People with chronic liver disease can be categorized into four distinct risk groups based on the different barriers they face in obtaining outpatient care, barriers that increase their odds of requiring hospitalization, a new UCLA study finds. The findings, to be published November 20 in the peer-reviewed PLOS ONE, point to the need for interventions aimed at reducing possibly avoidable hospitalizations among the highest-risk people with chronic liver disease (CLD). Previous research has found that people with CLD on average need more hospital-based care than those with other chronic diseases. About ...

Have you ever wondered why an airplane has a vertical tailfin? The plane needs it to stabilize its flight. Since flying without a vertical tail is much more energy-efficient, the aviation industry has worked hard to accomplish this – so far without much success. However, birds don’t need a vertical fin, which raises the question: how do they do it?  David Lentink, Professor of Biomimetics at the University of Groningen, has developed a robotic bird model with real pigeon feathers to show how they do it. In previous work, he found that birds continuously ...

Individual motivation to act against climate change outweighs the impact of hyperlocal collective intentions, though both approaches are worth strengthening, according to a survey of nine European neighborhoods published Nov. 20, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Christian A. Klöckner from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and colleagues. Western society contests the individual versus collective responsibility to combat climate change. But do people feel more motivated to act individually (e.g., making waste-free purchasing choices) or in tandem with others (e.g., protesting or completing ...

Mental health issues are "prevalent and troubling" among forcibly displaced children and young people, per scoping review which finds PTSD, anxiety and depression to be most common conditions.  +++++ Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/mentalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmen.0000076 Article Title: Mental health issues of children and young people displaced by conflict: A scoping review Author Countries: Nigeria, United States Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have found that tapping into the nervous system could help reduce the gut inflammation that drives inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).   A new study led by Luis Ulloa, PhD, and Wei Yang, PhD, reveals how electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve—a major nerve connecting the brain and gut—may combat the stress-related inflammation that worsens IBD symptoms.  Published in Science Translational Medicine, the study showed that vagus nerve stimulation in stressed mice with colitis, a form of IBD, reduced inflammation, improved symptoms, ...

Incidence of stroke and ischemic heart disease are declining around the world, except for in a handful of regions, according to research in the open access journal PLOS Global Public Health. Wanghong Xu of Fudan University and colleagues find that in East and West Sub-Saharan Africa, East and Central Asia and Oceania, ischemic heart disease is increasing, which may be attributed to eight factors that include diet, high BMI, household air pollution and more. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, and ischemic heart disease and stroke ...

Historical policies shaping educational attainment have enduring benefits for later life memory and risk of dementia, according to a study led by a Rutgers Health researcher.   The study, published in Epidemiology, compared the differences in years of education based on variations in state schooling mandates with cognitive performance outcomes in residents decades later.   “Policies to increase the quantity or quality of schooling now are likely to have long-term benefits on cognitive outcomes,” ...

AMES, Iowa – Over the typical two-year rotation of corn and soybeans most Iowa farmers use, 40% of nitrous oxide emissions are in the soybean year, according to a new study by an Iowa State University research team.  The share of the potent greenhouse gas released during the soybean half of a crop rotation cycle is surprisingly high, given most soybeans fields aren’t treated with nitrogen, said Michael Castellano, agronomy professor and William T. Frankenberger Professor of Soil Science at Iowa State University. “We’ve just been assuming that legume crops like soybeans don’t have a big emissions footprint because they don’t ...

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state’s stem cell agency, has awarded a two-year, $6 million grant to a team at the USC Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics and the USC Roski Eye Institute advancing a new treatment for one of the leading causes of blindness in older adults. The funding will enable the researchers to conduct preclinical studies needed before launching human trials. The investigators aim to accelerate progress in fighting dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which affects ...

University of Delaware researchers have developed a method for mitigating the decontamination that tires release into the environment at the end of their lifespan. In a new study published in Nature Chemical Engineering, the team demonstrated a way to upgrade 6PPD – a molecule that provides UV protection to help the rubber found in tires last longer – into safe chemicals. The method would also turn the leftover crumb rubber into aromatics and carbon black, a soot-like material found in everything from pigments to cosmetics to electronics. ...

Youth in America are experiencing a mental health crisis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC reports that an increasing number of students are experiencing symptoms of hopelessness, depression, and anxiety, along with thoughts of self-harm. One thing known to improve mental health among students is increased school connectedness—when students feel that the adults and peers in their school care about them as individuals in addition to their learning ability. Schools are working to improve their connectedness by adding social workers to their staff to help address the mental health concerns of students. However, ...

The changes in society and the phenomena surrounding us are becoming more unexpected and interconnected than ever before. This increasing complexity challenges strategic management, making it harder to predict trends and developments. According to a new study from the University of Vaasa, Finland, increased complexity demands new approaches to strategic management. – In strategic management, it is essential to acknowledge the growth of complexity and understand how to influence complexity ...

LISLE, Ill. (Nov. 20, 2024)— For the second year in a row, The Morton Arboretum’s Tree Root Biologist Luke McCormack, Ph.D., has been recognized as one of the most cited and influential researchers worldwide by global information services provider Clarivate’s esteemed annual list of “Highly Cited Researchers.” The 2024 list, released Nov. 19, includes influential researchers at universities, research institutes and commercial organizations around the world, who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their research field(s). McCormack, who debuted ...

A new study by researchers at the University of Galway and the University of Limerick suggests that electrical stimulation might be essential for tendons to maintain their health, offering fresh possibilities in tendon repair and regeneration.  The research took place at the CÚRAM Research Centre for Medical Devices, funded through Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland, formerly Science Foundation Ireland. Tendons resist intense mechanical stress, while facilitating force transmission from muscles to bones. They are also piezoelectric, meaning that when they are stretched, they will produce an electric ...

CLEVELAND--University Hospitals Brain Health & Memory Center is now treating patients with KISUNLA™ (donanemab), a Food and Drug Administration-approved medication for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. UH is the only health system in Northeast Ohio currently offering these infusion treatments. Donanemab has shown promise in clinical trials and may be a treatment option for patients with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. “People with Alzheimer’s disease have an abnormal buildup of plaques in their brain ...

Asking children “What does a scientist look like?” now results in more illustrations of women and people of color than decades ago. But do generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools also depict the diversity among scientists? Researchers reporting in the Journal of Chemical Education prompted AI image generators for portraits of chemists. They found that none of the collections accurately represents the gender, racial or disability diversity among real chemists today. Millions of images are being created by generative AI each day. And the output of these tools is only as good as their algorithms and the initial images used to train ...

When we gaze at nature’s remarkable phenomena, we might feel a mix of awe, curiosity, and determination to understand what we are looking at. That is certainly a common response for MIT’s Alan Lightman, a trained physicist and prolific author of books about physics, science, and our understanding of the world around us.  “One of my favorite quotes from Einstein is to the effect that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious,” Lightman says. “It’s the fundamental emotion that is the cradle of true art and true science.” Lightman explores those concepts in his latest book, “The ...

Today, Nature and other Nature Portfolio journals published a collection of more than 40 peer-reviewed papers marking a milestone toward researchers’ understanding of the human body in health and disease and the development of the first draft of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA). The Human Cell Atlas is an international community whose mission is to align groups engaged in creating comprehensive reference maps of all human cells — the fundamental units of life — as a basis for understanding human health and for diagnosing, monitoring, and treating disease. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is one ...

Rivers and streams serve as critical connectors across vast geographical landscapes, trickling out of tucked-away headwaters and snaking thousands of miles toward oceans and deep seas. These waterways directly impact human and environmental health, agriculture and energy production, and supply the United States with two-thirds of its drinking water. And yet, compared with other larger waterbodies, the microbiology of rivers is relatively understudied. A Colorado State University-led team of scientists have contributed to changing that — detailing for the first time both broad and specific information ...

The most comprehensive cell map of the human gut to date has been created by combining spatial and single-cell data from 1.6 million cells. Mapping the cells of the gut can provide us with further insights into what happens in conditions such as bowel cancer and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Using this atlas, researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and collaborators uncovered a new role of a specific gut cell, highlighting its contributions to a cycle of inflammation in some individuals, possibly causing pain and distress. The study, published today (20 November) in Nature, details how the team ...

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found a molecule that can both help the intestines to heal after damage and suppress tumour growth in colorectal cancer. The discovery could lead to new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and cancer. The results are published in the journal Nature. Many patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis do not respond to available treatments, highlighting the need to identify novel therapeutic strategies. In a new study published in Nature, researchers propose that promoting ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, postpartum depression (PPD) diagnosis increased significantly across all racial and ethnic groups and body mass index (BMI) categories over the past decade. While rising PPD may reflect improved screening and diagnosis practices, the persistently high rates highlight the need to develop and implement interventions to prevent the condition while expanding efforts to mitigate the impact of PPD on maternal and child health.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Darios Getahun, MD, PhD, ...

About The Study: The findings of this population-based matched cohort study suggest that individuals born preterm were at an increased risk of death from birth until their third and fourth decades of life, with higher risks as gestational age decreased. Some of these associations may have been partly due to underlying health determinants that affected preterm birth and mortality. These findings suggest that preterm birth should be recognized as a risk factor for mortality and could inform preventive strategies. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Asma M. Ahmed, PhD, MD, MPH, email asahmed@wakehealth.edu. To access ...

New Haven, Conn. — Wings may be the obvious choice when studying the connection between dinosaurs and birds, but a pair of Yale paleontologists prefer drumsticks. That part of the leg, they say, is where fibular reduction among some dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago helped make it possible for peacocks to strut, penguins to waddle, and turkeys to trot. “A good way to understand this is to take a look at drumsticks, like the ones people eat on Thanksgiving,” said Armita Manafzadeh, lead author ...

LA JOLLA (November 20, 2024)—More than 3 billion years ago, on an Earth entirely covered with water, photosynthesis first evolved in little ancient bacteria. In the following many millions of years, those bacteria evolved into plants, optimizing themselves along the way for various environmental changes. This evolution was punctuated around 30 million years ago with the emergence of a newer, better way to photosynthesize. While plants like rice continued using an old form of photosynthesis known as C3, others like corn and sorghum developed a newer and more efficient version called C4. There are now more than 8,000 different C4 plant ...