Rishi Pillai and his research team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory will receive a Best Paper award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Gas Turbine Institute in June at the Turbo Expo 2024 in London.   The winning paper is “Leveraging Additive Manufacturing to Fabricate High Temperature Alloys with Co-Designed Mechanical Properties and Environmental Resistance,” which Pillai presented in June at the Turbo Expo 2023 in Boston.   The ORNL scientists co-designed a compositionally graded nickel-based alloy for molten halide salts-supercritical carbon dioxide heat exchangers. The objective ...

The Science The Standard Model of Particle Physics is scientists’ best understanding of the forces that describe how subatomic particles interact. The Standard Model encompasses four forces: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force. All four forces govern the way our universe works. However, the weak nuclear force is exceptionally difficult to study as it is overshadowed by the much greater effects of the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces. Scientists have gained new ...

HOUSTON – (April 19, 2024) – While foraging, animals including humans and monkeys are continuously making decisions about where to search for food and when to move among possible sources of sustenance. “Foraging behavior is something we perform daily when we go to the grocery store to pick up food, and we make choices based on the degree of reward each choice provides. It’s a classical problem common to every species on the planet,” said Valentin Dragoi, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice, professor of neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College and scientific director of the Methodist/Rice Center for Neural Systems Restoration. In ...

Grant of up to $11 million will fund a clinical trial at UCSF that uses a smarter new CAR-T guided by precision technology.   A type of gene therapy called CAR-T that has extended survival for thousands of patients with leukemia and other blood cancers is being adapted at UC San Francisco to treat people with glioblastoma, the most common and deadly adult brain tumor.    This new more powerful version of CAR-T employs a novel technology developed at UCSF called synthetic notch (synNotch) that both protects healthy tissue from damage and enables the treatment to work more effectively.     UCSF ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Inspired by what human liver enzymes can do, Scripps Research chemists have developed a new set of copper-catalyzed organic synthesis reactions for building and modifying pharmaceuticals and other molecules. The new reactions are expected to be widely used in drug discovery and optimization, as well as in other chemistry-based industries. In their study, which initially published in an unedited version on March 28, 2024, in Nature, the chemists showed that their new methods can be used to perform two modifications—called dehydrogenations and lactonizations—on ...

Blessed thistle (Cnicus benedictus) is a plant in the family Asteraceae and also grows in our climate. For centuries, it has been used as a medicinal herb as an extract or tea, e.g. to aid the digestive system. Researchers at the Center for Pharmacology of University Hospital Cologne and at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cologne have now found a completely novel use for Cnicin under the direction of Dr Philipp Gobrecht and Professor Dr Dietmar Fischer. Animal models as well as human cells have shown that Cnicin significantly accelerates axon (nerve fibres) growth. The study ...

Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security was awarded a $10 million Department of Energy grant in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to create a pilot regional cybersecurity research and operations center to protect the electric power grid against cyberattacks.  The total value of the project is $12.5 million, with the additional $2.5 million coming from Auburn University and other strategic partners. The center, officially named the Southeast Region Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, or SERC3, will bring together experts from the private sector, academia and government to share information and generate innovative ...

People are using “they/them” pronouns more often according to a new study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Led by UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Jennifer E. Arnold, Ph.D., the new research paper published on April 14 in Glossa Psycholinguistics provides the first evidence of how people use “they/them” when talking about a specific person in a spoken storytelling context.  “Within the last decade, people have started to use ‘they’ as a personal pronoun, often because they identify as nonbinary or gender nonconforming,” said Arnold, a professor ...

A new study published today in Nature Medicine unveils a significant breakthrough in the understanding and early detection of multiple sclerosis (MS). Researchers have identified a unique autoantibody signature present in approximately 10% of patients with MS years before the onset of clinical symptoms. Autoantibodies are basically antibodies that are supposed to fight off invaders but end up turning against one’s own body, causing problems like autoimmune diseases. Utilizing the U.S. Department ...

 Annals of Internal Medicine presents breaking scientific news at ACP’s Internal Medicine Meeting 2024   Authors discuss evidence-based research on obesity, antibiotic resistance, and type 2 diabetes   BOSTON April 19, 2024 – Today at ACP’s annual meeting, Internal Medicine Meeting 2024, Annals of Internal Medicine presented three breaking scientific research articles during a live scientific plenary session that featured the authors of those articles. The articles were published in ACP’s flagship journal concurrent with the live meeting presentation. During the session, New in Annals of Internal Medicine: Hear it First from the Authors, the authors ...

Scientists at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) and their international collaborators have recently developed a new method for efficiently extracting information from galaxy surveys. Their research results were published online in the latest issue of Communications Physics. Massive galaxy redshift surveys are powerful tools for probing the Universe in this era of precision cosmology. By observing a great number of spectra from distant galaxies, astronomers are able to create density fields of galaxies ...

Researchers have developed a new shoe insole technology that helps reduce the risk of diabetic foot ulcers, a dangerous open sore that can lead to hospitalization and leg, foot or toe amputations. “The goal of this innovative insole technology is to mitigate the risk of diabetic foot ulcers by addressing one of their most significant causes: skin and soft tissue breakdown due to repetitive stress on the foot during walking,” said Muthu B.J. Wijesundara, principal research scientist at The University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI). Affecting about 39 million people in the U.S., diabetes can damage the small blood vessels that supply blood to the nerves, ...

KINGSTON, R.I. – April 17, 2024 – Migration and reproduction are two of the most demanding events in a bird’s annual cycle, so much so that the vast majority of migratory birds separate the two tasks into different times of the year. But a study by University of Rhode Island researchers has found direct evidence of a species – the American woodcock, a migratory shorebird from eastern and central North America – that overlaps periods of migration and reproduction, a rare breeding strategy known as “itinerant breeding.” Their work, backed by collaborators across the East Coast, was published today in the biological sciences journal Proceedings ...

DETROIT — Amiangshu Bosu, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Wayne State University, received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to formulate better practices involving peer code review. Peer code review is a mandatory software verification practice among most open source and commercial software development organizations. In this practice, one or more peers inspect and approve a code change before integrating it into a project's repository. As developers spend significant effort daily ...

Cancer is the monster of our society. Last year alone, more than 600,000 people in the United States died from cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. The relentless pursuit of understanding this complex disease has shaped medical progress on developing treatment procedures that are less invasive while still highly effective.  Immunotherapy is on the rise as a possible solution. Immunotherapy involves harnessing the power of the body’s immune system to fight against cancer cells. Researchers in the College of Engineering ...

An international collaboration of researchers, led by Philip Walther at University of Vienna, have achieved a significant breakthrough in quantum technology, with the successful demonstration of quantum interference among several single photons using a novel resource-efficient platform. The work published in the prestigious journal Science Advances represents a notable advancement in optical quantum computing that paves the way for more scalable quantum technologies.  Interference among photons, a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics, serves as a cornerstone of optical quantum computing. It involves harnessing the properties of light, such as its wave-particle duality, ...

Toxic chemicals used to flame-proof plastic materials can be absorbed into the body through skin, via contact with microplastics, new research shows.  The study offers the first experimental evidence that chemicals present as additives in microplastics can leach into human sweat, and then be absorbed through the skin, into the bloodstream.  Many chemicals used as flame retardants and plasticisers have already been banned, due to evidence of adverse health effects including damage to the liver or nervous system, cancer, and risks to reproductive health. However, these chemicals ...

Mount Sinai scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) in Madrid, Spain, have located and identified alterations in the monkeypox virus genome that potentially correlate with changes in the virus’s transmissibility observed in the 2022 outbreak. The findings were published April 18 in Nature Communications. Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is a double-stranded DNA virus that can infect animals and humans. MPXV causes a disease known as mpox, with symptoms that include fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash. Most cases are mild and tend to get better on their own; however, mpox ...

The number of biological products registered in Brazil in recent years for crop protection against agricultural pests has surpassed that of agrochemicals. Around 90% of the area under sugarcane cultivation in the country, for example, already uses natural enemies such as microorganisms, macroorganisms, biochemicals (compounds of natural origin that control pests and diseases) and semiochemicals (molecules that induce behavioral responses in target organisms). The data were presented by José Maurício Simões Bento, a ...

The longstanding advice to “check your baggage at the door” may not be the best way for leaders to engage and empower their employees. Instead, acknowledging that leaders are complete individuals with experiences outside of the office is a key factor in assisting them with the challenging, exhausting and often thankless work they do daily. According to new research from the University of Florida, leaders who reflect on gratitude that they receive from family members at home feel higher levels of ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in collaboration with the University of Arizona led a study that can help surgeons obtain biofeedback of their posture during long surgical procedures. Ultimately, the aim is to reduce the stress associated with maintaining static postures while operating. Published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, this pilot study evaluated the feasibility of using wearable technology to assess the posture of neurosurgeons during long spine and cranial procedures. The findings show that wearable technology is a feasible and reproducible approach to provide ...

NEW YORK – April 19, 2024 – The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation® (CRF®) announced today a strategic partnership for CRF’s New York Valves 2024: The Structural Heart Summit, making AATS the exclusive cardiothoracic surgical society partner of this preeminent valve meeting. New York Valves 2024, the expanded iteration of CRF’s renowned annual Transcatheter Valve Therapy (TVT®) conference, will take place June 5-7 ...

About The Study: This study including 903 women with BRCA germline pathogenic variants found that a breast cancer diagnosis less than 10 years postpartum was associated with higher risk of mortality compared with nulliparous women and women diagnosed at least 10 years postpartum. These results should inform genetic counseling, prevention, and treatment strategies for BRCA pathogenic variant carriers.  Authors: Zhenzhen Zhang, Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial with 314 participants, self-administered acupressure with a brief knee health education program was efficacious and cost-effective in relieving knee pain and improving mobility in middle-aged and older adults with probable knee osteoarthritis.  Authors: Wing-Fai Yeung, Ph.D., of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, 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/jamanetworkopen.2024.5830) Editor’s ...

This year’s Communicator Award presented by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and Stifterverband goes to an interdisciplinary research team consisting of one computer scientist and two cultural scholars, all of whom are based in Tübingen: Ulrike von Luxburg, Professor for the Theory of Machine Learning at the University of Tübingen, Tim Schaffarczik, doctoral researcher at the Institute of Historical and Cultural Anthropology, University of Tübingen, and Thomas Thiemeyer, Professor of Museum Studies, likewise at the Institute of ...