Sleep schedules are often one of the first things that people choose to compromise in order to check everything off their to-do lists, especially with the end of the year approaching. But folks hoping for happy holidays should reconsider.  A new study from the University of Michigan shows that when people's sleep cycles are misaligned with their internal clocks, or circadian rhythms, it can have drastic effects on their moods. Conversely, however, that means getting sleep when the body's expecting it provides a potent boost to one's emotional state and could alleviate symptoms associated with mood disorders, said senior author Daniel Forger. "This is not going ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024   MINNEAPOLIS – For healthy older adults, using antibiotics is not associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment or dementia, according to a study published in the December 18, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Cognitive impairment is when someone has subtle changes in thinking and memory like forgetting events and losing items more often. Dementia is when thinking and memory problems become more advanced ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People with breathing problems during sleep may have a larger hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and thinking, according to a study published in the December 18, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study, which included mostly Latino people, also found that those with lower oxygen levels during sleep had changes in the deep parts of the brain, the white matter, a common finding of decreased brain health that develops with age. Sleep disordered breathing is a range ...

A new Rice University study sheds light on the critical role marital relationships play in the mental and physical health of caregivers for spouses living with dementia, revealing that caregiver mental health dramatically improves when carers feel supported, understood and appreciated by their loved ones requiring care. The research was led by Vincent Lai, a graduate student in psychological sciences at Rice. The study involved 161 spousal caregivers and explored the unique challenges they face. Participants completed detailed assessments, including questionnaires, health evaluations and blood draws. The findings revealed that caregivers who reported ...

An immersive VR exercise session engaged participants in more intense and reportedly enjoyable exercise, with more positive emotions, compared to a workout presented on-screen, suggesting immersive VR could be an efficient alternative to other forms of screen-based workouts ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0314331 Article Title: Acute psychological and physiological benefits of exercising with virtual reality Author Countries: U.K., Australia Funding: OR received contract research funding from FitXR https://fitxr.com/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, ...

Pine-oak forests and frequent fires have been a predominant feature of Albany Pine Bush, New York, for the last 11,000 years - though increases in ferns, mosses, and peat-deposition reflect moister climates in recent millennia, according to pollen and charcoal samples ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0314101 Article Title: A 13,000-year history of vegetation and fire in a rare inland pine barrens: The Albany Pine Bush (Albany County, New York, USA) Author Countries: Canada, U.S. Funding: (JCS) The private donor-funded Draper-Lussi Endowed Chair Fund at Paul Smith’s College, ...

Researchers at NYU College of Dentistry and NYU Grossman School of Medicine are closer to understanding what drives the autoimmune disorder Sjögren’s disease, thanks to new discoveries about the role of calcium signaling, regulatory T cells, and interferon. Their latest study, published in Science Translational Medicine, finds that impaired regulatory T cells are a critical contributing factor to Sjögren’s disease in both mice and humans, and identifies an existing rheumatology drug as a promising therapy for the disease.  In Sjögren’s disease, the immune system attacks the glands that produce saliva and tears, ...

Wearable haptic devices, which provide touch-based feedback, can provide more realistic experiences in virtual reality, assist with rehabilitation, and create new opportunities for silent communication. Currently, most of these devices rely on vibration, as pressure-based haptics have typically required users to wear stiff exoskeletons or other bulky structures. Now, researchers at Stanford Engineering have designed a comfortable, flexible knit sleeve, called Haptiknit, that can provide realistic pressure-based haptic ...

Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London have conducted a comprehensive study to evaluate artificial intelligence based ageing clocks, which predict health and lifespan using data from blood. The researchers trained and tested 17 machine learning algorithms using data on markers in the blood from over 225,000 UK Biobank participants, aged 40 to 69 years when they were recruited. They investigated how well different metabolomic ageing clocks predict lifespan and how robustly these clocks were associated with measures of health and ageing. A person’s metabolomic age, their “MileAge”, is a measure of ...

Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty in which genes often play a role. How do genes associated with dyslexia relate to brain structure in the general population? In a large-scale study published in Science Advances, a team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen found that genetic variants that increase the chance of dyslexia were associated with differences in brain areas involved in motor coordination, vision, and language. Around 5% of school-age children have severe difficulties ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Which microbes thrive below us in darkness – in gold mines, in aquifers, in deep boreholes in the seafloor – and how do they compare to the microbiomes that envelop the Earth’s surfaces, on land and sea? The first global study to embrace this huge question, conducted at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, reveals astonishingly high microbial diversity in some subsurface environments (up to 491 meters below the seafloor and up to 4375 m below ground).  This discovery ...

Malaria, caused by a parasite transmitted to humans through an infected mosquito’s bite, is a leading cause of illness and death worldwide. Most susceptible are pregnant women, displaced people and children in developing countries, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Treating the disease is difficult because Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite, is resistant to nearly all malaria medications. But in a study published today in Science Advances, researchers at Case Western Reserve ...

Leading diabetes drug lowers blood sugar by interfering with mitochondria CHICAGO --- Millions of people take metformin, a Type 2 diabetes medication that lowers blood sugar. The “wonder drug” has also been shown to slow cancer growth, improve COVID outcomes and reduce inflammation. But until now, scientists have been unable to determine how, exactly, the drug works.    A new Northwestern Medicine study has provided direct evidence in mice that the drug reversibly cuts the cell’s ...

Chinese researchers recently revealed new insights on the growth of craniopharyngioma and identified a potential therapeutic treatment. Their findings were published online in Science Translational Medicine on December 19. Craniopharyngioma, a benign yet highly invasive tumor occurring along the hypothalamus-pituitary axis, presents a unique clinical challenge. Although nonmalignant, its proximity to critical brain structures often leads to severe endocrine and metabolic complications. The tumor can invade the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, resulting in endocrine dysfunction and metabolic disorders ...

Massive volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula have long been proposed as an alternative cause for the demise of the dinosaurs. This phase of active volcanism took place in a period just before the Earth was struck by a meteorite, 66 million years ago. The effect of these volcanic eruptions on the Earth’s climate has been topic of fierce scientific debates for decades. Now, climate scientists from Utrecht University and the University of Manchester show that, while the volcanism caused a temporary cold period, the effects had already worn off thousands of years before the meteorite impacted. The scientists therefore conclude that the meteorite impact was the ...

A common over-the-counter ingredient in many cough syrups may have a greater purpose for people suffering from lung fibrosis that is related to any number of serious health conditions.  Scientists from EMBL Heidelberg were part of a collaborative effort to discover an effective treatment for lung fibrosis and found that the best candidate may be one that is already available as a cough medicine around the world, dextromethorphan. The study was recently published in Science Translational Medicine and showed how dextromethorphan can impede ...

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have shown that a systemic approach to eliminating inefficiencies in surgical residency programs can reduce unnecessary work hours in the general residency program at UC San Diego. The approach—based on Lean methodology—can also positively impact the training and overall well-being of surgery residents. The results are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “Our study shows ...

Research from Radboud university medical center shows that the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on people's immune response to microorganisms. During the lockdown, inflammation level in the body was low, but afterwards, the immune system reacted more intensely to viruses and bacteria. The results are now published in Frontiers of Immunology. In this study, the researchers examined the effects of various health measures introduced during the pandemic, such as lockdowns and vaccinations. The study was conducted in a large cohort of people living with HIV, as well as in healthy individuals. The researchers ...

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. Smoking cessation medications are safe and effective for people with depression Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are more likely to smoke, leading to higher risks of nicotine addiction and early death from tobacco-related illnesses. To identify the best treatments for quitting, researchers led by George ...

Scientists have spotted a massive black hole in the early universe that is ‘napping’ after stuffing itself with too much food. Like a bear gorging itself on salmon before hibernating for the winter, or a much-needed nap after Christmas dinner, this black hole has overeaten to the point that it is lying dormant in its host galaxy. An international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to detect this black hole in the early universe, just 800 million years after the Big Bang. The black hole is huge – ...

Much like plants in a thriving forest, certain cells in the brain create a nurturing environment, enhancing the health and resilience of their neighbors, while others promote stress and damage, akin to a noxious weed in an ecosystem. A new study published in Nature on December 18, 2024, reveals these interactions playing out across the lifespan. It suggests local cellular interactions may profoundly influence brain aging — and offers fresh insights into how we might slow or even reverse the process. “What was exciting to us was finding that some cells have a pro-aging effect on neighboring cells while others appear to have a rejuvenating effect on their neighbors,” ...

The electronics industry is approaching a limit to the number of transistors that can be packed onto the surface of a computer chip. So, chip manufacturers are looking to build up rather than out.  Instead of squeezing ever-smaller transistors onto a single surface, the industry is aiming to stack multiple surfaces of transistors and semiconducting elements — akin to turning a ranch house into a high-rise. Such multilayered chips could handle exponentially more data and carry out many more complex functions than today’s electronics.  A significant hurdle, however, is the platform on which chips are built. Today, bulky ...

MIT physicists have created a new and long-lasting magnetic state in a material, using only light.  In a study that will appear in Nature, the researchers report using a terahertz laser — a light source that oscillates more than a trillion times per second — to directly stimulate atoms in an antiferromagnetic material. The laser’s oscillations are tuned to the natural vibrations among the material’s atoms, in a way that shifts the balance of atomic spins toward a new magnetic state.  The results provide a new way to control and switch antiferromagnetic materials, which are of interest for their potential ...

About The Study: Compared with 2000-2022, the number of union petitions with physicians in the bargaining units filed and certified increased in 2023 through May 2024. Organizing efforts were motivated by concerns about working conditions, physicians’ autonomy, and voice in management, and the quality of patient care.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kevin Schulman, MD, email kevin.schulman@stanford.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

About The Study: The 2024 long COVID research index for adults builds on the 2023 index with additional data and symptoms to help researchers classify symptomatic long COVID and its symptom subtypes. Continued future refinement of the index will be needed as the understanding of long COVID evolves.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Leora I. Horwitz, MD, MHS, email leora.horwitz@nyulangone.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.24184) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including ...