In a recent study, researchers have developed a compound metalens that enables distortion-free imaging. The study, published in Engineering, presents a novel approach to on-demand distortion engineering using compound metalenses. Metalenses have emerged as a promising technology with applications in beam steering, imaging, depth sensing, and display projection. However, optical distortion, a crucial factor in optical design, has been relatively unexplored in the context of meta-optics. The researchers addressed this gap by demonstrating ...

With the worldwide population aging at an unprecedented rate, the prevention of age-related diseases has become a prominent issue. It is important to comprehensively and quantitatively evaluate the changes that aging causes at the molecular level in the body. By doing so, it may be possible to pinpoint specific aging factors and suppress age-related diseases. Addressing this problem, previously conducted research established an atlas of changes in major tissues from aging by determining the extent to which mRNA was produced within living cells. However, there has not ...

In crowdsourcing scenarios, we can obtain each instance's multiple noisy labels from different crowd workers and then infer its integrated label via label aggregation. In spite of the effectiveness of label aggregation methods, there still remains a certain level of noise in the integrated labels. Thus, some noise correction methods have been proposed to reduce the impact of noise in recent years. However, to the best of our knowledge, existing methods rarely consider an instance's information from both its features and multiple noisy labels simultaneously ...

Peer-reviewed / Modelling study / People Embargoed access to the paper and contact details for authors are available in Notes to Editors at the end of the release. Most comprehensive US analysis of overweight and obesity at the national level and across all states and age groups estimates that obesity rates in adults (aged 25 or older) and older adolescents (aged 15-24 years) have at least doubled over the past three decades (1990-2021). Southern states, including Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, ...

New research, led by experts at the University of Nottingham, has found that certain types of medication used to treat diabetes may be effective in reducing alcohol use. The study, which is published in eClinicalMedicine, looked at whether a type of diabetes medication, called GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), could also be used to help people cut down on drinking. The study was led by Dr Mohsen Subhani, Clinical Assistant Professor of Gastroenterology at the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, in the ...

If every American over the age of 40 was as physically active as the top 25% of the population, they could expect to live an extra 5 years, on average, suggest the findings of a modelling study published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. And if the least physically active matched the level of the most physically active, they could live almost 11 years longer, the estimates indicate. It’s well known that low physical activity levels are associated with a higher risk of diseases, such as heart disease and stroke, as well as premature death, but it’s not clear to what extent low physical activity levels shorten lifespan in specific groups of people ...

Hospitals must use artificial intelligence responsibly to avoid huge carbon emissions, new research has shown. Released before Technology Day (Saturday, 16 November) at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, a study investigating the impact of artificial intelligence in healthcare has shown that using large language models to process thousands of patient records daily across multiple hospitals could lead to substantial resource consumption. Published today (Friday, 15 November) in Internal Medicine Journal, researchers from the University ...

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 14, 2024 – The race to draw the best and brightest students has become an international one, with candidates weighing options not only in their state or country, but also across the globe. Universities likewise face fierce competition globally for top scientists and research funding. The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) was ranked at the top 5% of universities in the world (No. 51 out of the top 1,000) in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2024-2025 Best Global Universities ...

In 2021, the University of Arkansas School of Social Work partnered with the Fayetteville Police Department to pair officers with social workers trained to help people suffering mental crises. Initially, the officers were supportive of the effort but also somewhat hesitant. Now that the co-response teams are fully established, the officers say the program benefits the community and helps them carry out their duties.  The officers’ changing attitudes to the program were reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. The paper was written by U of A social work professors Mark Plassmeyer and Kim Stauss, who helped launch and continue ...

A new variant of human mpox has claimed the lives of approximately 5% of people with reported infections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2023, many of them children. Since then, it has spread to several other countries. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on August 14. In addition, a different but rarely fatal mpox variant was responsible for an outbreak that has spread to more than 100 countries since 2022.  There is an urgent need for faster and ...

A multitude of genes have been linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically how those genes might influence the progression of neurodegeneration remains something of a black box though, in part because of the challenges of examining in molecular detail the brain of a living patient. Using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collected from living patients, a team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has for the first time linked disease-related proteins and genes to identify specific cellular pathways responsible for Alzheimer’s ...

INDIANAPOLIS — An international, multidisciplinary team of leading neuro-oncology researchers and clinicians has released new recommendations for good clinical practice — a set of guidelines that helps ensure clinical trial results are reliable, and patients are protected — regarding the use of artificial intelligence methods to more accurately diagnose, monitor and treat brain cancer patients. The team recently published two companion policy reviews in The Lancet Oncology, on behalf of the ...

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory will use its world-leading capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and high performance computing to research novel ways to fight cancer and transform vaccine discovery.  The two awards, totaling up to $21.7 million, are from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Established in 2022, ARPA-H’s mission is to accelerate transformative ...

It’s well documented that firefighters have significantly higher rates of cancer than the general population, and these elevated rates have been associated with exposures to toxic chemicals on the job. However, most research on cancer in firefighters has been done in men and less is known about the risks in women. Now a new study by Silent Spring Institute has identified multiple chemical exposures that firefighters face on the job that could increase their risk of developing breast cancer. “With more and more women entering the profession, it’s important to understand the impact of workplace exposures on their health so that we can inform policies to reduce ...

The Medical University of South Carolina has been awarded $1.75 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration to develop and test the effectiveness and sustainability of the SC Rural Telehealth-enabled Collaborative Care Network (SC-RTECC). The SC-RTECC will deliver psychiatric collaborative care management to 1500 primary care patients over a five-year period in seven diverse, rural, underserved South Carolina counties. The goal of the project is to test whether telehealth can be used to deliver psychiatric collaborative care management efficiently and sustainably at rural primary care clinics in South Carolina. The project will be led by Ryan ...

New research from Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute found that the use of standardized autism screening during pediatric well-child visits identifies more children with high autism likelihood at a younger age, including those presenting with more subtle symptoms. This is the first large-scale, randomized trial to test the impact of standardized autism screening on early detection of autism in pediatric primary care. Recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology, the multi-site ...

Breast cancer is a major health concern worldwide, and early detection is crucial for effective treatment. Traditional imaging methods, such as mammography, have limitations, especially for women with dense breast tissue. Photoacoustic imaging, which combines light and sound to create detailed images of breast tissue, offers a promising alternative. However, recent research has highlighted a significant challenge: skin tone bias. A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University recently investigated how skin tone affects the visibility of breast cancer targets in photoacoustic imaging. As reported in Biophotonics Discovery, the study focused on three image ...

Urban green spaces provide shade for city dwellers facing rising temperatures brought on by climate change, but how much relief from the heat island effect do they provide when humidity is factored in? The temperature and humidity effect cancel each other out during daylight hours, but green spaces provide a net reduction in humid heat at night, according to a new study in Nature Cities, co-authored by Yale School of the Environment doctoral student Yichen Yang and Xuhui Lee, Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor of Climate Science.  "When it comes to urban ...

The Tennessee RiverLine, an initiative of University of Tennessee Extension, has been awarded a $500,000 Area Development grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to support the development of comprehensive Planning and Design Standards. These standards will help accelerate the creation of new river experience amenities along the 652-mile stretch of the Tennessee River, benefitting residents and visitors throughout the region. The 18-month project will be led by a professional ...

To determine the type and severity of a cancer, pathologists typically analyze thin slices of a tumor biopsy under a microscope. But to figure out what genomic changes are driving the tumor’s growth — information that can guide how it is treated — scientists must perform genetic sequencing of the RNA isolated from the tumor, a process that can take weeks and costs thousands of dollars. Now, Stanford Medicine researchers have developed an artificial intelligence-powered computational program that can predict the activity of thousands of genes within tumor cells based only on standard microscopy images of the biopsy. The tool, described online in Nature Communications Nov. 14, ...

Answer ALS Releases World's Largest ALS Patient-Based iPSC and Bio Data Repository Unprecedented resource, created with Cedars-Sinai, to accelerate ALS research and drive development of targeted therapies globally NEW ORLEANS, [November 14, 2024] — In a landmark continuing collaboration, Answer ALS and Cedars-Sinai have announced the completed availability of the largest amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient-based induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and bio data repository. The repository encompasses biological and clinical data from nearly 1,000 ALS patients, offering an unprecedented resource for global ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2024 – AIP and the National Society of Black Physicists congratulate Danielle Speller as the winner of the 2024 Joseph A. Johnson Award for Excellence. Jessica Esquivel is also being recognized with an Honorable Mention. The Johnson Award, now in its fifth year, is given jointly by AIP and NSBP to recognize early-career scientists who demonstrate scientific ingenuity and impactful mentorship and service—the core values of NSBP founder Joseph A. Johnson. “Dr. Speller not only ...

FRANKFURT. Genes contain the essential building instructions for life, guiding cells on which amino acids to assemble in what sequence to produce specific proteins. The human genome codes for about 20,000 such instructions. “Nevertheless, our cells can produce several hundred thousand different proteins,” explains Prof. Ivan Đikić from the Institute of Biochemistry II at Goethe University Frankfurt. This diversity is enabled by a process known as “splicing.” When a cell requires a protein, it generates a copy of the relevant instructions in the cell nucleus. During splicing, this transcript undergoes modification: a cellular editing complex, the spliceosome, ...

Pollution from industrial hotspots can trigger ice formation in supercooled clouds, altering their reflective properties and increasing regional snowfall, according to a new study. The findings shed light on poorly understood impacts of anthropogenic aerosols on climate and could help improve climate modeling and mitigation strategies. The impact of human-generated aerosols (tiny air pollution particles) on climate, particularly in counteracting greenhouse gas-induced warming, remains uncertain. These aerosols, in addition to influencing cloud formation as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), may also act as ice-nucleating particles (INPs), crucial for ice formation in supercooled ...

In a Policy Forum, Chad Nelson and colleagues highlight the efforts of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in advancing alternative methods to reduce animal testing for regulatory use. Animal studies have been crucial for advancing disease understanding, developing therapies, and assessing the safety and effectiveness of consumer products. However, reducing animal use and developing effective alternatives is an ongoing priority. Although advances in biology, engineering, and artificial intelligence offer new opportunities to improve product safety assessments, these technologies require extensive development to meet regulatory ...