Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their colleagues have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye’s light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though IRDs affect more than 2 million people worldwide, each individual disease is rare, complicating efforts to identify enough people to study and conduct clinical trials to develop treatment. The study’s findings published today in JAMA Ophthalmology. In a small study of six unrelated participants, researchers linked the gene UBAP1L to different forms of ...

In some mammals, the timing of the normally continuous embryonic development can be altered to improve the chances of survival for both the embryo and the mother. This mechanism to temporarily slow development, called embryonic diapause, often happens at the blastocyst stage, just before the embryo implants in the uterus. During diapause, the embryo remains free-floating and pregnancy is extended. This dormant state can be maintained for weeks or months before development is resumed, when conditions are favorable. Although not all mammals use this reproductive ...

In both the natural world and human society, there commonly exist complex systems such as climate systems, ecological systems, and network systems. Due to the involvement of numerous interacting elements, complex systems can stay in multiple different states, and their overall behavior generally exhibits randomness and high disorder. For example, due to the complex interactions between factors such as solar radiation, terrain, and ocean currents, the climate system can exhibit various states like sunny, cloudy, and rainy. The dynamic changes and mutual influences of these factors make the behavior of the climate highly uncertain and difficult to predict accurately. For instance, the formation ...

Washington, September 26, 2024—The number of educational opportunities that children accrue at home, in early education and care, at school, in afterschool programs, and in their communities as they grow up are strongly linked to their educational attainment and earnings in early adulthood, according to new research. The results indicate that the large opportunity gaps between low- and high-income households from birth through the end of high school largely explain differences in educational and income achievement ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE Thursday, September 26, 2024 - 9 a.m. EDT Contact: NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison NIH News Media Branch 301-496-5787 Statement by NIH on Research Misconduct Findings   Following an investigation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made findings of research misconduct against Eliezer Masliah, M.D., due to falsification and/or fabrication involving re-use and relabel of figure panels representing different experimental results in two publications. NIH will notify the two journals of its findings so that appropriate action can be taken. NIH initiated its research misconduct review process ...

WASHINGTON—Pregnant women who do not get enough sleep may be at higher risk of having children with neurodevelopmental delays, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Short sleep duration (SSD) is defined as sleeping less than seven hours per night. Pregnant woman may have trouble sleeping due to hormonal changes, pregnancy discomfort, frequent urination, and other factors. It’s been reported that almost 40% of pregnant women have SSD. These women may have ...

Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects ― the most detailed one ever made. Using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope, the team monitored the central regions of our Galaxy over more than 13 years. At 500 terabytes of data, this is the largest observational project ever carried out with an ESO telescope. “We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our Galaxy forever,” says Dante Minniti, ...

Milan (Italy), 26 September 2024 - A toothpaste-based transistor is the latest innovation from the research team at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) in Milan, which pushes the boundaries of edible electronics. This innovative nano-device is expected to become a key component of future smart pills, designed to monitor health conditions from within the body and then safely dissolve after completing their function. The research findings have been published in the journal Advanced Science. Several commercial toothpaste formulations contain crystals of copper phthalocyanine, a blue pigment that acts as a whitening ...

The diverse biochemical composition of Japanese apricot fruits explains their broad spectrum of action on the human body. The high levels of key phenolic compounds and hydroxycinnamic acids contribute to various health benefits including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties. A recent study published in Food Research International on July 19, 2024, led by Prof. Yukiharu Ogawa and Jutalak Suwannachot from Chiba University, quantitatively evaluated the changes in phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity during the production of Shiso-zuke Umeboshi (PP). The study also simulated the digestive process to characterize the release of these compounds and ...

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the second most common neurodegenerative disorder globally, has long baffled scientists with its progressive nature and debilitating effects on motor function. A recent study from the School of Medicine at Fujita Health University has brought new insights into the metabolic disruptions experienced by patients with PD. By analyzing the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of the patients, researchers have discovered critical impairments in purine metabolism and the recycling of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)—the molecule responsible for energy production in cells. For years, scientists have noted the decreased levels ...

Busy with work and other obligations, some people concentrate their moderate-to-vigorous exercise in one or two days of the week or weekend. A study led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, has found that this “weekend warrior” pattern of exercise is associated with lower risk of developing 264 future diseases and was just as effective at decreasing risk as more evenly distributed exercise activity. Results are published in Circulation. “Physical activity is known to affect risk of many diseases,” said ...

Vaccination coverage for COVID-19 is high in both people with and without mental illness, according to a large multinational study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in Nature Communications. However, Swedish registry data revealed that individuals with unmedicated mental illness have lower vaccination levels. The researchers analysed data from seven studies in five countries (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, and Scotland) as part of the COVIDMENT consortium, totalling just over 325,000 individuals, and registry data from Sweden including over ...

The discovery of an Earth-like planet 4,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy provides a preview of one possible fate for our planet billions of years in the future, when the sun has turned into a white dwarf, and a blasted and frozen Earth has migrated beyond the orbit of Mars. This distant planetary system, identified by University of California, Berkeley, astronomers after observations with the Keck 10-meter telescope in Hawaii, looks very similar to expectations for the sun-Earth system: it consists of a white dwarf about half the mass of the sun and an Earth-size companion in an orbit twice as large as Earth’s today. That is likely to be Earth’s fate. ...

Rockville, MD ̶ ̶ When a woman becomes pregnant, her iron requirements increase almost tenfold to support fetal development as well as her own increased iron needs.  Her ability to meet these increased iron needs depends on her iron stores at the beginning of the pregnancy as well as the physiological adaptations that enhance iron absorption as pregnancy progresses.  These physiological adaptations, however, are not always enough to support a pregnant woman’s iron needs, especially ...

Four out of five pregnant women in Ireland are iron deficient by their third trimester, a University College Cork (UCC) study reveals. Researchers at the Irish Centre for Maternal and Child Health (INFANT) and School of Food and Nutritional Sciences in UCC have shown that over 80% of women are iron deficient by their third trimester.    The findings raise concerns as the participants in the study were a low-risk and generally healthy cohort. Iron deficiency during pregnancy is linked to increased risks of complications for both mother and child, including neurodevelopmental challenges for the baby.   This study is the largest of its kind globally and was ...

Research at UMC Utrecht has identified 29 novel antibodies against the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae, an important cause of drug-resistant infections. Using genetic and functional approaches, the researchers also managed to unravel how these antibodies interact with antigens on the bacterial surface. Finally, they found that some of these novel antibodies act synergistically to neutralize this pathogen. The increasing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) urgently calls for the development of alternative ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sept.  26, 2024 — Most Americans agree their community is in need of more affordable housing, healthcare and social supports and services to help residents remain living independently as they age, according to a new survey from West Health and Gallup. Sixty-five percent of Americans perceive a need for more affordable housing and 60% say there is a need for more affordable healthcare and social supports and services. The new West Health-Gallup research comes as the ...

Off the coast of Chile, in waters filled with krill and anchovy by the Humboldt Current system, live an elusive and little-known population of orcas. Thanks to citizen science and years of dedicated surveillance, a team of scientists led by Dr Ana García Cegarra of the Universidad de Antofagasta are unveiling their secrets — starting with dinner.   García Cegarra’s team, who previously observed these orcas using fishing boats to help them capture sea lions, have now spotted them successfully hunting dusky dolphins for the first time and sharing the food among the pod. This new evidence about their eating habits may help experts understand how populations ...

Amongst women who experience recurrent pregnancy loss, around 20% test positive for a specific antibody that targets the mother’s own body. A Kobe University-led research team now found a treatment that drastically increases these women’s chances of carrying to full-term without complications. Recurrent pregnancy loss is a condition of women who have lost two or more pregnancies for non-obvious reasons. The Kobe University obstetrician TANIMURA Kenji and his team have previously found that in 20% of these women, they can detect a specific antibody in ...

In recent years, the world has seen a recurrence of extreme floods and droughts due to climate change. In response to this, aquifer storage technology is being used for actual water supply in countries such as the United States, the Netherlands, and Australia. In South Korea, it rains intensively in the summer and extreme rainfall occurs, causing increasing difficulties in water supply in rural areas and island areas other than urban areas. In this situation, aquifer storage technology is attracting attention as a way to stably store and supply water. Dr. Seongpil Jeong and Kyungjin Cho of the Center for Water Cycle Research at the Korea ...

Buprenorphine, an evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder, is currently underprescribed because of concerns that it can cause ‘precipitated withdrawal’, in which the first dose causes sudden, intense pain and anxiety that resolves within a few hours.  A new review of the best available evidence has found that the rate of buprenorphine-precipitated withdrawal in adults with opioid use disorder is low and should not be a barrier to use.  The review is published in the scientific journal Addiction. Lead author Dr Caroline Gregory, of the University of Ottawa, explains: “There is a lot of speculation ...

NEW YORK, NY—September 26, 2024—Today FAIR Health released the Opioid Tracker, a free, interactive tool tracking opioid abuse and dependence state by state. A brief released simultaneously offers a user’s guide to the Opioid Tracker. Available on FAIR Health’s website fairhealth.org, the Opioid Tracker includes a heat map representing the percentage of patients with opioid abuse and dependence diagnoses compared to all patients receiving medical services in 2023 for each state. Clicking on a state displays an infographic for ...

With the global population ageing rapidly, sarcopenia, a condition that affects millions of older adults and severely diminishes their quality of life, is emerging as an urgent public health issue. Now, a new discovery by scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School could lead to improved treatments for the condition. In the study, published in the journal Autophagy, the scientists found that the levels of a certain type of protein, called DEAF1 (Deformed epidermal autoregulatory factor-1), need to be maintained within optimal levels ...

Severe autoimmune conditions such Type I diabetes, Addison’s disease, lupus and inflammatory bowel disease, are between two to three times more common in women who have been diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) compared to the general population.   The research, published today (Thursday) in Human Reproduction, one of the world’s leading reproductive medicine journals, is the largest to investigate the link between autoimmune conditions and POI, has followed nearly 20,000 women for ...

Remote video consultations between patients and mental health specialists show a small but significant improvement on symptoms of depression and anxiety, finds a trial published by The BMJ today.   Although the effect size is small, the researchers say the effect is still meaningful given the high levels of these disorders in the community. Globally, depression and anxiety disorders are among the top leading causes of years lived with disability, but most people with depression and anxiety ...