Four in five primary caregivers of nine-month-old babies reported cuddling, talking and playing with their little one several times a day, in England's first national long-term study of babies in over two decades, led by UCL (University College London).  More than half engaged in physical or turn-taking play, singing, pretend games and noisy play with their babies several times a day – activities which were linked to improved early language development. Around three quarters showed their babies picture ...

The increased legalization of cannabis over the past several years can potentially increase its co-use with alcohol. Concerningly, very few studies have looked at the effects of these two drugs when used in combination. In a series of new studies, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used rats to understand how brain structure and behavior can change when cannabis and alcohol are taken together. Most researchers have studied the effects of either alcohol or THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the primary psychoactive drug in cannabis, alone. However, when people, especially adolescents, use these drugs, ...

Scientists are working to protect the unique qualities of cacao beans grown in the Buenaventura region on the Pacific coast of Colombia. In a study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, researchers from the Colombian Corporation for Agricultural Research (AGROSAVIA) have examined a wealth of metrics to uncover the complex interactions between environmental factors and cacao quality. In a pioneering move, they have proposed that Buenaventura should be designated as a new Denomination of Origin (DO) for cacao trees. This is a legal recognition given to products that originate ...

By strategically straining materials that are as thin as a single layer of atoms, University of Rochester scientists have developed a new form of computing memory that is at once fast, dense, and low-power. The researchers outline their new hybrid resistive switches in a study published in Nature Electronics. Developed in the lab of Stephen M. Wu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and of physics, the approach marries the best qualities of two existing forms of resistive switches used for memory: memristors and phase-change materials. Both forms have been explored for their advantages over ...

MADISON – Nineteen million years ago, during a time known as the early Miocene, massive ice sheets in Antarctica rapidly and repeatedly grew and receded. The Miocene is widely considered a potential analog for Earth's climate in the coming century, should humanity remain on its current carbon emissions trajectory. Identifying how and why Antarctica's major ice sheets behaved the way they did in the early Miocene could help inform understanding of the sheets' behavior under a warming climate. Together, the ice sheets lock a volume of water equivalent to more than 50 meters of sea level rise and influence ocean currents that affect marine food webs and regional climates. ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – November 30, 2023) Immunotherapy using modified chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells has greatly improved survival rates for pediatric patients with relapsed and recurrent leukemia. However, these therapies are not as effective in treating solid tumors and can have significant toxicity. Findings from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital showed that adding a modular chimeric cytokine receptor to CAR T cells increased their efficacy in multiple solid tumor models. The study was published today in Nature Biomedical Engineering.   “We designed modular chimeric cytokine receptors and showed that ...

Melting of glaciers, rising sea levels, extreme heat waves: the consequences of climate change are more visible than ever, and the scientific community has confirmed that humans are responsible. Yet studies show that a third of the population still doubts or disputes these facts. The cause is disinformation spread by certain vested interests. To try and prevent this phenomenon, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has developed and tested six psychological interventions on nearly 7,000 participants from twelve countries. The research, published in ...

Skin-to-skin contact between parent and infant during the first hours after a very premature birth helps develop the child's social skills. This is according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and others. The study also shows that fathers may play a more important role than previous research has shown. In current practice, very premature babies are usually placed in an incubator to keep them warm and to stabilize them during the first hours after birth. In the “Immediate parent-infant skin-to-skin study” (IPISTOSS), 91 premature babies born at 28 to 33 weeks were randomized to either ...

Plants regulate their development with a distinct group of molecular players. ROP proteins, a group of plant-specific proteins, are known to control plant tissue formation. Now, Hugh Mulvey and Liam Dolan at the GMI show that ROP proteins evolved at the transition between unicellular and multicellular plant life. The findings are published on November 30 in the journal Current Biology.   Being non-mobile, plants follow a very different lifestyle from us animals. To grow and develop, plants also need a distinct ...

In a study with 22 pairs of identical twins, Stanford Medicine researchers and their colleagues have found that a vegan diet improves cardiovascular health in as little as eight weeks. Although it’s well-known that eating less meat improves cardiovascular health, diet studies are often hampered by factors such as genetic differences, upbringing and lifestyle choices. By studying identical twins, however, the researchers were able to control for genetics and limit the other factors, as the twins grew up in the same households ...

MIT geologists have found that a clay mineral on the seafloor, called smectite, has a surprisingly powerful ability to sequester carbon over millions of years.  Under a microscope, a single grain of the clay resembles the folds of an accordion. These folds are known to be effective traps for organic carbon.  Now, the MIT team has shown that the carbon-trapping clays are a product of plate tectonics: When oceanic crust crushes against a continental plate, it can bring rocks to the surface that, over ...

About The Study: In this study of 3 million U.S. adults, anxiety and depression were significantly higher among adults ages 18 to 39 compared with adults age 40 and older during the COVID-19 pandemic. Less favorable economic conditions and responses to social upheaval may have contributed to young adults’ worse mental well-being. These findings suggest a need for greater mental health care and economic policies targeted toward younger adults.  Authors: Sarah Collier Villaume, Ph.D., of Northwestern University in Evanston, ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that structural racism must be considered as a fundamental contributor to the unequal distribution of lung cancer risk factors and thus disparate lung cancer risk across different racial and ethnic groups. Additional research is needed to better identify mechanisms contributing to inequitable lung cancer risk and tailor preventive interventions.  Authors: Sidra N. Bonner, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website ...

A new analysis of the brain activity of people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the first to reveal that traumatic memories are represented in the brain in an entirely different way than sad autobiographical memories. This finding supports the notion that traumatic memories in PTSD are an alternate cognitive entity that deviates from regular memory, and may provide a biological explanation for why the recall of traumatic memories often displays as intrusions that differ profoundly from “regular” negative memories for patients with PTSD. The study, ...

New Haven, Conn. — It is well known that people who have lived through traumatic events like sexual assault, domestic abuse, or violent combat can experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including terrifying flashbacks, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the incident. But what exactly happens in the brains of PTSD patients as they recall these traumatic events? Are they remembered the same way as, say, the loss of a beloved pet — or, for that matter, a relaxing walk on the beach? A new study co-led by Yale researchers finds that the brain activity triggered by recollections of traumatic experiences ...

New study tackles the mystery of why bacteria often carry diverse ranges of weapons. The findings show that different weapons are best suited to different competition scenarios. Short-range weapons help bacteria to invade established communities; long-range weapons are useful once established. A new study led by the University of Oxford has shed light on why certain species of bacteria carry astonishing arsenals of weapons. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, could help us to engineer microbes that can destroy deadly pathogens, reducing our reliance on antibiotics. Many species of bacteria possess ...

SAN FRANCISCO—November 30, 2023—When women with diabetes become pregnant, they face not only the typical challenges of pregnancy and impending parenthood, but also a scary statistic: they’re five times more likely to have a baby with a congenital heart defect. Researchers at Gladstone Institutes have now discovered why that is, identifying the cells and molecules that go awry in the developing hearts of fetuses in women with diabetes. They found that a small subset of cells destined to become part of the heart’s aorta and pulmonary artery have unusually high levels of retinoic acid activity, which coaxes them to behave more like cells found ...

Efficiently meeting the growing demand for public services in metropolitan areas has long been a persistent challenge. A research team at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a novel performance evaluation method, which marks a major breakthrough in tackling a century-old problem of evaluating blocking probabilities in queueing systems with overflow, providing ways to allocate limited resources better. With the remarkable advances in computational efficiency and accuracy, the method has great potential to optimise the performance of numerous telecommunication networks and even medical care systems, ultimately enhancing ...

COSPAR and the Erasmus+ Education Programme COSPAR’s participation in Erasmus+ programmes is part of the COSPAR Panel on Education’s new approach to its mission of developing “means and media to encourage and spread space-related education”. The StudenTs As plaNetary Defenders (StAnD) project aims to engage primary and secondary school students in the subject of asteroids, meteors, and planetary defence. The 36-month StudenTs As plaNetary Defenders (StAnD) programme brings asteroids, comets, meteors and meteorites to the classroom using carefully prepared activities and experiments. The programme includes the installation of meteor detection cameras in participating ...

Basic oxide catalysts contain oxygen ions with unpaired electrons that can be shared with other species to facilitate a chemical reaction. These catalysts are widely used in the synthesis of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and petrochemicals. There have been efforts to improve the catalytic power of these catalysts by improving their basicity or the ability to donate electrons or accept hydrogen ions. Various strategies include doping the catalyst with highly electronegative cations such as alkali metals, substituting oxide ions ...

New research on tree reproduction is helping solve a puzzle that has stumped tree scientists for decades. Many tree species exhibit a reproductive phenomenon known as “masting”, where individual trees have very low seed production in most years followed by a sudden burst of seed production that is synchronized over large parts of its range. The reason for this coordinated reproduction within a species is unclear.  A new study by scientists at The Jones Center at Ichauway and the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station showed ...

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered how Lactobacillus, a bacterium found in fermented foods and yogurt, helps the body manage stress and may help prevent depression and anxiety. The findings open the door to new therapies to treat anxiety, depression and other mental-health conditions. The new research from UVA’s Alban Gaultier, Ph.D., and collaborators is notable because it pinpoints the role of Lactobacillus, separating it out from all the other microorganisms that naturally live in and on our bodies. These organisms are collectively known as the microbiota, and scientists have increasingly ...

Annapolis, MD; November 30, 2023—Hung from a common utility pole, a fiber optic cable—the kind bringing high-speed internet to more and more American households—can be turned into a sensor to detect temperature changes, vibrations, and even sound, through an emerging technology called distributed fiber optic sensing. However, as NEC Labs America photonics researcher Sarper Ozharar, Ph.D., explains, acoustic sensing in fiber optic cables "is limited to only nearby sound sources or very loud events, such as emergency vehicles, car alarms, or cicada emergences." Cicadas? Indeed, periodical cicadas—the ...

BATON ROUGE – Pennington Biomedical Research Center and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have received $13.8 million for five years of research funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to study the ideal “dose” of behavioral interventions to treat childhood obesity in rural and minority communities across Louisiana and Tennessee. Pennington Biomedical’s Amanda Staiano and Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Bill Heerman are co-principal investigators on the randomized, multisite trial. Despite ongoing efforts, childhood obesity rates have continued to increase over the ...

“Dripstones, or speleothems, are unique natural archives - like Earth’s USB sticks. They store a wealth of information on past climate which helps us to better understand the environment in which early humans lived”, Jenny Maccali explains. She is a scientist at SapienCE Centre of Excellence, and has has lead the study, now published in Climate of the Past. New perspective to ancient climate South Africa has a highly dynamic climate resulting from its position at the convergence of two oceanic basins, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. ...