PITTSBURGH – November 2, 2023 – A vaginal film designed to slowly dissolve over the course of 30 days is being put to the test for the first time in a study launched this week that aims to determine its feasibility and acceptability as a potential HIV prevention method for women. The study, which is being conducted in the United States and Africa by MATRIX, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded project focused on the early research and development of innovative HIV prevention products for women, will help inform the final design of a monthly film containing the antiretroviral (ARV) ...

Recently, the tethered satellite system (TSS) has been used in Earth observations, space interferometry and other space missions, due to potential merits of TSS. The tethered TSAR (tomographic synthetic aperture radar) system is a group of tethered SAR satellites that can be rapidly deployed and provide a stable baseline for 3-dimensional topographic mapping and moving target detection. Successful deployment is critical for TSAR tethered system. Several control methods, including length, length rate, tension, and thrust-aided control, have been proposed over the years. Among them, adjusting tension is a viable yet challenging approach due to tether's strong nonlinearity and ...

Research out of Drexel University’s College of Engineering suggests that over the next two decades people living in the Schuylkill Watershed, which includes Philadelphia, could experience as many as 82 more days of water shortfalls due to localized weather impacts of climate change. The projections, which account for changes in population, land use, and climate, indicate that — due to more frequent extreme weather events associated with climate change — the watershed may only be able to meet demand about 67% of the time, a drop of 22% from its current reliability. Published in the journal Water, the paper ...

Researchers at National Jewish Health found that Indigenous coal miners may develop disabling black lung disease but are less likely to qualify for medical benefits using currently required lung function standards rather than standards specific to Indigenous populations.  Black lung (also called coal worker’s pneumoconiosis) is a debilitating respiratory illness that can occur several decades after a miner’s first exposure to coal mine dust. Disease severity can be influenced by adequacy of dust controls, medical surveillance programs ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have received a $3.12 million National Institutes of Health grant to study whether acupuncture can alleviate chest pain caused by stable angina. Stable angina is defined as predictable chest pain during exertion or when under mental or emotional stress and is a condition that affects millions of Americans.  A large body of research has shown that acupuncture can help mitigate many types of chronic pain. But little is known about its effect on ischemic pain, which is caused when the heart isn’t getting enough oxygen, as is the case with stable angina.  The two-site study will be led by principal investigators Judith Schlaeger, ...

Washington, D.C.—A new study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, provides the first characterization of the coral microbiome under hypoxia, insufficient oxygen in the water. The research is an initial step toward identifying potential beneficial bacteria for corals facing this environmental stressor.  The researchers conducted the study because of the increasing awareness of the impact of the microbiome on host health. For example, a healthy human gut microbiome plays key roles ...

A research team at Johns Hopkins Medicine has created and trained a machine learning model to calculate percent necrosis (PN) — or, what percentage of a tumor is “dead” and no longer active — in patients with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. The model’s calculation was 85% correct when compared to the results of a musculoskeletal pathologist. Upon removing one outlier, the accuracy rose to 99%. A post-chemotherapy PN calculation helps provide the patient with a prognosis for survival. For example, a PN of 99% indicates that 99% of the tumor is dead, suggesting chemotherapy was effective and the patient has improved ...

INDIANAPOLIS — Regenstrief Institute’s Susan Hickman, PhD, has been elected as a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA). Dr. Hickman will be inducted on November 9 into the social research, policy and practice section of the GSA College of Fellows during the society’s 2023 annual scientific meeting. In addition to being director and a research scientist with the IU Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute, Dr. Hickman is a professor at Indiana University School of Nursing, the Pettinga Chair in Aging Research with the Indiana University School of Medicine and the co-director of the IUPUI ...

DALLAS, Nov. 2, 2023 — Medical experts note that hormone and body composition changes during the transition to menopause can increase the risk of developing heart disease after menopause.[1] The American Heart Association, a global force for healthier lives for all, offers tips to support women’s heart health during this transition. “More women in the U.S. are living longer, and a significant portion of them will spend up to 40% of their lives postmenopausal,” said Brooke Aggarwal, Ed.D., M.S., F.A.H.A., assistant professor of medical sciences in Cardiology ...

The discharge of organic effluents—biodegradable waste materials from plants and animals—into freshwater bodies is a significant environmental concern, affecting the health and sustainability of these aquatic ecosystems. However, the methods currently available for inspecting water quality are complex and costly. In this regard, researchers from Ritsumeikan University, Japan, have recently developed a self-powered, inexpensive, and floating biosensor for monitoring water quality at the input of freshwater lakes and rivers. This paper was made available online on September 9, 2023, and was published in Volume 200 of the Biochemical Engineering ...

Quantum-based systems promise faster computing and stronger encryption for computation and communication systems. These systems can be built on fiber networks involving interconnected nodes which consist of qubits and single-photon generators that create entangled photon pairs. In this regard, rare-earth (RE) atoms and ions in solid-state materials are highly promising as single-photon generators. These materials are compatible with fiber networks and emit photons across a broad range of wavelengths. Due to their wide spectral range, optical fibers ...

In a world increasingly aware of the environmental challenges posed by microplastics, a pioneering study conducted by Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag from Babes-Bolyai University, and published in PeerJ Life & Environment, sheds new light on the impact of media narratives on public perception and awareness of microplastic risks. Microplastics - tiny plastic particles that pollute both terrestrial and marine ecosystems - have garnered significant scientific, media, and public attention in recent years. However, this study reveals a lack of consensus between the scientific community and the media, particularly when it comes to how ...

Researchers at Delft University of Technology, led by assistant professor Richard Norte, have unveiled a remarkable new material with potential to impact the world of material science: amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Beyond its exceptional strength, this material demonstrates mechanical properties crucial for vibration isolation on a microchip. Amorphous silicon carbide is therefore particularly suitable for making ultra-sensitive microchip sensors. The range of potential applications is vast. From ultra-sensitive microchip sensors and advanced solar ...

A powerful new way to fill major gaps in public bee data – including from Africa, Asia and other under-reported zones – has been addressed with a centralised tool for consolidating bee pollinator occurrences around the globe. Called BeeBCD, the package outlined in a new Nature journal article, brings together more than 18 million bee occurrence records from multiple public and private databases to improve accuracy and accessibility of species data from around the world for future conservation, research and farming management. The rationalised bee occurrence datasets will help support future plant and crop production ...

Researchers from Lancaster University in the UK have discovered how superfluid helium 3He would feel if you could put your hand into it. The interface between the exotic world of quantum physics and classical physics of the human experience is one of the major open problems in modern physics. Dr Samuli Autti is the lead author of the research published in Nature Communications. Dr Autti said: “In practical terms, we don’t know the answer to the question ‘how does it feel to touch quantum physics?’ “These experimental conditions are extreme and the techniques complicated, but I can now tell ...

NIH grants support UCLA and Charles Drew University researchers' efforts to end HIV epidemic The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has granted $2.1 million to UCLA’s Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) and the UCLA-CDU Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) to support four research projects and an implementation science consultation hub. These awards will fund projects to strengthen research-community collaborations and enhance implementation strategies needed for the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative. “These awards will support our scientists and ...

University of Cambridge media release   First of its kind AI-model can help policy-makers efficiently identify and prioritize houses for retrofitting and other decarbonizing measures.   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Model identified ‘hard to decarbonize’ houses with 90% precision and additional data will improve this. Model trained with open source data including from energy performance certificates, and street and aerial view images. It could be used anywhere in the world. Model can even identify specific parts of houses losing most heat, including roofs and windows. ‘Hard-to-decarbonize’ (HtD) houses are responsible ...

New research from the University of Bath shows the European Union’s MiFID II financial market reforms inadvertently reduced research activity and adversely affected liquidity in London’s main stock market but that the impact on London’s less regulated Alternative Investment Market was mitigated by its special adviser rules. The EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) from 2018 aimed to improve transparency around research costs, which were previously bundled into brokers’ overall fees to clients. The legislation demanded the fees be ‘unbundled’ to make the hidden costs more explicit ...

SINGAPORE – A large-scale international study spanning three continents, led by researchers from A*STAR’s Translational Neuroscience Programme of the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) in Singapore, has found that maternal depressive symptoms begin from early pregnancy and can last up to two years after childbirth. While health professionals often emphasise the postpartum stage after childbirth as a high-risk period for the onset of depression, findings from this latest study reveal a different reality – that maternal depressive symptoms can appear from early pregnancy ...

According to a new paper in Oxford Open Climate Change, published by Oxford University Press, the strategies humanity must pursue to reduce climate change will have to include more than reducing greenhouse gases. This comes from an analysis of climate data led by researcher James Hansen. Scientists have known since the 1800s that infrared-absorbing (greenhouse) gases warm the Earth’s surface and that the abundance of greenhouse gases changes naturally as well as from human actions. Roger Revelle, who was one of the early scientists to study global warming, wrote in 1965 that industrialization meant that human ...

Osaka, Japan – When you think of Japan in the age of COVID, you might imagine a crowd of people wearing masks. But why do so many Japanese people wear masks? In an article published this month in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, a researcher from Osaka University analyzed mask use before and after the government of Japan downgraded the legal status of COVID-19. Results showed that many people continue to wear masks for socio-psychological reasons – including reasons related to ‘relief’ and ‘norm’. Of course, the obvious motivation for mask use is disease prevention. In the first ...

Regular and moderate physical activity can significantly improve the quality of life of people with internal diseases such as cancer and depression. Unfortunately, many people with internal disorders cannot sufficiently participate in exercise training for several reasons. For example, they often do not have access to appropriate exercise training programs, have a high therapeutic burden, fatigue, or simply no time to engage in physical activity. Accordingly, the Sports Medicine research group led by Professor Perikles Simon at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) investigates how physical activity can be promoted and integrated into patients' daily lives by applying digital tools ...

Arlington, Va. — November 2, 2023 — A new study published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) reveals that the use of doxycycline may help protect against Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection for some patients with pneumonia. Specifically, study authors found that for hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia who had experienced C. diff infections in the prior year, the use of doxycycline, instead of the more commonly used azithromycin, reduced the development ...

Orlando, Fla - If you’ve ever seen a movie or TV show in which a character has a seizure, you probably have a fairly standard mental picture of someone falling to the ground in full body convulsions while foaming at the mouth. But that doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. A new national survey by Orlando Health finds that while most Americans recognize those classic symptoms of what’s called a generalized tonic-clonic seizure, the majority fail to recognize the subtle signs, all of which can be dangerous and have a profound ...

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) continue to rank as the top killer in the modern world. This deadly disorder often starts with the buildup of lipid deposits or plaques within the blood vessel, silently setting the stage for atherosclerosis. Rupture of these atherosclerotic plaques, however, could clot blood vessels and lead to life-threatening conditions including heart attack or stroke. Dyslipidemia, meaning having too much “bad” or atherogenic lipids in the blood, represents the most common cause of CVDs and ...