New study from deCODE genetics/Amgen highlights the importance of BMI in pathogenesis of disease, suggesting that reducing BMI alone could lower the risk of several diseases. Scientists at deCODE genetics, subsidiary of Amgen, published a study today in Nature Communications that sheds light on how Body Mass Index (BMI) influences the risk of various diseases that are comorbid with obesity. The study, which used genetic data from Iceland and the UK Biobank, looked at whether disease risk associated with BMI-related sequence variants are explained completely or partially by their effect on BMI. The results showed that for some conditions, such as fatty liver disease, glucose intolerance, ...

What role do dogs play in today’s world? For many, they are more than just pets. New findings from the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University show that whether seen as friends, family members, children or guardians, these roles affect the way dogs are cared for, suggesting shifting dynamics in human-animal bonds shaped by societal trends and individual owner profiles. In Western cultures, more and more people see their dogs as their best friends, family members or even their furry children. In fact, ...

All animals, large or small, have to move at an incredible precision to interact with the world. Understanding how the brain controls movement is a fundamental question in neuroscience. For larger animals, this is challenging because of the complexity of their brains and nervous systems. But the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has a smaller and therefore more easily mappable brain, allowing scientists to gain detailed insights into how its nervous system drives behavior. To understand how the nervous system controls actions, researchers at the group of Pavan Ramdya at EPFL created a simulated reality where a virtual fly can operate ...

Researchers have found evidence that mangrove forests – which protect tropical and subtropical coastlines – are drowning in the Maldives. Their findings, published today (Tuesday 12 December) in Scientific Reports, indicate that rising sea level and a climate phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole have led to some Maldivian islands losing over half of their mangrove cover since 2020. The research team, led by Northumbria University, warn that the findings have implications not only for the Maldives, but also for other island nations and coastal ecosystems around the world. In 2020, more than a quarter of the Maldivian islands containing mangrove forests saw their trees experiencing ...

There’s no doubt that exercise does a body good. Regular activity not only strengthens muscles but can bolster our bones, blood vessels, and immune system.  Now, MIT engineers have found that exercise can also have benefits at the level of individual neurons. They observed that when muscles contract during exercise, they release a soup of biochemical signals called myokines. In the presence of these muscle-generated signals, neurons grew four times farther compared to neurons that were not exposed to myokines. These cellular-level experiments suggest that exercise can have a significant biochemical effect on nerve growth.  Surprisingly, the researchers also ...

A new paper in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that people who switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping see improved respiratory health, but people who begin consuming electronic cigarettes while continuing to smoke regular cigarettes do not report improved respiratory symptoms. Adults increasingly use electronic cigarettes to try to quit smoking because of the perceived reduced risk. But while vaping reduces exposure to toxic chemicals, it has been unclear whether switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes results in a reduction of the respiratory problems—like wheezing and coughing—common in regular cigarette ...

Boston, Massachusetts, 12 November 2024 – Environmental exposure to air pollutants during critical developmental periods may significantly impact autism risk, according to a groundbreaking Emerging Topic review published 12 November 2024, in Brain Medicine. The study reveals how common air pollutants, including fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, can trigger complex biological cascades affecting brain development. "Different kinds of neurological disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, can be associated ...

Boston, Massachusetts, 12 November 2024 – The complex interplay between nitric oxide and brain disorders takes center stage in the latest Genomic Press Interview, published November 12, 2024, in Brain Medicine. Professor Haitham Amal, head of the Laboratory of Neuromics, Cell Signaling, and Translational Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shares insights into his groundbreaking research and personal motivation. “Meeting families and children with autism in Boston during my time at MIT inspired me to focus on a single goal: to help develop biological diagnostics ...

Destructive winds during storms and cyclones often cause tree failures, especially through uprooting and stem breakage. However, how trees respond to wind under various forest configurations and weather conditions remains unclear. A recent study on Cryptomeria japonica plots shows that trees dissipate wind energy by switching between two swaying behaviors at specific wind speeds, offering insights that may help in improved forest management to minimize damage caused by storms. Extreme weather events, such as tropical and extratropical cyclones and tornadoes, can cause widespread damage to forests, leading to environmental and financial ...

Bioprinting is a technology used to create three-dimensional structures, such as human tissues or organs, using bio-inks made of cells and hydrogels. However, conventional inkjet technology has difficulty dispensing bio-inks that are sensitive to temperature due to the heat generated during operation. Furthermore, conventional 3D bioprinting mainly utilizes simple syringe-type printing devices with a single needle, making it time-consuming to produce artificial organs like the brain, lungs, and heart. The Bionics Research Center team, led by Dr. Byung Chul Lee at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Sang-Rok Oh), in ...

La version française suit Opioid use disorder: updated clinical practice guideline An updated evidence-based guideline aimed at helping clinicians and other health care providers manage patients with opioid use disorder recommends buprenorphine and methadone as first-line treatments. The guideline is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.241173 Opioid use and opioid use disorder are the leading causes of drug-related deaths worldwide, and Canada ...

The rapid advancement in personalized healthcare has driven the development of wearable biomedical devices for real-time biomarker monitoring and diagnosis. Traditional invasive blood-based diagnostics are painful and limited to sporadic health snapshots. To address these limitations, microneedle-based sensing platforms have emerged, utilizing interstitial fluid (ISF) as an alternative biofluid for continuous health monitoring in a minimally invasive and painless manner. The team led by Wei Gao from California Institute of Technology providea a comprehensive overview of microneedle sensor technology, covering microneedle design, fabrication methods, ...

Research by scientists at the University of Sydney has identified a constituent in the cannabis plant that improves sleep. Their report is the first to use objective measures to show the component, known as cannabinol (CBN), increases sleep in rats.  The study has been published in the leading journal Neuropsychopharmacology. “For decades, cannabis folklore has suggested that aged cannabis makes consumers sleepy via the build-up of CBN, however there was no convincing evidence for this,” said lead author on the study Professor Jonathon Arnold, ...

A team of clinicians, scientists, and engineers at Mount Sinai trained a deep learning pose-recognition algorithm on video feeds of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to accurately track their movements and identify key neurologic metrics. Findings from this new artificial intelligence (AI)-based tool, published November 11 in Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine, could lead to a minimally invasive, scalable method for continuous neurologic monitoring in NICUs, providing critical real-time insights into infant health that have not been possible before. Every year, more than 300,000 ...

NEW YORK – November 11, 2024 – The Cardiovascular Research Foundation® (CRF®) proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Jeffrey Popma as Chief Scientific and Strategic Officer. A world-renowned leader in cardiovascular research, Dr. Popma will drive forward pivotal programs and initiatives that will shape CRF’s future and fuel innovation at the CRF® Clinical Trials Center (CTC). His leadership will be instrumental in the development of the recently launched Real-World Data and Outcomes Center, advancing CRF’s commitment to impactful ...

Larry Seiber, an R&D staff member in the Vehicle Power Electronics group at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elevated to senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE.  Senior member status requires extensive experience that reflects professional accomplishments. Only 10% of IEEE’s more than 450,000 members achieve this level.  Seiber has conducted decades of cutting-edge research in power electronics and electric machinery. He developed the hardware ...

People inherit two copies of each gene — one from each parent — an evolutionary fail-safe to ensure survival even when one of them doesn’t function. For cancer-suppressor genes like BRCA1, researchers have long hypothesized that a single healthy copy could still guard against tumor development. Yet women with one harmful BRCA1 mutation are far more likely to develop breast cancer — a risk traditionally explained by a second mutation that arises later in life, damages the healthy copy of the gene, ...

AMES, Iowa – In their long strings of nucleotides, DNA molecules hold massive troves of genetic data providing instructions for how living organisms should function – the blueprint of life. How the blueprint is stored, however, impacts how it is read and used. As cells divide and replicate, DNA strands coiled around proteins – chromatin – are in tightly bundled chromosomes. After division, the chromosomes loosen and chromatin is less compact. How and where the chromatin fiber folds and ...

Adolescents who meet the recommended guidelines of nine to 11 hours of sleep per day were shown to have a significantly lower risk of hypertension, according to a new study from UTHealth Houston.   Recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the research revealed that adolescents had a 37% lower risk of developing incidents of high blood pressure by meeting healthy sleep patterns, and underscoring the importance of adequate sleep behavior. The research further explored the ...

How would you summarize your study for a lay audience?  T helper (TH) cells are essential immune cells that help other immune cells function effectively. When activated in response to environmental stimuli, these cells can differentiate into either TH1 cells, which fight against viruses and intracellular pathogens, or TH2 cells, which fight against extracellular pathogens like bacteria and parasites. However, scientists haven’t fully understood whether infected tissue itself has any role in directing the optimal T cell differentiation in response ...

Current guidelines recommend that pregnant people receive a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)—which typically causes mild, cold-like symptoms in most adults but can be deadly for infants—during weeks 32–36 of pregnancy. New research led by investigators at Mass General Brigham suggests that vaccination earlier in that timeframe, closer to 32 weeks, could provide the best protection for newborns against RSV. The findings are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. “Receiving ...

Surfers could be protected from future shark attacks following new discoveries about how to trick sharks’ visual systems made by Professor Nathan Hart, head of Macquarie University’s Neurobiology Lab, Dr Laura Ryan and colleagues. Hart, Ryan and their co-authors of a new paper in Current Biology titled Counterillumination reduces bites by Great White Sharks say their work “may form the basis of new non-invasive shark deterrent technology to protect human life”. These researchers previously discovered that great whites place a high reliance ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 11 November 2024     @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 ...

LOS ANGELES — Alcohol use increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and remained elevated even after the pandemic ended, according to a large nationally representative Keck Medicine of USC study published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.   From pre-pandemic (2018) to the height of the pandemic (2020), heavy alcohol use among Americans rose by 20%, and any alcohol use rose by 4%. In 2022, the increases were sustained.   The rise in drinking was seen across all age groups, genders, race, ethnicities and regions of the country, except for Native Americans and Asian Americans. Adults ...

Mechanical engineering PhD candidate Arman Tekinalp, fellow graduate student Seung Hyun Kim, Professor Prashant Mehta, and Associate Professor Mattia Gazzola, all from the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Their interdisciplinary collaboration also included Assistant Professor Noel Naughton (formerly a Beckman fellow) from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech alongside researchers from the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at Illinois ...