Research Highlights: Mechanically retrieving a blood clot blocking a medium- or small-sized brain artery was no better at reducing disability 90 days after a stroke than standard care alone (including clot-busting medication if indicated). While researchers say using thrombectomy devices to remove blood clots is increasingly performed, this research suggests that it may not be needed in all cases. However, because endovascular therapy seemed to be safe, it might still be used on select patients. Note: The study featured in this news release is a research abstract. Abstracts ...

CHICAGO, IL USA – 5 February, 2025 – Following a five-year hiatus, the world’s only registry of patients with durable mechanical circulatory support (MCS) devices is re-launching and will begin collecting data from institutions around the globe in early 2025.   The International Registry for Mechanically Assisted Circulatory Support (IMACS) registry is operated by the International Society for Health and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), a global multidisciplinary professional organization ...

The study is an international collaboration based on previous research that has suggested a possible connection between trauma and endometriosis. Endometriosis is tissue resembling the uterine lining that grows outside the uterus. The condition is very common among women and can cause significant pain and fertility problems for many. – The motivation for the study was to better understand this potential link between traumatic experiences and the development of endometriosis. Specifically, we wanted to explore whether certain types of trauma were more strongly associated with endometriosis than others, and whether this potential interaction is independent ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS – Children and young people who are Black or Hispanic are less likely to be diagnosed with migraine than those who are white when being seen for headache in a pediatric emergency department, according to a study published in the February 5, 2025, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found they received fewer tests and less intensive treatment. “Migraine is disabling and can significantly impact ...

An analysis of more than 4 million Facebook posts created by news outlets and political parties in 2024 highlights global social media engagement trends and political polarization during a year which included elections for many countries. Giulio Pecile and colleagues at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on February 5, 2025. Prior research has suggested that the tailored content presented on social media platforms may reinforce political polarization ...

Facial appearance dissatisfaction is associated with virtual meeting (VM) fatigue, which prompts the use of impression management behaviors and results in lower intention to adopt VM technologies, according to a study published February 5, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Chaeyun Lim from Michigan State University, U.S., and colleagues. The increasing reliance on VMs has led to a pervasive experience of VM fatigue, commonly referred to as Zoom fatigue. This phenomenon has significant implications for workplace productivity and individual well-being. Despite VM fatigue’s critical role in shaping workplace interactions and digital inclusion in emerging ...

An international survey study involving more than 23,000 higher education students reveals trends in how they use and experience ChatGPT, highlighting both positive perceptions and awareness of the AI chatbot’s limitations. Dejan Ravšelj of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on February 5, 2025. Prior research suggests that ChatGPT can enhance learning, despite concerns about its role in academic integrity, potential impacts on critical thinking, and occasionally inaccurate responses. However, ...

Labor market immigrants moving to Germany are less likely to make their first choice of residence in regions where xenophobic attitudes, measured by right-wing party support and xenophobic violence, are stronger, per 2004-2017 data     Article URL: https://plos.io/4g9rxcy Article title: Do xenophobic attitudes influence migrant workers’ regional location choice? Author countries: Germany Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Lots of screentime in toddlers is linked with worse language skills, but educational content and screen use accompanied by adults might help, per study across 19 Latin American countries     Article URL: https://plos.io/4h7A68R Article title: Use of screens, books and adults’ interactions on toddler’s language and motor skills: A cross-cultural study among 19 Latin American countries from different SES Author countries: Argentina, Colombia, Perú, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panamá, Brazil, Chile, México, Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba, Venezuela, ...

Pre-colonial people in Brazil may have gathered in summer months to feast on migratory fish and share alcoholic drinks, a new study suggests. An international team – involving scientists from the University of York, UK; the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and the Universidade Federal de Pelotas in Brazil – analysed pottery fragments dating back to between 2300 and 1200 years ago which were discovered around the Patos Lagoon in Brazil. The shores of the Lagoon are characterised by settled earthen mounds, known as “Cerritos” which were built by pre-colonial ancestors of Pampean Indigenous ...

Understanding where Earth’s essential elements came from—and why some are missing—has long puzzled scientists. Now, a new study reveals a surprising twist in the story of our planet’s formation. A new study led by Arizona State University’s Assistant Professor Damanveer Grewal from the School of Molecular Sciences and School of Earth and Space Exploration, in collaboration with researchers from Caltech, Rice University, and MIT, challenges traditional theories about why Earth and Mars are depleted in moderately volatile elements (MVEs). MVEs like copper and zinc play a crucial role in planetary chemistry, often accompanying life-essential ...

Reducing sulphur in the air may inadvertently increase natural emissions of methane from wetlands such as peatlands and swamps, a new study has found. The findings published today in the journal Science Advances suggests that the decline of global sulphur emissions as the result of clean air policies, coupled with the warming and fertilization effects of carbon dioxide emissions lifts a lid on wetland methane production resulting in increased emissions. The resulting additional future release of 20-34 ...

A new climate modeling study published in the journal Science Advances by researchers from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University in South Korea presents a new scenario of how climate and life on our planet would change in response to a potential future strike of a medium-sized (~500 m) asteroid. The solar system is full of objects with near-Earth orbits. Most of them do not pose any threat to Earth, but some of them have been identified as objects of interest with non-negligible collision probabilities. Among them is the asteroid Bennu with a diameter of about 500 m, which, according to recent studies ...

PHILADELPHIA — (February 5, 2025) —The lab of The Wistar Institute’s Jessie Villanueva, Ph.D., has identified a new strategy for attacking treatment-resistant melanoma: inhibiting the gene S6K2. The team published their findings in the paper, “Selective abrogation of S6K2 identifies lipid homeostasis as a survival vulnerability in MAPKi-resistant NRASMUT melanoma,” from the journal Science Translational Medicine. “This work shows that, even in the face of notoriously ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Fool me once, shame on you. Fool myself, and I may end up feeling smarter, according to a new study led by Sara Dommer, assistant professor of marketing at Penn State. Dommer wondered why people cheat on tasks like completing crossword puzzles or Wordle and counting calories when the rewards are purely intrinsic, like feeling smarter or healthier. She found that when cheating offers the opportunity to improve self-perception, individuals engage in diagnostic self-deception — that is, they cheat yet deceive themselves by attributing their heightened performance to their innate ability instead ...

A new study led by researchers from Peking University, published in Health Data Science, reveals a sharp rise in the burden of early-onset type 2 diabetes (T2D) among adolescents and young adults in China from 1990 to 2021. Despite improvements in mortality rates, the incidence and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) associated with the disease have grown alarmingly. Using data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2021, the study shows that the age-standardized incidence rate nearly doubled, increasing from 140.20 per 100,000 in 1990 to 315.97 per 100,000 in 2021, with an average annual percentage change ...

NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 5, 2025)--Columbia scientists have found specialized neurons in the brains of mice that order the animals to stop eating.  Though many feeding circuits in the brain are known to play a role in monitoring food intake, the neurons in those circuits do not make the final decision to cease eating a meal.   The neurons identified by the Columbia scientists, a new element of these circuits, are located in the brainstem, the oldest part of the vertebrate brain. Their discovery could lead ...

About The Study: The results of this cluster trial demonstrate that salt substitution was safe, along with reduced risks of stroke recurrence and death, which underscores large health gains from scaling up this low-cost intervention among patients with stroke.  Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Lijing L. Yan, MPH, PhD, (lijing.yan@duke.edu) and Maoyi Tian, PhD, (maoyi.tian@hrbmu.edu.cn) To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2024.5417) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, ...

About The Study: This study found that most publicly targeted fatal mass shootings involved multiple types of firearms and handguns were the most common type of firearm present. Assault weapons being present during a publicly targeted mass shooting was associated with a slight increase in the number of injuries and deaths occurring during that incident.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Leslie M. Barnard, MPH, DrPH, email leslie.barnard@ucdenver.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.58085) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Drug overdose deaths have increased exponentially since 1979. This rate of increase accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since waned. When comparing recent drug-related mortality rates with their pre-2020 trajectory, the vast majority of states remained higher than expected. In the 4 years between 2020 and 2023, nearly all states had higher drug-related mortality rates than their 2019 rates. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Keith Humphreys, ...

University of Cincinnati experts will present research at the International Stroke Conference 2025 in Los Angeles. Study finds small number of patients eligible for new ICH treatment  Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), when there is bleeding into brain tissue from the rupture of a damaged blood vessel, is one of the most devastating types of stroke. Patients often suffer from severe neurologic disability or even death. There were no proven treatments for patients with ICH until recently.  “We now have one ...

Superconducting materials are similar to the carpool lane in a congested interstate. Like commuters who ride together, electrons that pair up can bypass the regular traffic, moving through the material with zero friction.  But just as with carpools, how easily electron pairs can flow depends on a number of conditions, including the density of pairs that are moving through the material. This “superfluid stiffness,” or the ease with which a current of electron pairs can flow, is a key measure of a material’s superconductivity.  Physicists at MIT and Harvard University have now directly measured superfluid stiffness for the first time ...

In India, many kids who work in retail markets have good math skills: They can quickly perform a range of calculations to complete transactions. But as a new study shows, these kids often perform much worse on the same kinds of problems as they are taught in the classroom. This happens even though many of these students still attend school or attended school through 7th or 8th grades. Conversely, the study also finds, Indian students who are still enrolled in school and don’t have jobs do better on school-type math problems, but they often fare poorly at the kinds of problems that occur in marketplaces. Overall, both the “market kids” and the “school kids” ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 16:00 GMT / 11:00 ET WEDNESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2025  Quantum algorithm distributed across multiple processors for the first time – paving the way to quantum supercomputers In a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly closer to large-scale practical use, scientists at Oxford University Physics have demonstrated the first instance of distributed quantum computing. Using a photonic network interface, they successfully linked two separate quantum processors to form a single, fully connected ...

Antibiotics are indispensable for treating bacterial infections. But why are they sometimes ineffective, even when the bacteria are not resistant? In their latest study published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Basel challenge the conventional view that a small subset of particularly resilient bacteria are responsible for the failure of antibiotic therapies. In certain infectious diseases caused by bacteria, antibiotics are less effective than expected. One example is infections caused by Salmonella bacteria, which can lead to illnesses such ...