May 24, 2024 -- A team of international scientists, including Virginia Tech entomologist Warren Booth, have solved the 250-year-old origin puzzle of the most prevalent indoor urban pest insect on the planet: the German cockroach. The team's research findings, representing the genomic analyses of over 280 specimens from 17 countries and six continents, show that this species evolved some 2,100 years ago from an outside species in Asia and were released this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.  One ...

Get introduced to the latest advances in skin research at the 15th International Conference on Skin Ageing & Challenges 2024 on November 5-6 at Corinthia Palace in Malta. Skin Ageing & Challenges 2024 will cover the hottest topics shaping the future of skin aging and rejuvenation. How will Skin Ageing & Challenges 2024 Expand Your Knowledge? Senolytics: Exploring new ways to fight cell aging with innovative senolytic treatments. Extracellular Vesicles: Discovering the potential of EVs for skin regeneration and repair. Skin Microbiota / Mitochondria Transplantation: Introducing approaches to harness the power of microbiome and mitochondrial transplantation ...

Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas, singlehandedly responsible for 78% of the change in energy balance in Earth's atmosphere between 1990 and 2022. A byproduct of burning fossil fuels, carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere from car exhaust and coal-fired power plants. Even some renewable energy resources produce a small amount of carbon dioxide, although at a tiny fraction of the amount coal and natural gas create. At its core, this molecule is just an arrangement of one carbon and two oxygen atoms that can be reorganized through a ...

New research from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) investigates a promising approach against diabetic retinopathy and finds patients with early-onset colorectal cancer likely don’t need more frequent surveillance colonoscopies. Anti-ceramide immunotherapy promising against diabetic retinopathy, animal studies suggest Diabetic retinopathy is a condition that affects blood vessels in people with diabetes and can cause blindness. Now a new study from a team at MSK, Michigan State University, and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center shows that diabetic retinopathy can be considered a “ceramidopathy” — which ...

FINDINGS A new study led by a UCLA-VA collaborative team looking at the landscape of genomic alterations in more than 5,000 veterans with metastatic prostate cancer uncovered differences in the genomic makeup of cancer cells that were associated with race and ethnicity.  Although the team found that a similar set of cancer-related genes were altered in both non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic white veterans, the frequencies that these alterations were observed at varied significantly ...

FINDINGS A study led by UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers found that using a combination of experimental immunotherapy drugs with chemotherapy significantly improves progression-free survival and overall survival for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have previously undergone standard chemotherapy treatment when compared to those who received the targeted therapy regorafenib alone. The median progression-free survival, which is the amount of time during and after treatment when the cancer does not worsen or progress, with the combination treatment was 6.2 months compared to 2.1 months for those ...

European space mission Euclid has released early scientific papers based on observations made by the space telescope, along with five new astronomical images of the Universe, as the project sets about unravelling the secrets of the cosmos. The new images are part of Euclid’s Early Release Observations (EROs) and accompany the mission’s first scientific data and 10 forthcoming science papers. Their publication comes less than a year after the space telescope’s launch and some six months after it returned its first full-colour ...

About The Study: Social isolation was associated with increased risks of all-cause, cardiovascular diseases, and malignant neoplasm mortality, with associations varying across populations. This study fills an important gap in research on social isolation, emphasizing its varied associations across demographic and socioeconomic groups.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Atsushi Nakagomi, M.D., Ph.D., email anakagomi0211@gmail.com. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.13132) Editor’s Note: Please ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, COVID-19 surges were associated with declines in hospital quality, highlighting the importance of identifying and implementing strategies to maintain care quality during periods of high hospital use.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Giacomo Meille, Ph.D., email giacomo.meille@ahrq.hhs.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.13127) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, ...

About The Study: Preterm and early-term birth rates increased after heat waves, particularly among socioeconomically disadvantaged subgroups in this cohort study. Extreme heat events have implications for perinatal health.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lyndsey A. Darrow, Ph.D., email ldarrow@unr.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.12055) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and ...

Lisa Rotenstein, MD, of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the lead author of a new study published in JAMA Network Open, “Virtual Scribes and Physician Time Spent on Electronic Health Records.” What question were you investigating? We sought to understand the impact of virtual scribes (human scribes who are not physically present in the exam room with the physician and patient) on how physicians spend their time and which characteristics are associated with physicians responding best to scribes. What methods or approach did you use? We studied the experiences of 144 physicians across specialties treating patients ...

Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School have found that a new class of light-sensitive proteins are capable of turning off brain cells with light, offering scientists an unprecedentedly effective tool to investigate brain function. The study, recently published in Nature Communications, opens exciting new opportunities to apply optogenetics to investigate the brain activity underlying neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and depression. Optogenetics is a technique where specific cells are bioengineered to include light-sensitive proteins that act as switches, allowing ...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a significant global health burden as one of the most common malignancies in individuals with chronic liver disease or cirrhosis. This malignancy evolves through a multistep process, beginning with dysplastic nodules (DNs) and early HCC, progressing to overt HCC. Recent advancements in liver imaging, particularly the use of hepatocyte-specific contrast agents, have enhanced the detection of these precursor lesions, known as borderline hepatic nodules. These nodules, especially those hypointense in the hepatobiliary phase (HBP) without arterial phase hyperenhancement (APHE), present ...

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most prevalent chronic liver condition worldwide, affecting about 25% of the global population due to the increasing rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome. NAFLD encompasses a spectrum of liver conditions ranging from simple hepatic steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Despite its prevalence, there are limited effective treatment options available. Inflammation driven by metabolic disturbances is a key factor in the development and progression of ...

For the first time, a closed loop, autonomous intervention nearly quadrupled the “golden hour” during which surgeons could save the life of a large animal with internal traumatic bleeding while in emergency ground and air transport. This breakthrough in trauma care, announced today in Intensive Care Medicine Experimental by physician-scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, has enormous potential for saving the lives of traumatically injured ...

Many of today’s quantum devices rely on collections of qubits, also called spins. These quantum bits have only two energy levels, the ‘0’ and the ‘1’. However, spins in real devices also interact with light and vibrations known as bosons, greatly complicating calculations. In a new publication in Physical Review Letters, researchers in Amsterdam demonstrate a way to describe spin-boson systems and use this to efficiently configure quantum devices in a desired state. Quantum devices use the quirky behaviour of quantum ...

Singapore, 24 May 2024 – Two multi-institution and multidisciplinary Singapore teams of clinician-scientists and researchers have been awarded grants of S$25 million each, by the Singapore Ministry of Health through the NMRC Office, MOH Holdings Pte Ltd, under the NMRC Open Fund-Large Collaborative Grant (OF-LCG) programme. The S$50 million support for cancer research establishes the SYMPHONY 2.0 and Colo-SCRIPT research programmes to drive precision oncology research in Singapore aimed at improving the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of lymphoma and colorectal cancer. Led by the ...

Researchers are exploring a new potential avenue for pancreatitis treatment: autophagy, a cellular recycling process. Autophagy helps maintain healthy pancreatic acinar cells by removing damaged organelles like mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). A new review published in eGastroenterology highlights the link between defective autophagy and pancreatitis. Impaired autophagy contributes to pancreatitis by allowing damaged organelles to accumulate within acinar cells. This accumulation disrupts cellular function and can ultimately lead to cell death. "Autophagy plays a vital role in keeping pancreatic acinar cells healthy," ...

In the early 2010s, LightSquared, a multibillion-dollar startup promising to revolutionize cellular communications, declared bankruptcy. The company couldn’t figure out how to prevent its signals from interfering with those of GPS systems.  Now, Penn Engineers have developed a new tool that could prevent such problems from ever happening again: an adjustable filter that can successfully prevent interference, even in higher-frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. “I ...

TAMPA, Fla. (May 24, 2024) – Through high-tech imaging and virtual reality, a University of South Florida medical engineering professor is creating a detailed map of the brain that can be used to better understand developmental disorders, such as autism, and provide earlier, more effective treatments for brain injuries and diseases. Funded by a $3.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, George Spirou is expanding on his four decades of brain research to focus on the part of the brain that ...

Semaglutide significantly reduces risk of major kidney disease events, cardiovascular outcomes and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, groundbreaking study reveals A pioneering study has demonstrated that semaglutide significantly reduces the risk of major kidney disease events, cardiovascular outcomes, and all-cause mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease.1 The landmark trial, presented today at the 61st ERA Congress, will pave the way for new treatment strategies and ...

Enhancing drug development for life-threatening diseases like cancer hinges on a deep understanding of protein kinases, making it a focal point for researchers. These enzymes, encoded by more than 500 human genes, serve as critical players in cellular signaling pathways. However, if these signals are dysregulated, they can disrupt the normal cellular mechanisms, leading to diseases such as cancer. Protein kinase inhibitors have therefore provided a promising avenue in therapeutic intervention to disrupt the aberrant signaling ...

In recent years, global environmental concerns have prompted a shift toward eco-friendly manufacturing in the field of organic synthetic chemistry. In this regard, research into photoredox catalytic reactions, which use light to initiate redox or reduction-oxidation reactions via a photoredox catalyst, has gained significant attention. This approach reduces the reliance on harsh and toxic reagents and uses visible light, a clean energy source. A key research area has been the development of recycling methods for photocatalysts, which offer both economic and environmental benefits. Photocatalysts use light to accelerate a chemical reaction without getting consumed in the process, and photoredox ...

Researchers have developed a method to make adaptive and eco-friendly sensors that can be directly and imperceptibly printed onto a wide range of biological surfaces, whether that’s a finger or a flower petal. The method, developed by researchers from the University of Cambridge, takes its inspiration from spider silk, which can conform and stick to a range of surfaces. These ‘spider silks’ also incorporate bioelectronics, so that different sensing capabilities can be added to the ‘web’. The fibres, at least 50 times smaller than a ...

Splash a few drops of water on a hot pan and if the pan is hot enough, the water will sizzle and the droplets of water seem to roll and float, hovering above the surface. The temperature at which this phenomenon, called the Leidenfrost effect, occurs is predictable, usually happening above 230 degrees Celsius. The team of Jiangtao Cheng, associate professor in the Virginia Tech Department of Mechanical Engineering, has discovered a method to create the aquatic levitation at a much lower temperature, and the results have been published in Nature ...