Researchers have developed a new soft robot design that engages in three simultaneous behaviors: rolling forward, spinning like a record,and following a path that orbits around a central point. The device, which operates without human or computer control, holds promise for developing soft robotic devices that can be used to navigate and map unknown environments. The new soft robots are called twisted ringbots. They are made of ribbon-like liquid crystal elastomers that are twisted – like a rotini ...

In recent years, there has been rising concern that tiny particles known as microplastics are showing up basically everywhere on Earth, from polar ice to soil, drinking water and food. Formed when plastics break down into progressively smaller bits, these particles are being consumed by humans and other creatures, with unknown potential health and ecosystem effects. One big focus of research: bottled water, which has been shown to contain tens of thousands of identifiable fragments in each container. Now, using newly refined technology, researchers have entered a whole ...

The body’s immune response to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) may play a role in causing damage in people with multiple sclerosis, according to a new study led by UTHealth Houston. EBV infection has long been associated with multiple sclerosis, but how the infection might contribute to multiple sclerosis has not been clear. More than 95% of people have been infected with this very common virus; however, it typically remains in its latent stage and doesn’t cause any issues. In some cases, though, the T-cells specific for the EBV infection may cause ...

EMBARGO:  THIS CONTENT IS UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 3 P.M. U.S. EASTERN STANDARD TIME ON JANUARY 8. INTERESTED MEDIA MAY RECIVE A PREVIEW COPY OF THE JOURNAL ARTICLE IN ADVANCE OF THAT DATE OR CONDUCT INTERVIEWS, BUT THE INFORMATION MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, OR POSTED ONLINE UNTIL AFTER THE RELEASE WINDOW. A global study organized and led by Colorado State University scientists shows that the effects of extreme drought – which is expected to increase in frequency with climate change – has been greatly underestimated for grasslands and shrublands. The findings – published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – quantify the impact of extreme ...

Researchers at McMaster University have discovered a molecular “barcode” system used by disease-causing bacteria to distinguish between beneficial and toxic molecules. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the new study shows that many bacteria can figuratively scan genetic codes to learn which proteins to keep and which proteins to expel into the environment. According to researchers, those proteins that are expelled are often toxic to human cells, making the ...

Well-managed migration can enable migrants to boost sustainable development, research shows. Sustainable development means enhancing wellbeing in ways that equitably meet needs of present and future generations. Migration is often viewed as a threat to this – and to stability and security – while the benefits for migrants and host nations and regions are overlooked. The new research – a set of studies published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – shows new policies are needed for managing migration to maximise sustainability, and to minimise involuntary displacement due to conflict or disasters. The ...

Novel Test Holds Promise for Detecting Parkinson’s Disease Early  Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Wyss Institute are working together to develop a new approach to detect and quantify minute amounts of a biomarker of Parkinson’s disease and related disorders at early stages  The platform has the potential to create early applicable molecular diagnostics, improve clinical trials, and facilitate drug screening (Boston) — In the development of Parkinson’s ...

When imagining corals, the picture that comes to mind is usually a stationary one: a garden of rock-like structures covering sections of the ocean floor. Reef conservation efforts typically focus on preserving established coral and protecting them from known stressors such as pollution, overfishing and runoff from coastline populations. However, new research near Miloliʻi in the southwestern part of Hawai’i Island shows that identifying and protecting marine ecosystems, both down-current and up-current of coral reefs, specifically areas where coral larvae are more likely to survive and thrive, is crucial to future coral conservation and restoration efforts—especially ...

FORT COLLINS, Colo., Jan. 8, 2024 — What’s all the buzz about? Most garden enthusiasts know that certain flowers can attract pollinators. New research helps explain why, and also provides more details about how the nutrition found in plant pollen may determine which specific bee communities might favor your garden. On a larger scale, this research may help fight against pollinator declines through better design of rangeland restoration projects.      Scientists at the USDA Forest Service’s ...

The brain is not only the most complex organ of the human body, but also one of the most difficult to study. To understand the roles of different regions of the human brain and how they interact, it is crucial to measure neuronal activity with awake subjects while they perform controlled tasks. However, the most accurate measurement devices are invasive, which greatly limits their use on healthy humans in real-life settings. To overcome this major obstacle, scientists have come up with ingenious techniques to measure brain activity in safe and ...

INDIANAPOLIS—Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine are using a novel approach to hopefully develop a new therapy for glaucoma, a complex disease that eventually leads to blindness, thanks to a new five-year, $2 million R01 grant from the National Eye Institute. “Glaucoma is a silent, underdiagnosed, costly and debilitating disease,” said Tasneem Sharma, PhD, assistant professor of ophthalmology and lead investigator on the project. “It occurs when there is ...

In the Roundtable titled “A Glimpse at How Stakeholders Are Working Towards Achieving Health Equity,” published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Equity, two expert panel discussions examine efforts to achieve maternal health equity and changes that health systems can make to operationalize health equity. Click here to read the Roundtable now. The moderator of the panel discussion titled “Efforts to Achieve Maternal Health Equity Today” is Laurie Zephyrin, MD, MPH, MBA, Senior Vice President, Advancing Health Equity, The Commonwealth Fund. The discussion focuses on what health systems can ...

Embargoed until 1 p.m. CT/2 p.m. ET Monday, Jan. 8, 2024 DALLAS, Jan. 8, 2024 — From humble beginnings as a small professional health society formed by six cardiologists in Chicago in 1924, the American Heart Association has emerged as the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. Uniting more than 35 million volunteers and supporters and more than 2,900 employees, the Association today is a global force transforming the way the world understands, treats and prevents cardiovascular and cerebrovascular ...

In social media posts on the community network Reddit, users reported reduced cravings for alcohol when taking drugs intended to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Across a number of threads — with titles such as “Did scientists accidentally invent an anti-addiction drug?” and “I don't know if this is a side effect but ... Mounjaro makes me drink less!!!!!” — users reported a changing relationship with beer, wine, and liquor. An analysis of those posts, together with a remote study of individuals with obesity who reported using semaglutide ...

Thanks to technological advances, scientists have access to vast amounts of data, but in order to put it to work and draw conclusions, they need to be able to process it. In research recently published in Genome Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Boleslaw Szymanski, Ph.D., Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and director of the Network Science and Technology Center, and team have found a method that effectively organizes and groups the data for a variety of applications. The process is referred to as clustering ...

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new lithium metal battery that can be charged and discharged at least 6,000 times — more than any other pouch battery cell — and can be recharged in a matter of minutes. The research not only describes a new way to make solid state batteries with a lithium metal anode but also offers new understanding into the materials used for these potentially revolutionary batteries.  The research is published in Nature Materials.  “Lithium metal anode batteries are considered the holy grail ...

Andalibi To Receive Funding For Perthera Tissue Bank  Ali Andalibi, Senior Associate Dean, College of Science, is set to receive funding for: "Perthera Tissue Bank."  FFPE samples from Perthera will be housed in the cold room in the Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research (IABR). The Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, and the staff member will be checking on the samples on a regular basis to ensure that the samples are safely stored and that the storage conditions, such as temperature, are appropriate.                        ...

In the ongoing biodiversity crisis, large terrestrial animals are more threatened by extinction than any other group of organisms. The African continent holds an impressively intact large-mammal community, but there is still a lot we do not know about how these species evolved, became diverse and adapted to the changing climate and habitats. Many of these questions can be addressed by investigating the genomes and genetic variation across species. New research, published in Nature Communications, uses genomics to answer ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – January 05, 2023) St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators collaborated with a global group of acute pediatric critical illness experts to reach a consensus definition of the condition. Research on how to improve care in low- and middle-income countries has been stymied because conventional pediatric critical illness definitions are not applicable in these settings. The new, more universal definition, reached by consensus among researchers and clinicians from 40 countries, will enable scientists to study pediatric critical illness more universally, which should lead to improvements in patient outcomes ...

The past few years have seen Kenya, along with many other countries, confronted with multifaceted and compounding challenges. The disruptions caused by COVID-19, high levels of food price inflation, and environmental crises, such as locust infestations and droughts, have severely tested the resilience of Kenya’s food systems and the affordability of food for its citizens. Against this backdrop of challenges and ongoing demographic shifts, urbanization, and stagnating agricultural production, ...

Irvine, Calif., Jan. 8, 2024 — Additional staffing alone will not be sufficient to bridge the quality-of-care and health outcome disparities among nursing home facilities with varying percentages of residents with dementia, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by the University of California, Irvine. Specialized training, an easy-to-navigate environment and staff stability are also critical to meeting the unique challenges presented by this population.   The findings, recently published online in the journal Health Services Research, indicate that increased staffing generally improves outcomes for all patients but that at any given level of staffing, discrepancies ...

Frequent visits to oil palm plantations are leading to a sharp increase in mortality rates among infant southern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) in the wild, according to a new study published in Current Biology. In addition to increased risk from predators and human encounters, exposure to harmful agricultural chemicals in this environment may negatively affect infant development. In wild populations, infant survival is crucial for determining individual fitness and for maintaining viable populations in changing environments. For primates, ...

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — New research from Mayo Clinic suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) could improve the diagnosis of peripartum cardiomyopathy, a potentially life-threatening and treatable condition that weakens the heart muscle of women during pregnancy or in the months after giving birth. Researchers used an AI-enabled digital stethoscope that captures electrocardiogram (ECG) data and heart sounds to identify twice as many cases of peripartum cardiomyopathy ...

The joint funding program of the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) promotes Franco-German cooperation in the natural sciences, the life sciences, and the engineering sciences. Through this program, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) will receive support for two distinctive projects in the field of biology.   The EVOMET project: Uncovering the evolution of metabolism in plants Tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes taste different due to the accumulation ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Whirligig beetles, the world’s fastest-swimming insect, achieve surprising speeds by employing a strategy shared by speedy marine mammals and waterfowl, according to a new Cornell University study that rewrites previous explanations of the physics involved. The centimeter-long beetles can reach a peak acceleration of 100 meters per second and a top velocity of 100 body lengths per second (or one meter per second). Not only do the results explain the whirligig’s Olympian speeds, but they also offer valuable insights for bio-inspired designers of near-surface water robots and uncrewed boats. Until ...