UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00.05 GMT WEDNESDAY 4 DECEMBER / 19:05 ET TUESDAY 3 DECEMBER 2024 Ocean density identified as a key driver of carbon capture by marine plankton New findings, published today in Royal Society Open Science, have revealed that changes in ocean density have a significant impact on the rate at which marine plankton incorporate carbon into their shells. This has profound implications for carbon cycling and the ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 in response to climate change. Up to now, researchers have focused on how ...

Niigata, Japan - A team led by Specially Appointed Associate Professor Tomohiko Ishihara and Professor Osamu Onodera at Niigata University, along with Professor Yoshitaka Nagai at Kindai University, conducted a randomized, double-blind trial on the efficacy and safety of L-arginine in treating Spinocerebellar ataxia type 6 (SCA6).  I. Background of the Study Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting the cerebellum, a part of the brain responsible for coordinating movement. Symptoms include difficulties with balance, coordination, and speech (ataxia ...

Short bursts of incidental vigorous physical exertion, lasting less than a minute each, may almost halve the risk of a major cardiovascular event, such as heart attack or heart failure among women who don’t exercise regularly, finds research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Just 1.5-4 daily minutes of high intensity routine activities, such as brisk stair climbing or carrying heavy shopping, may help to stave off cardiovascular disease among those either unwilling or unable to take part in structured exercise or sport, conclude the international team ...

The health and financial implications of the emerging threat of mosquito-borne chikungunya viral infection have most likely been significantly underestimated, with total costs probably approaching US$ 50 billion in 2011-20 alone, suggests a comprehensive data analysis, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. In the short term, symptoms include fever, severe joint pain, rash and fatigue. While these often clear up, those affected can be left with long term, debilitating aftereffects, including chronic arthritic-type joint pain, fatigue, and depression, point out the researchers. The ...

An average of four minutes of incidental vigorous physical activity a day could almost halve the risk of major cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks, for middle-aged women who do not engage in structured exercise, according to new research from the University of Sydney, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.  “We found that a minimum of 1.5 minutes to an average of 4 minutes of daily vigorous physical activity, completed in short bursts lasting up to 1 minute, were ...

Today, women with oestrogen-sensitive breast cancer receive anti-hormonal therapy. Researchers now show that postmenopausal women with low-risk tumours have a long-term benefit for at least 20 years, while the benefit was more short-term for younger women with similar tumour characteristics who had not yet gone through the menopause. The results are reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). In Sweden, 9 000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, with hormone-sensitive breast cancer accounting for about 75 percent of women diagnosed with the disease. In patients with hormone-sensitive breast cancer tumour growth is mainly driven by oestrogen and ...

In five states over nearly a decade, hospitals have increased how frequently they document patients as needing the highest intensity care, which has led to hospitals receiving billions in extra payments from health plans and government programs, according to a new RAND study.   Among thousands of cases involving hospitals stays for 239 conditions, researchers examined how often hospitals upcoded patients to the sickest end of the care spectrum, where hospitals charge payers at the highest rate.   The study found that from ...

New research reveals the unique human ability to conceptualize numbers may be rooted deep within the brain. Further, the results of the study by Oregon Health & Science University involving neurosurgery patients suggests new possibilities for tapping into those areas to improve learning among people bedeviled by math. “This work lays the foundation to deeper understanding of number, math and symbol cognition — something that is uniquely human,” said senior author Ahmed Raslan, ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – December 3, 2024) Early disease detection is beneficial for securing the best possible outcomes for patients. But finding noninvasive, effective ways to predict disease risk is a tremendous challenge. Findings from scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are showing promise for assessing cardiomyopathy risk in childhood cancer survivors. Heart disease is a well-established late effect for pediatric cancer survivors treated with anthracycline chemotherapy. The researchers identified a panel ...

COLCHESTER, VT – Researchers from Saint Michael’s College and the University of Vermont have made a groundbreaking new discovery that provides a better understanding of how Alzheimer’s disease develops in the human brain.  Guided by previous research of spider brains, the scientists uncovered evidence of a “waste canal system” in the human brain that internalizes waste from healthy neurons. They discovered that this system can undergo catastrophic swelling, which leads to the degeneration of brain tissue, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.  With over 50 million affected people worldwide, Alzheimer’s ...

Key study findings: The rate of pharmacy store closures in recent years has more than doubled, affecting about 1 in 3 pharmacies between 2010 and 2021 and contributing to an unprecedented decline in the availability of pharmacies in the U.S   About one-third of counties experienced an overall decline in pharmacies, and the risk of closure was higher in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. Independent pharmacies, often excluded from networks by pharmacy benefit managers, were more than twice as likely to face closure compared to chain pharmacies.   Policymakers should consider several ...

The University of Alaska Fairbanks released a new report this week highlighting environmental changes and extremes that impact Alaskans and their livelihoods. “Alaska’s Changing Environment” provides people with timely, reliable and understandable information on topics ranging from temperature and precipitation changes to salmon and polar bears. The report was led by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the UAF International Arctic Research Center, with contributions from more ...

East Hanover, NJ – December 3, 2024 – Veterans with disabilities continue to outperform the general population of people with disabilities in employment rates, highlighting the possible impact of specialized training and participation in essential industries, according to a new analysis shared during a National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) Deeper Dive Lunch & Learn Webinar held on November 22. nTIDE is a joint effort by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD).       Despite ...

It might seem out of place on the side of a highway, but purpose-built exercise equipment installed at truck stops across Australia could be just the thing to encourage truck drivers to take a break and take control of their health and wellbeing.   In the first meta-analysis of how health behaviour interventions can affect truck drivers, researchers at the University of South Australia have found that tailored, multi-level and innovative approaches to truck driver health are required to enact positive change, as current interventions are not working.   Reviewing the effectiveness of health interventions for more than 2000 truck drivers across 19 studies, researchers found ...

Treatment for more advanced and difficult-to-treat head and neck cancers can be improved with the addition of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), the same ingredient used in children’s glue. Researchers found that combining PVA with a boron-containing compound, D-BPA, improved the effects of a type of radiation therapy for cancer, compared to currently clinically used drugs. The PVA made the drug more selective of tumor cells and prolonged drug retention, helping to spare healthy cells from unnecessary radiation damage.  Japan became the first country to approve boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), a type of targeted radiotherapy for cancer, in 2020. Doctors ...

Materials scientist Prof Dr Oana Cojocaru-Mirédin of the University of Freiburg has been awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). With this grant, the European Union (EU) is funding her research project on the properties of what are known as grain boundaries in crystalline materials, such as those used for solar cells. The grant is among the most prestigious funding programmes for scientists in the EU. It provides almost two million euros for a five-year period. This ...

An analysis of fungi collected from peat bogs has identified several species that produce substances toxic to the bacterium that causes the human disease tuberculosis. The findings suggest that one promising direction for development of better treatments might be to target biological processes in the bacterium that help maintain levels of compounds known as thiols. Neha Malhotra of the National Institutes of Health, U.S., and colleagues present these findings December 3rd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Every year, millions of people around the world fall ill from tuberculosis and more than 1 million ...

Evaluating the speed at which viruses spread and transmit across host populations is critical to mitigating disease outbreaks. A study published December 3rd in PLOS Biology by Simon Dellicour at the University of Brussels (ULB), Belgium, and colleagues evaluate the performance of statistics measuring how viruses move across space and time in infected populations. Genomic sequencing allows epidemiologists to examine the evolutionary history of pathogenic outbreaks and track the spatial movement of an outbreak. However, the sampling intensity of genomic sequences can potentially impact the accuracy of dispersal insights gained through these evolutionary ...

Baltimore, Maryland (Dec. 3, 2024) — The Lieber Institute for Brain Development has been selected as a winner of the 2024 Amazon Web Services (AWS) IMAGINE Grant, a public grant opportunity open to registered charities in the United Kingdom and Ireland and registered 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the United States who are using technology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. The Lieber Institute, located on the Johns Hopkins medical campus in Baltimore, will use the grant to develop a new generative AI tool to find new, more effective treatments for mental illnesses including schizophrenia. Now ...

At least one-quarter of all nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in California’s Salton Sea air basin come from soil, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.  Using isotopic analysis, the study found that annual total soil emissions for the basin were about 11 tons per day on average, which is 10 times larger than the state’s current inventory for soil NOx emissions in the region. The work was published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. The study highlights the need to ...

Democracy is in crisis. Many people are losing confidence in political parties and parliaments and their ability to solve pressing social problems in the long term. Recent studies by the University of Stuttgart indicate that addressing doubts about the democratic system does not necessarily require resorting to the election of an autocratic head of state. Rather, more direct political participation could revitalize and legitimize democracy - provided that innovative participatory formats are intelligently linked to the work of representative institutions. “Many people consider representative politics to be tiring ...

Toronto, ON – Transgender and gender-diverse preteens are about 15% less physically active than their cisgender peers, new research finds. Transgender 11-12 year-olds take, on average, 1,394 fewer steps per day compared to cisgender adolescents, a difference that equates to about 12% of the daily physical activity recommended for adolescents. The study was published in Annals of Epidemiology. “Transgender adolescents may experience stigma and discrimination that discourage their participation in team sports or physical activity,” ...

In late 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot able to generate conversational answers and analyses, as well as images, in response to user questions and prompts. This generative AI was built with computational procedures, such as large language models, that train on vast bodies of human-created and curated data, including scientific literature. Since then, the worry that AI may someday outsmart humans has grown more widespread. In a new collection of essays, leading ...

Physicists are getting closer to controlling single-molecule chemical reactions – could this shape the future of pharmaceutical research?Controlling matter at the atomic level has taken a major step forward, thanks to groundbreaking nanotechnology research by an international team of scientists led by physicists at the University of Bath. This advancement has profound implications for fundamental scientific understanding. It is also likely to have important practical applications, such as transforming the way researchers develop new medications. Controlling single-outcome single-molecule reactions ...

“MSCs hold great promise as a therapeutic tool in cancer immunotherapy due to their immunomodulatory properties, tumor-homing abilities, and potential as carriers for delivering therapeutic agents.” BUFFALO, NY – December 3, 2024 – A new review was published in Oncotarget’s Volume 15 on November 22, 2024, entitled “Mesenchymal stem cells – the secret agents of cancer immunotherapy: Promises, challenges, and surprising twists.” Authored by Theia Minev, Shani Balbuena, Jaya Mini Gill, ...