INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana University School of Medicine scientists are on a mission to understand why hematopoietic stem cells, responsible for producing all types of mature blood cells, exhibit better responses in a low-oxygen environment within the bone marrow, also known as hypoxia. Their discoveries and innovative approaches could influence treatment options like bone marrow transplantation for conditions such as bone marrow failure and rare blood diseases involving gene corrected stem cells. A new four-year, ...

CV Societies Propel Plans Forward for a New American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine Planning enters next phase as ABMS announces open comment period WASHINGTON (April 25, 2024) – Efforts by the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Heart Failure Society of America, Heart Rhythm Society and The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions to create a new, independent American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine under the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) are closer to becoming a reality with the creation of a formal Board of Directors and the announcement by the ABMS Advisory Board on Specialty Board Development of an open comment ...

Hebrew SeniorLife is among the 30 US health systems nationally, and the only one in Massachusetts selected to participate in the Age-Friendly System-Wide Spread Collaborative. This first-of-its-kind Collaborative, led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), will accelerate and spread the adoption of evidence-based, high-quality care for older adults across all of their sites and care settings. The Collaborative is the latest endeavor of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, which promotes four evidence-based elements of high-quality care known as ...

A new tool to identify infants most at risk for severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) illness could aid pediatricians in prioritizing children under 1 to receive a preventive medication before RSV season (October-April), according to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) research published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases and to be presented at the American Thoracic Society 2024 International Conference.  Study authors considered factors including birth month, birth weight and whether an infant has siblings to determine who is most at risk of severe RSV illness ...

Several municipal, county, and Tribal governments and community groups based in the Reno-Sparks area are teaming up to map the hottest parts of Reno, Sparks, and adjacent portions of Washoe County. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is partnering with the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development to map urban heat islands. “Urban heat islands are when urbanized areas have higher temperatures than outlying rural areas,” said Tom Albright, Nevada State Climatologist ...

A multicenter study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy in Nashville has identified a potential new treatment for acute heart failure, a leading cause of hospitalization and death.   The drug, dapagliflozin, was initially approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, but it since has been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization for heart failure and death in patients with serious health problems that include heart and chronic kidney disease and heightened cardiovascular risk.   Reporting this month in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the researchers found ...

New York (April 25, 2024) — Today, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) announced that Rainier P. Soriano, MD, will be honored with the Dennis W. Jahnigen Memorial Award, recognizing his significant contributions to the education of health professionals in geriatric care. Dr. Soriano's exemplary work in teaching, curriculum development, educational leadership, research, service, and mentorship has markedly improved the knowledge, competence, and skills of those caring for older adults. This prestigious award highlights his dedication ...

As summer approaches, electricity demand surges in the U.S., as homes and businesses crank up the air conditioning. To meet the rising need, many East Coast cities are banking on offshore wind projects the country is building in the Atlantic Ocean. For electric grid operators, knowing how much wind power these offshore turbines can harvest is critical, but making accurate predictions can be difficult. A team of scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and their collaborators are working to tackle the challenge.  In a new paper published March 14 in the journal Wind Energy Science, a team led by Dave Rosencrans, a doctoral student, and Julie K. Lundquist, a ...

A University of Massachusetts Amherst sleep scientist, funded with $6.7 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has launched two unprecedented studies that will track over time the brain development of infants and preschoolers to confirm the role of napping in early life and to identify the bioregulatory mechanisms involved. Rebecca Spencer, a professor of psychological and brain sciences who is well-known for her groundbreaking research into napping, is testing her theories ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research points to an economic factor that might be overlooked when considering why drug-related deaths among Black Americans increased significantly after 2010 in U.S. regions reporting heightened fentanyl activity: job losses that followed the Great Recession. Researchers analyzed data on employment, demographics, drug seizures and causes of death for over 200 counties in the United States between 2010 and 2021. They found that overall, one more job per 100 Black workers in a county was associated with .29 fewer overdose deaths per 100,000 Black Americans – a substantial difference when considering that the latest drug mortality rate stands ...

DALLAS, April 25, 2024 — One school in each of the 32 National Football League (NFL) team hometowns has won a $1,000 grant for physical activity equipment as a part of the American Heart Association and the NFL’s NFL PLAY 60 Fitness Tracking Competition. The competition encouraged classrooms to get moving for at least 60 minutes every day and log their movement minutes through the NFL PLAY 60 app. Physical activity positively impacts overall mental and physical wellness which is essential to help children reach their full potential. The number of winning schools corresponds to the number of NFL franchise teams while Rosholt High ...

Eggs and nesting baby birds exposed to moderate levels of anthropogenic traffic noise experience large, direct, and additive adverse effects on long-term development and fitness, according to a new study. The findings underscore the disruptive properties of noise on physiology, development, and reproduction, leading to lifelong fitness reduction, and call for a reassessment of the threat posed by anthropogenic noise and the need for noise mitigation measures. Noise pollution has become a global issue of concern, even in Earth’s ...

Dietary vitamin D modulates the gut microbiome to enhance the response to cancer immunotherapies, according to a new study in mice. The findings illuminate the poorly understood connection between vitamin D and immune responses to cancer via gut bacteria and suggest that vitamin D levels could serve as a potential determinant of cancer immunity and immunotherapy success. Vitamin D plays an important role in immune modulation as well as shaping the gut microbiome. Studies have also investigated the micronutrient’s role in cancer immunity as it’s been linked to both lower incidence of tumors and decreased mortality for several types of cancers and ...

A global meta-analysis of 186 studies reveals that conservation actions – particularly those targeted at species and ecosystems – yield significant positive impacts on biodiversity, according to a new study. Each year, billions of dollars are spent globally on conservation actions designed to halt and/or reverse the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems. Despite this, many international conservation goals, including those set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, remain unmet. While it could be concluded that current actions are insufficient or ineffective, researchers lack an understanding of how conservation actions ...

In a Policy Forum, Yann Robiou du Pont and colleagues argue that any method to derive company-level emissions targets inherently distorts competition in favor of existing companies and penalizes emerging or growing businesses. According to du Pont et al., despite their growing importance, companies’ emissions targets are not meaningful indicators to assess the ambition of their decarbonization plans and their alignment with the Paris Agreement. To meet international climate goals, it’s well understood that the ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 19:00 BST Thursday 25 April 2024 Peer reviewed Experimental study Animals and people Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Aalborg University in Denmark, have found that vitamin D encourages the growth of a type of gut bacteria in mice which improves immunity to cancer. Reported today in Science, the researchers found that mice given a diet rich in vitamin D had better immune resistance to experimentally transplanted cancers and improved ...

Scientists have called for a concerted global effort to stem the tide of disposable electronic technologies – such as vapes – contributing to international waste accumulation and environmental degradation. Writing in the journal Science, researchers from across the UK have highlighted how disposable vape sales quadrupled in the UK between 2022 and 2023, with consumers now throwing away around 5 million devices each week. In the United States, 4.5 disposable vapes are thrown away each second, and it is fast becoming an issue replicated right across the world. One of the main upshots, scientists say, is that vapes and other disposable ...

A new study published online today, April 25, in the scientific journal Science provides the strongest evidence to date that not only is nature conservation successful, but that scaling conservation interventions up would be transformational for halting and reversing biodiversity loss—a crisis that can lead to ecosystem collapses and a planet less able to support life—and reducing the effects of climate change. The findings of this first-ever comprehensive meta-analysis of the impact of conservation action ...

For most human proteins, there are no small molecules known to bind them chemically (so called “ligands”). Ligands frequently represent important starting points for drug development but this knowledge gap critically hampers the development of novel medicines. Researchers at CeMM, in a collaboration with Pfizer, have now leveraged and scaled a method to measure the binding activity of hundreds of small molecules against thousands of human proteins. This large-scale study revealed tens of thousands of ligand-protein interactions that can now be explored for the development of chemical tools and therapeutics. Moreover, ...

What happens in the body when we are hungry and see and smell food? A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research has now been able to show in mice that adaptations in the liver mitochondria take place after only a few minutes. Stimulated by the activation of a group of nerve cells in the brain, the mitochondria of the liver cells change and prepare the liver for the adaptation of the sugar metabolism. The findings, published in the journal Science, could open up new avenues for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The researchers ...

Global biodiversity has declined between 2% and 11% during the 20th century due to land-use change alone, according to a large multi-model study published in Science. The projections show that climate change could become the main driver of biodiversity decline by the mid-21st century. Land-use change is considered the largest driver of biodiversity change, according to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). However, scientists are divided over how much biodiversity has changed in past decades. To better answer this question, an international team of researchers modeled the impacts of land-use change ...

Companies’ emissions reduction targets should not be the sole measure of corporate climate ambition, according to a new perspective paper. Relying on emissions can favour more established companies and hinder innovation, say the authors, who suggest updating regulations to improve corporate climate action. The paper, published today in Science, is by an international team led by Utrecht University, which includes Imperial College London researchers. Lead author of the study Dr Yann Robiou Du Pont, from the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht ...

Exploratory behavior is one of the fundamental personality traits of animals – and these traits influence their probability of survival, among other things. For example, curious individuals can inhabit different areas in their habitats compared to more cautious conspecifics. At the same time, however, they expose themselves to a greater risk of being discovered and eaten. Exploratory behavior as a factor in evolution The cichlids of Africa’s Lake Tanganyika exhibit extraordinary diversity in terms ...

Climate change is a global phenomenon, but its impacts are felt at a very local level. Take, for example, dust. Dust can have a huge impact on local air quality, food security, energy supply and public health. Yet, little is known about how global climate change is impacting dust levels. Previous studies have found that dust levels are actually decreasing across India, particularly northern India, the Persian Gulf Coast and much of the Middle East, but the reason has remained unclear. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are working to understand how ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Child maltreatment is a serious public health issue in the United States, particularly affecting young children who are most vulnerable due to their dependence on caregivers. Infants under two years old account for over one-quarter, or 28.1%, of all maltreatment cases in the U.S., and infants under one year of age experience the highest rate of victimization, according to the U.S. Department of Health and ...