Large-scale production of organic solar cells with high efficiency and minimal environmental impact. This can now be made possible through a new design principle developed at Linköping University, Sweden. In the study, published in the journal Nature Energy, the researchers have studied molecule shape and interaction in organic solar cells. “With electrification and the development of AI, we will probably see a significant increase in the world’s energy needs. That electricity needs to come from environmentally sustainable sources if we are to slow down climate change at the same time,” says Feng Gao, professor of optoelectronics at LiU. One green ...

CHICAGO – A diet high in ultra-processed foods is associated with higher amounts of fat stored inside thigh muscles, regardless of the amount of calories consumed or level of physical activity, according to a study being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Higher amounts of intramuscular fat in the thigh could also increase the risk for knee osteoarthritis. The use of natural and minimally processed ingredients in many modern diets has decreased, more often being replaced with ingredients that have been industrially processed, artificially flavored, colored or chemically altered. Foods ...

CHICAGO – A new study found that injury rates among transgender women are significantly higher than injuries among cisgender women, based on radiological imaging. The findings will be presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). ‘Cisgender’ is a term used to describe people whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth, while ‘transgender’ describes people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned ...

Two massive asteroids hit Earth around 35.65 million years ago, but did not lead to any lasting changes in the Earth’s climate, according to a new study by UCL researchers. The rocks, both several miles wide, hit Earth about 25,000 years apart, leaving the 60-mile (100km) Popigai crater in Siberia, Russia, and the 25-55 mile (40-85km) crater in the Chesapeake Bay, in the United States - the fourth and fifth largest known asteroid craters on Earth. The new study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, found no evidence of a lasting shift in climate in the 150,000 years that followed the impacts. The researchers inferred the past climate ...

The precise measurement of electrical resistance is essential in industrial production or electronics – for example, in the manufacture of high-tech sensors, microchips and flight controls. “Very precise measurements are essential here, as even the smallest deviations can significantly affect these complex systems”, explains Professor Charles Gould, a physicist at the Institute for Topological Insulators at the University of Würzburg (JMU).  The scientist now for the first time have experimentally implemented a so-called quantum resistance standard that can operate without an externally applied magnetic field. “In physics, ...

Most young people who were confirmed to have long Covid three months after a positive PCR test had recovered within 24 months, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The Children and young people with Long Covid (CLoCK) study, published in Nature Communications Medicine and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is the world’s largest longitudinal cohort study on long Covid in children. The researchers, led by Professor Sir Terence Stephenson and Professor Roz Shafran (both UCL Great Ormond Street ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Although it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, methane gas contributes disproportionately to global warming because it traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, due to its molecular structure. MIT chemical engineers have now designed a new catalyst that can convert methane into useful polymers, which could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “What to do with methane has been a longstanding problem,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study. “It’s a source of carbon, and we want to keep it out ...

A team from the University of Illinois has engineered potato to be more resilient to global warming showing 30% increases in tuber mass under heatwave conditions. This adaptation may provide greater food security for families dependent on potatoes, as these are often the same areas where the changing climate has already affected multiple crop seasons. “We need to produce crops that can withstand more frequent and intense heatwave events if we are going to meet the population’s need for food in regions most at ...

New research from Karolinska Institutet and Columbia University shows that the heart has a mini-brain – its own nervous system that controls the heartbeat. A better understanding of this system, which is much more diverse and complex than previously thought, could lead to new treatments for heart diseases. The study, conducted on zebrafish, is published in Nature Communications.  The heart has long been thought to be controlled solely by the autonomic nervous system, which transmits signals from the brain. The heart’s neural network, which is embedded in the superficial layers of the heart wall, has been considered a simple structure that relays the signals from the ...

Research Highlights: An analysis of more than 1,300 stroke survivors found that women were less likely than their male counterparts to take medications, such as cholesterol-lowering statins and blood thinning medications to prevent blood clots, to prevent recurrent strokes, as prescribed. Mexican American women were three times more likely to report not taking cholesterol-lowering medications as prescribed than Mexican American men in the study. Women who were older or married were also more likely to miss taking prescribed doses. Researchers suggest ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- In 1923, lead was first added to gasoline to help keep car engines healthy. However, automotive health came at the great expense of our own well-being. A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood altered the balance of mental health in the U.S. population, making generations of Americans more depressed, anxious and inattentive or hyperactive. The research estimates that 151 million cases of psychiatric disorder over the past 75 years have resulted from American children’s exposure to lead. The findings, from Aaron Reuben, a postdoctoral scholar in neuropsychology ...

New research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry indicates that childhood lead exposure, which peaked from 1960 through 1990 in most industrialized countries due to the use of lead in gasoline, has negatively impacted mental health and likely caused many cases of mental illness and altered personality. For the study, investigators combined blood–lead level data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys with historic leaded gasoline data. (Leaded gas was phased out in United States by 1996.) They estimated US childhood blood–lead levels from 1940 to 2015 and assessed ...

Though African Americans have higher death rates before their 80s, after about age 85, their age-specific death rate falls below that of the white population, a phenomenon known as the "Black-White mortality crossover." New research published in the Journal of Internal Medicine reveals that this lower mortality among African Americans persists to age 100+ years. The study relied on data adjusted for potential misreporting of age, race, and ethnicity from the US National Center for Health Statistics to obtain life expectancy ...

New research reveals that certain soil microbes can help plants grow bigger flowers, therefore attracting more bees. The findings, which are published in New Phytologist, suggest that studying roots’ relationships with microbes can help scientists predict floral trait variations and plant-pollinator interactions. The research focused on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which form a symbiotic relationship with plant roots, providing the plant with nutrients and water in exchange for carbon. AMF associations with plants’ roots enhanced flower size, resulting in more visitations ...

Gender gaps are known to persist in social and economic outcomes in most countries, but less well known is how women and men perceive their economic security and their benefits from social programs. New research published in the International Social Security Review investigated this topic through surveys completed by individuals in 27 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization that was founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Survey responses indicated that, compared with men, women are more concerned about economic security and less confident that their country’s social protection ...

Clinicians lack methods for early detection of sepsis, a dysregulated response to infection that can result in life-threatening organ failure if treatment is delayed. New research published in The FASEB Journal reveals the potential of a non-invasive strategy that assesses blood flow through skeletal muscle. The strategy involves imaging methods—called hyperspectral near-infrared spectroscopy and diffuse correlation spectroscopy—commonly used at the bedside to monitor tissue conditions. In experiments conducted in rodents, use of these methods together detected signs of sepsis in the skeletal muscle ...

The Pacific walrus, a critically important resource for Alaska and Chukotka Native communities, is subject to rapid habitat loss associated with climate change and increasing human activity in the Arctic. New research published in the Journal of Wildlife Management assessed the sustainability of varying degrees of Pacific walrus harvest to the end of the 21st century under different climate and human disturbance scenarios. These scenarios ranged from optimistic to pessimistic, based largely on sea ice projections from ...

For people with an injured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee, surgical ACL reconstruction (ACLR) is an effective treatment for restoring joint stability, however, many treated patients still develop additional long-term knee problems, such as knee osteoarthritis. New research published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research reveals that individuals exhibit an altered gait after ACLR, which can contribute to these problems. For the study, investigators compared gait biomechanics between ...

The prevalence of MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease) is exploding in most regions of the world, boosted by increased obesity and sedentary lifestyles. MASLD (formerly known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) is already the most common liver disorder: it affects 30% of adults and between 7% and 14% of children and adolescents, and this prevalence is predicted to rise to more than 55% of adults by 2040. People with MASLD run a heightened risk of diabetes, hepatocellular carcinoma, non-liver cancers, chronic kidney disease, age-related muscle loss, and cardiovascular ...

A new study by the Harvard GenderSci Lab in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals systematic biases in a key metric used in estimates of sex disparities in ACL injury rates in sports. The article argues that gendered factors (e.g. availability and quality of resources, compensation structures, ability to train amidst competing responsibilities outside of sports) may undermine the comparability of injury rates between women and men. As a result, recent headlines claiming much higher rates of ACL injury among women and girls may be misleading. Sports scientists calculate ...

PHILADELPHIA, PA and SINGAPORE – The Monell Chemical Senses Center, a global leader in advancing the scientific understanding of taste, smell, and related senses, and A*STAR Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (A*STAR SIFBI), a translational research institute for health and well-being focused on Asian phenotype have entered into a five-year research and education alliance. Today, Dr Benjamin P.C. Smith, Monell Executive Director & President, met with Dr Sze Tan, A*STAR SIFBI Executive Director, to sign a Memorandum ...

A paper summarizing the results of this research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on November 8. Fusion energy is being researched and developed as a new source of electric power that will contribute to the realization of a carbon-neutral society. At the National Institute for Fusion Science, research on magnetically confined plasma is being conducted using the Large Helical Device*2 (LHD). The major difference between plasma and other gases is its low density. The density of magnetically confined plasma is only about one millionth that of the atmosphere, and collisions between constituent particles occur only rarely. As a result, the histogram ...

People who use both vapes and cigarettes are less likely to quit compared to people who only smoke or only vape, according to a study published today (Wednesday) in ERJ Open Research [1].   Instead, the research suggests that over time, most of these ‘dual users’ tend to revert to only smoking cigarettes.   The researchers say their findings suggest that taking up vaping while continuing to smoke will probably not help people to stop smoking.   The study, by researchers from Germany, the USA and Denmark, was ...

Plastic pollution occurs in every ecosystem on the planet and lingers for decades. Could insects be part of the solution? Previous research found that insects can ingest and absorb pure, unrefined microplastics—but only under unrealistic, food-scarce situations. In a new Biology Letters paper, UBC zoologist Dr. Michelle Tseng and alumna Shim Gicole tested mealworms in a more realistic scenario, feeding them ground-up face masks—a common plastic product—mixed with bran, a tastier option. Reality bites Mealworms are Nature’s scavengers and decomposers, ...

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 ...