaps even prevent cardiac events. Doctors have long noticed that heart attacks tend to spike around certain times, such as the winter holidays, but the reasons ...

Young adults who were prescribed stimulant medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were significantly more likely to develop cardiomyopathy (weakened heart muscle) compared with those who were not prescribed stimulants, in a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. The study found that people prescribed stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin were 17% more likely to have cardiomyopathy at one year and 57% more likely to have cardiomyopathy at eight years compared with those who were not taking these medications. Cardiomyopathy involves structural ...

Sleeping fewer than seven hours is associated with a higher risk of developing high blood pressure over time, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. While the association between sleep patterns and high blood pressure has been reported, evidence about the nature of this relationship has been inconsistent, according to researchers. The current analysis pools data from 16 studies conducted between January 2000 and May 2023, evaluating hypertension incidence in 1,044,035 people from six countries who did not have a prior history of high blood pressure over a median follow-up of five years (follow-up ranged from 2.4 to 18 years). ...

Many new drugs inhibit the processes that cancer cells need to divide rapidly. So as to inhibit the cancer as a whole. But cancer cells have all sorts of workarounds to get around that effect. As a result, the tumor becomes unresponsive to treatment. That's why researcher Matheus dos Santos Dias is taking a completely different approach. He had to convince some colleagues before he could start working on this quite surprising idea. After all, you're not going to give cancer cells a boost, are you? "We're going against the prevailing view that you can only fight cancer cells by inhibiting them," he knows. "But we had strong evidence that it also works if you overstimulate ...

This unusual, subterranean mammal with extreme longevity shows genetic adaptations to low oxygen environments which could offer opportunities for advancing other areas of physiological and medical research in humans, including the development of novel therapeutic approaches.  New research from Queen Mary University of London led by Dr Dunja Aksentijevic in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry has revealed that that the genome of the naked mole-rat contains specific adaptations that allow them to survive in low-oxygen, and even no oxygen environments ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Understanding the structure of proteins is critical for demystifying their functions and developing drugs that target them. To that end, a team of researchers at Brown University has developed a way of using machine learning to rapidly predict multiple protein configurations to advance understanding of protein dynamics and functions. A study describing the approach was published in Nature Communications on Wednesday, March 27. The authors say the technique is accurate, fast, cost-effective and has the potential to revolutionize drug discovery ...