As people age, they become more prone to blood clotting diseases, when blood cells called platelets clump together when they don’t need to and can cause major issues such as strokes and cardiovascular disease. For decades, scientists have studied why older people’s blood cells behave in this way, using their insights to develop the myriad of blood-thinning drugs now on the market for treating the leading cause of death in the United States. Now, UC Santa Cruz Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Camilla Forsberg and her research group have ...

Researchers have found that 2023 was the hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere in the past two thousand years, almost four degrees warmer than the coldest summer during the same period. Although 2023 has been reported as the hottest year on record, the instrumental evidence only reaches back as far as 1850 at best, and most records are limited to certain regions. Now, by using past climate information from annually resolved tree rings over two millennia, scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have shown how exceptional the summer of 2023 was. Even allowing for natural climate variations over hundreds of years, 2023 was still ...

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 4PM GMT  (11AM ET) on 14 May 2024.   Peer reviewed | Observational | People  Ribosomal DNA (rDNA) is present in hundreds of copies in the genome, but has not previously been part of genetic analyses. A new study of 500,000 individuals indicates that people who have more copies of rDNA are more likely to develop inflammation and diseases during their lifetimes.  Standard genetic analysis techniques have not studied areas of the human genome that are repetitive, such as ribosomal ...

Three out of four U.S. adults support the use of emerging technologies that estimate a future child’s likelihood of developing health conditions influenced by multiple genes — such as diabetes, heart disease, and depression — before an embryo is implanted during in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to a new public opinion survey led by researchers at Harvard Medical School. Results of the survey, to be published May 14 in JAMA Network Open, underscore the need for public education and conversation about the positive ...

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders report congenital abnormalities, such as defects of the heart and/or urinary tract, at least ten times more frequent compared to other children. This is one of the findings from an analysis from Radboud university medical center of data from over 50,000 children. Thanks to this new database, it's now much clearer which health problems are associated with a particular neurodevelopmental disorder and which are not. The study has been published in Nature Medicine. Two to three percent of the population have a neurodevelopmental disorder, such as autism or intellectual ...

May 14  2024 – A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, found that pharmacological treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) reduced violence- and public-order related crimes. However, it did not reduce  other types of crimes, among patients with ADHD in early to late adolescence considered to be in the grey zone (or on the margin) for such treatment. This study uses variation in healthcare providers treatment preference as the basis for a quasi-experimental design that examines the effect of pharmacological ...

A team led by Dr. Eddie Imada, assistant professor of research in pathology and laboratory medicine, has been awarded a three-year, $1.5 million United States Department of Defense grant for research on a cellular process called alternative polyadenylation and its role in prostate cancer. The grant was awarded under DoD’s long-running Prostate Cancer Research Program, a Congressionally-directed medical research funding project aimed at improving prostate cancer prevention, detection and patient care. Thousands of current and former servicemen ...

UVA Health researchers have developed a powerful new risk assessment tool for predicting outcomes in heart failure patients. The researchers have made the tool publicly available for free to clinicians. The new tool improves on existing risk assessment tools for heart failure by harnessing the power of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to determine patient-specific risks of developing unfavorable outcomes with heart failure.  “Heart failure is a progressive condition that affects not only quality of life but quantity as well. All heart failure patients are not the same. Each patient ...

Previously, it was commonly assumed that having an inner voice had to be a human universal. But in recent years, researchers have become aware that not all people share this experience.  According to postdoc and linguist Johanne Nedergård from the University of Copenhagen, people describe the condition of living without an inner voice as time-consuming and difficult because they must spend time and effort translating their thoughts into words: “Some say that they think in pictures and then translate the pictures into words when they need to say ...

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 14, 2024 – Every love story is unique, and in traditional Indigenous Southern Plains culture, it begins with an original ballad performed on the flute. In order to win a lover’s affection, and respect among the tribe, each pursuer must compose one good flute serenade. Paula Conlon, a former music professor at the University of Oklahoma, has researched the history and cultural significance of the Indigenous flute since the 1980s. Conlon will present her work Tuesday, May 14, at 9:45 a.m. EDT as part of a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Canadian Acoustical ...

SAN ANTONIO — May 14, 2024 —Southwest Research Institute is investigating an unusual event in the Earth’s magnetotail, the elongated portion of the planet’s magnetosphere trailing away from the Sun. Using data from NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, SwRI scientists are examining the nature of substorms, fleeting disturbances in the magnetotail that release energy and often cause aurorae. Since their launch in 2015, the MMS spacecraft have been surveying the magnetopause, the boundary between the magnetosphere ...

Researchers at Macquarie University have found a significant portion of shark meat sold in Australian fish markets and takeaway shops is mislabelled, including several samples from threatened species. The findings, published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research this month, highlight the ineffectiveness of seafood labelling and the grave implications for both consumer choice and shark conservation. Researchers collected 91 samples of shark meat from 28 retailers across six Australian states and territories and used DNA ...

The latest edition of Florida Atlantic University’s “Florida Climate Resilience Survey,” found that 90% of Floridians believe that climate change is happening. In comparison, a recent Yale University survey showed 72% of all Americans believe climate change is happening. The FAU survey includes questions on beliefs about climate change, experience with extreme weather events and support for climate-related policies. The Florida Climate Resilience Survey also shows belief in human-caused climate change has surged among Florida Independents while slipping among Republicans in the state since last fall.   But despite these changes, the latest edition of the survey ...

The intricate dance of atoms fusing and releasing energy has fascinated scientists for decades. Now, human ingenuity and artificial intelligence are coming together at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) to solve one of humankind’s most pressing issues: generating clean, reliable energy from fusing plasma. Unlike traditional computer code, machine learning — a type of artificially intelligent software — isn’t simply a list of instructions. Machine learning is software that can analyze data, infer relationships between features, learn from this new knowledge and adapt. PPPL researchers ...

A new food systems perspective study1 published in Advances in Nutrition from the University of Washington is the first to explore the place of fresh pork in in the global food sustainability framework. Merging data on food composition, food trends, prices and incomes, the study concluded that pork meat is an affordable high-quality protein and may have a lower environmental (GHGE) impact than previously believed. The perspective also makes clear pork is well positioned to meet the rising global demand for animal protein. Pork is one of the most consumed meats globally,2 providing high quality protein and several priority ...

High temperatures affect the decision-making of police officers and judges. Previous research has shown that heat can increase criminal activity, with the leading theory proposing that heat reduces emotional control and increases aggression. A. Patrick Behrer and Valentin Bolotnyy investigate the effects of heat on the behavior of those who respond to criminal activity. The authors analyzed records of 10 million arrests across the state of Texas from 2010 through 2017, along with the legal outcomes that followed each arrest. These data were merged with daily temperature data. Police made fewer arrests per reported crime on the hottest days in the sample, and these arrests were ...

In a new study published in PeerJ Life & Environment, scientists have revealed the intricate vocal patterns of Bornean orangutans, shedding new light on the complexities of their communication. Titled "Vocal Complexity in the Long Calls of Bornean Orangutans," the research, led by Dr. Wendy Erb from the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, unveils the remarkable diversity and variability within orangutan long call vocalizations. Orangutans, the charismatic great apes of Southeast Asia, are known for their complex social behaviors and vocal communication. However, understanding the nuances of their vocal repertoire ...

Using human cells in laboratory rats, Michigan Medicine researchers have developed a functional model of thoracic aortic aneurysm, creating opportunities for more effective understanding of disease development and treatments for the potentially fatal condition, a study suggests.    There are currently no medical treatments for thoracic aortic aneurysm, which is a weakening and bulging at the body’s largest blood vessel in the chest.    The aneurysm often does not cause any symptoms and must ...

More than 20,000 volunteers have been recruited to a resource aimed at speeding up the development of much-needed dementia drugs. The cohort will enable scientists in universities and industry to involve healthy individuals who may be at increased risk of dementia in clinical trials to test whether new drugs can slow the decline in various brain functions including memory and delay the onset of dementia. Using the resource, scientists have already been able to show for the first time that two important bodily mechanisms – inflammation and metabolism – play a role in the decline in brain function as we age. By ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) computer programs that process MRI results show differences in how the brains of men and women are organized at a cellular level, a new study shows. These variations were spotted in white matter, tissue primarily located in the human brain’s innermost layer, which fosters communication between regions. Men and women are known to experience multiple sclerosis, autism spectrum disorder, migraines, and other brain issues at different rates and with varying symptoms. A detailed understanding of how ...

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have for the first time precisely characterised the enzyme styrene oxide isomerase, which can be used to produce valuable chemicals and drug precursors in an environmentally friendly manner. The study appears today in the journal Nature Chemistry.   Enzymes are powerful biomolecules that can be used to produce many substances at ambient conditions. They enable “green” chemistry, which reduces environmental pollution resulting from processes used in synthetic chemistry. One such tool from nature has now been characterised in detail by ...

The huge, long-lasting wildfires that have become increasingly common in recent years can cause changes in soil chemistry that affect water contamination, air quality, and plant growth. But these changes are poorly monitored and rarely factor into post-fire recovery efforts or risk assessments, according to a review study published May 14 in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. The study, led by Stanford University and Colorado State University scientists, found that better techniques are needed to monitor changes in soil and surrounding ecosystems. This enhanced ...

Scientists have discovered 17 additional genes that drive the abnormal overgrowth of mutated blood cells as we age. The findings, published today (14 May) in Nature Genetics, provide a more complete view of the genetic factors behind clonal haematopoiesis – a process associated with ageing and linked to increased risks of blood cancers1. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Calico Life Sciences, California, and the University of Cambridge analysed sequencing data from over 200,000 individuals in the UK Biobank cohort. They searched for genes showing signals of "positive selection" – where mutations ...

An international team led by researchers from the EXOTIC Laboratory of the University of Liège, in collaboration with MIT and the Astrophysics Institute in Andalusia, has just discovered WASP-193b, an extraordinarily low-density giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star. This new planet, located 1,200 light-years from Earth, is 50% larger than Jupiter but seven times less massive, giving it an extremely low density comparable to that of cotton candy. "WASP-193b is the second least dense planet discovered to date, after Kepler-51d, which is much smaller," explains ...

A new global study from IOP Publishing (IOPP) has found that certain peer review communities continue to feel overburdened by reviewer requests, while others remain underrepresented.      The survey, which generated over 3,000 responses from peer reviewers from across the globe, revealed regional and career-stage disparities:   30% of reviewers from high-income countries indicated that they receive too many peer review requests, compared with just 10% from low and middle-income countries*   Just 6% of respondents from China and 7% from India indicated that they ...