(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Flames roared through Santa Barbara County in late 2017. UC Santa Barbara canceled classes, and the administration recommended donning an N95, long before the COVID pandemic made the mask a household item. Smoke and ash choked the air, but the Thomas Fire’s effects weren’t restricted to the land and sky. Huge amounts of ash settled into the oceans, leaving researchers to wonder what effect it might have on marine life. Now scientists at UC Santa Barbara have discovered that wildfire ash adds nutrients to marine systems, ...

Transitioning away from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which offer water- and oil-repelling properties on the outer shells of firefighter turnout gear, could bring potential performance tradeoffs, according to a new study from North Carolina State University. The study showed that turnout gear without PFAS outer shell coatings were not oil-repellent, posing a potential flammability hazard to firefighters if exposed to oil and flame, said Bryan Ormond, assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science at NC State and corresponding author of ...

Kidney stones affect nearly 10% of the global population. For more than three decades, thiazide diuretics, a common medication used for high blood pressure, have been the standard of care for kidney stone prevention because they reduce the excretion of urinary calcium.     However, recent clinical trials have raised doubts about their efficacy in preventing kidney stones. The NOSTONE trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in March 2023, failed to find a protective effect of thiazide diuretics on kidney stone disease.     A ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. --- Scleractinian corals, or hard corals, have been disappearing globally over the past four decades, a result of climate change, pollution, unsustainable coastal development and overfishing. However, some Caribbean octocorals, or soft corals, are not meeting the same fate. During a two-year survey of soft corals in the Florida Keys, Mary Alice Coffroth,  professor emerita of geology at the University at Buffalo, along with a small team of UB researchers, identified three species of octocorals that have survived heat waves. While the coral animal itself may be ...

Researchers at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have created tiny biological robots that they call Anthrobots from human tracheal cells that can move across a surface and have been found to encourage the growth of neurons across a region of damage in a lab dish. The multicellular robots, ranging in size from the width of a human hair to the point of a sharpened pencil, were made to self-assemble and shown to have a remarkable healing effect on other cells. The discovery is a starting point for the researchers’ vision to use patient-derived ...

It’s a story that’s become all too familiar — high winds knock out a power line, and a community can go without power for hours to days, an inconvenience at best and a dangerous situation at worst. UC Santa Cruz Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yu Zhang and his lab are leveraging tools to improve the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of power systems, and have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) -based approach for the smart control of microgrids for power ...

AMHERST, Mass. – University of Massachusetts Amherst civil and environmental engineers have determined the factors that may help identify the schools and daycare centers at greatest risk for elevated levels of lead in drinking water. The most telling characteristic for schools in Massachusetts is building age, with facilities built in the 1960s and 1970s—nearly a third of the facilities tested—at the greatest risk for having dangerously high water lead levels.  There is no safe exposure ...

In the wild, nesting chinstrap penguins get more than 11 hours of sleep per day – but not all at once. According to a new study, these birds nod off thousands of times per day, but for only around 4 seconds at a time, cumulatively accruing their daily sleep needs while remaining continuously vigilant over their nests. Sleep seems to be ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom. Typically characterized by immobility and the relative loss of ability to sense and respond to the surrounding environment, sleep can render animals vulnerable to predation. In humans, insufficient sleep can lead to nodding off, the seconds-long interruption of wakefulness by eye closure, and sleep-related ...

The discovery of a Neptune-mass exoplanet orbiting the very low-mass M dwarf star LHS 3154 challenges theoretical models of planet formation, according to a new study. The planet, which has a mass at least 13 times that of Earth, tightly orbits a star 9 times less massive than the Sun, demonstrating that small stars can sometimes host larger planets than was previously thought. Planets form in the dense circumstellar discs of gas and dust that surround newborn stars. The amount of material in these structures determines how massive the planets that form ...

Broad genetic sampling of maize and its teosinte grass ancestors reveals evidence of wild admixture during the crop’s initial domestication and dispersal, according to a new study. The findings clarify the contentious origin of modern maize and raise new questions about the anthropogenic mechanisms underlying its spread throughout the Americas. The domestication of crops transformed human culture. For many crops, the wild plants that modern domesticates are most closely related to can be readily identified by morphological and genetic similarities. Yet, despite its global agricultural importance, the ancestry of modern maize has long ...

Maize is one of the world’s most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite its importance, the origins of the grain have been hotly debated for more than a century. Now new research, published Dec. 1 in Science, shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant was first domesticated. The ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The discovery of a planet that is far too massive for its sun is calling into question what was previously understood about the formation of planets and their solar systems, according to Penn State researchers. In a paper published online today (Nov. 30) in the journal Science, researchers report the discovery of a planet more than 13 times as massive as Earth orbiting the “ultracool” star LHS 3154, which itself is nine times less massive than the sun. The mass ratio of the newly found planet with its host star is more than 100 times higher than that of Earth and the sun. The finding reveals the most massive known ...

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA), along with several other leading medical associations, have issued a new guideline for preventing and optimally managing atrial fibrillation (AFib). The guideline was jointly published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation. Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is the most common type of heart rhythm disorder (arrhythmia), affecting over 6 million Americans, and the number is expected to double by 2030. AFib causes a variety of symptoms, including fast ...

Embargoed: Not for Release Until 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time Thursday, 30 November 2023. A team of scientists found that carbon dioxide becomes a more potent greenhouse gas as more is released into the atmosphere. The new study, led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, Science, was published in Science and comes as world leaders meet in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28.  “Our finding means that ...

WASHINGTON — Emerging technologies for non-line-of-sight imaging can detect objects even if they are around a corner or behind a wall. In new work, researchers use a new type of detector to extend this method from visible light into near and mid-infrared wavelengths, an advance that could be especially useful for unmanned vehicles, robotic vision, endoscopy and other applications. “Infrared non-line-of-sight imaging can improve the safety and efficiency of unmanned vehicles by helping them detect and navigate around obstacles that are not directly visible,” said Xiaolong Hu from Tianjin University in China. His team collaborated with a group ...

Across the 30 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), 22,995 new HIV diagnoses were reported in 2022. Almost every second new HIV diagnosis (49%, n=11,103) was among migrants, i.e. among people who were not born in in the country they were diagnosed in. born abroad from the country of their diagnosis. In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, more than 4 million Ukrainians took refuge in countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA). In a rapid communication published in Eurosurveillance prior to World AIDS Day 2023 on 1 December, Reyes-Urueña et al. look at most recent surveillance data ...

Multifunctional computer chips have evolved to do more with integrated sensors, processors, memory and other specialized components. However, as chips have expanded, the time required to move information between functional components has also grown. “Think of it like building a house,” said Sang-Hoon Bae, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. “You build out laterally and up vertically to get more ...

Boston – George Demetri, MD, director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is being awarded the prestigious J.E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine from the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA). Demetri, an alumnus of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Class of 1983, will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford University School of Medicine campus on December 4, 2023. “Dr. Demetri is a leader in developing targeted therapeutics for cancer and has been pivotal in advancing oncology treatments ...

By studying the skull shapes of dipsadine snakes, researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have found how these species of snakes in Central and South America have evolved and adapted to meet the demands of their habitats and food sources. The research, conducted in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Michigan, was published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. “We now have evidence that this group of snakes is one of the most spectacular and largest vertebrate adaptive radiations currently known to science,” said Gregory Pandelis, collections manager at UTA’s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity ...

INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana University researchers are collaborating on a novel approach to use neuroimaging and network modeling tools—previously developed to analyze brains of patients in the clinic—to investigate Alzheimer’s disease progression in preclinical animal models. The research team, led by Evgeny Chumin, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU Bloomington, and Paul Territo, PhD, professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine, published their findings in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- In sea fireflies’ underwater ballet, the males sway together in perfect, illuminated synchronization, basking in the glow of their secreted iridescent mucus. “It’s extreme,” said Nicholai M. Hensley, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences. “It’s an illustration of convergent evolution and a striking example of synchronized bioluminescent mating displays. The males are putting it all out on the dance floor. It’s a big bright display.” Hensley is the lead author of new research unwrapping the vivid mating ...

Philadelphia, November 30, 2023 – Everyone should get quality care, no matter the color of their skin. However, implicit bias, micro-aggressions, and a lack of cultural understanding persist, leading to oppression and unequal treatment in healthcare. An insightful article in the new themed issue of the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences on specialized populations, published by Elsevier, highlights this serious problem, specifically addressing the assessment and treatment of radiation-induced skin reactions (RISR) in patients across the world undergoing external beam radiotherapy. The article provides a stark example ...

(Boston)—Pranay Sinha, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has received a National Institutes of Health Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01). These awards provide support and protected time (three to five years) for an intensive, supervised, career development experience in the biomedical, behavioral or clinical sciences, leading to research independence. As part of this honor, Sinha has received a five-year, $640,508 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant for his project, “Nutritional Interventions to End Tuberculosis ...

Long before researchers discovered the electron and its role in generating electrical current, they knew about electricity and were exploring its potential. One thing they learned early on was that metals were great conductors of both electricity and heat. And in 1853, two scientists showed that those two admirable properties of metals were somehow related: At any given temperature, the ratio of electronic conductivity to thermal conductivity was roughly the same in any metal they tested. This so-called Wiedemann-Franz law has held ever since – except in quantum materials, where electrons stop behaving as individual particles and glom together into a sort of electron soup. ...

Dogs’ food preferences are mirrored in their brain activity, particularly within their caudate nuclei -a brain region associated with reward processing, a new study combining behavioural and neuroimaging data by researchers from the Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) and Symrise Pet Food (France) finds. The study, which seamlessly blends behavioral observations with advanced neuroimaging techniques, offers novel insights into the influence of food quality on dogs' motivation. This work has been published in Scientific Reports. Similar to people, ...