A new analysis sheds light on the molecular processes involved when a carnivorous species of fungus known as Arthrobotrys oligospora senses, traps and consumes a worm. Hung-Che Lin of Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and colleagues present these findings November 21st in the open access journal PLOS Biology. A. oligospora usually derives its nutrients from decaying organic matter, but starvation and the presence of nearby worms can prompt it to form traps to capture and consume worms. A. oligospora is just one of many species of fungi that can trap and eat very small animals. Prior research has illuminated some of the biology behind this ...

In Germany, taxing sugar-sweetened beverages could prevent or postpone cases of type 2 diabetes, extend healthy lifespans and save up to €16.0 billion in societal costs over the next 20 years, according to a new study led by Karl Emmert-Fees of the Technical University of Munich, published November 21st in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. The World Health Organization has recommended that governments worldwide lessen the social and economic burden of cardiometabolic disease by taxing sugar-sweetened beverages. These taxes either reduce consumption by increasing the price, such as the one peso per liter ...

A simulation study conducted by a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) demonstrates that a soft drink tax in Germany would have significant positive effects. In all of the simulated variants evaluated, less sugar was consumed and the rate of illness dropped. This would be a way to reduce costs to the national economy and alleviate the burden on the health care system. There is, however, a difference between taxes aimed at reducing soft drink consumption and taxes aimed at bringing about changes in product formulation. Sugary beverages increase the risk of obesity and illnesses such as diabetes. Several countries have therefore introduced taxes on soft drinks. In Germany ...

An analysis of 5.8 million authors across all scientific disciplines shows that the gender gap is closing, but there is still a long distance to go. The new research by John Ioannidis of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICs) at Stanford University, US, and colleagues, publishes November 21st in the open access journal PLOS Biology. There is a strong gender gap in science which manifests itself in many ways. One of the most prominent ones is the relative representation of men and women among the scientists whose work receive the most attention in the ...

A set of fossils recovered in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, has brought an extra layer of complexity to the study of the evolutionary history of silesaurids, a family of dinosauriforms (dinosaurs and their close relatives) that lived in the Triassic period between 247 million and 208 million years ago. In an article published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, researchers affiliated with institutions in Brazil and the United States show that even with the new fossil assemblage ...

NEW YORK – November 20, 2023 – The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), in conjunction with the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2023 conference, CRF's annual scientific symposium, announced today the launch of the CRF Scientific Excellence Top 10 (SET-10), a new global annual ranking recognizing academic contributions to interventional cardiovascular medicine. The SET-10 initiative, aligning with CRF's commitment to advancing the field, aims to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary contributions made by medical and academic ...

Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023, CLEVELAND: Cleveland Clinic researchers analyzed genes and brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer’s and found that differences in brain immunometabolism – the interactions between the immune system and the ways cells create energy – may contribute to women’s increased risk for the disease and its severity.  The findings, published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia, offer important insight into developing sex-specific treatment and prevention options for Alzheimer’s disease, the sixth-leading ...

Hearing loss affects more than 60 percent of adults aged 70 and older in the United States and is known to be related to an increased risk of dementia. The reason for this association is not fully understood. To better understand the connection, a team of University of California San Diego and Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute researchers employed hearing tests and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine whether hearing impairment is associated with differences in specific brain regions. In the November 21, 2023 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers reported that individuals enrolled in this observational ...

University of Sussex researchers have developed a more energy-efficient alternative to transmit data that could potentially replace Bluetooth in mobile phones and other tech devices. With more and more of us owning smart phones and wearable tech, researchers at the University of Sussex have found a more efficient way of connecting our devices and improving battery life. Applied to wearable devices, it could even see us unlocking doors by touch or exchanging phone numbers by shaking hands. Professor Robert Prance and Professor Daniel ...

Day by day, we communicate with our office colleagues to accomplish tasks that are necessary to function. The more than 200 different types of cells in our bodies do the same thing, but the way they communicate with each other isn't as simple as sending an email.  Researchers like Ioannis Zervantonakis are still trying to understand how these cells actually communicate with each other. The assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering recently received a National Institute of General Medical Sciences Maximizing Investigators' Research Award, and his project ...

Digital payment platforms such as Venmo work great for sharing a dinner bill with friends, buying gifts at a pop-up shop or making payments without cash or credit cards. But these digital payment platforms have a dark side: They can be misused for drug dealing and other illicit activity, suggest researchers from the University of California, Davis. And social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram can act as marketing tools for digital drug dealing. “While platforms like Venmo revolutionize financial interactions, they also highlight the need for ongoing vigilance and adaptive regulatory measures,” said Pantelis ...

The deep sea is home to one of the world's largest communities of animals about which we still know very little. Yet it is already subject to a growing number of human-induced environmental pressures. How do its inhabitants respond to these stressors? A new study led by researchers from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications, provides first insights into the stress response of a deep pelagic jellyfish to ocean warming and deep-sea mining induced sediment plumes. One particular and potentially large environmental stressor for organisms in the deep ocean is the environmental ...

Female academics are significantly underrepresented in winning academic prizes and having awards named after them, a new study shows.   Analysis of nearly 9,000 awardees and 346 scientific prizes and medals published today (Tuesday 21 November) in Nature Human Behaviour has found that men win eight prizes for every one won by a woman if the award is named after a man. These awards represent almost two thirds of all scientific prizes.   Female academics are however more likely to win awards that have been named after other notable female scientists, with 47% of those awards going to women and 53% to men.   Dr Katja Gehmlich, Associate Professor in the Institute ...

  Leipzig/Mainz. The extent to which aerosol particles affect the climate depends on how much water the particles can hold in the atmosphere. The capacity to hold water is referred to as hygroscopicity (K) and, in turn, depends on further factors – particularly the size and chemical composition of the particles, which can be extremely variable and complex. Through extensive investigations, an international research team under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research ...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) researchers have discovered solar-wind hydrogen in lunar samples, which indicates that water on the surface of the Moon may provide a vital resource for future lunar bases and longer-range space exploration. Space-based resource identification is a key factor in planning for civilian- and government-led space exploration. “Hydrogen has the potential to be a resource that can be used directly on the lunar surface when there are more regular or permanent ...

Scientists have identified the genes in the probiotic Bifidobacteria longum responsible for improving gut motility. A research team reporting November 21st in the journal Cell Host & Microbe found that B. longum strains possessing the abfA cluster of genes can ameliorate constipation through enhanced utilization of an indigestible fiber called arabinan in the gut. “We established the causal link between a genetic variant—the abfA cluster—to the key functional difference of probiotic B. longum in multiple model organisms, including mice and humans, and provided mechanistic and ecological insights ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2023 – Forensic science has captured the public imagination by storm, as the profusion of “true crime” media in the last decade or so suggests. By now, most of us know that evidence left at a crime scene, such as blood, can often reveal information that is key to investigating and understanding the circumstances around a crime — and that scientific methods can help interpret that information. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, a group of scientists from Boston University and the University of Utah demonstrated ...

About The Study: In this study of 25,000 veterans receiving dialysis, unstable housing experienced before starting dialysis was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality, and risks increased with age. Further efforts are needed to understand the experiences of older adults with unstable housing and to estimate the scope of unstable housing among all individuals receiving dialysis. Authors: Tessa K. Novick, M.D., M.S.W., M.H.S., of the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas  is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

About The Study: In this study of 7,000 older U.S. residents, food insecurity was associated with increased dementia risk, poorer memory function, and faster memory decline. Future studies are needed to examine whether addressing food insecurity may benefit brain health. Authors: Aayush Khadka, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, 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/jamanetworkopen.2023.44186) Editor’s ...

Despite public perception, the Antarctic ozone hole has been remarkably massive and long-lived over the past four years, University of Otago researchers believe chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) aren’t the only things to blame.   In a study, just published in Nature Communications, the group analysed the monthly and daily ozone changes, at different altitudes and latitudes within the Antarctic ozone hole, from 2004 to 2022.   Lead author Hannah Kessenich, PhD candidate in the Department of ...

Scientists have engineered a living material resembling human phlegm, which will help them to better understand how a certain kind of infection develops on the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis. The study, published in Matter, was led by Dr Yuanhao Wu and is a collaboration between Professor Alvaro Mata in the School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor Miguel Cámara from the National Biofilms Innovation Centre in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham. Biofilms are strong living 3D materials that play ...

EMBARGOED by JAMA Network Open until 11 am, ET, Nov. 21, 2023 Contact: Gina DiGravio, 617-358-7838, ginad@bu.edu BU Study Finds Long-term Acute Care Hospital Closures Associated with Changes in Hospital Care Practices (Boston)—Long-term acute care hospitals (LTCHs) are common sites of post-acute care for patients recovering from severe respiratory failure requiring long-term mechanical ventilation. Because of longer lengths of stay compared to regular, short-stay hospitals, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) reimburses LTCHs at higher rates. However, since 2005, ...

What is the mechanism that allows our brains to incorporate new information about the world, and form memories? New work by a team of neuroscientists led by Dr Tomás Ryan from Trinity College Dublin shows that learning occurs through the continuous formation of new connectivity patterns between specific engram cells in different regions of the brain. Whether on purpose, incidentally, or simply by accident, we are constantly learning and so our brains are constantly changing. When we navigate the world, interact with each other, or consume media content, our brain is grasping ...

A drug that boosts bone growth in children with the most common form of dwarfism, may also reduce their chances of sudden infant death syndrome, sleep apnoea and needing surgery, according to a new study. The international research trial, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, has showed for the first time that vosoritide treatment increases height, facial volume and the size of the foramen magnum, the hole at the base of the skull that connects the brain with the spinal cord, in children under five with achondroplasia. MCRI is the largest vosoritide ...

Zinc — cheap, abundant, environmentally friendly — may be the answer to better batteries, but there’s a major problem: Aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) cannot match lithium-ion batteries in terms of power output. To test what electrode material composition might be able to bring AZIBs up to par, a research team based in China developed two organic frameworks with the same constituents but arranged in different ways.   When put to the test, the framework with appropriate density of active sites — where the zinc ions gain electrons to recharge the ...