Lockdown drills, practiced to help prepare children for shooting incidents at school, make those who have been exposed to violence feel safer – a new study of thousands of students in the US indicates.    The finding, reported in a new peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of School Violence, contradicts claims that the drills traumatize children, without making them feel safer.    Ensuring that students feel safe – and are safe – in schools is essential for them to learn and thrive, explains ...

t’s official. Getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep a night is currently out of reach for almost one-third of the population as Flinders University experts found 31% of adults had average sleep durations outside the recommended range. The global study of thousands of adults published in Sleep Health found only 15% of people slept the recommended 7-9 hours for five or more nights per week – and among those who did achieve an average of 7-9 hours per night over the nine month monitoring period, about 40% ...

In recent news, there has been a case where a patient experienced pain due to a surgical procedure involving sutures, resulting in the unintended presence of gauze within the patient's body. Gauze is typically employed to control bleeding during medical interventions, aiding in hemostasis. However, when inadvertently left in the body, it can lead to inflammation and infection. Addressing this issue, recent research has been published by researchers focusing on a hemostatic agent derived from mussels and silkworm cocoons. This hemostatic agent has garnered attention in the academic community due to its efficacy in clotting blood and its safety within ...

A new research study led by A*STAR.Singapore Immunology Network (A*STAR.SIgN) has found that neutrophils—one of the most abundant white blood cells in our body—change drastically in certain cancers, adopting a new function whereby they promote tumour growth. By carefully studying neutrophils as soon as they enter the tumour, scientists from A*STAR.SIgN also uncovered ways to accurately differentiate tumour-promoting neutrophils from normal neutrophils present in the rest of the body. Neutrophils play important and irreplaceable roles in fighting infections, ...

Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) depict the regulatory mechanisms of genes within cellular systems as a network, offering vital insights for understanding cell processes and molecular interactions that determine cellular phenotypes. Transcriptional regulation, a prevalent type for regulating gene expression, involves the control of target genes (TGs) by transcription factors (TFs). One of the major challenges in inferring GRNs is to establish causal relationships, rather than just correlation, among the various components ...

Image-sentence retrieval task aims to search images for given sentences and retrieve sentences from image queries. The current retrieval methods are all supervised methods that require a large number of annotations for training. However, considering the labor cost, it is difficult to re-align large amounts of multimodal data in many applications (e.g., medical retrieval), which results in unsupervised multimodal data. To solve the problem, a research team led by Yang YANG published their new research on 15 Feb 2024 in Frontiers of Computer Science co-published by Higher Education Press and ...

Deep learning modeling that incorporates physical knowledge is currently a hot topic, and a number of excellent techniques have emerged. The most well-known one is the physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). PINN integrates the residuals of the system’s governing partial differential equations (PDEs) and the initial value/boundary conditions into the loss function, thus the resulting model satisfies the constraints of the physical laws represented by the PDEs. However, PINN cannot work if equations among the key physical quantities of the system have not been established. To ...

Osaka, Japan – Well-being is important for everyone, especially when we feel lonely or isolated. Depression is a serious challenge for many people and finding an effective solution is key. In a recent study published in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from Osaka University used a mouse model of depression to reveal that one form of ketamine (a common anesthetic) in low doses can improve social impairments by restoring functioning in a specific brain region called the anterior insular cortex. Ketamine is often used at low doses to treat depression, but its actions in the brain remain relatively unclear. Generally, ketamine refers to a mix of two different forms of ketamine: ...

The evolutionary success of the first large predators on land was driven by their need to improve as killers, researchers at the University of Bristol and the Open University suggest. The forerunners of mammals ruled the Earth for about 60 million years, long before the origin of the first dinosaurs. They diversified as the top predators on land between 315–251 million years ago. Researchers studied the jaw anatomy and body size of carnivorous synapsids, using these traits to reconstruct the likely feeding habits of these ancient predators and chart their ecological ...

AI holds the potential to revolutionize healthcare, but it also brings with it a significant challenge: bias. For instance, a dermatologist might use an AI-driven system to help identify suspicious moles. But what if the machine learning model was trained primarily on image data from lighter skin tones, and misses a common form of skin cancer on a darker-skinned patient?   This is a real-world problem. In 2021, researchers found that free image databases that could be used to train AI systems to diagnose skin cancer contain very few images ...

Increased use of Paxlovid, the antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19, could prevent hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and save tens of billions of dollars a year, according to a new epidemiological model published by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. In fact, epidemiologists found that treating even 20% of symptomatic cases would save lives and improve public health. A 2023 National Institutes of Health study found that only about 15% of high-risk patients take Paxlovid when infected with COVID-19. Using a multiscale mathematical model based on ...

From smart virtual assistants and self-driving cars to digital health and fraud prevention systems, AI technology is transforming almost every aspect of our daily lives—and education is no different. For all its promise, the rise of AI, like any new technology, raises some pressing ethical and equity questions. How can we ensure that such a powerful tool can be accessed by all students regardless of background?  Inspired by this call to action, USC researchers have created a low-cost, accessible learning kit to help college and high school students build their own “robot friend.” Students can personalize the robot’s ...

  A special 13-article supplement to the peer-reviewed journal Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT) examines the “Development and Future of Automated Insulin Delivery (AID) Systems. Click here to read the supplement now. Included in the supplement is the article titled “A Peek Under the Hood: Explaining the MiniMed™ 780G Algorithm with Meal Detection™ Technology", by Benyamin Grosman, PhD and his Medtronic algorithm team with co-authors Ohad Cohen, MD, and Robert Vigersky, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Medtronic. James Thrasher, MD “Early ...

RENO, Nev. – A multi-agency study, spearheaded by researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, underscores the impacts of strategic cattle grazing, particularly on restoring the declining population of the greater sage-grouse bird, a keystone species in the Great Basin region.   Amidst ongoing decline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted by listing the sage-grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2011. This move prompted the Bureau of Land Management to develop a federal conservation plan for the species ...

Recent clinical trials utilizing high doses of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors have highlighted a new challenge to AAV gene transfer – activation of the complement system. A new article in the peer-reviewed journal Human Gene Therapy describes how a convergence of AAV-specific, environmental, and patient-specific factors shaping complement responses likely contribute to differential outcomes seen in clinical trials. Click here to read the article now. Complement responses may contribute to priming of the adaptive immune system or serious adverse events ...

By Ann Kellett, Texas A&M University School of Public Health A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that city dwellers who have more exposure to urban green spaces require fewer mental health services. The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, was conducted by Jay Maddock, Ph.D., Regents Professor of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M, and colleagues from the Center ...

University of Queensland researchers have identified an opportunity to reduce infections in people living with cystic fibrosis. Professor Matt Sweet, Dr Kaustav Das Gupta and Dr James Curson from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience have discovered a fault in the bacteria-killing function of immune cells in people with CF and a potential way to get around it. CF is a chronic disease in which defects in the CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) channel cause a build-up of mucus in the lungs, airways and digestive system, leading to ...

New research published in Anaesthesia (the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) shows that for children undergoing emergency surgery for appendicitis in the UK, black children had a four times greater risk of postoperative complications compared with white children. The study was led by Dr Amaki Sogbodjor, from Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London (UCL), and Professor Ramani Moonesinghe, UCL Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, London, UK and Director, Central London National ...

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site of a recently observed supernova. The supernova, known as SN 1987A, was a core-collapse supernova, meaning the compacted remains at its core formed either a neutron star or a black hole. Evidence for such a compact object has long been sought, and while indirect evidence for the presence of a neutron star has previously been found, this is the first time that the effects of high-energy ...

Study finds guided parent-child discussions are effective at addressing subtle racism When parents discuss racism with their children, negative biases toward Black people are significantly reduced in both parent and child EVANSTON, Ill. --- Experts have long pointed out the need for white parents to have conversations that directly address racism with their children to reduce racial bias. But many parents fail to have these crucial discussions. Psychology researchers at Northwestern University have published ...

When a recession takes a bite out of an entrepreneur’s personal stock portfolio, does that person’s business suffer more than those of older and larger competitors?  New research by Marius Ring, assistant professor of finance at Texas McCombs, finds a link between the wealth of small-business owners and the health of their companies during economic downturns. When their stock portfolios lose value, their businesses suffer ripple effects: less financing and curtailed hiring.  “Entrepreneurial wealth follows the ups and downs of economic cycles,” Ring says. “I show that for entrepreneurs whose stock portfolios take a hit, their businesses ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Biomedical engineers at Duke University have uncovered a key link between the spread of antibiotic resistance genes and the evolution of resistance to new drugs in certain pathogens. The research shows bacteria exposed to higher levels of antibiotics often harbor multiple identical copies of protective antibiotic resistance genes. These duplicated resistance genes are often linked to “jumping genes” called transposons that can move from strain to strain. Not only does this provide a mechanism for resistance to spread, having multiple copies of a resistance ...

BEAUFORT, N.C. – When it comes to protecting a crucial resource in the face of changing conditions, it’s important to know how the humans reliant on that resource have organized themselves. Especially if there isn’t a lot of government supervision. A new study of small-scale fisheries in Mexico’s Gulf of California has found that the fishers’ response to a changing climate can be strongly influenced by what they fish for and how they’re organized. The work appears in the January 2024 issue of Global Environmental Change. “When we ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn probability, fire size and number of blazes as the climate continues to get warmer and drier, according to new modeling led by an Oregon State University scientist. Understanding how fire regimes may change under future climate scenarios is critical for developing adaptation strategies, said the study’s lead author, Alex Dye. Findings were published today in JGR Biogeosciences. Dye, ...

While the microchips inside electronic devices like cell phones and computers are incredibly small, transistors — the tiny electrical switches inside of microchips — are approaching the atomic level. Today’s microchips pack over 100 million transistors in an area the size of a pin head. Despite their almost unimaginable size, the total number of such microelectronic devices consume an enormous amount of energy, which is growing exponentially. Predictions indicate that 20% of the world’s energy could be consumed ...