Wildlife trade poses one of the greatest threats to the survival of numerous species. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) at least 50,000 species are involved in trade. However, while this figure already seems huge, it risks overlooking less traditional sectors of wildlife trade, such as the pet or fashion trade. For instance, recent data shows that the number of butterflies traded exceeds the total number of terrestrial arthropods in the IPBES assessment. This raises a critical question: How many ...

A new paper in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that smoking has a negative effect on earnings among younger workers. This is particularly true among the less well educated. The adverse health effects of smoking are well known. Smoking increases the risk of various cancers, respiratory issues, and cardiovascular diseases, with approximately 14% of all deaths in 2019 attributed to smoking. Despite smoking rates declining since the 1990s, in 2019 18% of women and 27% of men in high income countries still smoked. Tobacco smoking has ...

Society is often vulnerable to disasters, but how humans manage during and after can turn devastation into opportunities for improved resilience. For instance, private wells are attracting attention as an alternative resource for securing water for daily use and consumption in the event the water supply is cut off after a disaster. However, there are few records on how wells are used in the confusion of disasters, so detailed research is needed to promote the use of emergency wells. Professor Takahiro Endo of the Graduate School of Sustainable System Sciences at Osaka Metropolitan University conducted a survey on the use ...

St. Petersburg, Fla -  Welcoming a newborn is something many couples dream of doing, but it can get complicated when conceiving becomes a roadblock. Infertility affects one in six people, but obesity can also be a problem. When diet and exercise aren’t enough to lose weight, bariatric surgery can become an option. Yet a new national survey by Orlando Health finds that 56% of Americans do not know that bariatric surgery is an effective way to improve fertility.   “Every day we have more patients ...

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin. The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, has now been revealed to contain a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape. Dr Anthony Milnes from the University of Adelaide’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, participated in the research ...

This review is led by Professor. Tengfei Xu (Research Center for Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University) and Professor. Su Zeng (Research Center for Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University). The author emphasizes metabolomics’ critical role in advancing our understanding of disease mechanisms and accelerating targeted drug development, while acknowledging current challenges in the field. Metabolomics, as a powerful tool, can captures phenotypic changes induced by exogenous compounds, offering a valuable ...

Optical microscopy has long been a fundamental tool for scientific discovery. Yet, traditional far-field techniques are limited by diffraction, restricting their resolution to hundreds of nanometers, which can be inadequate for capturing phenomena in quantum and solid-state materials. With the emergence of tip-based microscopy capable of achieving atomic-scale spatial resolution, near-field optical nano-spectroscopy and nano-imaging have evolved into versatile tools for characterizing the optical properties of materials at the nanoscale. When further combined with ultrafast pump-probe ...

Communities exposed to drinking water contaminated with manufactured chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) experience up to a 33% higher incidence of certain cancers, according to new research from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and just published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, is the first to examine cancer and PFAS contamination of drinking water in the U.S. PFAS, which are used in consumer products such as furniture and food packaging, have been found in about 45% of drinking water supplies across the United States. ...

Girolline, a compound extracted from the sea sponge Pseudaxinyssa cantharella, has been investigated for possible antitumor effects and also found to have anti-malarial effects. Now, thanks to work by scientists from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, researchers have a better idea of how it works. In addition to its possible medicinal properties, the current findings suggest that the compound could also be useful as a chemical probe for research in areas such as aging and mitochondrial health. GIrolline is one of a number of compounds with biological functions that were isolated from Pseudaxinyssa ...

Older Australian women are challenging traditional views of aging, embarking on solo road trips and travelling the country in search of adventure, personal growth and new horizons. Equipped with a caravan, campervan, or a sturdy 4WD and a tent, these women are navigating vast landscapes, from the dusty Oodnadatta Track to the spectacular Tasmanian wilderness. Margaret Yates, a PhD candidate from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Faculty of Health and a retired nurse, interviewed 29 women travellers to explore their motivations and experiences. The majority were over sixty and considered themselves ...

There has been a shift away from the use of more reliable hormonal methods of contraception to less reliable fertility awareness methods among women requesting abortion in England and Wales over the past 5 years, reveals research published online in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health.   Use of the Pill, mini Pill, implants, patches, and vaginal rings has given way to more ‘natural’ methods, such as period tracking apps that highlight monthly peak fertility/ovulation, the findings ...

Implementing bans on the advertising, promotion, and sponsorship of tobacco products is linked to 20% lower odds of smoking, and 37% lower risk of taking up the habit, reveals a pooled data analysis of the available research, published online in Tobacco Control.   The findings indicate that these bans do influence behaviour, lending further weight to calls for their wider international implementation and enforcement, conclude the researchers. In 2019 alone, more than a billion people around the globe regularly smoked tobacco, and smoking caused nearly 8 million deaths, note the researchers. To curb the toll ...

A vascular ‘fingerprint’ on the light sensitive tissue layer at the back of the eye—the retina—can predict a person’s risk of stroke as accurately as traditional risk factors alone, but without the need for multiple invasive lab tests, finds research published online in the journal Heart.  The fingerprint, comprising 29 indicators of vascular health, is a practical and readily implementable approach that is particularly well suited for primary healthcare and low-resource settings, conclude the researchers. Stroke affects around 100 million people around the globe and ...

Mild cognitive impairment is linked to blood vessel dysfunction in the brain’s temporal lobes — the seat of memory — according to a new USC-led study. The findings, seen in people with and without signs of amyloid buildup in the brain, suggest that microvascular trouble may be an important, early biomarker for dementia as well as a potential target for therapy. The research, involving scientists from multiple universities, appears in the journal Neurology. “We’re studying ...

PORTLAND, Ore. – The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded up to $11.9 million to Oregon State University to invent new drug delivery technologies for protecting members of the military from a range of health threats in combat areas. Once designed, developed and tested, the technologies could also be applied as needed within the general public, said OSU College of Pharmacy nanomedicine researcher Gaurav Sahay, the project leader. The award comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency through its Hermes program, whose goal is finding new ways to deliver therapeutic agents throughout the body with exceptional ...

Esteemed cancer clinician-scientist Jenny Chang, M.D., MBBChir, MHCM, has been chosen to lead the Houston Methodist Academic Institute. She will serve as executive vice president, president and CEO, and chief academic officer. In her more than 15 years at Houston Methodist, Chang helped transform the Dr. Mary and Ron Neal Cancer Center into one of the top-20 ranked cancer centers in the country. Chang, the Emily Herrmann Presidential Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research, was selected following a national search and succeeds H. Dirk Sostman, M.D., FACR, who will retire next month after two decades of leadership at Houston Methodist. Chang’s ...

Physicists have spent more than a century measuring and making sense of the strange ways that photons, electrons, and other subatomic particles interact at extremely small scales. Engineers have spent decades figuring out how to take advantage of these phenomena to create new technologies. In one such phenomenon, called quantum entanglement, pairs of photons become interconnected in such a way that the state of one photon instantly changes to match the state of its paired photon, no matter how far apart they are.  Nearly 80 years ago, Albert Einstein referred to this phenomenon as "spooky action at a distance." Today, entanglement is the subject of research ...

Although extremely flammable, cotton is one of the most commonly used textiles due to its comfort and breathable nature. However, in a single step, researchers from Texas A&M University can reduce the flammability of cotton using a polyelectrolyte complex coating. The coating can be tailored for various textiles, such as clothing or upholstery, and scaled using the common pad-dry coating process, which is suitable for industrial applications. This technology can help to save property and lives on a large scale.     “Many of the materials in our ...

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have uncovered how specialized cells surrounding small blood vessels, known as perivascular cells, contribute to blood vessel dysfunction in chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and fibrosis. The findings, published today in Science Advances, could change how these diseases are treated. The study, led by Luiz Bertassoni, D.D.S., Ph.D., founding director of the Knight Cancer Precision Biofabrication Hub and a professor at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and ...

Years ago, as she sat in waiting rooms, Maytal Saar-Tsechansky began to wonder how people chose a good doctor when they had no way of knowing a doctor’s track record on accurate diagnoses. Talking to other patients, she found they sometimes based choices on a physician’s personality or even the quality of their office furniture. “I realized all these signals people are using are just not the right ones,” says Saar-Tsechansky, professor of information, risk, and operations management at Texas McCombs. “We were operating in complete darkness, like there’s no transparency on these things.” In new research, she uses artificial ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 13 January 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 ...

The University of Texas at Arlington has been recognized nationally for its commitment to student success and economic mobility, being named a winner in the inaugural Postsecondary Success Recognition Program (PSRP), a U.S. Department of Education initiative. This program honors institutions that excel in enrolling underserved student populations, supporting successful student transfers and completions and preparing graduates for careers that promote economic mobility. UTA was one of only three bachelor’s degree–granting institutions across the nation ...

Bats depend on open bodies of water such as small ponds and lakes for foraging and drinking. Access to water is particularly important for survival in the increasingly hot and dry summers caused by climate change, the time when female bats are pregnant and rear their young. A scientific team from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) has now shown that access to drinking sites is hampered by wind turbines in agricultural landscapes: Many bat species avoid the turbines and water bodies ...

Biology researchers in the College of Sciences and UCF Coastal have received two awards from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) totaling more than $2.3 million. A new $1.1 million award to UCF from NOAA Sea Grant as part of the Marine Debris Challenge Competition will fund joint research between UCF’s CEELAB and Aquatic Biogeochemistry Laboratory’s research on plastic-free restored habitats in coastal shorelines and oyster reefs. UCF’s work, in partnership with Texas A&M, and University of Texas Marine Science Institute was selected as one of 11 projects ...

RICHLAND, Wash.— Geochemist Kevin Rosso, a senior scientific leader at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has been named a Battelle Fellow, the highest recognition at PNNL for leadership and accomplishment in science. He joins six other current Battelle Fellows at PNNL in an honor that less than 0.5% of PNNL scientists achieve during their careers. Rosso is internationally known for his fundamental research on how energy flows among minerals, solutions and microorganisms. These complex processes center on the key role that interfaces—which are shared boundaries—play in controlling ...