The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from landfills, urban areas and U.S. states, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The researchers combined 2019 satellite observations with an atmospheric transport model to generate a high-resolution map of methane emissions, which was then compared to EPA estimates from the same year. The researchers found: Methane emissions from landfills are 51% higher compared to EPA estimates Methane emissions from 95 urban areas are 39% higher than EPA estimates Methane emissions ...

Amazonia is the home of the largest variety of birds in the world. In such a unique environment, craft cultures have flourished by translating the beauty and creativity of environmental materials like feathers into stunning pieces of art. “The Material Creativity of Affective Artifacts in the Dutch Colonial World,” a new article in Current Anthropology by Stefan Hanß of the University of Manchester, examines artisanal featherwork within the context of early modern colonialism ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers and collaborators have developed a new framework that allows scientists to predict crop yield without the need for enormous amounts of high-quality data – which is often scarce in developing countries, especially those facing heightened food insecurity and climate risk.  In many parts of the world, crop yields are dropping, largely due to the effects of climate change. According to a recent Cornell study, over the last four decades, for every 1 degree Celsius of warming, net farm income decreased by 66%.   Farmers in developed countries can often rely on big datasets ...

Researchers say a machine learning tool can identify many patients with rare, undiagnosed diseases years earlier, potentially improving outcomes and reducing cost and morbidity. The findings, led by researchers at UCLA Health, are described in Science Translational Medicine. “Patients who have rare diseases may face prolonged delays in diagnosis and treatment, resulting in unnecessary testing, progressive illness, psychological stresses, and financial burdens,” said Manish Butte, MD, PhD, a UCLA professor in pediatrics, human genetics, and microbiology/immunology who cares for these patients in his clinic at UCLA. “Machine learning and other artificial intelligence ...

HOUSTON ― Sharon Dent, Ph.D., professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Dent is a global leader in the field of chromatin research whose foundational work has helped define the role of chromatin in cancer growth and development. Dent is one of 120 members and 24 international members elected this year in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The NAS, established in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research. With ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – Children and teens may experience nonmotor seizures for months or years before being seen in an emergency department for a more obvious seizure that includes convulsions, according to a study published in the May 1, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Even then, the history of nonmotor seizures may not be recognized. “Early diagnosis of epilepsy is of the utmost importance because epileptic seizures can lead to injury and even death,” said study author Jacqueline French, MD, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine ...

A subtle type of seizure goes undetected two thirds of the time in pediatric emergency departments, a new study shows. The work focuses on “nonmotor” seizures, which cause children to “zone out” and stare into space or fidget. They may also feel sudden changes in emotions, thoughts, or sensations, as opposed to motor seizures, which cause muscles to move in abrupt, jerking motions. According to the authors, improving recognition of nonmotor seizures may speed up the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy in children, ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 01, 2024) St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have identified specific DNA variants in the non-coding regions of the genome contributing to chemotherapy resistance in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The results guided the team to unravel the mechanism behind a previously unknown contributor to therapeutic resistance. The discovery was enabled by combining new technologies to overcome previous limitations in understanding the non-coding genome, which could be adapted to other ...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine is now accepting applicants for an observational trial focused on fertilized anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Unlike traditional ACL repairs, fertilized ACL surgery uses a biologic concentrate of the patient’s stem cells, bone marrow and autograft bone along with an internal brace with the goal of stabilizing and expediting the healing process. “Past patients of the fertilized ACL have already shown shorter recovery times with no known additional risks to the patient,” said Chad D. Lavender, M.D., ...

New York State is vulnerable to increasing weather-driven power outages, with vulnerable people in the Bronx, Queens and other parts of New York City being disproportionately affected. #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000364 Article Title: Powerless in the storm: Severe weather-driven power outages in New York State, 2017–2020 Author Countries: United States Funding: This work was supported by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) P30 ES009089 ...

Combining time-restricted eating with high-intensity functional training may improve body composition and cardiometabolic parameters more than either alone, according to a study published May 1, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ranya Ameur and Rami Maaloul from the University of Sfax, Tunisia, and colleagues. Changes in diet and exercise are well-known ways to lose weight and improve cardiometabolic health. However, finding the right combination of lifestyle changes to produce sustainable results can be challenging. Prior studies indicate that time-restricted eating (which limits when, but not what, individuals eat) and ...

Simulations of agriculture on Mars using pea, carrot and tomato plants suggest that intercropping, growing different crops mixed together, could boost yields in certain conditions ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0302149 Article Title: Intercropping on Mars: A promising system to optimise fresh food production in future martian colonies Author Countries: The Netherlands Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Earth System Models – complex computer models which describe Earth processes and how they interact – are critical for predicting future climate change. By simulating the response of our land, oceans and atmosphere to manmade greenhouse gas emissions, these models form the foundation for predictions of future extreme weather and climate event scenarios, including those issued by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, climate modellers have long faced a major problem. Because Earth System Models integrate many complicated processes, they cannot immediately run a simulation; they must first ensure that it has reached a stable equilibrium ...

Weather-related power outages in the United States have become nearly twice as common in the last ten years compared to the previous decade. These outages, which can last most of a day, are more than an inconvenience: lack of power and related indoor temperature discomfort can exacerbate health conditions; lack of power also endangers the lives of people who are reliant on electricity-powered medical devices and/or elevators.   A new study led environmental health scientists at Columbia University ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke researchers have opened a new avenue in the attack against influenza viruses by creating a vaccine that encourages the immune system to target a portion of the virus surface that is less variable. Their approach worked well in experiments with mice and ferrets and may lead to more broadly-protective influenza vaccines and less reliance on an annual shot tailored to that year’s versions of the virus. Even with vaccines, influenza kills about a half-million people each year around the world. This new vaccine approach, described May 1 in the journal Science Translational ...

EMBARGOED: Not for Release Until 14:00 U.S. Eastern Time (19:00 UK Time) on Wednesday, 01 May 2024 Mystery behind huge opening in Antarctic sea ice solved Researchers have discovered the missing piece of the puzzle behind a rare opening in the sea ice around Antarctica, which was nearly twice the size of Wales and occurred during the winters of 2016 and 2017. A study published today [1 May 2024] in Science Advances reveals a key process that had eluded scientists as to how the opening, called a polynya, was able to form and persist for ...

Human consciousness requires arousal (i.e., wakefulness) and awareness  Brain imaging studies over the last decade have produced connectivity maps of the cortical networks that sustain awareness, but maps of the subcortical networks that sustain wakefulness are lacking, due to the small size and anatomic complexity of subcortical structures such as the brainstem In a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study that integrated high-resolution structural and functional connectivity data, researchers mapped a subcortical brain network that is believed to integrate arousal and awareness in human consciousness In a paper titled, “Multimodal ...

A new study by Northwestern University researchers and coworkers explains a puzzling problem with maps of future earthquake shaking used to design earthquake-resistant buildings. Although seismologists have been making these maps for about 50 years, they know very little about how well they actually forecast shaking, because large damaging earthquakes are infrequent in any area. To learn more, the Northwestern research team compiled shaking data from past earthquakes. These include CHIMP (California Historical Intensity Mapping Project) ...

AI holds the potential to help doctors find early markers of disease and policymakers to avoid decisions that lead to war. But a growing body of evidence has revealed deep flaws in how machine learning is used in science, a problem that has swept through dozens of fields and implicated thousands of erroneous papers. Now an interdisciplinary team of 19 researchers, led by Princeton University computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, has published guidelines for the responsible use of machine learning in science. “When we graduate from traditional statistical methods to machine learning methods, there are a vastly ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Truth Social was more effective at driving news attention toward Donald Trump during the 2022 midterm election cycle than Twitter (now known as X) was during the 2016 primary election season, a pattern driven mostly by partisan media on the left and the right, according to a new paper by a University at Buffalo communication researcher. But that success had limits. Journalists covered Trump’s social media use differently during those times and across those platforms, directly embedding his Truth Social posts into their stories far less frequently than was the case with his tweets in 2016. The findings published in the Journal of Information ...

RICHLAND, Wash.--A major approach to achieving net-zero carbon emissions relies on converting various parts of the economy, such as personal vehicles and heating, to run via electricity generated from renewable sources. But carbon cannot be removed from all parts of society. Plastics, ubiquitous in the modern world, cannot be decarbonized because they are made of carbon-based molecules. Led by chemist Wendy Shaw of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a multi-institutional effort has produced a new roadmap to reducing emissions in hard-to-electrify segments of the economy. The multifaceted approach includes developing non-carbon fuels, ...

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Protein Society, the premier international society dedicated to supporting protein research, announces the winners of the 2024 Protein Society Awards, which will be conferred at the 38th Anniversary Symposium, July 23 – 26, 2024, in Vancouver, Canada. Plenary talks from select award recipients will take place throughout the 3.5-day event. The winners’ scientific accomplishments, described by their nominators below, demonstrate their lasting impact on protein science. The ...

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have identified an innovation in stem cell therapy to regenerate neural cells in the brain after cardiac arrest in an animal model. The study led by Xiaofeng Jia, BM, MS, PhD, FCCM, Professor of Neurosurgery, found that the application of modified sugar molecules on human neural stem cells improved the likelihood of the therapy's success. The application of these sugar molecules both enhanced the stem cells' proliferation and their transition into neurons to help repair critical connections in the brain. The finding could eventually lead to improved recovery of patients ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have designed a new artificial intelligence model that emulates randomized clinical trials at determining the treatment options most effective at preventing stroke in people with heart disease. The model was front-loaded with de-identified data on millions of patients gleaned from health care claims information submitted by employers, health plans and hospitals – a foundation model strategy similar to that of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. By pre-training the model on a huge cache of general ...

PHILADELPHIA— Protein imbalances that increase brain cell excitability may explain why individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) who also experience seizures demonstrate more rapid cognitive decline than those who do not experience seizures. These imbalances may be present in the brains of individuals before the onset of AD symptoms.The new findings, from a research team at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, are published this week in Brain. The team found ...