Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s managing contractor, UT-Battelle, presented a donation of $186,000 to Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development, or SEEED, to support the nonprofit’s third green solar home as part of their Green Construction Program. “We are committed to serving the communities that we live in,” UT-Battelle CEO and ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer said. “Our partnership with SEEED has provided a tremendous opportunity to share our scientific expertise, and we are excited that our support will help make this green solar home become a reality.” Streiffer joined SEEED for a groundbreaking ceremony in Knoxville, Tenn., at the home project ...

Researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago have engineered tiny, spinning micro-robots that bind to immune cells to probe their function. The robot, or “hexapod,” gives scientists a new, highly adaptable way to study immune cells and to aid in the design of immunotherapies against cancer, infection, or autoimmune diseases. Each hexapod robot has six arms containing molecules that might be recognized as foreign by the immune system — such as protein fragments from a tumor, virus, or ...

Individuals with eating disorders who have low income are frequently misdiagnosed and lack adequate access to appropriate therapy, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Their paper, published in The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist on Feb. 19, identified the barriers to care that come with having low income and offered guidelines on how therapists can make accommodations for these patients to improve diagnoses and access to treatment.   Approximately 30 million people in the United States experience ...

Medical University of South Carolina scientists report in Neuron that they have uncovered a way to restore an opioid-weakened brain pathway in a preclinical model. With funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, the MUSC research team, led by neuroscientist James Otis, Ph.D., used advanced neuroscience tools to return a pathway between the thalamus and basal ganglia to healthy functioning in mice. As a result, this restoration prevented mice that were opioid-dependent from seeking or self-administering heroin. Results also suggested that sustained opioid use was the cause of this weakened pathway, rather than being caused by ...

By Beth Miller Two teams of engineers led by faculty in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis will work toward developing products to monitor drinking water quality and to detect explosives with an electronic nose with one-year, $650,000 Convergence Accelerator Phase 1 grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Barani Raman, professor of biomedical engineering, and Daniel Giammar, the Walter E. Browne Professor of Environmental Engineering, will lead teams of researchers from Washington University and other institutions and entities funded under the NSF’s Convergence Accelerator program, designed to address national-scale ...

Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## As a proposal to reinstate expanded Child Tax Credits (CTC) in the United States awaits a vote in the Senate, a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers reveals that the now-expired 2021 CTC expansion benefitted families experiencing financial setbacks due to health or employment challenges spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Published in the journal Health Affairs Scholar, the study found that monthly advance payments included in the 2021 CTC ...

Fashioned from the same element found in sand and covered by intricate patterns, microchips power smartphones, augment appliances and aid the operation of cars and airplanes. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are developing computer simulation codes that will outperform current simulation techniques and aid the production of microchips using plasma, the electrically charged state of matter also used in fusion research. These codes could help increase the efficiency of the manufacturing process and potentially stimulate ...

Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most common liver cancer in children. Researchers and physicians in the field are concerned because in the last decade HB has been rising rapidly worldwide and has seen the most rapid increase among all pediatric solid tumors. A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine has been working on improving therapies for this devastating disease. They recently reported in the Journal of Hepatology a novel treatment strategy that produced encouraging results in animal models. “High-risk disease leads to high rates of relapse and mortality,” said first author Dr. Andrés F. Espinoza, general ...

“In sum, we have defined what a premature aging disease is and developed tools to allow diagnostics of patients and disease population.” BUFFALO, NY- February 20, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 3, entitled, “Defining the progeria phenome.” Progeroid disorders are a heterogenous group of rare and complex hereditary syndromes presenting with pleiotropic phenotypes associated with normal aging. Due to the ...

Abigail Lewis traveled all across the United States for college and graduate school, and she ended up researching lakes in her own hometown.  For one of her graduate research projects, Lewis analyzed 656 lakes across five continents with an international research team. The lakes in her hometown of Waukesha, Wisconsin, were among those included.  “To look back and pull together these two parts of my life has been really satisfying,” said Lewis, who will earn her Ph.D. in biological sciences this spring.  In a paper recently published in Global Change Biology, ...

Dr. Mustafa Akbulut, professor of chemical engineering, has teamed up with horticultural science professor Luis Cisneros-Zevallos to engineer longer-lasting, bacteria-free produce. According to Akbulut’s recent publication in Current Research in Food Science, the global fruit and vegetable market loses over 50% of agricultural fruit production during various stages of produce handling and post-harvest treatments. Many fruits and vegetables already have a layer of food-grade wax that is applied for cosmetic reasons and to prevent water loss. Akbulut’s research combines such wax with nano-encapsulated cinnamon-bark ...

NEW ORLEANS, LA - Ochsner Children's Hospital, ranked among the top hospitals in the nation for pediatric cardiology and congenital heart surgery, is raising awareness of the need for more pediatric-specific heart devices. As the only pediatric heart transplant program in Louisiana and the only program in the state to offer advanced mechanical support options for pediatric cardiology patients, Ochsner Children’s Hospital is committed to advocating for additional medical devices to enhance its high-quality care to pediatric patients ...

Many electric vehicles are powered by lithium-ion batteries that rely on cobalt — a scarce, expensive metal with high environmental and social costs. A team of researchers from Japanese and French universities have now developed a practical nickel-based electrode material that opens new avenues to cobalt-free batteries for electric vehicles. The researchers detailed their findings in a study published on Jan. 15 in the journal Energy Storage Materials. “There is an undeniable need for cobalt-free, high-energy electrode materials for lithium-ion ...

At the heart of advancing semiconductor chip technology lies a critical challenge: creating smaller, more efficient electronic components. This challenge is particularly evident in the field of lithography, the process used to create intricate patterns on semiconductor materials (called wafers) for the production of chips. Lithography uses a kind of template, called a photomask — or just mask — for creating patterns on semiconductor wafers. The industry is always looking for methods that improve resolution and manufacturability for both masks and ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn., February 20, 2024) St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has appointed Lisa Jordan, MS, MBA, as the institution’s first-ever Senior Vice President of Technology Commercialization to lead industry partnerships and the commercialization of innovations. Jordan will work with researchers to bring a greater number of new technologies, innovations and scientific breakthroughs to the clinic, enabling breakthroughs from St. Jude laboratories to benefit more patients. The move, part of the institution’s 2022-2027 ...

A flurry of recent studies has found that microplastics are present in virtually everything we consume, from bottled water to meat and plant-based food. Now, University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers have used a new analytical tool to measure the microplastics present in human placentas. In a study published February 17 in the journal Toxicological Sciences, a team led by Matthew Campen, PhD, Regents’ Professor in the UNM Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, reported finding microplastics in all 62 of the placenta samples tested, with concentrations ranging from 6.5 to 790 micrograms ...

There haven’t been many long-term studies on urban forests, but data collected from the Thain Family Forest, which the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) has been stewarding for more than a century, has provided an opportunity for scientists from The Forest School at YSE to study a century of changes of its composition. Using inventory data from 1937-2021, Eliot Nagele ’21 MF, who initiated the research while a forester at Thain and a student at YSE, documented changes in forest structure, diversity, and composition to assess the health of the forest over time. ...

LA JOLLA (February 20, 2024)—Surveys show most men in the United States are interested in using male contraceptives, yet their options remain limited to unreliable condoms or invasive vasectomies. Recent attempts to develop drugs that block sperm production, maturation, or fertilization have had limited success, providing incomplete protection or severe side effects. New approaches to male contraception are needed, but because sperm development is so complex, researchers have struggled to identify parts of the process that can be safely and effectively tinkered ...

Women working in organizations are frequently encouraged to cultivate connections to high-status individuals based on a prominent social network theory. But new research conducted in China and the United States suggests that having high-status connections can backfire for women. The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan, appears in Organizational Science. “Our findings reveal a social-network dilemma for women that is contrary to a widely accepted belief that women should build their network with high-status individuals,” said Catherine Shea, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School ...

DALLAS (SMU) – A new study from SMU psychologist Sarah Kucker and colleagues reveals that passive video use among toddlers can negatively affect language development, but their caregiver’s motivations for exposing them to digital media could also lessen the impact. Results show that children between the ages of 17 and 30 months spend an average of nearly two hours per day watching videos – a 100 percent increase from prior estimates gathered before the COVID pandemic. The research reveals a negative association between high levels of digital media watching and children’s vocabulary development. Children exposed to videos ...

SAN ANTONIO — February 20, 2024 —Southwest Research Institute will host its second Automotive Corrosion Symposium in Detroit April 11-12. The event, first held in 2022, is designed to foster communication among corrosion experts from within automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as well as material, paint and other automotive suppliers over a wide spectrum of industry-identified corrosion issues. “Corrosion is a concern within the automotive industry, not just for cosmetic reasons, but because it can affect functionality and safety,” said SwRI Staff Engineer James Dante, one of the organizers ...

A Rutgers professor who studies and improves the design of algorithms – human-made instructions computers follow to solve problems and perform computations – has been selected to receive a 2024 Sloan Research Fellowship. Aaron Bernstein, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, was named one of 126 researchers drawn from a select group of 53 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. The award honors extraordinary creativity, innovation and the potential to become a scientific ...

Tokyo, The Digital Olfaction Society (DOS) announces a global initiative for 2025, aiming to digitize and transmit scents from various locations around the world for reproduction in Tokyo. This project intends to capture a wide range of fragrances representing the cultural diversity of the globe, leading to a significant development in Tokyo. Invitation for Worldwide Participation DOS invites teams from around the world to participate in this initiative. Whether located in major cities such as Berlin, New York, Dubai, or any place with a distinctive aroma, contributions ...

Researchers from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Riga Technical University and the MESA+ Institute at the University of Twente have succeeded in arranging very small particles (10 µm to 500 nm, 10 to 100 times thinner than a human hair) in a thin layer without using solvents. This is a hugely important first step towards developing a new generation of sensors and electronics for a wide range of applications. “Common methods based on crystallising solutions are ...

By analysing ancient DNA, an international team of researchers have uncovered cases of chromosomal disorders, including what could be the first case of Edwards syndrome ever identified from prehistoric remains. The team identified six cases of Down syndrome and one case of Edwards syndrome in human populations that were living in Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece from as long ago as 4,500 years before today. The research indicated that these individuals were buried with care, and often with special grave goods, showing that they were appreciated as members of their ancient societies.  The global collaborative study, led by first author Dr ...