The National Institute of Mental Health has awarded a significant grant of $1.5 million to Jianyang Du, PhD, of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, for a research study aimed at uncovering the cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to neurological disorders caused by long COVID-19. Dr. Du is an associate professor at the College of Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Colleen Jonsson, PhD, director of the UT Health Science Center Regional Biocontainment Laboratory and professor in the Department of Microbiology, is co-investigator on the grant, and Kun Li, PhD, assistant ...

A University of Massachusetts Amherst-Ernest Pharmaceuticals team of scientists has made “exciting,” patient-friendly advances in developing a non-toxic bacterial therapy, BacID, to deliver cancer-fighting drugs directly into tumors. This emerging technology holds promise for very safe and more effective treatment of cancers with high mortality rates, including liver, ovarian and metastatic breast cancer. Clinical trials with participating cancer patients are estimated to begin in 2027. “This is exciting because we now have all the critical pieces for getting an effective bacterial ...

Siblings share a unique bond built from shared memories, family rituals and the occasional argument. But ask almost anyone with a brother or sister and you’ll likely find a longstanding debate: who’s the favorite? New research from BYU sheds some light on that playful rivalry, revealing how parents might subtly show favoritism based on birth order, personality and gender. The study, conducted by BYU School of Family Life professor Alex Jensen, found that younger siblings generally receive more favorable ...

A mussel bed along Northern California’s Dillon Beach is as healthy and biodiverse as it was about 80 years ago, when two young students surveyed it shortly before Pearl Harbor was attacked and one was sent to fight in World War II.  Their unpublished, typewritten manuscript sat in the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory’s library for years until UC Davis scientists found it and decided to resurvey the exact same mussel bed with the old paper’s meticulous photos and maps directing their way. The new findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, document ...

ATLANTA, January 16, 2025 — The American Cancer Society (ACS) today released Cancer Statistics, 2025, the organization’s annual report on cancer facts and trends. The new findings show the cancer mortality rate declined by 34% from 1991 to 2022 in the United States, averting approximately 4.5 million deaths. However, this steady progress is jeopardized by increasing incidence for many cancer types, especially among women and younger adults, shifting the burden of disease. For example, incidence rates in women 50-64 years of age have surpassed those in ...

“[…] the results of this study indicate that pioglitazone might be useful in treating refractory skin ulcers, a typical condition that reduces the quality of life of patients with WS.” BUFFALO, NY- January 16, 2025 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as “Aging (Albany NY)” and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 22 on December 2, 2024, entitled “Less frequent skin ulcers among patients with Werner syndrome treated with pioglitazone: findings from the Japanese Werner Syndrome Registry.” Scientists ...

Scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School, and McLean Hospital have discovered a surprising mechanism by which the inherited genetic mutation known to cause Huntington’s disease leads to the death of brain cells. The findings change the understanding of the fatal neurodegenerative disorder and suggest potential ways to delay or even prevent it. For 30 years, researchers have known that Huntington’s is caused by an inherited mutation in the Huntingtin (HTT) gene, but they didn’t ...

Scientists from Delft, Vienna, and Lausanne discovered that the protein machines that shape our DNA can switch direction. Until now, researchers believed that these so-called SMC motors that make loops into DNA could move in one direction only. The discovery, which is published in Cell, is key to understanding how these motors shape our genome and regulate our genes. Connecting DNA “Sometimes, a cell needs to be quick in changing which genes should be expressed and which ones should be turned off, for example in response to food, alcohol or heat. To turn genes off and on, cells use Structural Maintenance ...

An early human ancestor of our species successfully navigated harsher and more arid terrains for longer in Eastern Africa than previously thought, according to a new study published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment. Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have human-like proportions and the first known early human to migrate out of Africa, was the focus of the new study led by the international research team. The researchers analysed evidence from Engaji Nanyori in Tanzania’s Oldupai Gorge, revealing Homo erectus thrived ...

Homo erectus was able to adapt to and survive in desert-like environments at least 1.2 million years ago, according to a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment. The findings suggest that behavioural adaptations included returning repeatedly over thousands of years to specific rivers and ponds for fresh water, and the development of specialised tools. The authors propose that this capability to adapt may have led to the expansion of H. erectus’ geographic range. There has been significant debate over ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of Medicaid beneficiaries with schizophrenia, telemental health care diffused rapidly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in state-operated agencies. Together, agency-level and beneficiary-level race and ethnicity findings suggest within-agency racial and ethnic differences in diffusion of telemental health care. States should monitor the diffusion of innovations across vulnerable populations.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Sharon-Lise Normand, PhD, email sharon@hcp.med.harvard.edu. Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This ...

About The Study: In this serial cross-sectional analysis of people ages 15 to 49 before Dobbs and 1 year after Dobbs, findings suggested that national support for expanded access to medication abortion has grown. Alternative models of care, such as advance provision and over-the-counter, have the potential to offer a promising approach to abortion care, particularly for people living in abortion-restricted states.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, M. Antonia Biggs, PhD, email antonia.biggs@ucsf.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 16:00hrs GMT Thursday 16 January 2025 Peer reviewed Observational study People and cells Protein level predicts immunotherapy response in bowel cancer Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, have shown that the amount of a protein called CD74 can indicate which people with bowel cancer may respond best to immunotherapy. If integrated into the clinic, testing for this protein could potentially allow hundreds of previously ineligible patients to benefit ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Young nearsighted kids who wear bifocal contact lenses that slow uncoordinated eye growth do not lose the benefits of the treatment once they stop wearing the lenses, new research shows. The study is a follow-up to a clinical trial published in 2020 showing that soft multifocal contact lenses with a heavy dose of added reading power dramatically slowed further progression of myopia in kids as young as 7 years old. Researchers wondered if discontinuing that treatment might cause a rebound of faster-than-normal eye growth that wipes out the benefit. In the new trial, nearsighted kids wore ...

Background and Aims The quantitative effects of alcohol consumption on cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are unknown. This study aimed to establish a dose-dependent model of alcohol consumption on the risks of cirrhosis and HCC. Methods PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and four Chinese databases were searched for studies published from their inception to 15 May 2024. A random-effects model was used to pool the data on the incidence of cirrhosis and HCC, and a dose-dependent model of alcohol’s effect on cirrhosis and HCC was established. Results A total of 33,272 HBV patients ...

January 16, 2025 – New York, NY – The International Alliance for Primary Immunodeficiency Societies (IAPIDS) and Rockefeller University Press (RUP) have entered a partnership to launch Journal of Human Immunity (JHI), the official open access journal of IAPIDS. This collaboration will ensure that JHI emerges as the destination for exciting research into human immunity, with a particular focus on inborn errors of immunity. “The Journal of Human Immunity represents a bold step forward in advancing ...

Digital Science is pleased to announce that Dr Raym Crow, a leading figure in mission-driven, sustainable open publishing models, has won the 2025 APE Award for Innovation in Scholarly Communication. The award – a joint initiative between Digital Science and the Berlin Institute for Scholarly Publishing (BISP) – has been announced at the 20th Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) Conference in Berlin, Germany. The APE award is presented to an individual who has brought innovation in scholarly communication to the community, through infrastructure, technology, business models, output on the topic, theory, or practice. With more than ...

Accurate object pose estimation refers to the ability of a robot to determine both the position and orientation of an object. It is essential for robotics, especially in pick-and-place tasks, which are crucial in industries such as manufacturing and logistics. As robots are increasingly tasked with complex operations, their ability to precisely determine the six degrees of freedom (6D pose) of objects, position, and orientation, becomes critical. This ability ensures that robots can interact with objects in a reliable and safe manner. However, despite advancements in deep learning, the performance of 6D pose estimation algorithms largely depends ...

Background and Aims The performance of neurodegenerative biomarkers—neurofilament light chain (NfL), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), tau, and ubiquitin carboxy-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCHL1)—in diagnosing minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) has not been systematically evaluated, simultaneously, nor have their associations with the development of overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE). This study aimed to evaluate the performance of plasma NfL, GFAP, tau, and UCHL1 in diagnosing MHE and predicting the development of OHE in Chinese patients with hepatic cirrhosis. Methods In this prospective study, 124 patients ...

The remains of nearly 200 animals found in Mexico’s Teotihuacán are helping reconstruct history. The unearthing and significance of these remains, found in four chambers within the Moon Pyramid — dating back nearly 2,000 years — are central in Nawa Sugiyama’s new book, “Animal Matter: Ritual, Place, and Sovereignty at the Moon Pyramid of Teotihuacan,” published by Oxford University Press.  Teotihuacán, one of the first megacities of the Western Hemisphere and now a UNESCO World Heritage site, is situated ...

New research forthcoming in Social Psychological and Personality Science illuminates why liberals and conservatives often support different types of leaders. The study shows that these preferences stem from differences in moral priorities rather than mere partisan bias. "This research helps explain why people across the political spectrum often support such different types of leaders," explains lead researcher Harrison Miller, of Florida State University. "Rather than simply attributing these differences to political bias, ...

WASHINGTON -- If you’ve ever wondered whether your parents secretly had a favorite child, they might have. Parents may be more inclined to confer the “favorite child award” to daughters and children who are agreeable and conscientious, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “For decades, researchers have known that differential treatment from parents can have lasting consequences for children,” said lead author Alexander Jensen, PhD, an associate professor at Brigham Young University. “This study helps us understand which children are more likely to be on the receiving end of favoritism, which can ...

Ecological warning lights have blinked on across the Arctic over the last 40 years, according to new research, and many of the fastest-changing areas are clustered in Siberia, the Canadian Northwest Territories, and Alaska. The analysis of the rapidly warming Arctic-boreal region, published in Geophysical Research Letters this week, provides a zoomed-in picture of ecosystems experiencing some of the fastest and most extreme climate changes on Earth.   Many of the most climate-stressed areas featured permafrost, or ground that stays frozen year-round, and experienced both severe warming and drying ...

Wearable devices can identify, differentiate, and predict flare-ups, or the worsening of symptoms and inflammation, in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Mount Sinai researchers have shown in a first-of-its-kind study. The findings, published in the journal Gastroenterology on January 16, suggest that wearable technology can predict the subsequent development of flares in IBD, enabling continuous disease monitoring through widely available commercial devices. “Current disease-monitoring methods rely on patients directly interacting with ...

Background and Aims T lymphocytes play a pivotal role in resolving hepatitis B virus infection. This study aimed to investigate the dynamics of peripheral blood T lymphocyte subsets during peginterferon alpha (peg-IFN-α) therapy and their association with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) clearance in inactive HBsAg carriers (IHCs). Methods This prospective observational study enrolled 197 IHCs treated with peg-IFNα-2a/2b for 48 weeks and followed for 24 weeks (treatment group), and 221 IHCs who were regularly monitored for 72 weeks without treatment (IHC control group). ...