There’s enough water frozen in Greenland and Antarctic glaciers that if they melted, global seas would rise by many feet. What will happen to these glaciers over the coming decades is the biggest unknown in the future of rising seas, partly because glacier fracture physics is not yet fully understood. A critical question is how warmer oceans might cause glaciers to break apart more quickly. University of Washington researchers have demonstrated the fastest-known large-scale breakage along an Antarctic ice shelf. The study, recently published in AGU Advances, shows that a 6.5-mile (10.5 kilometer) crack formed in 2012 on Pine Island Glacier — a retreating ice shelf that ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Perovskites, a broad class of compounds with a particular kind of crystal structure, have long been seen as a promising alternative or supplement to today’s silicon or cadmium telluride solar panels. They could be far more lightweight and inexpensive, and could be coated onto virtually any substrate, including paper or flexible plastic that could be rolled up for easy transport. In their efficiency at converting sunlight to electricity, perovskites are becoming comparable to silicon, whose manufacture still requires long, complex, and ...

Scientists from Mass Eye and Ear and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard found 18 novel species of a type of bacteria called enterococci, which are gut microbes found in most land animals. Enterococcus type bacteria are among the leading causes of antibiotic-resistant infections worldwide and 60 species had previously been identified. Understanding origins of antibiotic-resistant bacteria could offer insight into mechanisms of how drug-resistant, hospital-associated infections take root. Antibiotic-resistant infection is projected to catch up to cancer as the leading ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS –  For people with drug-resistant epilepsy, having a dog companion trained in  detecting seizures and other epilepsy-related tasks may reduce the amount of seizures they have, according to new research published in the February 28, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. For the study, researchers looked at adults with severe epilepsy who have been unable to find effective treatment to reduce seizures. “Despite the development of numerous anti-seizure medications over the past 15 years, up to 30% of people ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – For children and teens, irregular meals such as skipped breakfasts are linked to an increased risk of frequent headaches, according to a new study published in the February 28, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that for those ages 12 to 17, substance use and exposure, specifically electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), were associated with frequent headaches. For the study, frequent headaches were defined as occurring more than once per week. “It ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – For people with stroke, social factors such as education, neighborhood and employment, may be linked to whether they receive treatment with clot-busting drugs according to a preliminary study released today, February 28, 2024, that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 76th Annual Meeting taking place April 13–18, 2024, in person in Denver and online. The study looked at people with ischemic stroke, which ...

“Our study introduces an oxidative stress-based prognostic model for bladder cancer, offering insights into personalized therapy.” BUFFALO, NY- February 28, 2024 – 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 3, entitled, “Prognostic model development and molecular subtypes identification in bladder urothelial cancer by oxidative stress signatures.” Mounting studies indicate that oxidative stress (OS) significantly ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Drug discovery can be a frustrating process of trial and error. Scientists using fragment-based drug discovery link fragments of different molecules together to create a more potent drug but may not know whether a compound works until millions of dollars in research and development have already been spent. New University at Buffalo research may offer a more streamlined approach, allowing drug makers to determine the viability of a fragment-based design earlier in the process.  While developing a fragment-based drug to treat lung cancer, a team co-led by UB found that where they linked fragments together had a large effect on potency. “Despite ...

In a first-of-its-kind study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, physician-scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine discovered that high-dose inhaled nitric oxide therapy may improve oxygenation and reduce the risk of mortality among critically ill Black patients with COVID-19. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, is a condition that most commonly occurs in the setting of a lung infection such as COVID-19. “In ARDS, the barrier between the blood vessels and air sacs in the lungs is disrupted leading to the accumulation of fluid ...

New Orleans, LA. – Ochsner Digital Medicine has partnered with Humana Healthy Horizons to provide digital medicine services to its members. This agreement was effective February 1, 2024, with member enrollment in digital programs available immediately after. Humana Healthy Horizons is Humana’s Medicaid plan for Louisiana, covering thousands of members throughout the state. Through this partnership, Ochsner Digital Medicine will offer Humana Healthy Horizons members who have been diagnosed with Hypertension and Type 2 diabetes remote programs designed to manage and control their conditions. The programs use remote patient management through digital devices and personalized ...

Seattle is routinely listed as one of the most walkable and bike-friendly cities in the nation. The city government has committed to Vision Zero, which aims to completely eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030, and embarked on a slew of infrastructure projects: expanding the city’s bike network, redesigning high-crash intersections and enhancing crosswalks to protect pedestrians.  Such safety projects sometimes meet opposition from local business owners, who worry that reduced parking and disruption ...

African apes are already being exposed to climate change impacts, and will experience extreme events such as wildfires, heatwaves and flooding more frequently in the next 30 years, according to a study publishing February 28 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Razak Kiribou at Haramaya University in Ethiopia and colleagues. To better understand how African great apes will be affected by climate change, researchers investigated past and future climate for 363 sites across Africa. They estimated temperature and rainfall at each site between 1981 and 2010. Using two climate change scenarios, they projected how frequently apes would be exposed to climate change impacts in the near ...

Countries in the European Union (EU) have made progress over the past decade toward Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7), which calls for “access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” by 2030, according to a study published February 28, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Marek Walesiak from Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland, and Grażyna Dehnel from Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. In 2015, the United Nations developed 17 global Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. Tenets of SDG 7 include universal access to affordable energy; increased renewable energy ...

Thousands of historic and archaeological sites in Georgia are at risk from tropical storm surges, and that number will increase with climate change, according to a study published February 28, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Matthew D. Howland and Victor D. Thompson of Wichita State University and the University of Georgia. Anthropogenic climate change poses a major risk to coastlines due to rising sea level and increasingly severe tropical storms. This threatens not only living populations but also historic and archaeological sites. Mitigating damage requires accurate assessments of risks, but most predictive models focus on projected ...

Pet dogs with diarrhea may be shedding multi-drug resistant E.coli in 5 in 10 cases, with potential risks to their human owners ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298053 Article Title: Characteristics of MDR E. coli strains isolated from Pet Dogs with clinic diarrhea: A pool of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence-associated genes Author Countries: China Funding: This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD0500900, ...

Harassment on public transport negatively impacts women's health and welfare, with existing measures being largely ineffective, per systematic review ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0296830 Article Title: Invasion of privacy or structural violence? Harassment against women in public transport environments: A systematic review Author Countries: Spain Funding: This study has been supported by the research grant ACIF/2020/035 from the "Generalitat Valenciana". The funding entity did not contribute to the study design or data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing the manuscript. There was no additional ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- For centuries, coronaviruses have triggered health crises and economic challenges, with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that spreads COVID-19, being a recent example. One small protein in SARS-CoV-2, the Membrane protein, or M protein, is the most abundant and plays a crucial role in how the virus acquires its spherical structure. Nonetheless, this protein’s properties are not well understood. A research team led by a physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has devised a new method to make large quantities of M protein, and has characterized the protein’s ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Most cancers are thought to evade the immune system. These cancers don't carry very many mutations, and they aren’t infiltrated by cancer-fighting immune cells. Scientists call these cancers immunologically "cold." Now new research suggests such cancers aren't as "cold" as once thought. Researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, and UC San Diego, have found that patients with "cold" tumors actually do make cancer-fighting T cells.  This discovery opens the door to developing vaccines or therapies to increase T cell ...

Imagine: You find the dried-up remains of a once green and lush philodendron on your bookshelf and realize you can’t remember the last time you watered your houseplants. You soak the soil with water, hoping you can breathe life back into its desiccated husk, but it is futile. The plant has been too dehydrated for too long, and irreparable damage has been done. Now imagine that it isn’t your neglected houseplants that have been subjected to an unexpectedly dry growing season, but a field of wheat. With changes in global climate, such things are becoming more common and more of a concern for farmers, consumers, and researchers alike as the threat to food security intensifies. But ...

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 28, 2024 — In a study recently published in the journal Ecology, University of California, Irvine scientists uncover the intricate dance between drought, wildfires and invasive species in Southern California's coastal sage scrub ecosystems.   Titled “Long-term drought promotes invasive species by reducing wildfire severity,” the research, led by Sarah Kimball, Ph.D., director of the Center for Environmental Biology at UCI, sheds light on the critical interplay of these factors and its ...

New research from the University of British Columbia reveals a safe path to overcoming food allergies for older children and others who can’t risk consuming allergens orally to build up their resistance. It’s called sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT), and it involves placing smaller amounts of food allergens under the tongue. A study conducted by UBC clinical professor and pediatric allergist Dr. Edmond Chan and his team at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute found SLIT to be as safe and effective for high-risk older children and adolescents ...

Hamilton, ON, Feb. 28, 2024 – Diagnosing anemia in living people is typically a matter of a routine blood test. Retrospectively diagnosing anemia in people who died decades or even centuries ago is much more challenging since there is no blood left to test. Anthropologists at McMaster University and the University of Montreal, working with a hematologist colleague, have overcome that obstacle by developing a way to detect anemia through patterns in the structures of bones. Paleopathologists Megan Brickley, ...

Cancers begin with abnormal changes in individual cells, and the ability to track the accumulation of mutations at the single-cell level can shed new light on the early stages of the disease. Such knowledge could enable more effective early detection and treatment options for patients as well as more accurate predictions of disease progression. According to a paper in Nature Communications, a team of Rice University researchers led by Luay Nakhleh has developed a platform for integrating DNA and RNA data from single-cell sequencing with greater speed and precision than more recent, state-of-the-art technologies. The method, mapping cross domain ...

The Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award (GSPA). Students in the 2024 cohort are engaged in advocacy with an interest in science policy. Awardees will travel to Washington, D.C., for policy, communication and career training followed by meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “I am thrilled to welcome this latest cohort of Graduate Student Policy Awardees,” said ESA President Shahid Naeem. “The caliber of this year's awardees, as has been true for awardees in our program since its inception, reflects ...

Dissecting doorbells, exploring music, mastering retail software, love of the arts and old-fashioned hard work were early paths that led five Sandia National Laboratories engineers to their callings and recently earned them national Black Engineer of the Year Awards. The awards, recognizing outstanding achievements in engineering, science and technology, include Science Spectrum Trailblazer, Modern Day Technology Leader, Most Promising Engineer in Industry and the Senior Investigator Award. Each Sandia award winner has made significant contributions in creative, innovative and science-based systems engineering solutions to help solve our nation’s most challenging national security ...