Niigata, Japan - Rootless cones are small volcanic landforms ranging from several to several hundred meters in diameter, formed by continuous explosions resulting from the interaction between surface lava and water bodies like lakes and rivers (Figure 1). Unlike regular volcanoes originating from magma rising from deep underground, rootless cones form when lava covers a water-containing layer, triggering explosive reactions. Due to this process, they are also called pseudocraters. While Iceland hosts many rootless cones, they ...

Niigata, Japan – The distribution of plants has been shaped by geological and climatic changes over time through repeated migration, extinction, and adaptation to new environments. The genus Camellia, comprising over 100 species mainly in East Asia, is a representative warm-temperate tree of the Sino-Japanese Floristic Region. In Japan, four species of Camellia are found, with Camellia japonica and Camellia rusticana being the most well known. C. japonica has a broad distribution from Aomori Prefecture in the cool-temperate ...

Niigata, Japan – A group led by the Department of Neurosurgery, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University succeeded in the diagnosis of leptomeningeal disease in diffuse midline gliomas by detecting H3K27M-mutant droplets from circulating tumor DNA of cerebrospinal fluid taken from these patients. In two patients, leptomeningeal disease was diagnosed earlier than with traditional methods such as MRI and cerebrospinal fluid cytology. In one patient, long term survival after the diagnosis of leptomeningeal disease by early ...

Understanding the science behind meaty tastes and textures could be the key for more people switch to a planet-friendly plant diet, researchers suggest. Ole G. Mouritsen, a professor of gastrophysics, addresses the urgent need to make changes to culinary cultures where animal-based proteins play a central role. Replicating a little-known meaty flavour and a sensation of richness could encourage more plant-based eating, he explains. “To ensure that there is enough food for a growing world population, to lessen the burden on the environment, and to promote healthier, sustainable eating patterns, it ...

LOS ANGELES —January 26, 2024 — Young patients who have undergone the Ross procedure for aortic valve disease have shown excellent long-term survival, the majority without the need for additional surgery two decades later. These findings, presented today at the 61st annual meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), were the result of a 22-year study at the Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Bengaluru, India. “The Ross operation can be performed safely with results comparable to mechanical valve replacement,” said the study’s lead author, cardiac surgeon ...

LOS ANGELES—January 26, 2025—As contemporary surgical practice continues to evolve, patients who undergo surgical lung volume reduction (LVRS) for advanced emphysema may survive longer and with fewer complications than they did in the past—and they may even fare better than those who opt for endobronchial valve (EBV) placement. At the 2025 Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Annual Meeting, researchers presented risk-adjusted findings that shed new light on treatments for severe emphysema. Despite having shorter hospital stays, lower hospital ...

LOS ANGELES—January 25, 2025—A late-breaking study presented today at the 2025 Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Annual Meeting reveals that mechanical aortic valve replacements (AVRs) provide significant long-term survival benefits for patients aged 60 and younger compared to bioprosthetic valves. The study, leveraging data from the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD), offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of prosthetic valve outcomes, encompassing over 100,000 patients. The study addressed a critical question ...

LOS ANGELES—January 25, 2025 New research presented at the 2025 Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Annual Meeting reveals that anatomic lung resections, such as lobectomy and segmentectomy, are associated with improved long-term survival compared to wedge resection for patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The study analyzed outcomes for more than 32,000 stage 1A NSCLC patients using data from the STS General Thoracic Surgery Database (STS GTSD) with long-term follow-up linked to the National Death Index and Centers ...

SAN FRANCISCO – Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) harboring BRAF V600E mutations benefitted from first-line treatment with the targeted therapies encorafenib and cetuximab plus a mFOLFOX6 chemotherapy regimen, according to results from the Phase III BREAKWATER trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.  The findings, presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers (ASCO GI) Annual Symposium and published in Nature Medicine, demonstrated a 60.9% overall response rate (ORR) with the three-drug combination ...

Boston – A data analysis from a randomized clinical trial for stage 3 colon cancer patients by investigators at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center found that patients with evidence of residual cancer in their blood after surgery to remove the cancer, may benefit from adding of celecoxib, to post surgery treatment. The analysis showed that patients with positive blood tests for circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) had worse outcomes in general, but those who were treated with celecoxib, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, experienced significantly improved disease-free survival. “This is one of the first studies to show that ctDNA status has predictive utility in terms of selecting ...

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology today announced the results of a data analysis from a randomized phase III clinical trial involving patients with stage III colon cancer, which found that adding the drug celecoxib to treatment after surgery might help those who still have traces of cancer in their blood. The analysis showed that patients with signs of cancer in their blood measured by Signatera™, a circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) test, tended to have worse outcomes. However, those who took celecoxib after surgery had a much better chance of staying cancer-free. These results are being presented in a late-breaking ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a new dye that can strongly absorb second near-IR radiation and transform it to heat. Starting with a dye from the bile pigment family, they designed a unique ring structure which can bind rhodium and iridium. Measurements and modeling revealed strong second near-IR absorptions and exceptional photostability. Second near-IR waves easily penetrate human tissue; the new dye may be applied in deep tissue therapies and imaging.   The second near-IR region of the electromagnetic spectrum (1000-1700 nanometers) ...

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found a promising drug candidate that could help restore vision in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurological conditions that damage neurons.  The study was published this week in the journal Nature Communications. The drug, LL-341070, enhances the brain's ability to repair damaged myelin— the protective sheath around nerve fibers. Damage to myelin is a hallmark of diseases like MS, as well as a natural consequence of aging, often resulting in vision loss, loss of motor skills, ...

Complex organisms, thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand, can shape massive ecosystems and influence the fate of Earth's climate, according to a new study. Researchers from Arizona State University, along with their colleagues from the National University of the Peruvian Amazon, have identified an unknown family of microbes uniquely adapted to the waterlogged, low-oxygen conditions of tropical peatlands in Peru’s northwestern Amazonian rainforest. The new research shows these microbes have a dual role in the carbon cycle and the potential to either ...

CLEVELAND – University Hospitals is now offering endoscopic spine surgery for patients needing treatment for back pain due to herniated discs in their spine. Xiaofei (Sophie) Zhou, MD, completed Arthrex's Endoscopic Spine Training course to bring this advanced procedure to the health system and recently completed the first endoscopic discectomy utilizing Arthrex technology at UH. The health system is the only one in the greater Cleveland area offering this type of ultra-minimally invasive surgery.  Arthrex's technology allows surgeons to remove the ...

Reston, VA (January 24, 2025)—The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) have issued a new procedure standard/practice guideline for the use of fibroblast activation protein (FAP) PET. Published in the January issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the procedure standard/practice guideline was developed to assist providers in recommending and performing FAP PET, as well as interpreting and reporting results of the imaging studies. FAP is a transmembrane protein expressed on both cancer-associated fibroblasts and on normal activated fibroblasts involved in wound healing and ...

The National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator Program has granted $5 million dollars to Phase 2 of the project “Securing critical material supply chains by enabling phOtovoltaic circuLARity (SOLAR).”  SOLAR’s goal is to proactively ensure circularity of solar panels by providing solutions to barriers throughout the end-to-end supply chain. The intent is to make solar panels recyclable and find a solution to remanufacturing them at a competitive cost. Achieving this will help promote a clean and resilient energy system in the United States. The three-year project is led by Battelle Memorial Institute ...

NEW YORK, NY, January 24, 2025 — A team of scientists has developed a groundbreaking approach using specially designed peptides to improve drug formulations. This innovative method significantly enhances anti-tumor efficacy, as demonstrated in leukemia models. The study, published in the journal Chem, was led by researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Drug delivery systems often face two critical challenges: poor solubility and inefficient delivery within the body. Many drugs do not dissolve well, making it difficult for them to reach ...

ST. LOUIS, MO, January 24, 2025 - A new collaborative research team of leading plant scientists are developing sorghums with nitrogen-saving traits by utilizing the genetic diversity of wild relatives to improve resilience and productivity for grain sorghum producers.  The project is part of a $38 million investment in nine projects by the U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E, to develop advanced technologies for plants to increase nitrogen-use efficiency and reduce nitrogen pollution from U.S. bioenergy feedstocks. Veena Veena, PhD, MBA, principal investigator and director of the Plant Transformation ...

Researchers from Mass General Brigham and collaborating institutions have developed a non-invasive approach to manipulate cardiac tissue activity by using light to stimulate an innovative ink incorporated into bioprinted tissue. Their goal is to develop a technique that can be used to repair the heart. Their findings in preclinical models, published in Science Advances, show the transformative potential of non-invasive therapeutic methods to control electrically active tissues. “We showed for the first time that with this optoelectronically active ink, we can print scaffolds that allow remote control of engineered heart tissues,” said co-corresponding ...

Boston – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have identified factors that determine whether donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI), a standard therapy for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who have relapsed after allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplant, will successfully move the patient into remission. The team identified that a key cell type in the DLI product and features of the tumor microenvironment in patients both play a role. The findings were published in Science Immunology. “Relapse of AML after stem cell transplant is a major challenge,” says first author Katie ...

LOS ANGELES—January 24, 2025—In patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), a novel analysis evaluating surgeon preference for multi- versus single-arterial grafting may help explain the differing results between prior retrospective analyses and randomized controlled trials regarding long-term survival. A study presented this week at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ 61st Annual Meeting explores findings in more than a million U.S. Medicare beneficiaries who underwent CABG from 2001 to 2019. The researchers found that patients who received multi-arterial grafting (MAG) had improved survival over those who ...

Call it a mystery solved. North Carolina State University researchers firmly point the finger at the South American Andes Mountains as the place where the Irish potato famine pathogen, Phtytophthora infestans, originated.  In a wide-ranging study of the genetic material found in P. infestans and other members of the Phytophthora species, the NC State researchers provide more evidence that P. infestans spread from South America to North America before wreaking havoc in Ireland in the 1840s. The pathogen still causes late-blight disease on potato and tomato plants around the world. Much ...

The vestibular system is a network of organs in the inner ears that detects the motions and position of the head. The brain uses this information, along with inputs from the eyes and joints, to maintain the body’s balance. Visual information has long been proven to affect balance—for example, strobe lights and swirling images can cause instability—but a new study published in PLOS ONE shows that sounds can also be a disruptive factor for those who have vestibular hypofunction, a vestibular system disorder resulting in impaired balance. “People with vestibular hypofunction have ...

In collaboration with colleagues from international partner institutions, researchers at the University of Cologne have investigated the asexual reproduction of oribatid mites using genome sequencing techniques. They show that the key to evolution without sex in oribatid mites may lie in the independent evolution of their two chromosome copies – a phenomenon known as the ‘Meselson effect’. The research team identified various mechanisms that may contribute to the genetic diversity of the chromosome ...