University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have created innovative soft robots equipped with electronic skins and artificial muscles, allowing them to sense their surroundings and adapt their movements in real-time, according to the paper, “Skin-Inspired, Sensory Robots for Electronic Implants,” in Nature Communications. In their research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the robots are designed to mimic the way muscles and skin work together in animals, making them more effective and safer to use inside the body. The e-skin integrates various sensing materials, such as silver nanowires ...

Beginning annually on June 1, hurricane season poses a major threat to Texas coastal communities, causing both physical and financial damage to the areas they hit. This damage can be staggering; when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, it cost Galveston $132.73 billion in damages. Texas A&M University researchers have collaborated to understand the impacts of storm surge floods before they occur to potentially reduce the level of damage. Their study was published in “Urban Informatics.” The researchers have implemented 3D visualization technology to identify the potential outcomes of hurricane flooding ...

David Kepplinger, Assistant Professor, Statistics, and Anand Vidyashankar, Professor, Statistics, are set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for: “Conference: Building a robust community: Joint International Conference on Robust Statistics and Conference on Data Science, Statistics, and Data Science.” Kepplinger and Vidyashankar will receive $20,993 from NSF for this award. Funding will begin in July 2024 and will end in late June 2025. The funding will support 15–20 students and early-career researchers to participate in the joint International Conference on Robust Statistics (ICORS) and the Conference ...

Toronto, Ontario—A newly developed radiotracer can generate high quality and readily interpretable images of cardiac amyloidosis, a condition referred to as the “Alzheimer’s disease of the heart.” As the first amyloid-specific and pan-amyloid binding radiotracer designed for planar and SPECT/CT imaging, 99mTc-p5+14 could play an important role in early detection and treatment of cardiac amyloidosis. This research was presented at the 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Annual Meeting. Systemic amyloidosis is an incurable disease in which abnormal amounts of ...

Toronto, Ontario—A novel AI approach can accurately detect six different types of cancer on whole-body PET/CT scans, according to research presented at the 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Annual Meeting. By automatically quantifying tumor burden, the new tool can be useful for assessing patient risk, predicting treatment response, and estimating survival. “Automatic detection and characterization of cancer are important clinical needs to enable early treatment,” said Kevin H. ...

An international team of astronomers led by the University of Vienna has deciphered the formation history of young star clusters, some of which we can see with the naked eye at night. The team, led by Cameren Swiggum and João Alves from the University of Vienna and Robert Benjamin from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, reports that most nearby young star clusters belong to only three families, which originate from very massive star-forming regions. This research also provides new insights into the effects of supernovae (violent explosions at the end of the life ...

LOS ANGELES — A new study guided by a renowned surgeon at City of Hope®, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, demonstrates that robotic liver surgery can be a safe, outpatient procedure. In fact, 8% of the patients sampled in the analysis were discharged to go home on the same day. “We have made so much progress in liver cancer. We can now deliver more cures and use less invasive treatment options. This study is proof that for the right patients and with the right tools — meaning robotic surgery — we can get people through a liver operation quicker and toward recovery and normal ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Jess Berthold (628) 399-0432    Jess.Berthold@ucsf.edu  Subscribe to UCSF News For Type 1 Diabetes Distress, Focus First on Managing Emotions  Virtual, emotion-centered program cuts distress in half after one year, while also improving patients’ glucose control.  The most effective way to reduce the distress that comes with having diabetes – and improve glucose control – is to focus on managing the emotional strain of living with the condition, a new study of adults that was led by researchers at UC San Francisco has found.    Diabetes distress, or DD, refers to ...

Astronomers have captured what appears to be a snapshot of a massive collision of giant asteroids in Beta Pictoris, a neighboring star system known for its early age and tumultuous planet-forming activity. The observations spotlight the volatile processes that shape star systems like our own, offering a unique glimpse into the primordial stages of planetary formation. “Beta Pictoris is at an age when planet formation in the terrestrial planet zone is still ongoing through giant asteroid collisions, so what we could be seeing here is basically how rocky planets and other bodies are forming in real time,” said Christine Chen, a Johns Hopkins University astronomer ...

Genetic mutations in human DNA can prevent proteins that perform important functions in the body from being formed correctly. This can lead to serious disorders that cause disease or even disability. Many of these diseases are already known and can be attributed to specific genes. To diagnose them, clinicians use a standard procedure known as exome sequencing. This involves analysing those segments of human DNA that are directly responsible for the correct formation of proteins. This coding part, the exome, makes up only around ...

In a paper titled “The Politicization of Climate Science: Media Consumption, Perceptions of Science and Scientists, and Support for Policy,” published May 26, 2024, in the Journal of Health Communication, researchers probed the associations between media exposure and science-consistent beliefs about climate change and the threat it posed to the respondent. Expanding on earlier work associating Fox News consumption with doubts about the existence of human-caused climate change, a team of scholars affiliated with the Annenberg Public Policy ...

INDIANAPOLIS – A new, healthy liver offers the best survival for patients with early-stage liver cancer. But a new study, led by Katie Ross-Driscoll, PhD, MPH, of Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Surgery, has identified disparities in liver transplant referral and evaluation, which must precede waitlisting, for these potentially lifesaving procedures. While other studies have demonstrated disparities in placement on organ waitlists, the new study is one of the first to examine the transplant ...

By Alistair Jones SMU Office of Research – Global condemnation of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has prompted the imposition of trade sanctions. Such measures are a form of economic coercion, commonly used for reasons of foreign policy.  Trade sanctions can be put in place in an attempt to alter objectionable behaviour – in Russia's case, waging a war – or to punish an offending state through the disruption of economic exchange.  "Sanctions can be in many forms and raising ...

PITTSBURGH – If national guidelines are revised to incorporate a new risk equation, about 40% fewer people could meet criteria for cholesterol-lowering statins to prevent heart disease, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and University of Michigan. Published today in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study examines the potential impact of widespread adoption of the PREVENT equations, which were released by the American Heart Association ...

General anesthesia makes it possible for millions of patients each year to undergo lifesaving surgeries while unconscious and free of pain. But the 176-year-old medical staple uses powerful drugs that have stoked fears of adverse effects on the brain — particularly if used in high doses. New findings published June 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), however, support an earlier study that indicates that anesthesia is no more hazardous for the brain at higher doses than at lower doses, ...

About The Study: In this model-based cohort analysis of incident invasive cancer in the general population, decreases in lung and cervical cancers in Generation X may be offset by gains at other sites. Generation X may be experiencing larger per-capita increases in the incidence of leading cancers than any prior generation born in 1908 through 1964. On current trajectories, cancer incidence could remain high for decades. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Philip S. Rosenberg, Ph.D., email rosenbep@mail.nih.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

About The Study: This study’s findings indicated 1 of 5 children or adolescents experienced excess weight and that rates of excess weight varied by regional income and Human Development Index. Excess weight among children and adolescents was associated with a mix of inherent, behavioral, environmental, and sociocultural influences that need the attention and committed intervention of primary care professionals, clinicians, health authorities, and the general public. Corresponding Author: To ...

About The Study: The results of this study suggest that children and adolescents with acute SARS-CoV-2 or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and severe neurological manifestations may be at high risk for long-term impairment and may benefit from screening and early intervention to assist recovery.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ericka L. Fink, M.D., M.S., email finkel@ccm.upmc.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.14122) Editor’s ...

Colorado State University scientists have called elephants by their names, and the elephants called back.   Wild African elephants address each other with name-like calls, a rare ability among nonhuman animals, according to a new study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.  Researchers from CSU, Save the Elephants and ElephantVoices used machine learning to confirm that elephant calls contained a name-like component identifying the intended recipient, a behavior they suspected based on observation. When the researchers played back recorded calls, elephants responded affirmatively ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — An international team of planetary scientists has detected patches of water frost sitting atop the Tharsis volcanoes on Mars, which are not only the tallest volcanic mountains on the Red Planet but in the entire solar system. The discovery marks the first time frost has been spotted near the planet’s equator, challenging existing perceptions of the planet’s climate dynamics, according to the team’s new study in Nature Geoscience. “We thought it was improbable for frost to form around Mars’ equator, as the mix ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE By super cooling a molecule on the surface of brain cells down to about minus 180 degrees Celsius — nearly twice as cold as the coldest places in Antarctica — scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have determined how a widely-used epilepsy drug works to dampen the excitability of brain cells and help to control, although not cure, seizures. The research, published June 4 in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, identifies critical connections between activity of the epilepsy drug ...

The platitude that failure leads to success may be both inaccurate and damaging to society, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.  Researchers conducted 11 experiments with more than 1,800 participants across many domains and compared national statistics to the participants’ responses. In one experiment, participants vastly overestimated the percentage of prospective nurses, lawyers and teachers who pass licensing exams after previously failing them.  “People expect success to follow failure much more often than it actually does,” said lead researcher Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, PhD, an assistant ...

Don’t miss your chance to be among the first to hear breaking news in food and nutrition science at NUTRITION 2024. The annual flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition will be held June 29–July 2 at McCormick Place in Chicago.   Reporters and bloggers are invited to explore the meeting schedule and register for a complimentary press pass to attend.   The meeting will feature stimulating discussions, exciting research announcements and updates from groups shaping the nutrition and health policies that affect us all. Highlights include:   Diet and exercise performance – As the ...

New York, NY [June 10, 2024]—Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have been awarded a $21 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to further advance understanding of an aging-related hormone known as follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), including its potential role in obesity, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. The work could lead to the development of new treatments for these and other conditions involving aging. This is a collaborative ...

Bodybuilders and cellular mechanisms agree generating protein is a heavy lift. To complete the task, cells rely on complexes called spliceosomes. These molecular machines snip extra bits out of our genes’ RNA copies and piece together precise instructions for protein-building. When the splicing process goes awry, it can result in diseases like cancer or spinal muscular atrophy. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Adrian Krainer helped develop the first FDA-approved treatment for this devastating genetic disorder. Now, his team has discovered that two important regulator proteins work together ...