Until the 1990s, Venezuela was home to one of the most established democracies in Latin America. Today, however, it stands as one of the region’s most firmly entrenched authoritarian regimes. How did this shift occur, and what can other countries learn from Venezuela’s transformation? A new paper from political scientist Laura Gamboa at the University of Notre Dame chronicles the country’s 25-year evolution, during which Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, destroyed ...

TOOELE, UTAH, USA -- Wildlife conservation is critical to sustaining the planet’s biodiversity and health. But putting together a conservation plan is a tall order. First of all, you need to determine what species you’re conserving, along with their numbers, habitat needs, threats and how they fit into a complex ecosystem. As pollinators for native plants and food crops, bees play a pivotal role in our ecosystem, according to Utah State University ecologist Joseph Wilson. He and undergraduate researcher Anthony Hunsaker took on the herculean task of documenting Utah’s bee species using online occurrence records from the Symbiota Collection of Arthropods ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- In his home office in Durham, Duke neuroscientist Richard Mooney shows a series of images of a bird’s brain on song. In one, what looks like a pointillist painting illustrates a young zebra finch’s myriad attempts to sound more like an adult, capable of wooing a mate. In another, squiggly lines trace the ebb and flow of chemical signals in the reward circuit of the bird’s brain. “Their songs don’t sound like much at first,” said Mooney, who has studied birdsong for four decades. That’s because some things take considerable practice to master. Nobody walks onto a tennis court for the first time and plays ...

If you filled out a March Madness bracket this month, you probably faced the same question with each college match-up: What gives one team an edge over another? Is it a team’s record through the regular season? Or the chemistry among its players? Maybe it’s the experience of its coaching staff or the buzz around a top scorer.  All of these factors play some role in a team’s chance to advance. But according to a new study by MIT researchers, there’s one member who consistently ...

Relations between Europe and South America – and especially with Brazil - are at a favorable moment, due to factors such as the free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, signed in December 2024 and currently being approved. However, in order to take advantage of this window of opportunity and be competitive, Brazil must continue to expand scientific and technological cooperation with European partners.   This assessment was made by the Brazilian Ambassador to Germany, Roberto Jaguaribe, ...

The Food and Drug Administration has approved more than 100 monoclonal antibodies to treat a range of diseases. Other antibodies are used by physicians to diagnose conditions or by scientists to advance research projects. Even with significant expansion in the global market for antibodies used in clinical care and research, scientists recognize that there is still untapped potential for finding new antibodies. Many proteins group together in what are called protein complexes to carry out biological functions. The traditional method of generating antibodies by immunizing animals struggles to make antibodies related to these protein complexes. The conventional ...

NEW ORLEANS - Ochsner Health Medical Director for Cardiac Rehabilitation and Preventive Cardiology, Carl J. “Chip” Lavie, Jr., MD, recently co-authored a groundbreaking research study featured in the prestigious Mayo Clinic Proceedings highlighting the comparative efficacy of lipid-lowering therapies for reducing cardiovascular risks and led by Maciej Banach, MD,PhD from Poland and leader of the International Lipid Expert Panel ( ILEP). Impact of Lipid-Lowering Combination Therapy With Statins ...

Scientists from around the world specializing in motor control and neuroscience will travel to the University of Rhode Island this summer as the university hosts the international XV Progress in Motor Control Conference. The university’s Department of Physical Therapy, its George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at URI, will host the biennial meeting of the International Society of Motor Control (ISMC) June 30 to July 2. This year’s conference will be held in the Center for ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Zika virus and dengue virus are very close relatives. Both are mosquito-borne flaviviruses, and both specialize in infecting a host's dendritic cells. But a new Nature Communications study, led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and UC San Diego shows that these two viruses have vastly different ways of making us sick.  Zika virus uses stealth. Zika virus slips into dendritic cells and blocks the dendritic cells from alerting nearby T cells to danger. It's the classic horror movie cliche—the creeper is already in the house, and ...

MADISON — A drug typically prescribed for arthritis halts brain-damaging seizures in mice that have a condition like epilepsy, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The drug, called tofacitinib, also restores short-term and working memory lost to epilepsy in the mice and reduces inflammation in the brain caused by the disease. If the drug proves viable for human patients, it would be the first to provide lasting relief from seizures even after they stopped taking it. “It ticks all the boxes ...

SCAI Announces 2025-26 Recipients of JSCAI Editorial Fellowship Program WASHINGTON — The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) is pleased to announce the selection of 10 outstanding early-career interventional cardiologists for the 2025-26 JSCAI Editorial Fellowship Program cohort.  The JSCAI Editorial Fellowship Program provides fellows-in-training and early-career interventionalists with a unique opportunity to develop their skills as peer reviewers and gain firsthand experience in the editorial process. Participants are paired with JSCAI Deputy or Associate ...

For organs to develop, grow and regenerate, cells must proliferate. But when that process goes awry, leading to uncontrolled cell growth, cancer can emerge.  New CU Boulder research, published in the journal Science Advances, offers unprecedented insight into how an enigmatic enzyme, known as CDK7, drives this complex process. The research shows that novel cancer drugs designed to inhibit CDK7 can, within minutes, shut down gene expression pathways that drive cell proliferation in dozens of different ...

New Haven, Conn. — Yale scientists have discovered a promising way to trigger immune responses against certain tumors, using a lupus-related antibody that can slip, undetected, into “cold” tumors and flip on an immune response that has been turned off by cancer. The research, published in Science Signaling on March 25, offers new findings that could help improve therapies for glioblastoma and other aggressive cancers that are difficult to treat. “It turns out when this antibody gets into the cell’s cytoplasm [the liquid material inside the cell, excluding the nucleus] and it binds ...

A flower-shaped structure only a few micrometres in size made of a nickel-iron alloy can concentrate and locally enhance magnetic fields. The size of the effect can be controlled by varying the geometry and number of 'petals'. This magnetic metamaterial developed by Dr Anna Palau's group at the Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB) in collaboration with her partners of the CHIST-ERA MetaMagIC project, has now been studied at BESSY II in collaboration with Dr Sergio Valencia. Such a device can be used to increase the sensitivity of magnetic sensors, to reduce the energy required for creating local magnetic fields, but also, at ...

A new study explores how epigenetic markers—chemical modifications that influence gene activity—can help predict the risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases and guide personalized prevention strategies. The findings are particularly significant as the prevalence of major cardiometabolic risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity continues to rise despite advancements in healthcare and treatment. This trend highlights the need for better early detection and intervention. The study is titled “Poly-epigenetic scores for cardiometabolic risk factors interact with demographic factors and health behaviors in older US Adults” and is published in the journal ...

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences has gone in this seventeenth edition to Avelino Corma (Institute of Chemical Technology, Universitat Politècnica de València-CSIC, Spain), John F. Hartwig (University of California, Berkeley, United States) and Helmut Schwarz (Technical University of Berlin, Germany) for fundamental advances in the catalysis field, in the words of the committee, that have made it possible to “control and accelerate chemical ...

For human health, prematurely aging cells are a big problem. When a cell ages and stops growing, its function changes, which can cause or worsen cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic diseases. But these cells are also like needles in a haystack, difficult to identify by traditional scientific measures.  To find these problematic cells, a University of Illinois Chicago doctoral student has developed a powerful new software platform called SenePy. In a paper for Nature Communications, Mark ...

Inventors from The University of Texas at Arlington have once again been a vital part of the University of Texas System’s recognition as one of the world’s leading innovation centers. According to the prestigious National Academy of Inventors (NAI), UT System ranks No. 6 on its Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents list for 2024. UTA contributed 23 patents—an increase of 15% over 2023—to UT System’s total of 234 last year. “Being a top-ranking member of the Top 100 Worldwide ...

Mesoscale eddies, oceanic swirling currents with typical horizontal scales of 10-100 kilometres in diameter, are ubiquitous features of the global ocean and play a vital role in marine ecosystems. Eddies, which form in biologically productive coastal upwelling regions, are important vehicles for the transport of carbon and nutrients. These eddies trap water masses and migrate into the open ocean, where productivity is comparatively low. As such, they have a significant influence on the nutrient and carbon cycles within the ocean.  For decades, marine scientists have sought to understand in detail how coastal waters are transported offshore and how this process affects productivity in ...

Ever since 1993, when a deadly disease outbreak in the Four Corners first revealed the presence of hantavirus in North America, New Mexicans have been warned to be on the lookout for deer mice, which harbor the microbe and can spread it through their droppings. A few human cases, usually presenting with severe cardiopulmonary symptoms, typically occur in New Mexico each year – almost all in the northwestern quadrant of the state – and even with advanced treatment about 35 percent of patients die. But now, University of New Mexico researchers have found ...

A recent study conducted by Nora Medina, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher of family and community medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, along with colleagues from the University of Chicago, highlights the importance of the emotional bond that a mother establishes with her child during pregnancy. The study team followed 160 young, low-income, racially diverse mothers from pregnancy until their children were two and a half years old. Mothers who felt more connected to their babies during pregnancy were more likely to have a healthier, positive relationship with their children ...

When skin is cut or damaged, tiny cell fragments circulating in the blood, called platelets, arrive at the injury and spread out to stop the blood from leaking out. Once enough layers of platelets accumulate, like stacks of sandbags against a flood, a blood clot is formed, trapping red blood cells. When the break occurs in a blood vessel, the clot contracts to facilitate smooth blood flow through the vessels. Until recently, researchers believed that platelet spreading and clot contraction were controlled ...

From virtual reality to rehabilitation and communication, haptic technology has revolutionized the way humans interact with the digital world. While early haptic devices focused on single-sensory cues like vibration-based notifications, modern advancements have paved the way for multisensory haptic devices that integrate various forms of touch-based feedback, including vibration, skin stretch, pressure and temperature. Recently, a team of experts, including Rice University’s Marcia O’Malley and Daniel ...

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in American men. Further, non-Hispanic Blacks have a higher incidence of prostate cancer and are more likely to die from it than are non-Hispanic whites. A biopsy is recommended if a patient has certain risk factors like age, family history, symptoms and screening test results. When the biopsy sample is taken, physicians use either ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to guide the procedure. In a new study, researchers at Thomas Jefferson ...

Academic peer review is notoriously cumbersome. The process assesses the quality of scientific research prior to publication in an academic journal, sometimes delaying publication by many months. The system depends on members of the academic community providing their time and expertise for free. However, finding reviewers can be lengthy and there are no consequences when reviewers produce poor-quality reports lacking constructive feedback. Daniel Gorelick, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biology Open believed that there could an alternative. ‘My vision is a ...