Based on decades-long observations of centenarians, author Dan Buettner (Blue Zones) conjectures that people live longer when they get up and move around after sitting for twenty minutes. Now, a rigorous new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) has data showing that older women who sat for 11.7 hours or more per day increased their risk of death by 30 percent, regardless of whether they exercised vigorously.  Study co-author Steve Nguyen, Ph.D., M.P.H., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, ...

Scientists from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and colleagues found that an investigational protein replacement – recombinant human insulin-like growth factor 1 and its binding protein-3 (rhIGF-1/BP3) – protected neonatal mice from necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a deadly intestinal disease that often strikes extremely premature infants. Results were published in the journal Pediatric Research. “Our preclinical evidence is encouraging and paves the way to a clinical trial of rhIGF-1/BP3 for prevention of NEC,” said senior author Isabelle De Plaen, MD, a scientist ...

WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society is calling for members of Congress to support federal legislation protecting access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Access to Family Building Act (S.3612/H.R.7056), proposed by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA), and Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), would ensure people can access safe, effective IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies to start or grow their families. Families’ access to IVF services is being threatened by an Alabama State Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos ...

Inspired by the remarkable adaptability observed in biological organisms like the octopus, a breakthrough has been achieved soft machines. A research team, led by Professor Jiyun Kim in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST has successfully developed an encodable multifunctional material that can dynamically tune its shape and mechanical properties in real-time. This groundbreaking metamaterial surpasses the limitations of existing materials, opening up new possibilities for applications in robotics and other fields requiring adaptability. Current soft machines lack the level of adaptability demonstrated by their ...

Knowing exactly what’s inside a tumor can maximize our ability to fight cancer. But that knowledge doesn’t come easy. Tumors are clusters of constantly changing cancer cells. Some become common cancer variants. Others morph into deadlier, drug-resistant varieties. No one truly understands what governs this chaotic behavior. Now, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor David Tuveson and his team have uncovered a mechanism involved in pancreatic cancer transformation—mucus. During the disease’s early stage, pancreatic cancer cells produce mucus. Additionally, these cells depend on the body’s regulators of mucus production. This new ...

Nano- and microplastics are seemingly everywhere — water, soil and the air. While many creative strategies have been attempted to get rid of these plastic bits, one unexpectedly effective solution for cleaning up drinking water, specifically, might be as simple as brewing a cup of tea or coffee. As reported in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters, boiling and filtering calcium-containing tap water could help remove nearly 90% of the nano- and microplastics present. Contamination of water supplies with nano- and microplastics (NMPs), which can be as small as one thousandth of a millimeter ...

Bethesda, MD (Feb. 28, 2024) — Today, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) published a white paper on the future of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) care in the United States. AGA highlights the current barriers to care and calls for collaboration among our healthcare community, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and legislators to improve and optimize care for the more than three million Americans living with IBD.  IBD is a complex disease that requires a vigilant and coordinated multidisciplinary approach. ...

A solid understanding of soil mechanics and behavior is one of the fundamental pillars of geotechnical engineering. The stability and resilience of many modern geotechnical structures, including building foundations, dams, bridges, and embankments, rely on appropriate modelling based on accurate measurements of soil properties. Over the past few decades, unprecedented growth in computing power has turned numerical simulations of soil behavior into an attractive tool in geotechnical engineering. By representing soil as a set of interacting particles, numerical simulations can help researchers understand complex soil behavior under various conditions. Moreover, numerical ...

Washington D.C., Feb. 28, 2024- The Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation®, (GAP) is releasing the first results from the Bio-Hermes-001 Study. This study in over 1000 community-based participants from throughout the US compared the results of blood and digital biomarkers with brain amyloid PET scans or cerebrospinal fluid assays. The study revealed a strong correlation between several blood tests, particularly p-tau 217, with the presence of amyloid plaques in the brain, a diagnostic hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This relationship was demonstrated across the entire study ...

Young people could be spared from going blind by a new genetic risk tool that could also help diagnose multiple sclerosis (MS) earlier, to start effective treatments. Optic neuritis is a condition that affects people of all ages, but especially young adults, usually manifesting in blurred vision and sometimes pain when moving the eyes. Up to half of people affected in the UK eventually go on to develop MS – often many years later. Emerging evidence indicates that starting the very effective MS treatments earlier may improve long term health. Optic neuritis occurs because of swelling in or around the optic nerve. For those with MS-related optic neuritis, the swelling subsides ...

Research Highlights: An analysis of survey data for 430,000 adults in the U.S. found that using cannabis has a significant association with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, independent of tobacco use, with higher odds among the adults with more frequent use (more days of use per month). The most common method of cannabis use was smoking, followed by eating or vaporizing it. The increase in the combined risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke was similar to the risk among the subset of adults who had never used e-cigarettes but did use cannabis. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, February ...

A research team at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) in Japan has succeeded in establishing a model of the blood-brain barrier using modularized tissue derived from human cells. The “Tissue-in-a-CUBE” is a small cubic structure that could provide a boost in the drug discovery field and be used as an alternative to animal models in pre-clinical studies. The study was published in Communications Biology on February 28.   The blood-brain barrier is a strict gatekeeper around the brain that prevents foreign substances in blood from entering the brain. Although protective, the barrier poses challenges when treatments ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS Rheumatoid arthritis is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but it can be challenging to predict which individuals are at highest risk. Mass General Brigham experts in rheumatology and cardiovascular disease worked together to identify six biomarkers found in blood samples that can predict future risk of arterial inflammation among patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The team is now working to test these biomarkers in a larger and more long-term cohort of patients with rheumatoid ...

New York, NY [February 28, 2024]—Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and others have harnessed the power of machine learning to identify key predictors of mortality in dementia patients. The study, published in the February 28 online issue of Communications Medicine [10.1038/s43856-024-00437-7], addresses critical challenges in dementia care by pinpointing patients at high risk of near-term death and uncovers the factors that drive this risk. Unlike previous studies that focused on diagnosing dementia, this research delves into predicting patient prognosis, shedding light on mortality ...

Molecules that are induced by light to rotate bulky groups around central bonds could be developed into photo-activated bioactive systems, molecular switches, and more. Researchers at Hokkaido University, led by Assistant Professor Akira Katsuyama and Professor Satoshi Ichikawa at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, have extended the toolkit of synthetic chemistry by making a new category of molecules that can be induced to undergo an internal rotation on interaction with light. Similar processes are believed to be important in some natural biological systems. Synthetic versions might ...

LA JOLLA (February 28, 2024)—The brain is typically depicted as a complex web of neurons sending and receiving messages. But neurons only make up half of the human brain. The other half—roughly 85 billion cells—are non-neuronal cells called glia. The most common type of glial cells are astrocytes, which are important for supporting neuronal health and activity. Despite this, most existing laboratory models of the human brain fail to include astrocytes at sufficient levels or at all, which limits the models’ utility for studying ...

Statement Highlights: The American Heart Association encourages research and development of artificial intelligence (AI) and other related tools and services that may support and enable more precise approaches to cardiovascular and stroke research, prevention and care. Academia, industry and governments worldwide are pouring resources into developing AI-based tools to transform how and when health care is delivered. While promising research is beginning to emerge in many areas of cardiovascular medicine, AI-based tools, algorithms and systems of care have not yet been proven to improve care enough to justify widespread use. AI and machine learning digital tools currently exist that ...

Smoking cannabis associated with increased risk of heart attack, stroke NIH-funded observational study shows risk grows sharply with more frequent use   Frequent cannabis smoking may significantly increase a person’s risk for heart attack and stroke, according to an observational study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, uses data from nearly 435,000 American adults, and is among the largest ever to explore the relationship ...

●    Simple modifications to ventilation systems improve airflow, making operations safer for both patients and surgical teams ●    This research was conducted in close collaboration with a team of surgeons from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD) Abu Dhabi, UAE, February 28, 2024: NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) engineers studying ventilation systems in surgical operating theaters have found that traditional ventilation systems may inadvertently facilitate the circulation of aerosolized pathogen-carrying particles. This, as a result, puts surgical teams at a higher risk of infection by COVID-19 and other airborne diseases. Using basic engineering tools, including ...

Fish weight in the western North Pacific Ocean dipped in the 2010s due to warmer water limiting food supplies, according to a new study at the University of Tokyo. Researchers analyzed the individual weight and overall biomass of 13 species of fish. In the 1980s and 2010s, the fish were lighter. They attributed the first period of weight loss to greater numbers of Japanese sardine, which increased competition with other species for food. During the 2010s, while the number of Japanese sardine and chub mackerel moderately increased, the effect of climate change warming the ocean appears to have resulted ...

Kelp flies and marine yeast cultivated on by-products from the seafood industry can be used in feed for farmed salmon. Replacing fishmeal and soybeans can create more sustainable and circular food production, according to a thesis from the University of Gothenburg. Food from aquaculture, such as farmed fish, is the food industry’s fastest growing sector. One key reason is that this is a nutritious and protein-rich food that is generally more sustainably produced than protein from land animals. However, fish farming also has challenges. One is obtaining sufficient amounts of sustainable high-quality feed. Currently, fish feed accounts for about ...

Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have discovered that increased meltwater in the North Atlantic can trigger a chain of events leading to hotter and drier European summers. The paper, which will be published in the European Geosciences Union’s open access journal Weather and Climate Dynamics, suggests that European summer weather is predictable months to years in advance, due to higher levels of freshwater in the North Atlantic. Discussing the implications, lead author Marilena Oltmanns, Research Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, said: “While the UK and northern Europe experienced unusually cool and wet weather in Summer 2023, Greenland experienced ...

Osaka, Japan – Throughout the world, it is common for threats to national sovereignty or territorial integrity to stir up strong emotions among the public. Now, researchers from Japan have found that the strength of the reaction to such threats can break down along political lines in interesting ways. In a study published in Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, researchers from Osaka University have revealed that the Japanese public is highly sensitive to what are known as “collective ownership ...

Potters of different cultural backgrounds learn new types differently, producing cultural differences even in the absence of differential cultural evolution. The Kobe University-led research has implications for how we evaluate the difference of archaeological artifacts across cultures. Cultural artifacts differ between cultures but are relatively stable within cultures. This makes pottery, and in particular its form, an important archaeological indicator to determine the presence of different cultural groups in specific locations and how they influenced each other over time. But where do such culturally stable variations arise from? The typical explanation for this is through “selective ...

HONG KONG (28 Feb 2024) — Unique insights into the social lives of cattle revealed in a new study by scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) can enhance our understanding of animal behaviour and welfare. The study suggests that sex and social status influence social grooming (where one animal licks another, also known as allogrooming) among free-ranging feral cattle in Hong Kong. The CityUHK researchers found that feral cattle performed preferential grooming of certain individuals and, in particular, that more dominant females received more grooming. This asymmetrical distribution of licking also applied to whom male cattle decided to ...