Body composition — often expressed as the amount of fat in relation to muscle — is one of the standard predictors of cardiac health. Now, new research from the University of California San Diego indicates more muscle doesn’t automatically mean lower risk of heart trouble. The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found all muscle isn’t the same. Britta Larsen, PhD, says men with a higher area of abdominal muscle have a greater risk of cardiac trouble. It’s a completely different ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People with higher exposure to traffic-related air pollution were more likely to have high amounts of amyloid plaques in their brains associated with Alzheimer’s disease after death, according to a study published in the February 21, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers looked at fine particulate matter, PM2.5, which consists of pollutant particles of less than 2.5 microns in diameter suspended in air. The study does not prove that air pollution causes more amyloid plaques in the brain. It only ...

More than 40% of Americans know someone who has died of a drug overdose and about one-third of those individuals say their lives were disrupted by the death, according to a new RAND study.   Analyzing a national representative survey of American adults, researchers found that the lifetime exposure to an overdose death is more common among women than men, married participants than unmarried participants, U.S.-born participants than immigrants, and those who live in urban settings as compared to those in rural settings.   Rates of exposure were significantly higher in New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, ...

The University of Notre Dame has received a Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to study genes that affect neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. This is Notre Dame’s first award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The award will fund a partnership between Cody Smith, the Elizabeth and Michael Gallagher Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame and a 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, and Beth Stevens, member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. With their combined expertise in neurological development, they will explore how gene expression and function changes with ...

Following the huge success of the previous edition, the 15th edition of the Skin Ageing & Challenges International Conference is set to take place on November 7-8, 2024, at Corinthia Palace in Malta. The conference will provide attendees with a comprehensive overview of the current landscape and future prospects in skin aging research. Professor Jean Krutmann, conference president, is just as excited as we are: “Skin aging is complex, but by working together across different fields, we’re making incredible strides. This conference is where all that collaboration shines, helping us find new ways to keep our skin healthy and vibrant.”   Skin ...

BERKS, Pa. — The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is spinning so quickly it is warping the spacetime surrounding it into a shape that can look like a football, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). That football shape suggests the black hole is spinning at a substantial speed, which researchers estimated to be about 60% of its potential limit. The work, led by Penn State Berks Professor of Physics Ruth Daly, was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Astronomers call this giant ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—February 21, 2024—The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has announced the awardees of their second cycle of Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Awards, part of the CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network (NDCN). Scientific Director Kausik Si, Ph.D., from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research will receive an award for the project titled, “Tuning memory by altering amyloids,” which will be conducted alongside Investigator Lukasz Joachimiak, Ph.D., from the University of Texas Southwestern. The Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Awards were launched in 2018 to investigate unsolved mysteries ...

Raised blood pressure has been the leading risk factor for death in Australia for the past three decades, according to a study published February 21, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE led by Alta Schutte and Xiaoyue Xu from The George Institute for Global Health and UNSW, Sydney, with colleagues across Australia. It is also the main contributor to deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD) specifically.  Raised blood pressure has long been recognized as a contributing factor to CVD and death, but is not always prioritized in national health plans. In this study, researchers focused on Australia, which lags ...

Dishes like Brazilian steak and Indian kidney bean curry have an especially large biodiversity footprint, or impact on biodiversity, according to a study published February 21, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Elissa Cheng from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, and colleagues.    Food choices can have significant environmental impacts. Previous research has begun to develop datasets that identify the encroachment of specific crops on the ranges of birds, mammals and amphibians. Based on these data, Cheng and colleagues estimated how 151 ...

Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, suggest these predecessors to modern humans had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than previously thought.  The work, reported in the journal Science Advances, included researchers from New York University, the University of Tübingen, and the National Museums in Berlin. “These ...

Prenatal stress is a potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease in offspring later in life. In a new study published today in JACC: Heart Failure, maternal loss of a partner or child shortly before or during pregnancy was found to be associated with increased risk of heart failure up to middle-age in the child. Heart failure is a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the organs, causing a variety of symptoms. Heart failure cannot be cured but symptoms can be treated and managed to improve quality and length of life. According to the World Heart Federation, more than 64 million people worldwide have heart failure. According ...

The tendency of communities and the species within them to become more similar or more distinct across landscapes – biotic homogenisation and differentiation – are approximately balanced, according to a new study published in Science Advances.  Led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the researchers analysed 527 datasets collected from ecosystems like grasslands, shrublands, and coral reefs as far back as 500 years ago. The analysis is the first of its kind to provide ...

SARS-CoV-2 triggers the production of the antiviral protein IFN-γ, which is associated with fatigue, muscle ache and depression. New research shows that in Long COVID patients, IFN-y production persists until symptoms improve, highlighting a potential biomarker and a target for therapies. A University of Cambridge-led study identifies the protein interferon gamma (IFN-γ) as a potential biomarker for Long COVID fatigue and highlights an immunological mechanism underlying the disease, which could pave the way for the development ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Scripps Research scientists have developed an antibody that can block the effects of lethal toxins in the venoms of a wide variety of snakes found throughout Africa, Asia and Australia. The antibody, which protected mice from the normally deadly venom of snakes including black mambas and king cobras, is described on February 21, 2024, in Science Translational Medicine. The new research used forms of the toxins produced in the laboratory to screen billions of different human antibodies and identify one that can block the toxins’ activity. It represents a large step toward a universal ...

Living cells resemble highly organized small towns - in addition to energy production, transportation systems, and construction, cells also require efficient waste disposal. Most proteins, which shape and sustain cellular function, have only a limited half-life and must eventually be disposed of, along with defective and unwanted proteins. This vital task falls upon specialized enzymes known as ubiquitin ligases, which tag obsolete proteins for degradation, guiding them to the cellular recycling center, ...

Immune cells must learn not to attack the body itself. A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) has discovered a previously unknown mechanism behind this: other immune cells, the B cells, contribute to the "training" of the T cells in the thymus gland. If this process fails, autoimmune diseases can develop. The study confirms this for Neuromyelitis optica, a disease similar to Multiple Sclerosis. Other autoimmune diseases may be linked to the failure ...

A new analysis method can detect pathogens in blood samples faster and more accurately than blood cultures, which are the current state of the art for infection diagnosis. The new method, called digital DNA melting analysis, can produce results in under six hours, whereas culture typically requires 15 hours to several days, depending on the pathogen.  Not only is this method faster than blood cultures, it’s also significantly less likely to generate false positives compared to other emerging DNA detection-based technologies such as Next Generation Sequencing.  Why ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. Recent developments at MD Anderson offer insights into drug-drug interactions for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes; patient-derived xenograft models as a viable translational ...

In the blink of an eye, the unruly, superheated plasma that drives a fusion reaction can lose its stability and escape the strong magnetic fields confining it within the donut-shaped fusion reactor. These getaways frequently spell the end of the reaction, posing a core challenge to developing fusion as a non-polluting, virtually limitless energy source. But a Princeton-led team composed of engineers, physicists, and data scientists from the University and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have harnessed ...

Sometimes our bodies need a boost. Millions of Americans rely on pacemakers—small devices that regulate the electrical impulses of the heart in order to keep it beating smoothly. But to reduce complications, researchers would like to make these devices even smaller and less intrusive. A team of researchers with the University of Chicago has developed a wireless device, powered by light, that can be implanted to regulate cardiovascular or neural activity in the body. The featherlight membranes, ...

About The Study: The results of this study of 5,951 women ages 63 to 99 suggest that promoting regular physical activity and minimal sedentary time may be prudent for primary prevention of heart failure and its subtype with preserved ejection fraction for which treatment is limited.  Authors: Michael J. LaMonte, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University at Buffalo—SUNY, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2023.5692) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other ...

About The Study: In this study using data from 1,948 U.S. adults with lifetime suicide attempts from a nationally representative population-based survey, an estimated 19.6% reported not having met criteria for any psychiatric disorders prior to their first attempt. This finding challenges clinical notions of who is at risk for suicidal behavior and raises questions about the safety of limiting suicide risk screening to psychiatric populations.  Authors: Maria A. Oquendo, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

About The Study: The acupuncture intervention used in this randomized clinical trial including 93 participants was clinically efficacious and favorably affected the psychobiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in combat veterans. These data build on extant literature and suggest that clinical implementation of acupuncture for PTSD, along with further research about comparative efficacy, durability, and mechanisms of effects, is warranted.  Authors: Michael Hollifield, M.D., of the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center in Long Beach, California, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.5651) Editor’s ...

New study finds that persistent COVID-19 infections are surprisingly common, with around one to three in every 100 infections lasting a month or longer. Some persistent infections had a high number of mutations, suggesting they could act as reservoirs to seed new variants of concern. People with persistent infections lasting for 30 days or longer were 55% more likely to report having Long Covid than people with more typical infections. Reinfections with the same variant were rare. A new study led by the University of Oxford has ...

Researchers have revealed the mechanism of a drug shown to be effective in treating certain types of cancer, which targets a protein modification silencing the expression of multiple tumor suppressor genes. They also demonstrated in clinical trials the efficacy of the drug in reducing tumor growth in blood cancer. The findings could lead to longer-term treatments for the disease and therapies for other types of cancer with similar underlying causes. A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo and their collaborators focused on therapies targeting H3K27me3, a modification on a DNA-packaging histone protein, which plays a large role in regulating ...