Walking speed can provide insights into health, extending beyond mere mobility, so much so that it is considered to be the “sixth vital sign.” Past studies have suggested that a slow walking speed is correlated with the development of cardiovascular diseases and an increased risk of mortality in the elderly. A recent study led by Prof. Kojiro Ishii from Doshisha University, in collaboration with Dr. Yukio Yamamoto, Dr. Kentaro Ikeue, Dr. Kan Oishi, and Dr. Takaaki Mori from Doshisha University, ...

HOUSTON-(Dec. 18, 2024) –Houston Methodist researchers have discovered that certain components of so-called “good” cholesterol -- high-density lipoproteins (HDL) – may be associated with an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease.   Led by Henry J. Pownall, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry in medicine at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, and Khurram Nasir, M.D., M.P.H., a cardiologist and division chief of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at Houston Methodist, the research team is using innovative methods to investigate the role of certain properties of HDL in heart health.   “During ...

Chronic liver damage can lead to hepatitis, which causes fibrosis of the liver. This buildup of collagen and other fibrous tissue accelerates when hepatic stellate cells become activated during hepatitis, often resulting in liver cancer or cirrhosis, both of which can be fatal. As there are no effective drugs to treat cirrhosis, suppressing the activation of the stellate cells is considered as a way of controlling the progression of liver fibrosis. “It is estimated that one out of every 3-4 ...

Efficient gas separation is vital in various industries, from medical applications to energy production. However, isolating oxygen from mixtures presents a significant technological challenge. Because many gases, including argon and oxygen, share similar physical properties, separating them is difficult. Now, Ryotaro Matsuda and his team at Nagoya University have developed a unique porous metal-organic framework (MOF), which represents a novel approach to gas separation: a combined phenomenon of "adsorption" and "dissolution" that they term the "adsorptive-dissolution" ...

Physical examinations are important diagnostic tools that can reveal critical insights into a patient’s health, but complex conditions may be overlooked if a clinician lacks specialized training in that area. While previous research has investigated using large language models (LLMs) as tools to aid in providing diagnoses, their use in physical exams remains untapped. To address this gap, researchers from Mass General Brigham prompted the LLM GPT-4 to recommend physical exam instructions based on patient symptoms. ...

Inflammation in the hippocampus – the brain’s memory centre – significantly alters motivation and behaviour in mice, including food-seeking behaviour, with notable differences between males and females, a recent study reveals. The hippocampus plays a crucial role in memory formation, learning and emotional regulation. Hippocampal neuroinflammation occurs in a range of diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis and Depression.  People with these diseases often experience common symptoms such as apathy, difficulty with daily activities and changes to food preferences. These symptoms also tend to be more severe in women than in men. “While ...

Almost all leading large language models or “chatbots” show signs of mild cognitive impairment in tests widely used to spot early signs of dementia, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. The results also show that “older” versions of chatbots, like older patients, tend to perform worse on the tests. The authors say these findings “challenge the assumption that artificial intelligence will soon replace human doctors.” Huge advances in the field of artificial intelligence have led to a flurry of excited and fearful speculation as to whether chatbots can surpass human physicians. Several studies have shown large ...

Surgeons are quicker and more successful at completing a buzz wire game compared with other hospital staff, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. However, surgeons are also more likely to swear during the task, while nurses and non-clinical staff show the highest rates of audible noises of frustration. The researchers say their study highlights the diverse skill sets across hospital staff roles, and they suggest surgical swear jars should be considered for future fundraising events. Within a hospital, ...

Some traditional fairy tales and classic children’s fiction that have soothed many a child to sleep may also provide accessible and engaging ways to discuss healthy sleep with children, suggest researchers in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. Megan Thomas and colleagues analysed four popular fairy tales that include information about the benefits of sleep and the characteristics of sleep disorder. For example, Snow White illustrates some of the daytime consequences of poor sleep due to obstructive sleep apnoea which is common in some conditions associated with short stature. These can ...

SEATTLE, Wash., Dec. 18, 2024 – New global study reports a 60% drop in global mortality from diarrheal diseases, but children and the elderly still have the highest death rates, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. That’s according to the latest and most comprehensive study from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. In 2021, diarrheal diseases caused 1.2 million deaths worldwide, which is a substantial drop from 2.9 million deaths recorded in 1990. The largest decrease was among children under 5 years with a 79% decline, but that age group ...

In-plane magnetic fields are responsible for inducing anomalous Hall effect in EuCd₂Sb₂ films, report researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo. By studying how these fields change electronic structures, the team discovered a large in-plane anomalous Hall effect. These findings pave the way for new strategies for controlling electronic transport under magnetic fields, potentially advancing applications in magnetic sensors. The Hall effect is a fundamental phenomenon in material science. It occurs when a material carrying an electric current is exposed to a magnetic field, producing a voltage perpendicular to both the current and the magnetic field. This effect has been ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – In recent years, mice have entered a new arena – virtual reality – and now Cornell University researchers have built mini VR headsets to more fully immerse them. The team’s MouseGoggles were created using low-cost, off-the-shelf components, such as smartwatch displays and tiny lenses, and track the mouse’s eye movements and changes in pupil size. The technology has the potential to help reveal the neural activity that informs spatial navigation and memory function, giving researchers new insights into disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and its potential treatments. The research was led by Chris Schaffer, professor of biomedical ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — When preparing for a marathon, runners don’t usually think much about air quality. But maybe they should, according to findings from a new study by researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health.  When the research team assessed the association between fine particulate matter in the air and marathon finish times, they found that greater race-day pollution is associated with slower average marathon finish times. Their findings were published in the journal Sports Medicine. The difference seems small, said study author Elvira Fleury, who led the research while enrolled as a graduate student at Brown, but ...

INDIANAPOLIS — New research by a team of Indiana University School of Medicine scientists and their collaborators has uncovered a novel vulnerability in prostate cancer animal models that starves prostate tumors of critical nutrients and stunts their growth, which could lead to the development of new treatments for the deadly disease. Led by IU School of Medicine's Kirk Staschke, PhD, assistant research professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and Ronald C. Wek, PhD, Showalter Professor of Biochemistry, the study was recently published in Science Signaling. Prostate cancer is a ...

AI chatbots may seem like neutral tools, but a new study from UBC researchers suggests they often contain biases that could shape environmental discourse in unhelpful ways. The research team examined how four leading AI chatbots respond to questions about environmental issues—and the findings are surprising. “It was striking how narrow-minded AI models were in discussing environmental challenges,” said lead researcher Hamish van der Ven, an assistant professor in the faculty ...

Ask most major artificial intelligence chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to say something cruel or inappropriate and the system will say it wants to keep things “respectful.” These systems, trained on the content of a profusely disrespectful internet, learned what constitutes respect through human training. The standard method, called reinforcement learning from human feedback, or RLHF, has people compare two outputs from the systems and select whichever is better. It’s used to improve the quality of responses — ...

How much parents spend on their children’s education has a big impact on family well-being and a country’s overall development. While past studies suggested that ethnic and racial backgrounds affect this spending, they lacked solid experimental proof – making their findings less reliable. A new study led by Lingjiang Lora Tu, Ph.D., from Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business examines the psychological factors driving parental investment in education, highlighting how a parent’s self-view – whether they see themselves as independent or connected to others – shapes their spending patterns. ...

Sleep schedules are often one of the first things that people choose to compromise in order to check everything off their to-do lists, especially with the end of the year approaching. But folks hoping for happy holidays should reconsider.  A new study from the University of Michigan shows that when people's sleep cycles are misaligned with their internal clocks, or circadian rhythms, it can have drastic effects on their moods. Conversely, however, that means getting sleep when the body's expecting it provides a potent boost to one's emotional state and could alleviate symptoms associated with mood disorders, said senior author Daniel Forger. "This is not going ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024   MINNEAPOLIS – For healthy older adults, using antibiotics is not associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment or dementia, according to a study published in the December 18, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Cognitive impairment is when someone has subtle changes in thinking and memory like forgetting events and losing items more often. Dementia is when thinking and memory problems become more advanced ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People with breathing problems during sleep may have a larger hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and thinking, according to a study published in the December 18, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study, which included mostly Latino people, also found that those with lower oxygen levels during sleep had changes in the deep parts of the brain, the white matter, a common finding of decreased brain health that develops with age. Sleep disordered breathing is a range ...

A new Rice University study sheds light on the critical role marital relationships play in the mental and physical health of caregivers for spouses living with dementia, revealing that caregiver mental health dramatically improves when carers feel supported, understood and appreciated by their loved ones requiring care. The research was led by Vincent Lai, a graduate student in psychological sciences at Rice. The study involved 161 spousal caregivers and explored the unique challenges they face. Participants completed detailed assessments, including questionnaires, health evaluations and blood draws. The findings revealed that caregivers who reported ...

An immersive VR exercise session engaged participants in more intense and reportedly enjoyable exercise, with more positive emotions, compared to a workout presented on-screen, suggesting immersive VR could be an efficient alternative to other forms of screen-based workouts ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0314331 Article Title: Acute psychological and physiological benefits of exercising with virtual reality Author Countries: U.K., Australia Funding: OR received contract research funding from FitXR https://fitxr.com/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, ...

Pine-oak forests and frequent fires have been a predominant feature of Albany Pine Bush, New York, for the last 11,000 years - though increases in ferns, mosses, and peat-deposition reflect moister climates in recent millennia, according to pollen and charcoal samples ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0314101 Article Title: A 13,000-year history of vegetation and fire in a rare inland pine barrens: The Albany Pine Bush (Albany County, New York, USA) Author Countries: Canada, U.S. Funding: (JCS) The private donor-funded Draper-Lussi Endowed Chair Fund at Paul Smith’s College, ...

Researchers at NYU College of Dentistry and NYU Grossman School of Medicine are closer to understanding what drives the autoimmune disorder Sjögren’s disease, thanks to new discoveries about the role of calcium signaling, regulatory T cells, and interferon. Their latest study, published in Science Translational Medicine, finds that impaired regulatory T cells are a critical contributing factor to Sjögren’s disease in both mice and humans, and identifies an existing rheumatology drug as a promising therapy for the disease.  In Sjögren’s disease, the immune system attacks the glands that produce saliva and tears, ...

Wearable haptic devices, which provide touch-based feedback, can provide more realistic experiences in virtual reality, assist with rehabilitation, and create new opportunities for silent communication. Currently, most of these devices rely on vibration, as pressure-based haptics have typically required users to wear stiff exoskeletons or other bulky structures. Now, researchers at Stanford Engineering have designed a comfortable, flexible knit sleeve, called Haptiknit, that can provide realistic pressure-based haptic ...