Temperature determines where species can live and if they are threatened by a warming climate. So, for a long time, biologists studied how heat tolerance affects survival. Yet, less is known about how thermal traits influence reproduction, which is directly linked to extinction risk. Now, researchers in the US have examined if males of dragonfly species that produce sexual signals in the form of dark coloration on their wings are more resistant to heat. They published their results in Frontiers in Ethology. “We show that dragonfly species that have evolved dark breeding coloration on ...

Dr. Ho-Il Ji from the Hydrogen Energy Materials Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Sang-Rok Oh), along with Professor Sihyuk Choi's team from Kumoh National Institute of Technology, announced that they have developed a new synthesis method that can significantly reduce the sintering temperature required for the densification process of the electrolyte in next-generation high-efficiency protonic ceramic cells. Existing solid oxide cells (SOC) can produce electricity in fuel cell operation and hydrogen in ...

A new Tulane University study explains why politically charged content gets more engagement from those who disagree. Researchers found a “confrontation effect,” where people are more likely to interact with content that challenges their views than those that align with them. The study analyzed data from Twitter, Facebook, and online experiments over time, including during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and found that users frequently react to opposing viewpoints with heightened engagement, often ...

To mark the upcoming International E-Waste Day, Oct. 14, consumers worldwide are urged to collect dead and/or unused electronics and electrical products and give them a second life through reuse or repair, or recycle them properly.   Above all: stop tossing them out in household waste bins. The Global E-waste Monitor 2024, authored by UNITAR in cooperation with ITU, reported almost a quarter of end-of-life electronic waste ends up in home trash, squandering billions of dollars worth of copper, gold and other precious metals, materials critical to the production of such products, along with valuable plastics, and glass. The 14 million tonnes of ...

Hospitals that are Understaffed for Infection Prevention and Control Have Higher Rates of Infection, Study Says Nearly 4 in 5 hospitals are not staffed at sufficient level to keep patients safe from preventable infections   Arlington, Va. — October 10, 2024 — Inadequate infection prevention and control staffing levels are associated with higher rates of healthcare-associated infections, according to a new study published today in the American Journal of Infection Control. The study, conducted by the APIC Center for Research, Practice & Innovation, summarizes a pilot project to evaluate a new online calculator aimed at providing facility-specific recommendations ...

A new study led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London reveals women would welcome the option to choose between self-sampling and traditional screening done by a nurse or doctor for human papillomavirus (HPV)-based cervical screening.  The study, published in the Journal of Medical Screening, assessed a group of 2,300 women aged 24-65 who had collected their own samples alongside having their standard cervical screening in 38 GP practices across England. Participants were asked about their screening preference and their attitudes toward being offered a choice between ...

With ongoing advancements in cervical cancer research, the global scientific community has gained a more comprehensive understanding of this significant threat to women's health. A research team led by Professor Weimin Kong has recently published a paper titled "Hotspots and frontiers in cervical cancer research: a bibliometric and visualization analysis from 2013 to 2022" in the internationally renowned journal Malignancy Spectrum. The study systematically analyzed the development trends and research hotspots in global cervical cancer research over the past decade using bibliometric methods. The research ...

Every kid who has read a comic book or watched a Spider-Man movie has tried to imagine what it would be like to shoot a web from their wrist, fly over streets, and pin down villains. Researchers at Tufts University took those imaginary scenes seriously and created the first web-slinging technology in which a fluid material can shoot from a needle, immediately solidify as a string, and adhere to and lift objects. These sticky fibers, created at the Tufts University Silklab, come from silk moth cocoons, which are boiled in solution and broken down into their building block proteins called fibroin. ...

Applied Microbiology International (AMI) is delighted to announce that its 2024 Honorary Fellowship goes to Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, who is Assistant Director General at the World Health Organization (WHO), leading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.  AMI Honorary Fellowships are given to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to or impact on the field of applied microbiology. Honorary Fellows of AMI are nominated and chosen each year by the organisation’s membership.  Chikwe ...

University of Pittsburgh scientists independently validated a new blood test platform that can simultaneously measure more than a hundred biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease. The platform might improve clinicians’ ability to capture the multifaceted nature of Alzheimer’s pathology and streamline early disease diagnostics. The report was published in Molecular Neurodegeneration today. “Alzheimer’s disease should not be looked at through one single lens,” said senior author Thomas Karikari, Ph.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of psychiatry at Pitt. “Capturing aspects of Alzheimer’s pathology in a panel of clinically validated biomarkers would increase ...

In a collaborative effort between Texas A&M University and Sandia National Laboratories, researchers have significantly improved a new joining technology, interlocking metasurfaces (ILMs), designed to increase the strength and stability of a structure in comparison to traditional techniques like bolts and adhesives, using shape memory alloys (SMAs). ILMs offer the potential to transform mechanical joint design in manufacturing for aerospace, robotics and biomedical devices.    “ILMs are poised to redefine joining technologies ...

Medical professionals have a responsibility to lead the fight against climate misinformation to ensure that the public is well informed about the health risks posed by climate change, say experts in The BMJ today. Misinformation (inaccurate information spread without malicious intent) and disinformation (deliberately deceptive information) in health is not new, write Professor Andy Haines and colleagues. Just as the rapid spread of false information during the covid-19 pandemic undermined public trust in science and public health interventions, false information also pervades the climate change debate, influencing public perception and ...

Former GP Sarah Benn was suspended by the medical practitioners tribunal service (MPTS) after an arrest for her involvement in climate protests. In The BMJ today, two experts debate the question of when and whether doctors in such cases should be sanctioned. The recent case of Sarah Benn has sparked debate, partly because of a perception that the GMC referred her to a MPTS tribunal for taking part in peaceful protests, says Andrew Hoyle, assistant director at the GMC. In reality, he explains ...

Extreme rainfall events are associated with an increased risk of death from all causes as well as from heart and lung diseases, finds an analysis of data from 34 countries and regions published by The BMJ today. The health effects of extreme rainfall varied by local climate and vegetation coverage, providing a global perspective on the effect of extreme rainfall events on health. Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of short term rainfall events, and emerging evidence suggests a compelling link between rainfall events and adverse health outcomes, particularly transmission ...

Peer-reviewed – Scoping Review - People  New research from the University of East Anglia has uncovered a significant gap in understanding of a harmful form of domestic abuse known as subtle or covert abuse.   Unlike more obvious forms of physical or verbal abuse, subtle abuse is less visible but can be just as damaging to victims.   The review found that current research on this topic is limited, despite its potentially widespread impact.  The findings suggest that subtle abuse ...

The key to more accurate rainfall predictions may lie in the intricate dance of falling snowflakes, a new study has found.   The research, observing the physical motion of falling ice crystals, will help scientists better estimate where and when these crystals will melt into raindrops, a crucial stage in the formation of many types of rain.  Published today (Thursday 10 October) in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, the study involved scientists watching how fake snowflakes fell in a substance ...

ASPB is delighted to welcome its new President, Hong Ma, who was elected in 2023 as President-elect and served in this role starting October 1, 2023. He stepped into his role as ASPB President on October 1, 2024 following the end of now-Past President Leeann Thornton’s term. “A top priority is to support and train young plant biologists toward becoming members of a community with greater diversity, to amplify the voices of diverse members of our society, and to promote diversity and representation in society leadership and society activities,” ...

Artificial Intelligence has learned to master language, generate art, and even beat grandmasters at chess. But can it crack the code of abstract reasoning—those tricky visual puzzles that leave humans scratching their heads? Researchers at USC Viterbi School of Engineering Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are putting AI’s cognitive abilities to the test, pushing the multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) to solve visual problems once reserved for human IQ tests. The result? A glimpse into how far AI has come—and where it still stumbles. USC Viterbi ISI Research ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oct. 9, 2024 – Though in this year’s presidential election healthcare has seemingly taken a back to other issues including the economy and democracy, nearly eight in 10 registered voters still say the issue that has been critical in nearly every presidential campaign in modern history, remains extremely (37%) or very important (42%) to whom they cast their vote, according to a new a West Health-Gallup poll of voters. This sentiment is consistent with what’s been expressed in most previous elections, although slightly more ...

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 9, 2024 — In the chaos of a wildfire, heat, wind, flames and fuel interact to produce embers that are lofted into surrounding areas, starting new spot fires and spreading destruction and property loss in California’s wildland-urban interface. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have conducted first-of-their-kind field experiments to better understand the physics of these firebrands, and their results can help authorities better model the outcomes of disasters that are happening with greater frequency in a warming climate. In a paper published recently in the journal Physics of Fluids, UC Irvine team members describe their ...

More than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic caused the world to come to a standstill, lessons in pandemic response are still being learned. What we know: the global pandemic disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority groups across the U.S., with Black and Hispanic individuals being three to four times more likely to die from COVID compared to white individuals.  Daniel Harris, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the University of Delaware's College of Health Sciences (CHS), took a deep dive into rarely obtained COVID-19 ...

Baylor University researcher Aaron Wright, Ph.D., has earned a $5.6 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Transformative Research Award for a project that he and collaborators hope could lead to personalized – and revolutionary – treatments for gut microbiome diseases like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis and more. Wright, a nationally recognized microbiome researcher and chemical biologist who serves as The Schofield Endowed Chair in Biomedical Science in Baylor’s Department of Biology, will partner on the project with colleagues from Weill ...

October 9, 2024—(BRONX, NY)—Stem cell researcher Teresa Bowman, Ph.D., has been appointed chair of the department of developmental & molecular biology (DMB) at Albert Einstein College of Medicine after a comprehensive national search. Dr. Bowman will begin her new role on December 1, following the longtime leadership of Richard Stanley, Ph.D. “Dr. Bowman has demonstrated her leadership abilities, commitment to mentorship, and dedication to the College of Medicine since she ...

Changes need to be made to the UK legal system to protect people from exploitative litigation designed to prey on vulnerabilities, a new study warns. Reforms need to be made to protect adults from unfairness during copyright enforcement legal proceedings. This would also help to prevent children being exposed to adult pornography online. The malicious litigation typically involves copyright holders or their agents of online pornographic works obtaining contact details of internet users via a court order to ...

According to highly cited conventional models, cooling and a major drop in sea levels about 34 million years ago should have led to widespread continental erosion and deposited gargantuan amounts of sandy material onto the ocean floor. This was, after all, one of the most drastic climate transitions on Earth since the demise of the dinosaurs. Yet a new Stanford review of hundreds of studies going back decades contrastingly reports that across the margins of all seven continents, little to no sediment has ever been found dating back to this transition. The discovery of this globally extensive gap in the geologic record was published this week in Earth-Science Reviews. “The ...