Philadelphia, October 24, 2023 – Schizophrenia is a severe neuropsychiatric disease that remains poorly understood and treated. Schizophrenia onset is typically in adolescence or early adulthood, but its underlying causes are thought to involve neurodevelopmental abnormalities. Because human prenatal and postnatal brain tissue is exceedingly difficult to procure and therefore study, researchers have had limited opportunities to identify early disease mechanisms, especially during the critical prenatal period. Now, a pair of studies that appear in Biological Psychiatry, ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Curiosity paradoxically increases people’s patience for an answer, while simultaneously making them more eager to hear it, finds a new study by Duke neuroscientists. The research might help teachers and students alike by describing a side of curiosity that encourages us to stay engaged instead of seeking immediate relief. Die-hard fans of the Hulu show, "The Bear" are left on the edge of their seats each Sunday, wondering what's going to happen in the scrappy Chicago hotdog shop next week. But the new study from Duke helps explain why viewers may choose to avoid spoilers ...

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, in partnership with the Mars Advanced Research Institute, have announced a significant breakthrough in the production of low-calorie sugar substitutes, such as allulose. This discovery could help address one of the primary obstacles to the widespread adoption of these alternatives: production costs. Allulose, also known as D-psicose, is a naturally occurring rare sugar that provides a viable alternative to sucrose (table sugar). It has a similar taste, texture and functionality, making it an attractive option for those seeking to reduce their sugar intake. By activating a natural process in a microorganism, researchers have developed ...

American Geophysical Union  24 October 2023  AGU Release No. 23-39 For Immediate Release  This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/bitcoin-mining-has-very-worrying-impacts-on-land-and-water-not-only-carbon/ AGU press contact: Rebecca Dzombak, news@agu.org (UTC-4 hours) Contact information for the researchers: Kaveh Madani, United Nations University, madani@unu.edu (UTC-4 hours) By the numbers, global bitcoin mining in 2020-2021: Used 173 terawatt ...

Eggs of the mosquito that carries Zika virus can tolerate extended desiccation by altering their metabolism, according to a new study publishing October 24th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Anjana Prasad, Sunil Laxman, and colleagues at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Bengaluru, India and the Indian Institute of Technology in Mandi, India. The finding offers potential new ways to control the spread of this mosquito. Cells are made mostly of water, and desiccation is a potentially fatal event for any organism, since the structures of many proteins and other cellular molecules are dependent ...

A new study reveals biological mechanisms by which a specific strain of bacteria in the Wolbachia genus might enhance the fertility of the insects it infects—with potentially important implications for mosquito-control strategies. Shelbi Russell of the University of California Santa Cruz, US, and colleagues report these findings in the open access journal PLOS Biology on October 24th. Different strains of Wolbachia bacteria naturally infect a number of different animals worldwide, such as mosquitos, butterflies, and fruit flies. Wolbachia can manipulate the fertility of their ...

The research team, led by Durham University, UK, used satellite data and radio-echo sounding techniques to map a 32,000 km2 area of land underneath the vast ice sheet.    They discovered a landscape that appears to have been formed by rivers at least 14 million years ago and possibly even before the initial growth of the East Antarctic ice around 34 million years ago.   This newly discovered landscape consists of ancient valleys and ridges, not dissimilar in size-and-scale to the glacially-modified landscape of North Wales, ...

Cleveland Clinic has been selected by Wellcome Leap to lead a quantum computing research project, while also playing a significant role in another led by Algorithmiq — both in collaboration with IBM Quantum.   The two contracts were won through Wellcome Leap’s Quantum for Bio Challenge, which will award up to $40 million to 12 researchers globally for research focused on accelerating the development of quantum computing applications for healthcare. Wellcome Leap is a U.S.- based non-profit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate and increase ...

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have gained valuable insights into producing nitroxide, a molecule with potential applications in the biomedical field. While nitric oxide (NO) has long been on researchers' radar for its significant physiological effects, its lesser-known cousin, nitroxide (HNO), has remained largely unexplored. The study, published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, was born out of a joint endeavor between teams at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser and Stanford ...

SAN FRANCISCO – A novel study conducted by a Japanese multicenter registry has revealed the significant benefits of using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in coronary intervention procedures. The comprehensive analysis, which focused on enhancing patient outcomes, has provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of IVUS in improving the success rates of these interventions. The study, titled "Enhancing coronary intervention outcomes with the use of intravascular ultrasound: A comprehensive analysis of long-term benefits in Japanese multicenter registry," sheds light on the positive ...

Philadelphia, PA., October 24, 2023  WHO: The Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First), an initiative of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) WHAT: Kids First announces the release of nine robust new pediatric research datasets spanning childhood cancers, congenital disorders, and cross-condition data. New publicly available datasets include: PEDIATRIC CROSS-CONDITION Kids First and INCLUDE: Down Syndrome, Heart Defects, and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Principal ...

In a new case report, researchers at UCLA Health describe promising results using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the management of post-stroke cerebellar ataxia, a debilitating condition marked by impaired coordination and balance. Cerebellar ataxia describes a group of neurological disorders that affect coordination, balance, and control of muscle movements. It results from damage or dysfunction of the cerebellum, a part of the brain responsible for coordinating voluntary movements. Ataxia can manifest as unsteady walking, difficulties with fine motor skills, and problems with speech, ...

Lingjia Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering who is also an inaugural faculty member at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, has been awarded the Mobile Distributed Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (Mobile dMIMO) project by the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) as part of its flagship FutureG program. The Mobile dMIMO project consists of three phases, with $9 million total planned funding — $1.5 million is for Phase 1 of the project. The Mobile dMIMO project represents one ...

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a smartphone attachment that could enable people to screen for a variety of neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury, at low cost—and do so accurately regardless of their skin tone. The technology, published in Scientific Reports, has the potential to improve the equity and accessibility of neurological screening procedures while making them widely available on all smartphone models. The attachment fits over a smartphone’s camera and improves its ...

Gene therapy currently represents the most promising approach for the treatment of hereditary diseases. Yet despite significant breakthroughs in recent years, there are still a number of hurdles that hinder the wider application of gene therapies. These include the efficient delivery of genetic material into target cells with minimal side effects using adeno-associated viral vectors (AAVs). The AAV carrier substances have an advantageous safety profile and high gene transfer efficiency, meaning they are often used in gene therapies and in gene editing with CRISPR/Cas. But, AAVs have limited DNA uptake capacity ...

An artificial intelligence tool effectively detected distress in hospital workers’ conversations with their therapists early in the pandemic, a new study shows, suggesting a potential new technology that screens for depression and anxiety. As the coronavirus pandemic forced many hospitals to operate beyond capacity, medical workers faced overwhelming numbers of work shifts, limited rest, and increased risk of COVID-19 infection. At the same time, quarantine policies and fear of infecting family reduced their ...

If you’ve ever watched a bumblebee move from flower to flower, you might wonder how they decide which flower to choose and how long to stay. Now, researchers reporting in the journal iScience on October 24 have new insight based on their observations of bumblebees’ interactions with slippery artificial flowers. They found that the bumblebees make choices to maximize the rate of energy return, or the amount of sugar collected each minute. “Bumblebees can make decisions ‘on the fly’ about which nectar sources are the most energetically economical,” said Jonathan ...

When it comes to the question of who gets to be a scientist, gender disparities are well-documented in many fields. Patching the infamous “leaky pipeline” can be a thorny problem, but during the 2022–2023 school year, the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford took a simple and practical step forward: they began offering period products in the department’s bathrooms. In an article publishing October 25 in the journal Trends in Chemistry, three students involved in the Oxford Period Project and their supervising ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial of 3,777 patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a type of heart attack), the Chinese patent medicine Tongxinluo, as an adjunctive therapy in addition to STEMI guideline-directed treatments, significantly improved both 30-day and 1-year clinical outcomes. Further research is needed to determine the mechanism of action of Tongxinluo in STEMI.  Authors: Yuejin Yang, M.D., Ph.D., and Runlin Gao, M.D., of the Chinese Academy of Medical ...

Research has found that bumblebees make foraging choices to collect the most sugar from flowers in the shortest time – even if that means using more energy in the process – to provide an immediate energy boost for the colony. A new study investigating nectar drinking in one of the most common bumblebees in the UK, Bombus terrestris, has found that when foraging they maximise the amount of nectar sugar they take back to the colony each minute. To make their choices, the bumblebees trade off the time they spend collecting nectar with the energy content of that nectar. This means ...

About The Study: In this examination of SARS-CoV-2 incidence and transmission in child care centers (CCCs) and students’ households, transmission within CCCs and from children infected at CCCs into households was low in this study that included 83 children in 11 CCCs. These findings suggest that current testing and exclusion recommendations for SARS-CoV-2 in CCCs should be aligned with those for other respiratory viruses with similar morbidity and greater transmission to households. Authors: Timothy R. Shope, ...

About The Study: The results of this study of 91,460 mother-offspring pairs found no association between in utero corticosteroid and β2-adrenergic agonist exposure and offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes, regardless of the timing of exposure. Despite the limitations and low power of the study, the findings suggest that corticosteroids and β2-adrenergic agonists are safe for pregnant individuals with asthma and the neurodevelopment of their offspring. Authors: Abir Nagata, Ph.D., of Osaka University in Osaka, Japan, and Toshio Masumoto, Ph.D., of Tottori University ...

Children in child care centers are not spreading COVID-19 at significant rates to caregivers or other children at the center, nor to their households, according to a study led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh pediatrician-scientists and published today in JAMA Network Open. The findings suggest that recommendations to test symptomatic children for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and keep positive children home from child care for prolonged periods can be revised to align with those for other serious ...

PHILADELPHIA—The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today the six pairs of researchers who will make up its 2023 class of Innovation Fund investigators. These 12 acclaimed scientists—all alumni or advisors of Pew’s biomedical programs in the United States and Latin America—will partner on interdisciplinary research projects exploring key questions in human biology and disease. Combining the researchers’ expertise in topics ranging from neuroscience and immunology to cancer biology, these collaborations will help boost scientific discovery and improve human health. “An interdisciplinary approach to research is critical to uncovering scientific breakthroughs ...

Why would someone decide to give their money to help a stranger bring a creative project to life? Recent research has found that backers of crowdfunding projects participate, in part, because of a sense of indirect success and the feeling that they are contributing to something bigger. Crowdfunding — raising money for a new venture by collecting small amounts from many people — is most often done online, and messaging on the most popular sites reinforces the perception of a more democratic market. But the reality is a bit ...