In a study published online in Nature, a research team led by Prof. PAN Jianwei, Prof. CHEN Yuao, and Prof. YAO Xingcan from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has, for the first time, observed the antiferromagnetic phase transition within a large-scale quantum simulator of the fermionic Hubbard model (FHM). This study highlights the advantages of quantum simulation. It marks an important first step towards obtaining the low-temperature phase diagram of the FHM and understanding the role of quantum magnetism in the mechanism of high-temperature ...

The University of Barcelona has led a study that suggests using the drug known as pemafibrate to treat liver disease associated with metabolic disorders, the most common liver pathology in the world, which affects one in four people. The drug has long been marketed in Japan for another use: improving blood lipid levels in patients with hyperlipidaemia, a common condition in diabetics. Now, however, it could help address this serious liver disease, which still has no specific treatment. The study, carried out on laboratory animal models and published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, was conducted by a team led by Professor Juan ...

NEW ORLEANS – Ochsner Health’s Healthy State initiative, in partnership with The American Journal of Managed Care, will host a free conference on value-based care from 3:30-7 p.m. on Thursday, July 25 at The Westin New Orleans hotel in Louisiana.   Registration and program details are available here for “Healthy State: Know It, Own It, Live It: Creating a Thriving Louisiana Through Innovation in Value-Based Care.” The event is open to the public, medical professionals, health policy experts and community organizers.  Organized ...

A new consortium co-led by Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $31 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to accelerate the development of faster, more effective treatment regimens for tuberculosis (TB). Investigators at the University of California, San Francisco; Johns Hopkins Medicine; and Vanderbilt University Medical Center comprise the other co-leads.       The Preclinical Design and Clinical Translation ...

Women over the age of 65 who require complex heart surgery are more likely than men to receive care at low quality hospitals — where they also die in greater numbers following the procedure, a Michigan Medicine study finds. The research, published in JAMA Network Open, covered nearly 450,000 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting, or heart bypass surgery, between late 2015 and early 2020. Compared to men, women were 1.26 times more likely to be treated at low quality hospitals, meaning facilities with the highest 30-day mortality rates. At those low quality hospitals, ...

Vehicle exhaust from fossil fuel combustion constitutes a main source of air pollutants like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. To mitigate air pollution, researchers are looking into additive to fuels like dimethoxymethane (DMM). But DMM production brings its own environmental hazards. In their paper published June 21 in Carbon Future, a Chinese research team demonstrated how a series of phosphorous-modified nanocarbon catalysts could advance green DMM production. Unique fuel properties of this diesel blend fuel include high oxygen content and chemical stability as well as low toxicity. A blend of DMM and ...

FROM: James Urton (Note: researcher contact information at the end) Humans drove wolves to extinction in Washington state around the 1930s. Thanks to conservation efforts, by about 80 years later, wolves had returned — crossing first from the Canadian border into Washington around 2008 and later entering the state from Idaho. Since then, wolf numbers in Washington have been steadily growing, raising questions about what the return of this large predator species means for ecosystems and people alike. In northeast Washington, where wolves have recovered most successfully, researchers from the University of Washington and the Washington Department ...

The Moon’s recent discovery of energy resources, such as water ice, has refocused interest on its potential as a sustainable hub for space exploration. NASA has also announced the Artemis mission, aiming for long-term human presence on the lunar surface. However, infrastructure expansion, such as lunar base construction plays a vital role. Yet, transporting construction materials from Earth to the lunar surface via landers incurs a significant cost of 1.2 million USD per kilogram. Weight directly translates to cost, making the transportation of construction materials from Earth to the Moon nearly impossible. To solve this problem, Korea ...

A smartphone’s unique Bluetooth fingerprint could be used to track the device’s user–until now. A team of researchers have developed a simple firmware update that can completely hide the Bluetooth fingerprint, eliminating the vulnerability.  The method was developed by a team of researchers at the University of California San Diego. The team discovered the vulnerability caused by Bluetooth fingerprints in a study they presented at the 2022 IEEE Security & Privacy conference. They presented the fix to this vulnerability two years later at the 2024 IEEE Security & Privacy conference. The math behind the update itself is complex but the implementation ...

Ischemic heart disease stands as a significant global cause of morbidity and mortality. One promising avenue for treatment involves human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPS-CMs). Derived from adult somatic cells such as blood or skin cells, hiPS cells possess the capacity to differentiate into various tissues, including cardiomyocytes. These cells can potentially repair damaged heart tissue, but their clinical application is limited due to concerns about immune rejection. Understanding the immunogenicity of hiPS-CMs is crucial for advancing their ...

Overproduction of Group 2 innate lymphoid cells or ILC2s—a type of white blood cells—can sometimes exacerbate conditions such as bronchial asthma, chronic rhinosinusitis, atopic dermatitis, and organ fibrosis through an exaggerated immune response. Although there are immunomodulatory drugs that can suppress Type 2 helper T (Th2) cells, drugs capable of suppressing ILC2s are currently lacking. Now, however, in a breakthrough study that could lead to the development of a new therapeutic strategy targeting ILC2s, researchers led by Associate Professor Arifumi Iwata of the Chiba University Hospital, Japan, have identified molecular ...

The Specialised Group on Chemistry of Natural Products (GQPN) of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) has awarded its Excellence in Research Award 2023 to Professor Ricardo Riguera. The Evaluation Committee thus recognises his valuable contribution to this area of chemistry. Among other advances, his work has made it possible to describe a large number of bioactive metabolites, such as the first heptacyclopeptide and the first cyclodepsipeptide isolated from marine organisms. Riguera also identified one of the first examples of cytotoxic metabolites from marine bacteria, the first description of L-galactose as part of a natural product, and the first description ...

FINDINGS A UCLA-led team has developed a machine-learning model that can predict with a high degree of accuracy the short-term survival of dialysis patients on Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (CRRT).   BACKGROUND CRRT is a therapy used for very sick hospitalized patients whose health status makes them ineligible for regular hemodialysis. It is a gentler therapy that provides continuous treatment over a prolonged period. About half of adults placed on CRRT, however, do not survive, rendering the treatment futile for both patients ...

Poverty and mental illness are not only linked, but there is also a causal relationship. This is the conclusion of researchers from Amsterdam UMC, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Modena. Their study shows that while certain mental health issues can hinder financial stability, poverty is also one of the causal factors leading to mental health problems. This study was published today in Nature Human Behaviour.   "This study indicates that certain mental health problems can make a person's financial situation uncertain. But conversely, we also see that poverty can lead to mental health problems," ...

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed an atlas of proteins describing how they behave inside human cells. This tool could be used to search for the origins of diseases which are related to proteins misbehaving such as dementia and many cancers. The atlas, which is published in Nature Communications, has allowed the researchers to find new proteins inside cells that are responsible for a range of important bodily functions. The team focuses on a droplet-like part of the cell called a condensate ...

When confronted with an antibiotic, toxic substance, or other source of considerable stress, bacteria are able to activate a defence mechanism using cell-to-cell communication to ‘warn’ unaffected bacteria, which can then anticipate, shield themselves and spread the warning signal. This mechanism1 has just been described for the first time by a team of scientists2 from CNRS and Université de Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier. It paves the way for the development of new, more effective antibiotic treatments that can target this bacterial communication system. When they perceive a source of stress, bacteria spring into action, inducing changes in the expression of certain ...

The capacity of Mozambican woodlands to capture and store carbon is underestimated and potentially undervalued for their protection and restoration, finds new research from an international team of scientists including UCL researchers and led by carbon data provider Sylvera. The research, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that miombo woodlands, which span large areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, store 1.5 to 2.2 times more carbon than had previously been estimated by standard methods. Named for the miombo trees found in the region, these biomes (geographical areas defined by their local species and ...

Cutting farm nitrous oxide emissions helps climate and ozone layer   Adding crushed basalt rocks and special fertilisers can reduce potent nitrous oxide (N2O) greenhouse gas emissions and safeguard the stratospheric ozone layer, which protects us from harmful UV light and reduces nitrate leaching into water bodies protecting ecosystems and human health The new study, led by researchers at the University of Sheffield, highlights methods for reducing  N2O emissions, such as enhanced weathering of agricultural soils with ...

Drugs developed to fight blood and other cancers could also help improve the efficiency of radiotherapy in the most commonly diagnosed low-grade brain tumour in adults, a new study has found. Meningioma account for approximately 36% of all primary brain tumours. The majority are successfully treated by surgery, but some which can’t easily be accessed need to be treated with radiotherapy. That can cause significant side effects and radiation damage to the brain, while resistance to radiotherapy can also result in tumour growth. A new study by researchers at the Brain Tumour Research ...

New research published in Arthritis & Rheumatology indicates that chronic exposure to air pollutants may increase the risk of developing lupus, an autoimmune disease that affects multiple organs. For the study, investigators analyzed data on 459,815 participants from the UK Biobank. A total of 399 lupus cases were identified during a median follow-up of 11.77 years. Air pollutant exposure was linked with a greater likelihood of developing lupus. Individuals with a high genetic risk and high air pollution exposure had the highest risk of developing ...

Anthracnose, a severe disease caused by the Colletotrichum spinaciae plant pathogen, often occurs in common vetch, a widely grown legume. Chemicals are not recommended for disease management because the plants are used as livestock feed. A new study published in Grassland Research reveals that treating common vetch with certain bacteria or fungi that promote plant growth may be effective for combating anthracnose. Treating common vetch with these bacteria or fungi increased the activity of plant defense enzymes and promoted the presence of healthy bacteria that could keep Colletotrichum spinaciae at bay. “The combined use of plant growth‐promoting rhizobacteria such as Bacillus ...

In a study in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology that included 60 individuals with mild to moderate acne, following the Mediterranean diet and taking omega-3 fatty acid supplements led to significant reductions in inflammatory and non-inflammatory skin lesions, as well as improved quality of life. Notably, 98.3% of participants had omega-3 fatty acid deficits at the start of the study. Acne severity lessened significantly in those who reached target omega-3 fatty acid levels during the study. “Lifestyle interventions, including dietary recommendations, should ...

Unaccompanied children entering the United States without adult legal guardians and legal status account for a growing share of U.S. Border Patrol encounters along the southern border, with most fleeing extreme violence, poverty, and food insecurity. In response, emergency intake sites and influx care facilities (surge facilities) were used to promptly house unaccompanied children. A new analysis published in Economic Inquiry finds that the emergency shelters expedited the reunification of children with their families. By analyzing data on unaccompanied minors encountered ...

In people with a rare condition called light chain amyloidosis, light chain proteins—which are a component of antibodies—mutate and build up in different organs. In new research published in The FEBS Journal, investigators have identified and characterized an antibody fragment that can bind to abnormal light chains to stabilize them and prevent their aggregation. The findings could have an important clinical impact because the current prognosis for individuals with light chain amyloidosis is extremely poor, and current treatments, ...

A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that while the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has collected annual data on areas of coca cultivation in South America for decades – to monitor the establishment of illegal plantations and associated deforestation – scientists can’t reliably distinguish between different types of coca plants. While identification often relies on leaf shape and size, this does not reflect differences between coca varieties grown for extracting the alkaloid cocaine (the active ingredient in the recreational drug), coca cultivated for traditional purposes, ...