Better information and regulation are essential to protect consumers from potential harms of tests advertised directly to consumers, argue experts in The BMJ today. Emma Gram at the University of Copenhagen and colleagues warn that consumers are at risk of buying products that do more harm than good and say the public needs high quality information and effective communication to protect consumers from unbalanced and misleading marketing. Advances in diagnostic technology and digital health have increased the variety and volume of direct-to-consumer (DTC) tests, ...

The recent conflict in Lebanon has deepened a national education crisis in which children have already lost up to 60% of school time over the past six years, new research warns. The report, which will be launched on 5 December by the Centre for Lebanese Studies and the University of Cambridge’s REAL Centre, is the first to assess the state of education since Israel began its ground offensive in Lebanon in October. Using surveys and interviews with parents and teachers, it provides a snapshot of the situation a few weeks before the new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. The study stresses that even ...

Spotted lanternflies—invasive insects that first landed in the United States a decade ago—are emerging earlier and staying active later each year, according to an analysis of citizen-science data by researchers at New York University. This longer life cycle and shift in activity may be driven in part by cities and their warmer climates. The spotted lanternfly, native to parts of Asia, was first found in the US in 2014 in eastern Pennsylvania. Since then, the population has spread across the Northeast and into the Midwest and Southeast, sparking concerns about its impact on local plants and agriculture.  The ...

Armed with a net and trident, fisherman gladiators were a staple of Rome’s gladiatorial games. Their best chance of survival was to quickly entangle a heavily armed opponent with their weighted net. Remarkably, some spiders use much the same strategy. Slingshot, or ray spiders (Theridiosoma gemmosum) pull the centre of their flat web back, to form a cone with the spider at the tip, keeping the net in place by holding on to a taut anchor thread. They release this thread to let the web fly, catapulting it forward when an ...

SAN ANTONIO — December 4, 2024 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) collaborated with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to characterize the chemical makeup of 81 common household items. Researchers also evaluated the potential risk to users. Exposure to chemicals can cause negative health effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Building on previous research to identify chemicals in consumer goods, SwRI and EPA also analyzed how samples of rubber, plastic, clothing, upholstery and fabric responded to environmental factors, such as a hot car or being worn. The study, published in the Environmental Science & Technology ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Since the 1960s, scientists who study X-rays, lightning and similar phenomena have observed something curious: In lab experiments replicating these occurrences, electrons accelerated between two electrodes can be of a higher energy than the voltage applied. According to Penn State researchers, this defies an assumption in physics that the energy of the electrons should correspond with the voltage applied. Despite the decades-long awareness of this apparent contradiction, researchers couldn’t ...

Although many tech companies and start-ups have touted the potential of automated fact-checking services powered by artificial intelligence to stem the rising tide of online misinformation, a new study led by researchers at Indiana University has found that AI-fact checking can, in some cases, actually increase belief in false headlines whose veracity the AI was unsure about, as well as decrease belief in true headlines mislabeled as false. The work also found that participants given the option to view headlines fact checked by large language model-powered AI were significantly more likely to share both true and false news – but only ...

Redlining—a mid-20th-century federal government practice of denying home loans in African American and other minority neighborhoods—has long been associated with poor health outcomes, including disparate overall mortality rates among racial and ethnic groups. The term gets its name from the practice by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC, operational from 1933 to 1954) of color-coding maps based on each neighborhood’s level of mortgage creditworthiness, with A being the most creditworthy and D—noted with a red line—the least. Now, a new study led by a researcher with the Texas ...

WHAT: Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found previously undetected cancers in 48.6% of pregnant people who had abnormal results for prenatal cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing used to screen for chromosomal disorders in the fetus. Cancers included colorectal, breast, lung and pancreatic cancers, as well as lymphoma, cholangiocarcinoma and renal carcinoma. The screening test analyzes placental DNA fragments circulating in the maternal bloodstream to identify an extra chromosome or to determine ...

DETROIT (Dec. 04, 2024)—Losing weight with anti-obesity medications (AOM) also resulted in decreased alcohol consumption for about half of the participants in a new study appearing in the current issue of JAMA Network Open. The research, led by Lisa Miller-Matero, PhD, an associate scientist and Associate Director of Health Services Research at Henry Ford Health, adds to a growing body of research that suggests medications such as Ozempic or Wegovy could be adapted to treat substance use disorders. “This was different ...

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded the ETSU Research Corporation over $900,000 as part of the Defense Industrial Base Consortium, an investment that will help create new opportunities to foster regional innovation in sustainable industrial manufacturing in the Appalachian region. “Our goal is to enhance the prosperity of our region by connecting local innovation with opportunities in global emerging markets,” said Eric Jorgenson, vice president of evelopment for the ETSU Research Corporation. “This project is another key part of the foundation of a robust biomanufacturing ecosystem in ...

An East Tennessee State University researcher is developing a cutting-edge dashboard using generative artificial intelligence to assist in monitoring flooding in Central Appalachia.  The pilot project, titled "Leveraging Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Automated Climate Resilience Dashboards: A Case Study on Flood Monitoring in Central Appalachia," has recently secured $20,000 in funding from the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Lab.  Dr. Qian Huang from ETSU’s Center for Rural Health and Research, in collaboration with Dr. ...

With the help of an AI tool, computed tomography (CT) scans taken originally to look for tumors or bleeding or infections, also revealed calcium buildup in arteries, a sign of worsening cardiovascular disease.   This is the result of a new study led by researchers at NYU Langone Health and an example of a new trend in “opportunistic screening,” wherein radiologists repurpose existing medical images to diagnose illnesses beyond what the scan was originally designed to find. Presented at the annual Radiological Society of North America ...

Nativity—characterized by place of birth, duration of residence in the host country, citizenship and immigration status—greatly influences the health of foreign-born individuals in the United States (U.S.). Despite this, many national health surveys omit questions about these dimensions of nativity, particularly immigration status. This omission limits the ability to assess health disparities across diverse immigrant subgroups and develop evidence-based policies and targeted interventions. To navigate this limitation, researchers rely on proxy measures or imputations ...

Physicians at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences in Oklahoma City are leading a national clinical trial to help women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)-related infertility who want to become pregnant. The trial, called REBALANCE, studies the safety and effectiveness of an investigational device developed by May Health that is designed to restore ovulation disrupted by PCOS. OU Health reproductive endocrinologist Karl Hansen, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the OU College of Medicine, is leading the trial for ...

An experimental bacteria-derived biopesticide is highly effective in killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes, including those that have developed resistance to chemical pesticides, according to initial field tests led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The biopesticide is a powder made from the dead cells of a common soil-dwelling bacterial species. The researchers showed that the biopesticide efficiently kills both ordinary and chemical-pesticide-resistant mosquitoes when included in standard baits. ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – December 4, 2024 — The Piedmont Triad Regenerative Medicine Engine (PTRME), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has announced a groundbreaking investment of $2.5 million in the region’s regenerative medicine industry through its inaugural Ecosystem Building Grant program. This milestone underscores PTRME’s leadership in regenerative medicine and commitment to positioning the Piedmont Triad as a global hub for innovation. Six innovative companies have been awarded grants ...

  Images EAST LANSING, Mich. – As global temperatures rise, it’s imperative that plants can adapt to new and changing conditions.  As global temperatures rise, it’s imperative that plants can adapt to new and changing conditions.  Michigan State University researchers from the Walker lab are looking at ways to give plants an assist. More specifically, their research aims to help plants adapt to changing temperatures by introducing engineered enzymes that will increase plants’ heat tolerance. “I would say that the main goal of our research is to prepare plants for elevated temperatures because, with climate change, ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the country’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — is proud to acknowledge the work of 34 outstanding individuals through its prestigious awards program. GSA salutes outstanding research, recognizes distinguished leadership in teaching and service, and fosters new ideas through a host of awards. Nominated by their peers, the recipients’ achievements serve as milestones in the history and development of gerontology. The awardees were honored at various ...

1. NIMS has established and begun operating a new testing facility to evaluate the mechanical properties of materials exposed to low-temperature hydrogen environments. This facility can create hydrogen conditions across a broader range of temperatures and pressures than any other facility of its kind in the world. It is designed to assess the properties of materials when in contact with low-temperature gaseous or liquefied hydrogen, with the goal of developing cost-effective materials for hydrogen supply chains. This approach is expected to reduce the cost of producing and operating ...

A team of researchers has beaten its own record for the fastest swimming soft robot, drawing inspiration from manta rays to improve their ability to control the robot’s movement in the water. “Two years ago, we demonstrated an aquatic soft robot that was able to reach average speeds of 3.74 body lengths per second,” says Jie Yin, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. “We have improved on that design. Our new soft robot is more energy efficient and reaches a speed of 6.8 body lengths per second. In addition, the previous model could only swim on the surface ...

A new long-term study that has documented the lives of a diverse sample of children over the past three decades shows that the majority of gun carriers began to carry in adulthood, not adolescence. These two groups — which the authors call “adult-onset carriers” if they began carrying after 21 years of age and “adolescent-onset carriers” if their carrying started prior to 21 years of age — have very different patterns in exposure to violence prior to carrying, persistence in carrying, and in actual gun usage. In “Dual Pathways of ...

"Dog is man's best friend" may be an ancient cliché, but when that friendship began is a longstanding question among scientists. A new study led by a University of Arizona researcher is one step closer to an answer on how Indigenous people in the Americas interacted with early dogs and wolves. The study, published today in the journal Science Advances and based on archaeological remains from Alaska, shows that people and the ancestors of today's dogs began forming close relationships as early as 12,000 years ago – ...

Around a third (32%) of people who grew up in Chicago have carried a concealed firearm on the city streets at least once by the time they turn 40 years old, according to a major study of gun usage taking in a quarter of a century of data. Urban sociologists behind the research argue that such carry rates are likely to be similar across many other major US cities.  The research suggests that almost half of men (48%) have carried a concealed gun by the age of 40, compared to just 16% of women.* The study, published in Science Advances, is one of the few to track gun usage in the same US population ...

People who are credulous are less capable of recognizing fake news, and along with mistrustful adults, are more susceptible to conspiracy thinking and vaccine hesitancy, according to a study published December 4, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Michal Tanzer and colleagues from University College London, U.K. Epistemic trust is the readiness to regard knowledge communicated by others as significant, self-relevant, and generalizable to other contexts. Disruption to the capacity for epistemic trust may undermine healthy functioning that requires rapid, efficient checking and updating of social knowledge ...