In most materials, heat prefers to scatter. If left alone, a hotspot will gradually fade as it warms its surroundings. But in rare states of matter, heat can behave as a wave, moving back and forth somewhat like a sound wave that bounces from one end of a room to the other. In fact, this wave-like heat is what physicists call “second sound.”  Signs of second sound have been observed in only a handful of materials. Now MIT physicists have captured direct images of second sound for the first time.  The new images reveal how heat can move like a wave, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – People with aphasia have more trouble coming up with words they want to use when they’re prompted by images and words that carry negative emotional meaning, new research suggests. The study involved individuals whose language limitations resulted from damage to the brain caused by a stroke – the most common cause of aphasia, affecting at least one-third of stroke survivors. The disorder impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing. Researchers from The Ohio State University who led the study said the findings – suggesting that prompts ...

Key Takeaways  Young women under the age of 30, Black women, and women with lower education levels are disproportionately affected by intimate partner homicide during pregnancy, reflecting the need to better serve and protect these vulnerable populations.  Particularly by firearms, increasing rates of intimate partner homicide of women who are pregnant or recently pregnant are occurring in states that have limited access to abortion.  Researchers describe a ‘dire ...

While combing through the human genome in 2007, computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti made a discovery that would transform her research career. As a then postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Sabeti discovered potential evidence that some unknown mutation in a gene called LARGE1 had a beneficial effect in the Nigerian population. Other scientists had discovered that this gene was critical for the Lassa virus to enter cells. Sabeti wondered whether a mutation in LARGE1 ...

Feb. 8, 2024 Contact: Katherine McAlpine, 734-647-7087, kmca@umich.edu    Image Leader in robotics at U-M and beyond elected to National Academy of Engineering Dawn Tilbury is recognized for advances in manufacturing network control and human-robot interaction, as well as engineering leadership ANN ARBOR—Dawn Tilbury, the Ronald D. and Regina C. McNeil Department Chair of Robotics at the University of Michigan, has been recognized with one of engineering's greatest honors—election to the National Academy of Engineering.  NAE members are outstanding researchers, ...

A competitive U.S. Department of Education program that prepares undergraduate students interested in careers in academic research has selected 16 undergraduate students from The University of Texas at Arlington to join. The McNair Scholars Program was named for physicist and astronaut Ronald E. McNair, the second Black astronaut in U.S. history and one of several crew members killed when the space shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986. The program assists qualified first-generation ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have identified a new way to harness the antioxidant and antibacterial properties of a botanical compound to make nanofiber-coated cotton bandages that fight infection and help wounds heal more quickly. The findings are especially important given the increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Cotton gauze is one of the most common wound dressings; it’s inexpensive, readily available, comfortable and biocompatible. However, it doesn’t promote healing or fight infection. “Cotton alone cannot provide an answer for these ...

The macrophage is one of the body’s most important inhabitants. Meaning “big eater” in Greek, this immune cell consumes and digests problematic elements from microbes and cancer cells to dust and debris. Macrophages are especially important in the lungs, where they both fight bacterial infection and clear the lungs of excess surfactant, a protein- and lipid-rich layer that’s essential to healthy function but can create a sticky buildup if not controlled. In a recent study, investigators from Rockefeller University ...

Our resilient kidneys are invaluable members of the body’s purification system, and they excel at bouncing back after injury. This even holds true for most sick infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Because of this remarkable ability, dips in kidney function in infants were often overlooked historically in favor of other pressing diseases or symptoms. But physicians and researchers have shown increased interest in understanding kidney health in newborns and young infants within the last decade, leading to the AWAKEN study (Assessment of Worldwide Acute Kidney Epidemiology in Neonates). With initial ...

National media coverage of police brutality influences public perceptions of law enforcement more than the performance of people’s local police departments, according to data analysis from NYU Tandon School of Engineering, challenging the assumption that public confidence in police depends mostly on feeling safe from local crime. In a study published in Communications Psychology, a NYU Tandon research team tracked media coverage of police brutality in 18 metropolitan areas in the United States – along with coverage of local crimes  – and analyzed tweets from those cities to tease out positive attitudes from negative ...

Tap into any social media platform, turn on the television or cue up a podcast, and it is easy to find examples of hypocrisy or bad behavior in political discourse, and new research from University of Nebraska–Lincoln political scientists may explain why. The findings from a large survey study, co-authored by Kyle Hull, Kevin Smith and Clarisse Warren, demonstrate the willingness of people to bend their morals — even behave unethically — when engaging in the political realm. Results also suggest that hostility toward outgroups (i.e., opposing party) is the driving factor for the moral ambiguity exercised ...

When we walk down the street, we have an internal sense of which way we are heading, from looking at street signals and physical landmarks, and also a sense of where we’d like to go. But how does the brain coordinate between these directions, doing the mental math that tells us which way to turn? Now, new research describes such a neural process in fruit flies, providing insight into how an animal’s brain steers it in the right direction. The study, published in Nature , shows how neurons that signal the direction in which a fly is currently oriented work together with neurons that signal the direction in which way the ...

SAN ANTONIO — February 8, 2024 —Dr. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist and associate vice president of Southwest Research Institute’s Space Sector, has been named a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Fellows are recognized for their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics. AIAA cited Stern “for outstanding contributions to the exploration of the solar system and the development of commercial spaceflight.” “I am honored beyond words to be named an AIAA Fellow and thank my nominators very much, including SwRI Vice President Dr. Ben Thacker, who led the nomination,” ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological disease that usually leads to permanent disabilities. It affects around 2.9 million people worldwide, and around 15,000 in Switzerland alone. One key feature of the disease is that it causes the patient’s own immune system to attack and destroy the myelin sheaths in the central nervous system. These protective sheaths insulate the nerve fibres, much like the plastic coating around a copper wire. Myelin sheaths ensure that electrical impulses travel quickly and efficiently from nerve cell to nerve cell. If they are damaged or become thinner, this can lead to irreversible visual, ...

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (February 8, 2024) – Cacao of Excellence, a programme of the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) announced today the winners of the 2023 Cacao of Excellence Awards, honouring excellence in the cultivation of cacao, while also supporting and encouraging a more sustainable sector. The full list of Gold, Silver and Bronze winners can be found below and on the Cacao of Excellence website. The winners were announced ...

Genetic expression, often leading to protein synthesis, requires a complex coordination of molecular machinery across several stages. A vital step in protein-coding gene expression is messenger RNA (mRNA) export, which involves shuttling mature mRNAs from the cell’s nucleus to the cytoplasm. The mRNA export process relies on mRNA–protein complex formation, with the evolutionary conserved ATP-bound TREX complex playing a pivotal role. Among its components, the RNA helicase UAP56 is perhaps the most important one during its assembly. Not only does UAP56 participates during mRNA splicing in some transcripts, but it also recruits ...

An advanced human heart organoid system can be used to model embryonic heart development under pregestational diabetes-like conditions, researchers report February 8 in the journal Stem Cell Reports. The organoids recapitulate hallmarks of pregestational diabetes-induced congenital heart disease found in mice and humans. The findings also showed that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and lipid imbalance are critical factors contributing to these disorders, which could be ameliorated with exposure to omega-3s. “The new stem cell-based organoid technology employed will enable physiologically relevant studies in humans, allowing us to bypass animal models and obtain more information ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 8, 2024 — In a new study of nasal decongestant purchasing patterns, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that phenylephrine remained the most popular choice year after year, despite decades of concerns over a lack of evidence supporting its effectiveness. Published today in JAMA, the research letter points to a coming wave of supplychain disturbances if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moves to pull oral phenylephrine from the shelves, as recommended by an FDA advisory panel in 2023 that found the medication ineffective. The researchers ...

About The Study: Despite a lack of clinical efficacy evidence, phenylephrine was the most common oral decongestant in the U.S. from 2012-2021, with hundreds of millions of units purchased by retail pharmacies annually, and sales remained stable during this time. In contrast to pseudoephedrine, which is often formulated as a stand-alone product, most phenylephrine products were co-formulated with antihistamines or antitussives, which are likely to provide some symptom relief for cough and cold symptoms.  Authors: Timothy S. Anderson, M.D., M.A.S., of the University of Pittsburgh, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

About The Study: The results of this study demonstrated that home environment features, particularly lighting, may influence home activity metrics in older adults with visual impairment. Further prospective studies would be needed to confirm if home modifications can improve at-home activity. Authors: Pradeep Y. Ramulu, M.D., M.H.S., Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2023.6436) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional ...

BOSTON – The vast majority of liver transplant centers in the United States use language on their websites that can be considered stigmatizing through their use of words like “alcoholism,” “alcoholic” and “alcohol abuse,’ potentially hindering care and the willingness of patients to seek treatment, a study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found. In highlighting a significant gap between that online usage and the practice recommendations of medical ...

One of the country’s best-known science museums, San Francisco’s Exploratorium, is located less than three miles north of Gladstone Institutes—a proximity that has resulted in creative, high-science collaborations like the permanent exhibit featured in the latest issue of Stem Cell Reports. Among the museum’s most popular exhibits, “Give Heart Cells A Beat” opens a rare window into the microscopic world of the beating human heart, using technology and materials made ...

Since 2004, several clinical studies have reported that patients with OXA frequently experienced adverse effects of liver injury (LI), typically characterized by hepatic sinusoidal injury, splenomegaly, decreased platelet count and noncirrhotic portal hypertension, which can progress to nodular regenerative hyperplasia with long-term treatment. LI also decreased hepatic functional reserve and aggravated the postoperative course of colorectal cancer patients after hepatectomy, and may affect intraoperative bleeding, postoperative morbidity, and overall survival. LI can ...

Natural scientist and author Robert Rothman takes readers on a reptillian tour of the Galápagos Islands in his new book, A Paradise for Reptiles: Lizards, Snakes, and Giant Tortoises of the Galápagos Islands Vol. 1: Tortoises, Geckos, and Snakes, published by RIT Press. For more than 30 years, Rothman has led hundreds of Rochester Institute of Technology students on tours to the Galápagos Islands to observe the wildlife and landscape that inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Rothman’s A Paradise for Reptiles, an homage to the 19th century scientist, is an accessibly written guide for anyone interested in Darwin, the Galápagos, ...

Language use in social media can be a useful tool for social scientists, because it reflects living conditions in areas the posts originate from. “There is a correlation between social inequalities and language patterns in social media,” says Associate Professor Lucas M. Bietti at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU’s) Department of Psychology. Researchers studied 30 million X/Twitter posts from the United States. They compared the language used in the tweets to the living conditions in the counties from which the ...