Researchers from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center say they have identified a gene pathway involving the mineral zinc in mice that may someday point the way to using zinc-based supplements to directly help people with a rare disorder called short bowel syndrome (SBS). The findings, published Oct. 7 in Nature Communications, help advance efforts toward more effective, potential treatment regimens for both children and adults with the debilitating condition.   SBS, which affects 10,000–20,000 adults and children in the United States, is marked by damage to and shortening of ...

Sergei Kalinin, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been named the winner of the David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics by the American Physical Society. The award recognizes one outstanding contributor in the field of materials physics who is notable for high-quality research, review articles, and lecturing.   “I am deeply honored to receive the Adler Award, as it recognizes the critical transition in materials discovery that my colleagues at the University of Tennessee and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and I have championed,” ...

Few people are fans of stink bugs, mosquitoes, or boll weevils, but insects play a key role in the circle of life that makes up the planet’s environment. In fact, world-renowned biologist E. O. Wilson famously declared that if insects vanished, our environment would collapse.  Scientists have noted that insect behaviour has been changing, and their populations are declining – on average 2-3% per year. This has prompted them to investigate the potential causes of this change, such as habitat loss due to overdevelopment, climate change, and chemical use.  EMBL researchers and collaborators recently investigated how pesticides, herbicides, ...

A team led by researchers at MIT has discovered that a distant interstellar cloud contains an abundance of pyrene, a type of large, carbon-containing molecule known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH).  The discovery of pyrene in this far-off cloud, which is similar to the collection of dust and gas that eventually became our own solar system, suggests that pyrene may have been the source of much of the carbon in our solar system. That hypothesis is also supported by a recent finding that samples returned from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu contain large quantities of pyrene.  “One of the big questions in ...

Even at concentrations too low to kill, exposure to widely used agrochemicals – pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, among others – has pervasive negative impacts on insect behavior and physiology, researchers report. The findings highlight the need for more comprehensive pesticide assessments, focusing not just on lethality but also on unintended long-term ecological harm to safeguard biodiversity. Over the past decade, many reports have highlighted alarming declines in insect ...

“The modern era of megafires is often defined based on wildfire size,” say Jennifer Balch and colleagues in a new study, “but it should be defined based on how fast fires grow and their consequent societal impacts.” Balch and colleagues report that wildfire growth rates in the U.S. have surged over 250% over the last 2 decades. Although these fast-moving infernos, or “fast fires” – those spreading more than 1,620 hectares in a day – account for only 2.7% of wildfire events from 2001 to 2020, researchers report that they are responsible for 89% of the total structures damaged ...

According to a new machine learning-assisted predictive model, as many as 95 million Americans may rely on groundwater containing PFAS for their drinking water supplies before any treatment, researchers report. This raises concerns about unmonitored contamination in domestic and public water supplies. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals,“ are highly persistent environmental contaminants linked to adverse environmental and health effects. Used in many consumer products, these organic pollutants have become ubiquitous in the environment and ...

Tardigrades, eight-legged microorganisms colloquially known as “water bears,” are the most radiation-tolerant animals on Earth. Now, by studying a newly identified species of tardigrade, researchers have gleaned valuable insights into the animal’s ability to withstand radiation. These findings hold implications for safeguarding human health in extreme environments, such as spaceflight. Roughly 1,500 species of tardigrades have been described. These creatures can endure gamma radiation ...

A new study conducted in roundworms finds that a common plastic ingredient causes breaks in DNA strands, resulting in egg cells with the wrong number of chromosomes. Monica Colaiácovo of Harvard Medical School led the study, which was published October 24 in the journal PLOS Genetics. Benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) is a chemical that makes plastic more flexible and durable, and is found in many consumer products, including food packaging, personal care products and children’s toys. Previous studies have shown that BBP interferes with ...

Prostate cancer is a quiet killer. In most men, it’s treatable. However, in some cases, it resists all known therapies and turns extremely deadly. A new discovery at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) points to a potentially groundbreaking solution. CSHL Professor Lloyd Trotman’s lab has found that the pro-oxidant supplement menadione slows prostate cancer progression in mice. The supplement is a precursor to vitamin K, commonly found in leafy greens. The story begins more than two decades ago. In 2001, the National Cancer Institute’s SELECT trial sought to determine if an antioxidant ...

Fast-growing fires were responsible for nearly 90 percent of fire-related damages despite being relatively rare in the United States between 2001-2020, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. “Fast fires,” which thrust embers into the air ahead of rapidly advancing flames, can ignite homes before emergency responders are able to intervene. The work, published today in Science, shows these fires are getting faster in the Western U.S., increasing the risk for millions of people.  The research highlights a critical gap in hazard preparedness across the U.S. — National-level ...

Bacteria evolve rapidly in the human gut by sharing genetic elements with each other. Bacteriodales is a prolific order of gut bacteria that trade hundreds of genetic elements. Little is known, however, about the effects of these DNA transfers, either to the fitness of the bacteria or the host. New research from the University of Chicago shows that a large, ubiquitous mobile genetic element changes the antagonistic weaponry of Bacteroides fragilis, a common bacterium of the human gut. Acquisition of this element shuts down a potent weapon ...

The ideal material for interfacing electronics with living tissue is soft, stretchable, and just as water-loving as the tissue itself—in short, a hydrogel. Semiconductors, the key materials for bioelectronics such as pacemakers, biosensors, and drug delivery devices, on the other hand, are rigid, brittle, and water-hating, impossible to dissolve in the way hydrogels have traditionally been built. A paper published today in Science from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) has solved this challenge that has long ...

Male birds help their parents less than females because they’re too busy scouting for new places to live and breed, a remarkable new study shows. The study, led by researchers at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, examined the cooperative behaviour and movement patterns of social birds called white-browed sparrow weavers, which live in the Kalahari desert. These birds live in family groups in which only a dominant pair breeds – and their grown-up offspring, particularly females, help ...

The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) has been awarded an eight-year contract, valued up to $48 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support the utilization of cutting-edge body-on-a-chip technologies aimed at studying and developing potential treatments for sulfur mustard and other fibrosis-inducing chemicals. The program has been approved with an initial contracting commitment of approximately $18 million. This contract represents a continued partnership between WFIRM and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), ...

Research Highlights: A retrospective look at Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke registry data from 2003 to 2022 finds substantial and sustained improvements in acute stroke care among those in the quality improvement program. Researchers found increased adherence to evidence-based stroke care translates to better clinical outcomes and, ultimately, more patients being discharged home or to a skilled nursing facility more quickly. Overall, authors say the positive trends suggest concerted quality improvement initiatives can improve ...

Dr. Katie Custer Bojakowski, an instructional assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University and the director and curator of its Anthropology Research Collections (ARC), has been awarded a Preservation Assistance Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH’s Preservation Assistance Grants program helps organizations protect their collections of historical and cultural items, making sure they remain available for students, scholars and the public. These grants help address risks to these collections, ...

Neuroscientists have learned a lot – like which neurons and circuits are associated with different behaviors – by recording the activity of small sets of neurons. But what happens when you record thousands of neurons at one time? Or when you want to figure out the role of neurons when there isn’t an obvious external catalyst or you’re not sure what you’re even looking for? That’s where Rastermap comes in. The new visualization tool developed by the Stringer and Pachitariu labs at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus helps ...

About The Study: This cohort study uses data from the Children With Vesicoureteral Reflux trial to assess estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) changes in participants with vs without recurrent urinary tract infections. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, David S. Hains, MD, MBA, email dhains@iu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.4546) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

In 1181, a new star shone near the Cassiopeia constellation for six months before disappearing. This event, recorded as a “guest star” by Chinese and Japanese observers almost a millennium ago, has puzzled astronomers for centuries. It is one of a few supernovae to be documented before the invention of telescopes. In addition, it remained an “orphan” the longest, meaning that none of the celestial objects visible today could be assigned to it. Now known as the supernova SN 1181, its remnant has only been traced in 2021 to the nebula ...

Clinics that offer exosome therapies claim they have the ability to repair and regenerate tissues and treat inflammatory and other immune-related conditions in a noninvasive way. Now, a team of bioethicists and legal scholars from Japan is sounding the alarm on the urgent need for stronger regulations surrounding these unproven interventions. Their letter appears October 24 in the journal Stem Cell Reports. “Administering these treatments to patients without scientific evidence or a clear ...

When early cartographers undertook perilous expeditions to map unknown corners of the world with sextants, compasses, and hand-drawn diagrams, it’s unlikely they imagined that someday anyone with an internet connection would have access to a seamless view of the entire planet from the comfort of their own home. Today, pioneering scientists are working to create a similar experience for a much tinier, but no less important domain: developing embryos. The goal is to track and map the behavior of each and every cell working together to create an adult lifeform, and present that map in a clickable, ...

Using a few zaps of electricity to the skin, researchers can stop bacterial infections without using any drugs. For the first time, researchers designed a skin patch that uses imperceptible electric currents to control microbes. The results appear October 24 in the Cell Press journal Device. “This opens up exciting possibilities for drug-free treatments, especially for skin infections and wound healing, where antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a serious challenge,” says University of Chicago’s Bozhi Tian, one of the paper’s ...

About The Study: These interim findings demonstrate the feasibility of targeted interpretation of a predefined set of genes from genome sequencing in a population of different racial and ethnic groups. DNA sequencing offers an additional method to improve screening for conditions already included in newborn screening and to add those that cannot be readily screened because there is no biomarker currently detectable in dried blood spots. Additional studies are required to understand if these findings are generalizable to populations of different racial and ethnic groups and ...

Early results from a study of newborn screening methods show that DNA analysis picks up many more preventable or treatable serious health conditions than standard newborn screening and is favored by most parents who are offered the option. The study—called GUARDIAN—is one of the first large-scale studies in the world to use genome sequencing as a method for newborn screening and is the first to publish preliminary results.  “The results show us that genome sequencing can radically improve children’s medical care,” says Joshua Milner, professor of Pediatrics, director of Allergy/Immunology and Rheumatology ...