The rising demand for tech jobs presents an outstanding opportunity for growth and inclusivity in the industry. Developing accessible training programs tailored for individuals with disabilities can foster a more diverse workforce. Florida Atlantic University’s College of Education and the College of Engineering and Computer Science have received a $9,961,460 grant from the United States Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to increase the capacity and participation of transition-age youths and working-age adults with disabilities in high demand technology jobs locally and nationally. ...

Tending a garden is hard work. Imagine it from the plants’ perspective. Each relies on fine-tuned genetic processes to pass down accurate copies of chromosomes to future generations. These processes sometimes involve billions of moving parts. Even the tiniest disruption can have a cascading effect. So, for plants like Arabidopsis thaliana, it’s good to have a backup plan. “Chromosomes have to be accurately partitioned every time a cell divides,” explains Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor and HHMI Investigator Rob Martienssen. “For that to happen, each chromosome has ...

Increasingly complex applications such as artificial intelligence require ever more powerful and power-hungry computers to run. Optical computing is a proposed solution to increase speed and power efficiency but has yet to be realized due to constraints and drawbacks. A new design architecture, called diffraction casting, seeks to address these shortcomings. It introduces some concepts to the field of optical computing that might make it more appealing for implementation in next-generation computing devices. Whether ...

Researchers have long observed that a common family of environmental bacteria, Comamonadacae, grow on plastics littered throughout urban rivers and wastewater systems. But what, exactly, these Comamonas bacteria are doing has remained a mystery. Now, Northwestern University-led researchers have discovered how cells of a Comamonas bacterium are breaking down plastic for food. First, they chew the plastic into small pieces, called nanoplastics. Then, they secrete a specialized enzyme that breaks down the plastic even further. Finally, the bacteria use a ring of carbon atoms from the plastic as a ...

10-2-24   Contacts: Sougata Roy, Mechanical Engineering, 515-294-5001, sroy@iastate.edu Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu   Researchers study 3D printing tungsten parts for extreme conditions in nuclear reactors   AMES, Iowa – Sougata Roy, who doesn’t study electrons or grids or wind turbines, has found a way to contribute to a clean-energy future.   “This work in advanced manufacturing, particularly in using additive manufacturing, is about making a difference,” ...

EMBARGOED: NOT FOR RELEASE UNTIL THURSDAY 3 OCTOBER AT 07:00 ET (12:00 UK TIME) An international team of researchers have made a promising breakthrough in the development of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s Disease. For the first time, scientists have developed a drug that works on both major aggregation-promoting ‘hotspots’ of the Tau protein - addressing a critical gap in current treatments. The drug, a peptide inhibitor called RI-AG03, was effective at preventing the build-up of Tau proteins - a key driver of neurodegeneration - in both lab and fruit fly studies. The ...

University of Copenhagen mathematicians have developed a recipe for upgrading quantum computers to simulate complex quantum systems, such as molecules. Their discovery brings us closer to being able to predict how new drugs will behave within our bodies and has the potential to revolutionize pharmaceutical development. Developing a new drug can take more than a decade and cost anywhere from hundreds of millions to billions of euro — with multiple failed attempts along the way. But what if we could predict how a drug worked ...

A new publication in Nature Reviews Methods Primers provides essential guidance for conducting rigorous systematic reviews on studies with animals and cells. It also highlights the benefits of these reviews, such as improving reproducibility and reducing animal use, and addresses potential pitfalls and recent advancements like review automation. Systematic reviews synthesize existing evidence in a scientific field to answer specific research questions in a structured and unbiased way. With over 100 million animals used in scientific ...

Oysters once formed extensive reefs along much of Europe's coastline – but these complex ecosystems were destroyed over a century ago, new research shows.   Based on documents from the 18th and 19th Centuries, the study reveals that European flat oysters formed large reefs of both living and dead shells, providing a habitat supporting rich biodiversity. Today these oysters are mostly found as scattered individuals – but the researchers found evidence of reefs almost everywhere, from Norway to the Mediterranean, covering at least 1.7 million hectares, an area larger than Northern Ireland. The research was ...

Utilizing one of the longest-running ecosystem experiments in the Arctic, a Colorado State University-led team of researchers have developed a better understanding of the interplay among plants, microbes and soil nutrients — findings that offer new insight into how critical carbon deposits may be released from thawing Arctic permafrost. Estimates suggest that Arctic soils contain nearly twice the amount of carbon that is currently in the atmosphere. As climate change has caused portions of Earth’s northernmost polar regions to thaw, scientists have long been concerned about significant amounts of carbon being released in the ...

The legacy of the Soviet Union’s collapse plays a greater role in the foreign policies of Georgia and Ukraine than previous studies have suggested. Conducting foreign policy in former Soviet countries can be a major challenge as the Russian state does not accept the new order. These are the findings outlined in the thesis of political scientist Per Ekman from Uppsala University. “To understand Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example, it is important to see the war as part of a longer historical event. Since their first day of independence, Georgia and Ukraine have had to deal with Russian ambitions to control the region. For many in the West, it took a ...

Oxford, UK – Genomic Press has released a captivating interview with Professor Robin Dunbar, the eminent evolutionary psychologist and anthropologist whose work has fundamentally altered our understanding of human social networks. Published in the Innovators and Ideas section of Genomic Psychiatry, this in-depth conversation offers unique insights into Professor Dunbar's scientific journey and the far-reaching implications of his research. Professor Dunbar, best known for conceptualizing "Dunbar's number" - the cognitive limit to the number of stable social relationships ...

Hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of liver cancer associated with hepatitis infections, is known to have a high recurrence rate after cancer removal. Recent advances in antiviral therapy have reduced the number of patients affected, but obesity and diabetes are factors in hepatocellular carcinoma prevalence. However, these factors’ effects on patient survival and cancer recurrence have been unclear. To gain insights, Dr. Hiroji Shinkawa’s research team at Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Medicine analyzed the relationship between diabetes mellitus, obesity, and postoperative outcomes in 1,644 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma ...

Duke-NUS introduces 35 innovative pictograms to make medication instructions clearer, especially for seniors. These visual aids are designed to ensure patients take their medications correctly and safely, with the aim of improving overall health outcomes. The team looks to collaborate with healthcare institutions and pharmacies to standardise pictograms portraying medication instructions across Singapore. SINGAPORE, 3 OCTOBER 2024 – Transforming patient care through clarity and simplicity, Duke-NUS Medical School has introduced visual aids or pictograms designed to make medication instructions clearer. ...

With the continuous development of nanotechnology, more artificial chiral nanomaterials have been constructed. As one of the most representative optical properties of these chiral nanomaterials, CD is a powerful sensing technology. Compared with other analytical methods, CD signal has higher sensitivity, but it cannot achieve in-situ imaging in vivo. Scientists have managed to prepare chiral nanocomposites with more diverse biological functional properties to compensate for this shortcoming. However, some chiral nanocomposites assembled by electrostatic adsorption or other methods are easily dissociated and destroyed in complex physiological environments, resulting in performance ...

FINDINGS A UCLA research team has created the Comorbid Operative Risk Evaluation (CORE) score to better account for the role chronic illness plays in patient's risk of mortality after operation, allowing surgeons to adjust to patients’ pre-existing conditions and more easily determine mortality risk.   BACKGROUND For almost 40 years, researchers have used two tools, the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and Elixhauser Comorbidity Index (ECI), to measure the impact of existing health conditions on patient outcomes. These tools use ICD codes that are input by medical professionals and billers to account for patient illness. These ...

Mount Sinai Health System today announced that Mount Sinai BioDesign, the medical technology incubator of the Health System, has expanded its reach to become a key, effective partner for the broader MedTech community. Through synergistic partnerships between clinicians, technologists, and industry partners, Mount Sinai BioDesign is able to offer an array of services, including expert clinical and engineering feedback, preclinical trial development and execution, data gathering and analysis, and pivotal clinical study management. Mount Sinai BioDesign has already established several mature partnerships that have ...

Study Reveals Limits of Using Land Surface Temperature to Explain Heat Hazards in Miami-Dade County The findings underscore the importance of further research to enhance our understanding of urban heat dynamics in subtropical and tropical regions, ensuring that heat mitigation efforts are informed by the most accurate data available. A recent study published in the journal PLOS Climate on October 2, 2024, examines the effectiveness of using land surface temperatures (LSTs) as proxies for ...

First in-depth forecasts of future worldwide health impacts of smoking reveal potential effects of eliminating smoking on life expectancy and premature deaths by 2050. Based on current trends, global smoking rates could continue to decrease to 21.1% in males and 4.18% in females by 2050. Analysis indicates accelerating actions towards the elimination of smoking globally would increase life expectancy and prevent millions of premature deaths, resulting in 876 million fewer years of life lost (YLLs).  Reducing smoking rates to 5% by 2050 would increase life expectancy by one year among males and 0.2 years among females ...

Analysis of the impact on lung cancer deaths of banning tobacco sales in people born between 2006 and 2010 indicates 1.2 million deaths could be avoided.   The findings suggest the creation of a tobacco-free generation could prevent almost half (45.8%) of future lung cancer deaths in men, and around one-third (30.9%) in women, in this birth cohort. Nearly two-thirds (65.1%) of the deaths averted would be in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Close to two-thirds (61.1%) of all lung cancer deaths in high-income countries would be avoided.  Creating a generation of people who never smoke could prevent 1.2 million deaths from lung cancer globally, according ...

  The number of adults vaping in England who have never regularly smoked has increased sharply since 2021, when disposable e-cigarettes first became popular, according to a new study by UCL researchers. The study, published in Lancet Public Health and funded by Cancer Research UK, estimated that, as of April 2024, about one million adults who had never regularly smoked now vaped in England, a sevenfold increase since 2021, with most of them vaping daily and over a sustained period. This increase was largely driven by young adults, ...

New research has found methane emissions from slurry stores on dairy farms may be up to five times greater than official statistics suggest - and highlights the huge potential for turning them into a renewable energy source.  The study shows that if captured and turned into biogas, emitted methane could be worth more than £400m a year to the dairy sector in saved fuel costs, or around £52,500 for an average-sized dairy farm.   Capture technology already exists, and if rolled out across the EU dairy herd, the conversion of methane to biofuel could reduce emissions equivalent to an estimated 5.8% of the ...

    UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01 AM (UK TIME) ON THURSDAY 3RD OCTOBER 2024   A rare collection of 300-year-old petitions gives voice to the forgotten women who cared for England’s most vulnerable children while battling their local authorities.   ‘Confirm the said yearly annuity or otherwise the child is very like to be famished & starved’ – Ellen Fell (1665) 'Taking pity of them for fear they should be starved to death for want of food [I] did table & receive the said three Children' - Anne Beesley (1671)   Today, the UK faces a major retention ...

Polar sea ice is ever-changing. It shrinks, expands, moves, breaks apart, reforms in response to changing seasons, and rapid climate change. It is far from a homogenous layer of frozen water on the ocean’s surface, but rather a dynamic mix of water and ice, as well as minute pockets of air and brine encased in the ice. New research led by University of Utah mathematicians and climate scientists is generating fresh models for understanding two critical processes in the sea ice system that have profound influences on global climate: the flux of heat through sea ice, thermally linking the ocean and atmosphere, and the dynamics of the ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (10/2/2024) — The University of Minnesota Medical School recently received a five-year, $3.2 million R01 grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases for a project that will study the epigenetic factors of low back pain. Low back pain affects 619 million people globally and is the single leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. This chronic pain impacts people of all ages and can affect quality of life and mental well-being.  Epigenetics refers to biological processes that affect how genes work without altering the DNA itself. These changes can ...