Short and long term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution is linked to an increased risk of hospital admission for major heart and lung diseases, find two large US studies, published by The BMJ today. Together, the results suggest that no safe threshold exists for heart and lung health. According to the Global Burden of Disease study, exposure to PM2.5 accounts for an estimated 7.6% of total global mortality and 4.2% of global disability adjusted life years (a measure of years lived in good health). In light of this extensive evidence, the World Health Organization ...

Children born in October are both more likely to be vaccinated against influenza and least likely to be diagnosed with influenza compared with children born in other months, finds a US study published by The BMJ today. The results suggest that birth month is associated with both timing of flu vaccination and the likelihood of a flu diagnosis - and that October is the optimal time for young children to have a flu shot, in line with current recommendations. Annual influenza vaccination is particularly important for young children, who are at higher risk of flu and severe ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 6:30 PM EST, Feb. 21, 2024 A UCLA Health-led study found a combination of interventions of one-on-one telehealth coaching, peer support forums, and automated text messages more than doubled the use of the HIV prevention strategy, called PrEP, among younger, at-risk Americans, a group that historically has had low use of the medication. The randomized controlled trial results, published in the journal Lancet Digital Health, tested combinations of interventions to improve HIV prevention behaviors, including pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, among younger Americans who have historically ...

Seaports act as hubs for the global spread of MtrBTN2,1 a rare contagious cancer affecting mussels. In this disease, cancer cells can be transmitted, like parasites, from one mussel to another nearby. While, in nature, such contagion mainly occurs between mussels in the same bed, ports and maritime transport facilitate the spread of MtrBTN2 to other locations, through biofouling, whereby diseased mussels attach themselves to ship hulls. This finding, the fruit of research by a team led by scientists from the CNRS and the University of Montpellier,2 will be published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B ...

In their ‘letter to the world’ they say that cancer is a ‘defining health issue of our time’ that requires a united and collective worldwide response on a par with Covid-19. The scientists argue that we’re at a ‘tipping point’ that could transform how we understand and treat cancer – but more support for life-saving research is required to beat the disease.   The letter is published as Cancer Research UK launched its More Research, Less Cancer campaign ...

Before orally administered drugs can make their way throughout the body, they must first bind to membrane proteins called drug transporters, which carry compounds across the intestinal tract and help them reach their intended targets. But because one drug can bind to several different drug transporters, they may struggle to get past this gut barrier, potentially leading to decreased drug absorption and efficacy. If another drug is added to the mix, interactions between the two compounds and their transporters can cause dangerous side effects. Researchers ...

University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers have devised a way to remotely detect large landslides within minutes of occurrence and to quickly determine whether they are close to open water and present a tsunami hazard. They write in a new paper that their method of determining a landslide’s location, volume and potential impact is rapid enough to support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s goal of issuing a tsunami warning within 5 minutes of a landslide.  “The warming climate is causing glaciers to retreat, leaving behind valleys whose mountainsides and hillsides have lost their ...

Mars was once a wet world. The geological record of the Red Planet shows evidence for water flowing on the surface – from river deltas to valleys carved by massive flash floods.   But a new study shows that no matter how much rainfall fell on the surface of ancient Mars, very little of it seeped into an aquifer in the planet’s southern highlands. A graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin made the discovery by modeling groundwater recharge dynamics for the aquifer using a range of methods ...

Though artificial intelligence decreases human error in experimentation, human experts outperform AI when identifying causation or working with small data sets.  To capitalize on AI and researcher strengths, ORNL scientists, in collaboration with colleagues at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, developed a human-AI collaboration recommender system for improved experimentation performance.  During experiments, the system’s machine learning algorithms, described in npj Computational Materials, display preliminary ...

Longstanding challenges in biomedical research such as monitoring brain chemistry and tracking the spread of drugs through the body require much smaller and more precise sensors. A new nanoscale sensor that can monitor areas 1,000 times smaller than current technology and can track subtle changes in the chemical content of biological tissue with sub-second resolution, greatly outperforming standard technologies. The device, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is silicon-based and takes advantage of techniques developed for microelectronics manufacturing. ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today was awarded 16 grants totaling over $25.5 million from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) in support of cancer screening, early detection and prevention programs, faculty recruitment, and groundbreaking cancer research across all areas of the institution. “We are grateful for CPRIT’s continued funding of impactful cancer research and prevention programs at MD Anderson, which propels our efforts to deliver new breakthroughs and to advance our mission to end cancer,” said Peter WT Pisters, M.D., president of MD Anderson. “These efforts are pivotal to our institutional strategy ...

Systemic sclerosis causes the skin to tighten and harden resulting in a potentially fatal autoimmune condition that is associated with lung fibrosis and kidney disease.  University of Michigan Health researchers have studied the pathology of systemic sclerosis to understand better the disease and identify key pathways in the disease process that can be targeted therapeutically. A research team led by University of Michigan Health’s Dinesh Khanna, M.B.B.S., M.Sc.,  professor of rheumatology and Johann Gudjonsson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of dermatology, ...

It has been long assumed that Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats was formed as its ancient namesake lake dried up 13,000 years ago. But new research from the University of Utah has gutted that narrative, determining these crusts did not form until several thousand years after Lake Bonneville disappeared, which could have important implications for managing this feature that has been shrinking for decades to the dismay of the racing community and others who revere the saline pan 100 miles west of Salt ...

A $10.6 million training grant has been awarded to the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) to administer Maryland’s Abortion Clinical Care Training Program. The grant will be used to expand the number of healthcare professionals with abortion care training, increase the racial and ethnic diversity among health care professionals with abortion care education, and support the identification of clinical sites needing training. “Our training will target a major ...

  · Most women with ovarian cancer develop resistance to chemotherapy · Nanoparticle fools cancer cells and prevents cholesterol from entering · More than 18,000 women a year die from ovarian cancer CHICAGO --- Women diagnosed with ovarian cancer may initially respond well to chemotherapy, but the majority of them will develop resistance to treatment and die from the disease.  Now Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered the Achilles heel of chemotherapy-resistant ovarian cancer — its hunger for cholesterol — and how to sneakily use that to destroy it. In a new study, scientists first showed that chemotherapy-resistant ...

“There’s a narrative out there about climate change that says there are winners and losers. Even if most of the planet might lose from the changing climate, certain industries and countries stand to benefit. And Russia is usually at the tip of people’s tongues, with Russian officials even making the claim that Russia is a potential winner.” This portrayal, described by Debra Javeline, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and lead author on the recently published study “Russia in a changing climate,” was debated ...

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have developed a new drug delivery platform that harnesses helical amyloid fibers designed to untwist and release drugs in response to body temperatures. A new research paper published on Jan. 26 in Nature Communications reveals groundbreaking structural details into how diseases form much like Alzheimer’s disease. With this knowledge, the group may have uncovered a unique mechanism to reverse both the deposits and their impact on those suffering from these conditions. UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Ronit Freeman ...

New York, NY (February 21, 2024) – A novel treatment for polycythemia vera, a potentially fatal blood cancer, demonstrated the ability to control overproduction of red blood cells, the hallmark of this malignancy and many of its debilitating symptoms in a multi-center clinical trial led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.   In the phase 2 study, the drug rusfertide limited excess production of red blood cells, the main manifestation of polycythemia vera, over the 28-week course of ...

Body composition — often expressed as the amount of fat in relation to muscle — is one of the standard predictors of cardiac health. Now, new research from the University of California San Diego indicates more muscle doesn’t automatically mean lower risk of heart trouble. The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found all muscle isn’t the same. Britta Larsen, PhD, says men with a higher area of abdominal muscle have a greater risk of cardiac trouble. It’s a completely different ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – People with higher exposure to traffic-related air pollution were more likely to have high amounts of amyloid plaques in their brains associated with Alzheimer’s disease after death, according to a study published in the February 21, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers looked at fine particulate matter, PM2.5, which consists of pollutant particles of less than 2.5 microns in diameter suspended in air. The study does not prove that air pollution causes more amyloid plaques in the brain. It only ...

More than 40% of Americans know someone who has died of a drug overdose and about one-third of those individuals say their lives were disrupted by the death, according to a new RAND study.   Analyzing a national representative survey of American adults, researchers found that the lifetime exposure to an overdose death is more common among women than men, married participants than unmarried participants, U.S.-born participants than immigrants, and those who live in urban settings as compared to those in rural settings.   Rates of exposure were significantly higher in New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, ...

The University of Notre Dame has received a Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to study genes that affect neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. This is Notre Dame’s first award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The award will fund a partnership between Cody Smith, the Elizabeth and Michael Gallagher Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame and a 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, and Beth Stevens, member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. With their combined expertise in neurological development, they will explore how gene expression and function changes with ...

Following the huge success of the previous edition, the 15th edition of the Skin Ageing & Challenges International Conference is set to take place on November 7-8, 2024, at Corinthia Palace in Malta. The conference will provide attendees with a comprehensive overview of the current landscape and future prospects in skin aging research. Professor Jean Krutmann, conference president, is just as excited as we are: “Skin aging is complex, but by working together across different fields, we’re making incredible strides. This conference is where all that collaboration shines, helping us find new ways to keep our skin healthy and vibrant.”   Skin ...

BERKS, Pa. — The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is spinning so quickly it is warping the spacetime surrounding it into a shape that can look like a football, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). That football shape suggests the black hole is spinning at a substantial speed, which researchers estimated to be about 60% of its potential limit. The work, led by Penn State Berks Professor of Physics Ruth Daly, was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Astronomers call this giant ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—February 21, 2024—The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has announced the awardees of their second cycle of Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Awards, part of the CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network (NDCN). Scientific Director Kausik Si, Ph.D., from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research will receive an award for the project titled, “Tuning memory by altering amyloids,” which will be conducted alongside Investigator Lukasz Joachimiak, Ph.D., from the University of Texas Southwestern. The Collaborative Pairs Pilot Project Awards were launched in 2018 to investigate unsolved mysteries ...