Researchers from the University of Waterloo got a valuable assist from artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help capture and analyze data from professional hockey games faster and more accurately than ever before, with big implications for the business of sports.  The growing field of hockey analytics currently relies on the manual analysis of video footage from games. Professional hockey teams across the sport, notably in the National Hockey League (NHL), make important decisions regarding players’ careers based on that information.  “The goal of ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A new study of people who speak many languages has found that there is something special about how the brain processes their native language. In the brains of these polyglots — people who speak five or more languages — the same language regions light up when they listen to any of the languages that they speak. In general, this network responds more strongly to languages in which the speaker is more proficient, with one notable exception: the speaker’s native language. When listening ...

A blood test that can accurately detect when someone has not slept for 24 hours has been developed by experts at Monash University, in Australia, and the University of Birmingham, in the UK. This level of sleep deprivation increases the risk of serious injury or fatality in safety critical situations. Published in Science Advances, the biomarker used a combination of markers found in the blood of healthy volunteers. Together, these markers accurately predicted when the study volunteers had been awake for more than 24 hours under controlled laboratory conditions.  The ...

About The Study: Among patients undergoing coronary angioplasty for in-stent restenosis, a paclitaxel-coated balloon was superior to an uncoated balloon with respect to the composite end point of target lesion failure in this multicenter randomized trial that included 600 patients. Paclitaxel-coated balloons are an effective treatment option for patients with coronary in-stent restenosis.  Authors: Robert W. Yeh, M.D., M.Sc., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is ...

The structure and functions of the tip of migrating neurons remain elusive. Here, a research group led by Kazunobu Sawamoto, Professor at Nagoya City University and National Institute for Physiological Sciences, and by Chikako Nakajima and Masato Sawada, staff scientists in his laboratory, has found that the PTPσ-expressing growth cone senses the extracellular matrix and drives neuronal migration in the injured brain, leading to functional recovery. Neural stem cells are present in the postnatal mammalian brain and produce new neurons. New neurons ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used numerical simulations to show how conditions on land impact weather during Asian summer monsoons. Focusing on the Tibetan plateau, they studied how varied land conditions combined with fixed maritime conditions illuminate the specific effects of the land on the weather. They found that the significance of land-atmosphere coupling varies greatly from year to year, with unexpectedly low dependence on maritime phenomena like El Niño. Asian monsoon systems impact some of the most highly populated areas of the world, affecting enormous swathes of Asia and ...

Batteries are usually studied via electrical properties like voltage and current, but new research suggests that observing how heat flows in conjunction with electricity can give important insights into battery chemistry. A team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has demonstrated how to study chemical properties of lithium-ion battery cells by exploiting the Peltier effect, in which electrical current causes a system to draw heat. Reported in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, this ...

WASHINGTON  –  U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) research meteorologist James Doyle, Ph.D., joins an international team of scientists to investigate meteorological processes associated with Arctic cold air outbreaks.   From late February through early April, the 45-day international field campaign CAESAR, short for Cold-Air outbreak Experiment in the Sub-Arctic Region, is focused on cold-air outbreaks that occur as cold Arctic air flows-out over warmer open waters between northern Norway and ...

There’s been a long-running debate in Earth sciences over whether mountains are a source of carbon dioxide or if they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through mineral weathering. A new study has found that mountains can be sources or sinks and has identified the tipping point at which they switch from one to the other.    The study — by Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Colorado State University and the German Research Centre for Geosciences — found that many mountains exist on a spectrum of removing or releasing carbon, and erosion rates determine the impact of mountains ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Two out of five New Yorkers with children who participated in a recent poll report that a member of their household opts not to work, mostly because child care is too expensive, while child care workers earn among the lowest wages in the state, according to a report released March 8 by the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab. Continuing a multiyear effort with collaborators to determine the “true” cost of child care, “The Status of Child Care in New York State” finds that recent increases in state subsidies helped stabilize ...

A multi-institution team led by researchers at the White River Junction VA Medical Center in Vermont found that Veterans’ blood pressure control worsened due to disrupted care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings were published in the journal Medical Care. The researchers followed a group of nearly 1.65 million Veterans who received their care at VA and who had high blood pressure (hypertension) during two periods—before the pandemic and during the pandemic. In Veterans with controlled blood pressure, researchers found a 7% decline in control during the pandemic compared ...

Diabetes is a very prevalent disease that, unfortunately, still has no treatment. People with diabetes need to monitor their blood glucose levels (BGLs) regularly and administer insulin to keep them in check. In almost all cases, BGL measurements involve drawing blood from a fingertip through a finger prick. Since this procedure is painful, less invasive alternatives that leverage modern electronics are being actively researched worldwide. Thus far, several methods to measure BGL have been proposed; using infrared light is a prominent example, and mid-infrared light-based devices have shown reasonable performance. However, the required sources, ...

For Latinx kids, unreliable access to food at age 4 raises the odds of having fatty liver disease later in childhood by nearly four times, a new UC San Francisco-led study found.  About 5% to 10% of children in the United States have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, putting its prevalence on par with asthma. Pediatric cases have spiked in the last decade, with millions now affected by a disease marked by pain, fatigue and jaundice that can lead to cirrhosis, cancer and organ transplantation. Latinx children and adults ...

East Hanover, NJ – March 8, 2024 – Despite recent declines in the labor force participation rate and employment-to-population ratio, the overall employment trend remains positive for people with disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing January 2024 to February 2024) Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ...

The body self-regulates in a process known as homeostasis, and the brain is responsible for this as it is constantly monitoring all of the body’s vital signals. If you need more oxygen, for example, then a message is sent to the brain that then tells the body to adjust your breathing and your heart rate. But the neurons involved in regulating breathing and cardiac rhythm had never been directly observed, until now, thanks to brain recording technology during brain surgery. EPFL neuroscientists, in a collaboration with surgeons and neuroscientists at West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience ...

America’s shortage of primary care doctors and nurse practitioners has a downstream effect in the nation’s operating rooms, a new study finds.  And patients suffer as a result.  In all, people living in areas with the most severe shortages of primary care providers have a much higher risk of having emergency surgery, rather than a scheduled operation,  compared with people with the same condition who live in areas with less-dire primary care shortages.Those living in the areas with the lowest availability of primary care providers ...

Reston, VA—A new PET radiotracer can differentiate diseased tissues from healthy tissues based on fructose metabolism, according to new research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Fructose metabolism—or fructolysis—is indicative of a variety of diseases, and by noninvasively mapping fructolysis physicians can more accurately detect diseases and treat them earlier. Glucose is used as the primary biochemical fuel throughout the body, powering key processes like tissue function, growth, and repair. Glucose is also consumed extensively during inflammation and cancer growth and can be visualized with PET scans. Evidence continues to mount that ...

A team of physicists has developed a method to detect gravity waves with such low frequencies that they could unlock the secrets behind the early phases of mergers between supermassive black holes, the heaviest objects in the universe. The method can detect gravitational waves that oscillate just once every thousand years, 100 times slower than any previously measured gravitational waves. “These are waves reaching us from the farthest corners of the universe, capable of affecting how light travels,” said Jeff Dror, Ph.D., an assistant ...

University of Pittsburgh researchers have uncovered blood-based markers linked with healthy and rapid aging, allowing them to predict a person’s biological age — how fast a person’s cells and organs age regardless of their birthdate. The new research, published in Aging Cell, points to pathways and compounds that may underlie biological age, shedding light on why people age differently and suggesting novel targets for interventions that could slow aging and promote healthspan, the length of time a person is healthy. “Age is more than just a number,” said senior author Aditi Gurkar, Ph.D., assistant professor of geriatric medicine at ...

Sun Valley, ID - March 8, 2024 – Recent discoveries published in Science Advances have unveiled a native plant gene that enables researchers to more effortlessly harness the captivating glow of bioluminescent plants. This gene, which varies across different plant species, allows for the redirection of living energy into organic light.  The advancement reveals the intricate inner rhythms and dynamics of plants through continuously evolving luminosity, offering a natural source of illumination for homes, gardens, and beyond. The study received support from Light Bio, a pioneer in the development of bioluminescent plants. Light Bio is dedicated to fostering ...

New research from Oregon Health & Science University describes the science behind a promising technique to treat infertility by turning a skin cell into an egg that is capable of producing viable embryos. Researchers at OHSU documented in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, in a mouse model through the preliminary steps of a technique that relies upon transferring the nucleus of a skin cell into a donated egg whose nucleus has been removed. Experimenting in mice, researchers coaxed the skin cell’s nucleus into reducing its chromosomes by half, so that it could then be fertilized ...

How much do our emotions depend on our senses? Does our brain and body react in the same way when we hear a fearful scream, see an eerie shadow, or smell a sinister odor? And does hearing an upbeat music or seeing a colorful landascape bring the same joy? In an innovative study published in Science Advances, researchers have unveiled new insights into the intricate relationship between emotion and perception. Led by a team of Italian neuroscientists from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, and conducted in collaboration with the University of Turin, the research project investigates whether the brain employs sensory-specific or abstract codes to construct ...

In a striking new study published today in Science Advances, a team of synthetic biologists led by Karen Sarkisyan at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences, have reported the discovery of multiple plant enzymes – hispidin synthases – that can perform the most complex reaction of the bioluminescence pathway. This discovery is a significant milestone towards figuring out whether plants can natively produce all the molecules required for light emission. It also means that the glow of bioluminescent plants can now be more closely aligned with their internal biology.   The technology reported in the paper is a hybrid ...

Researchers have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life. They identified how altered protein folding drives multicellular evolution. In a new study led by researchers from the University of Helsinki and the Georgia Institute of Technology, scientists turned to a tool called experimental evolution. In the ongoing Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE), laboratory yeast are evolving novel multicellular functions, enabling researchers to investigate how they arise. The study puts the spotlight on the regulation of proteins in understanding evolution. "By demonstrating the effect of protein-level ...

University of Leeds news  For immediate release  Socially prescribed creative play boosts parents’ and children’s wellbeing  Socially prescribed creative play helps children and their parents develop new skills and promotes wellbeing, a new study has found.  The University of Leeds-led study evaluated a five-week programme of arts-based play, including singing and music-making, for families of children aged up to three. It found that parents benefited from developing social networks and sharing experiences with each other, as well as learning creative approaches to parenting. ...