Scientists at the University of Oregon have discovered that colonies of gelatinous sea animals swim through the ocean in giant corkscrew shapes using coordinated jet propulsion, an unusual kind of locomotion that could inspire new designs for efficient underwater vehicles.  The research involves salps, small creatures that look similar to jellyfish that take a nightly journey from the depths of the ocean to the surface. Observing that migration with special cameras helped UO researchers and their colleagues capture the macroplankton’s graceful, coordinated swimming behavior.  “The largest migration on the planet ...

New research led by Flinders University and international experts is expanding understanding of vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (known as VITT). At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021,VITT emerged as a new disease following adenovirus vector-based vaccines – notably the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. VITT was found to be caused by an unusually dangerous blood autoantibody directed against a protein termed platelet factor 4 (or PF4).    In separate research in 2023, ...

BATON ROUGE – Ochsner Baton Rouge has opened the new Ochsner Outpatient and Home Infusion Pharmacy – Baton Rouge at 4730 Bluebonnet Blvd., Suite 401. This advanced facility provides treatment for chronic, specialty and acute home infusions. The pharmacy is conveniently located and designed with patient comfort and accessibility in mind. Each of its six patient rooms offers a spa-like environment, providing patient care in a peaceful, supportive setting that promotes healing. Ochsner’s pharmacists work closely with patients’ healthcare providers to create customized treatment plans, ensuring personalized and effective ...

Key takeaways A new study by UCLA sociologists found that using the word “please” does not always indicate respect or politeness. In the study, “please” was used only 7% of the time, mostly when there was an inhospitable interactional environment to overcome. Findings will help researchers in their understanding of politeness in the flow of social behavior and norms. By kindergarten age, most children have been taught that “please” is a magic word. “Please” is an expression of politeness that shows courtesy and respect, turning a potential demand into a request that will – ...

The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC), the organization leading an unprecedented global response to Alzheimer’s, today announced the first-ever brain health and dementia conference in Africa, held in Nairobi, Kenya from September 11-12 in partnership with Nature Conferences and the Aga Khan University’s Brain & Mind Institute.  The conference, “The Future of Dementia in Africa: Advancing Global Partnerships,” focuses on scientific advancements in understanding the impact of dementia, risk ...

Climate change, and its effects on weather patterns and adverse weather events, is likely to negatively affect the health of people with brain conditions, argue a UCL-led team of researchers. In a Personal View article, published in The Lancet Neurology, the team emphasise the urgent need to understand the impact of climate change on people with neurological conditions – in order to preserve their health and prevent worsening inequalities. Following a review of 332 papers published across the world between 1968 and 2023, the team, led by Professor Sanjay Sisodiya (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), said they expect the scale of the potential ...

Updated medical guidance on excited delirium, the controversial term accused of covering up deaths in police custody, including that of George Floyd, is being brought forward before its scheduled date of October 2025, reports The BMJ today. The move comes as attitudes towards the use of the term appear to be changing, explains journalist Chris Stokel-Walker. For instance, last month Colorado joined California in banning police, medical staff and coroners from using the term, and the UK Independent ...

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme in England has not only been associated with a substantial reduction in cervical disease, but has done so in all socioeconomic groups, finds a study published by The BMJ today. Although women living in the most deprived areas are still at higher risk of cervical disease than those in less deprived areas, the results show that well planned and executed public health interventions can both improve health and reduce health inequalities. HPV ...

Strict embargo: 23.30 hrs BST  Wednesday, 15 May, 2024  Peer-reviewed Observational People   The human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine is cutting cases of cervical cancer right across the socio-economic spectrum, with most cases being prevented in more deprived groups, according to a major study funded by Cancer Research UK.  Until now, there had been concerns that the HPV vaccine could have an unequal impact across society. After carrying out the longest follow-up on the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine, researchers at Queen Mary University of London concluded the HPV vaccination programme in England is helping to close some inequalities ...

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2024.02.015   This new article publication from Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, discusses how the use of a radiation-based immunogenic vaccine combined with a macrophage “checkpoint inhibitor” can boost innate and adaptive immunity against metastatic colon cancers.   Immunogenic dying tumor cells hold promising prospects as cancer vaccines to activate systemic immunity against both primary and metastatic tumors. Especially, X-ray- induced dying tumor cells are rich in highly immunogenic tumor-associated antigens ...

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2024.02.006   This new article publication from Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, discusses how branched glycopolymer prodrug-derived nanoassembly combined with a STING agonist activates an immuno-supportive status to boost anti-PD-L1 antibody therapy.   Despite the great potential of anti-PD-L1 antibodies for immunotherapy, their low response rate due to an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment has hampered their application.   To address this issue, the authors of this article constructed a cell membrane-coated nanosystem (mB4S) to reverse an immunosuppressive microenvironment to an immuno-supportive ...

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2024.02.020   This new article publication from Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, discusses how 5S-Heudelotinone alleviates experimental colitis by shaping the immune system and enhancing the intestinal barrier in a gut microbiota-dependent manner.   Aberrant changes in the gut microbiota are implicated in many diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Gut microbes produce diverse metabolites that can shape the immune system and impact the intestinal barrier integrity, indicating that microbe-mediated modulation may be a promising strategy for preventing and treating IBD.   Although ...

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2024.02.004   This new article publication from Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, discusses how ALS-linked C9orf72 dipeptide repeats inhibit starvation-induced autophagy through modulating BCL2–BECN1 interaction.   Growing evidence indicate that dysfunction of autophagy contributes to the disease pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), two neurodegenerative disorders. The GGGGCC·GGCCCC repeat RNA expansion in chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72) ...

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing battery technologies to fight climate change in two ways, by expanding the use of renewable energy and capturing airborne carbon dioxide.  This type of battery stores the renewable energy generated by solar panels or wind turbines. Utilizing this energy when wind and sunlight are unavailable requires an electrochemical reaction that, in ORNL’s new battery formulation, captures carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and converts it to value-added products.   ORNL researchers recently created and tested two different formulations for batteries that ...

Georgia’s saltwater marshes — living where the land meets the ocean — stretch along the state’s entire 100-mile coastline. These rich ecosystems are largely dominated by just one plant: grass. Known as cordgrass, the plant is an ecosystem engineer, providing habitats for wildlife, naturally cleaning water as it moves from inland to the sea, and holding the shoreline together so it doesn’t collapse. Cordgrass even protects human communities from tidal surges. Understanding how these ...

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic changed how nearly everyone mediated their social interactions through technology. Some moved happy hours into video chats. Others delved deeper into social media, or took a step back from it. Millions of people worked or learned through computers. University of Washington researchers took particular interest in how this tech shift affected older adults’ social relationships. The team interviewed 16 older adults in Washington and Oregon, ages 65 to 80, about how their technology ...

Records from nearly 30,000 nursing home residents indicate that blood pressure medications more than double the risk of life-threatening bone fractures, according to Rutgers Health research. The authors of the study, which appears in JAMA Internal Medicine, said the increased risk stems from the medications’ tendency to impair balance, particularly when patients first stand up and temporarily experience low blood pressure that deprives the brain of oxygen. Interactions with other drugs and low baseline balance in many nursing home patients compound the problem. “Bone fractures often start nursing home patients on a downward spiral,”  ...

Many organisms are far more complex than just a single species. Humans, for example, are full of a variety of microbes. Some creatures have even more special connections, though. Acoels, unique marine worms that regenerate their bodies after injury, can form symbiotic relationships with photosynthetic algae that live inside them. These collections of symbiotic organisms are called a holobiont, and the ways that they “talk” to each other are something scientists are trying to understand – especially ...

Compared with pre-surgical (neoadjuvant) chemotherapy alone, adding perioperative immunotherapy – given before and after surgery – significantly improved event-free survival (EFS) in patients with resectable early-stage non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC), according to researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Results from the Phase III CheckMate 77T study were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. At a median follow-up of 25.4 months, the median EFS with chemotherapy alone was 18.4 months, while the median had not yet ...

“I consider the drugs available on the marked today as the first generation of weight-loss drugs. Now we have developed a new type of weight-loss drug that affects the plasticity of the brain and appears to be highly effective.” So says Associate Professor and Group Leader Christoffer Clemmensen, from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen, who is senior author of the new study, which has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature. In the study, Christoffer Clemmensen and colleagues demonstrate a new use of the weight loss hormone GLP-1. GLP-1 can be used as a ‘Trojan ...

Bariatric surgery is associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer in women with obesity. These are the findings of a study conducted at the University of Gothenburg. The risk reduction is greatest for those with high blood insulin levels at the time of surgery. The study, published in JAMA Surgery, is based on data from 2,867 women with obesity, half of whom had undergone bariatric surgery at 25 surgical departments. The remaining women, comprising the control group, received standard obesity treatment at 480 healthcare centers. The groups were otherwise comparable in terms of age and body composition. The results show that a total of ...

Copper cannot be mined quickly enough to keep up with current U.S. policy guidelines to transition the country's electricity and vehicle infrastructure to renewable energy, according to a University of Michigan study.   The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, calls for 100% of cars manufactured to be electric vehicles by 2035. But an electric vehicle requires three to five times as much copper as an internal combustion engine vehicle—not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electric grid.     "A ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – A new guideline has been issued to help neurologists and other clinicians determine the best antiseizure medications for people with epilepsy who may become pregnant. The guideline is published in the May 15, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and was developed through a collaboration between the AAN, the American Epilepsy Society (AES) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM). It was endorsed by the Child Neurology Society. The guideline partially updates two 2009 AAN and AES ...

Waltham — May 15, 2024 — A nationwide assessment of how nonprofit hospitals are addressing housing-related needs in their communities appears in the latest issue of Medical Care, the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.  "Approximately 60% of hospitals in the United States are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations ...

A new study led by UCLA Health has shown that repetitive practice not only is helpful in improving skills but also leads to profound changes in the brain’s memory pathways. The research, published in the journal Nature and co-led by Rockefeller University, sought to unravel how the brain’s ability to retain and process information, known as working memory, improves through training. To test this, researchers tasked mice with identifying and recalling a sequence of odors over the course of two weeks. Researchers then tracked neural activity in the animals as they practiced the task by using a novel, custom-built microscope that can image cellular activity ...