Sustainability certificates such as Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Cocoa Life promise to improve the livelihoods of small-scale cocoa producers while preserving the biodiversity on their plantations. Together with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, researchers from the University of Göttingen have investigated whether sustainability certificates actually achieve both these goals. To find out, they carried out an analysis within the Ghanaian cocoa production sector. Their results show that although certification improves both cocoa yield and cocoa income for small-scale producers, they were unable to ...

What began as a demonstration of the complexity of fluid systems became an art piece in the American Physical Society’s Gallery of Fluid Motion, and ultimately its own puzzle that the researchers just solved. Their new study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. “We came up with this experiment because we were having a hard time convincing people of certain effects happening for the problem of drag reduction,” said assistant professor Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, whose research specialties include modeling flow and investigating drag — as ...

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has awarded a $6 million grant to USC investigators pioneering a new first-of-its-kind genetic therapy for glioblastoma, a severe form of brain cancer. The treatment would be the first gene therapy for glioblastoma to use a novel, more precise delivery system that is less likely to harm non-cancerous cells. Glioblastoma is an aggressive and fast-growing cancer originating in the brain that occurs primarily in adults and has no known cure. Patients diagnosed with this type of tumor have a five-year survival rate of just 5 percent. The cancer’s location—in the sensitive brain—combined ...

The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) is concerned that two weeks have passed since the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health. With the order remaining in effect until a new HHS secretary is confirmed, this unpredictable timeline prolongs uncertainty for both healthcare professionals and the public, and endangers the nation by hindering our ability to detect and respond to public health threats, such as avian influenza (H5N1). Public ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 3 February 2025    @Annalsofim          Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.          ----------------------------       New ...

Through a multi-university collaboration, researchers at Virginia Tech have discovered a new, solid lubricating mechanism that can reduce friction in machinery at extremely high temperatures. It works well beyond the breakdown temperature of traditional solid lubricants such as graphite, and the findings were published in Nature Communications.  “This breakthrough solid-state lubricant could change how we design materials for high-tech engines, making them last longer and work better under extreme conditions,” said Rebecca Cai, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and one of the ...

The stereotype that women are much more talkative than men is pervasive across many cultures, but a widely reported study by University of Arizona researchers in 2007 refuted the claim, finding that men and women speak roughly the same number of words per day – around 16,000.  A new, larger follow-up to that study paints a more nuanced picture, suggesting that women may be the chattier gender, but only during a certain period of life.  "There is a strong cross-cultural assumption that women talk a lot more than men," said ...

In physics, the term “isotropy” means a system where the properties are the same in all directions. For fusion, neutron energy  isotropy is an important measurement that analyzes the streams of neutrons coming from the device and how uniform they are. This is critical because so-called isotropic fusion plasmas suggest a stable, thermal plasma that can be scaled to higher fusion energy gains, whereas anisotropic plasmas, those emitting irregular neutron energies, can lead to a dead end. A new Zap research paper, published last week ...

A new study has estimated it would cost $15.6 billion per year for 30 years to prevent extinction for 99 of Australia’s priority species.  The research, led by Griffith University’s Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security with WWF-Australia and the University of Queensland, highlights the urgent need for increased funding to combat threats such as habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change. Australia has already lost more than 100 endemic species in the past three centuries, placing it at the forefront of the global extinction crisis.  The ...

(Toronto, February 3, 2025) JMIR Publications, the leading open access publisher in digital health and open science, announced today that Sean Jeong has been appointed as its new chief executive officer (CEO), effective January 23, 2025. Dr Gunther Eysenbach, founder of JMIR Publications, will be stepping down as CEO after over two decades of transformative leadership to focus on new opportunities for innovation in academic publishing, including artificial intelligence (AI)–driven solutions and the advancement of Plan P. He will continue to serve as the editor in chief of the Journal of Medical ...

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications awarded Fiddler Innovation Fellowships to 17 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and NCSA graduate students in a ceremony January 28 honoring the outstanding achievements and interdisciplinary contributions to NCSA programs Students Pushing Innovation (SPIN) and Design for America during the 2023-24 academic year. The awards are part of a $2 million endowment from Jerry Fiddler and Melissa Alden to Illinois in support of student ...

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), characterized by symptoms of cognitive decline, such as worsened memory and impaired decision-making, are alarmingly prevalent globally. In a new study in JNeurosci led by Amy Griffin at the University of Delaware, researchers used rats to find brain circuits that may contribute to the cognitive issues that FASD patients experience, with the end goal of informing treatment strategies. Brain regions linked with working memory and decision-making were damaged in baby rats following exposure to alcohol during the age equivalent of the third trimester ...

Overview: A research group from the Institute for Research on Next-generation Semiconductor and Sensing Science (IRES²) at Toyohashi University of Technology developed an innovative in vivo electrophysiological neural recording technology that minimizes neuronal death and allows stable recordings for over a year. This breakthrough involves a 5-µm-diameter microneedle electrode fabricated on a flexible film using silicon-growth technology. Through experiments using mice, the team demonstrated significantly reduced neuronal death and stable neuronal activity recordings compared with traditional electrode technologies, overcoming long-standing challenges in neural recording.   Details: Long-term ...

New York, NY, February 3, 2025 — The Vilcek Foundation has announced $250,000 in awards recognizing immigrant scientists. The 2025 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science are bestowed as part of the foundation’s annual prizes program in support of its mission.  The Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science are a tribute to Vilcek Foundation co-founder Jan Vilcek, biomedical scientist and philanthropist. Born in Slovakia, Vilcek excelled as a researcher and immunologist, publishing his first single-author paper in Nature at 26. In 1965, with his wife, Marica, he immigrated to the United States ...

About The Study: This systematic review and network meta-analysis of 601 eligible trials found that sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1 receptor agonists were associated with lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events. Analysis of age × treatment interactions suggested that SGLT2 inhibitors were more cardioprotective in older than in younger people despite smaller reductions in hemoglobin A1c; GLP-1 receptor agonists were more cardioprotective in younger people.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Peter Hanlon, PhD, email peter.hanlon@glasgow.ac.uk. To access the ...

The octopus just revealed another one of its secrets: what determines its sex.  University of Oregon researchers have identified a sex chromosome in the California two-spot octopus. This chromosome has likely been around for 480 million years, since before octopuses split apart from the nautilus on the evolutionary tree. That makes it one of the oldest known animal sex chromosomes.   The finding also is evidence that octopuses and other cephalopods, a class of sea animals that includes squid and nautiluses, do use chromosomes to determine their sex, answering a longstanding mystery among biologists.   “Cephalopods are already such interesting creatures, ...

Rice cultivation is responsible for around 12% of global methane emissions, and these emissions are expected to increase with global warming and as the human population continues to grow. Now, scientists have identified chemical compounds released by rice roots that determine how much methane the plants emit. On February 3 in the Cell Press journal Molecular Plant, they report that this information enabled them to breed a new strain of rice that emits up to 70% less methane.  “This study shows that you can have low methane and ...

About The Study: In 2023, post–COVID condition (PCC) continued to affect U.S. children at similar levels as 2022 and to have similar sociodemographic patterns. The large proportion of children experiencing PCC with any activity limitation highlights the need to examine the severity of activity limitation, functional outcomes, and days lost from school. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nicole D. Ford, PhD, MPH, email yex9@cdc.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website ...

About The Study: This cohort study of hospitalized adults identified inequities related to race and rurality in health care–associated infections (HAIs) and adverse outcomes from HAIs. These findings suggest that factors such as structural racism and disinvestment in rural communities may be associated with individual HAI risk and post-HAI outcomes. Future work to further understand the reasons underpinning these disparities and methods to address structural factors through policy and process changes are critical to ...

About The Study: The results of this cohort study revealing the robust and persistent association of headache diagnoses with attempted and completed suicide suggest that behavioral health evaluation and treatment may be important for these patients. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Holly Elser, MD, PhD, email holly.elser@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2024.4974) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for ...

About The Study: Using passive sensing on a sample of U.S. adolescents, this study found half of adolescents use their smartphones during school for at least 66 minutes daily, primarily using messaging and social media. These findings extend a prior study limited to Android devices that found adolescents spent a median of 43 minutes on their phones during school. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lauren Hale, PhD, email Lauren.Hale@stonybrookmedicine.edu. To ...

Alarming Rise in Rates of Advanced Prostate Cancer in California  Following a change in screening guidelines, the incidence went up across the state, even more than it has nationally. The incidence of advanced prostate cancer in California rose markedly in the decade since doctors stopped routinely screening all men for the disease, according to a new study by UC San Francisco. After declining for many years, the death rate from the disease also plateaued in most regions across the state. The findings reinforce the need for screening that can identify potentially fatal tumors without raising false alarms about ones that pose no threat to the patient.  The ...

For years, healthy older adults were advised by doctors to take a low-dose aspirin daily as a way to reduce the risk of heart attack. But in March 2019, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (AHA) announced new guidelines and no longer routinely recommended a daily dose of aspirin for healthy adults over the age of 70 because the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding outweighs the benefits. Nearly five years later, many Americans still have not received the message. The Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania finds in a new health survey that nearly half (48%) of U.S. ...

Secondary prevention medications for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are underused globally and additional strategies to increase their use are needed to improve CVD management and reduce premature mortality rates, according to study published today in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study observed participants with CVD from 17 countries over 12 years and found that medication use remains low with little improvement. Secondary prevention of CVD focuses on preventing further health problems in people already diagnosed with CVD. This includes managing risk factors through lifestyle changes, medications and ...

Approximately half of all Americans do not take their medication as prescribed by their doctor. This medication non-adherence causes an estimated 125,000 additional deaths and as much as $300 billion a year in additional medical appointments, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open finds Amazon Pharmacy’s subscription service for common medications, RxPass, leads to significant improvements in medication adherence while reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients. This first-of-its-kind study evaluated the potential of subscription models to support prescription medication access ...