People have used self-portraits to communicate information about themselves for centuries — and digital cameras make it easier to share a self-portrait than ever before. But even though selfies are now almost ubiquitous, we don’t understand how people use them to communicate. So scientists from the University of Bamberg set out to investigate the semantics of selfies. “Although the term ‘selfies’ is now celebrating its 21st birthday, and although selfies are known in art history for nearly 200 years in photography and more than 500 years in paintings, we still lack a clear classification of the different types of selfies,” ...

Imagine a world without powders. It may sound exaggerated, but our daily lives are intricately connected to powders in various ways from foods, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics to batteries, ceramics, etc. In all these industries, powder mixing is an important unit operation where different types of powders are mixed to achieve uniformity. However, it can be difficult to predict what conditions are optimal to achieve the desired uniformity as the process often relies on trial and error as well as engineers’ expertise. Numerical ...

About 80% of residents in the Lower Mainland, British Columbia, had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 by July 2023 and were at low risk for severe outcomes, but almost half of the oldest adults remained uninfected and were at highest risk of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230721. The findings underscore the need to continue prioritizing older adults for COVID-19 vaccination. "First-ever SARS-CoV-2 infections among older adults may still contribute substantial COVID-19 burden, reinforcing ...

High engagement, high return. That’s the advice from education experts at the University of South Australia for teachers looking to improve student outcomes.   In a new study conducted in partnership with Flinders University and Melbourne Graduate School of Education, researchers found that less than a third of teachers are engaging students in complex learning, limiting student opportunities for building critical thinking and problem solving.   Filming and assessing* the content of classrooms ...

On-orbit assembly has become a crucial aspect of space operations, where the manipulator frequently and directly interacts with objects in a complex assembly process. The traditional manipulator control has limitations in adapting to diverse assembly tasks and is vulnerable to vibration, leading to assembly failure. To address this issue, Researchers at Beijing Institute of Technology propose a human-like variable admittance control method based on the variable damping characteristics of the human arm. This method can effectively increase the safety, robustness, ...

A groundbreaking scientific study conducted along the Southeast coast of India has unearthed a pressing environmental concern -the increasing risk of invasive species colonization on marine debris. The research, published recently in Marine Pollution Bulletin, delves into the critical interplay between plastic pollution and the introduction of non-indigenous organisms into Indian waters. In recent years, the surge in anthropogenic litter in the ocean has provided an extensive array of substrates for marine ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used fruit flies to study how daily eating patterns are regulated. They found that the quasimodo (qsm) gene helped sync feeding to light/dark cycles, but not in constant darkness: instead, the genes clock (clk) and cycle (cyc) keep eating/fasting cycles, while other “clocks” in nerve cells help sync it to days. Deciphering the molecular mechanism behind eating cycles helps us understand animal behavior, including our own. Many members of the animal kingdom eat at roughly the same times each day. This is born out of the need to adapt to aspects of the environment, including ...

Experts in the Texas A&M University Department of Geography are teaming up with civil and chemical engineers and water resource, disaster recovery and public health researchers across the campus in a collaborative effort to better safeguard Texas Gulf Coast communities against climate-related emergencies, fueled by a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Academies Gulf Research Program (GRP). The project, titled "Climate-LEAD: Climate Effects on Localized Environmental Health Disparities in Overburdened Texas Communities along Gulf Coast," is ...

Cedars-Sinai Cancer investigators have found that Black men respond as well as white men to systemic therapies for advanced prostate cancer when access to quality healthcare is equal, regardless of socioeconomic status. Their study, published today in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Oncology, counters previous research suggesting that Black men receiving these therapies—which include hormone therapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy—fare worse than white men do. “We believe this is the most comprehensive look at this issue to date, and our findings suggest that, under the right conditions, Black men with metastatic ...

University of Maryland researchers studying how lithium batteries fail have developed a new technology that could enable next-generation electric vehicles (EVs) and other devices that are less prone to battery fires while increasing energy storage. The innovative method, presented in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suppresses the growth of lithium dendrites—damaging branch-like structures that develop inside so-called all-solid-state lithium batteries, preventing firms from broadly commercializing the promising technology. But this new design for a battery “interlayer,” led by Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering ...

Holographic imaging has always been challenged by unpredictable distortions in dynamic environments. Traditional deep learning methods often struggle to adapt to diverse scenes due to their reliance on specific data conditions. To tackle this problem, researchers at Zhejiang University delved into the intersection of optics and deep learning, uncovering the key role of physical priors in ensuring the alignment of data and pre-trained models. They explored the impact of spatial coherence and turbulence on holographic ...

DALLAS, October 27, 2023 — Approximately 50 million people in the United States are at higher risk for heart disease and/or stroke because they lack the most basic needs — healthy food, clean air and drinking water, quality education, employment, housing and access to health care. Historically, people of color -- including Black and Hispanic/Latino people, are at even higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) for these same reasons. Through the American Heart Association’s 2023 EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator™, three local social entrepreneurs ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The most lethal feature of any cancer is metastasis, the spread of cancer cells throughout the body. New research led by Penn State reveals for the first time the mechanics behind how breast cancer cells may invade healthy tissues. The discovery, showing that a motor protein called dynein powers the movement of cancer cells in soft tissue models, offers new clinical targets against metastasis and has the potential to fundamentally change how cancer is treated. “This discovery marks a paradigm shift in many ways,” said Erdem Tabdanov, assistant professor of pharmacology at Penn State and a lead co-corresponding author on the study, recently published ...

Two-thousand years ago, forts were constructed by the Roman Empire across the northern Fertile Crescent, spanning from what is now western Syria to northwestern Iraq. In the 1920s, 116 forts were documented in the region by Father Antoine Poidebard, who conducted one of the world's first aerial surveys using a WWI-era biplane. Poidebard reported that the forts were constructed from north to south to establish an eastern boundary of the Roman Empire. A new Dartmouth study analyzing declassified Cold War satellite ...

JMIR Neurotechnology, published by JMIR Publications, welcomes submissions from researchers, clinicians, caregivers, and technologists that explore novel diagnostic and treatment tools for neurological disorders, particularly those leveraging the potential of neurotechnology. The scope of the journal includes but is not limited to: Neuroradiology Advancements in neurosurgery Innovative diagnostic tools and techniques Cutting-edge neurotechnology for therapeutics Data sharing and open science in neurotechnology Code ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine, University of Utah and University of Exeter (UK) substantiates previous groundbreaking research that rumination (overthinking) can be reduced through an intervention called Rumination-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (RF-CBT). In addition, the use of fMRI technology allowed researchers to observe correlated shifts in the brain connectivity associated with overthinking. Study findings are published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science. “We know adolescent ...

A new Antarctic ice sheet modeling study from scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggests that meltwater flowing out to sea from beneath Antarctic glaciers is making them lose ice faster.  The model’s simulations suggest this effect is large enough to make a meaningful contribution to global sea-level rise under high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.  The extra ice loss caused by this meltwater flowing out to sea from beneath Antarctic glaciers is not currently accounted for in the models generating major sea-level ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – More than merely cracks in the ice, crevasses play an important role in circulating seawater beneath Antarctic ice shelves, potentially influencing their stability, finds Cornell University-led research based on a first-of-its-kind exploration by an underwater robot. The remotely operated Icefin robot’s climb up and down a crevasse in the base of the Ross Ice Shelf produced the first 3D measurements of ocean conditions near where it meets the coastline, a critical juncture known as the grounding zone. The robotic survey revealed a new circulation pattern – a jet funneling water sideways through the crevasse – in addition to rising and sinking currents, ...

A team led by CNRS scientists1 has discovered that, just like humans, Guinea baboons develop complex strategies to select partners for cooperation, basing their decisions on past interactions. Humans naturally engage in strategic cooperation in many contexts. For example, when children help schoolmates by lending them their class notes, they may expect the same in return the next time: this is known as reciprocity. But if the favour is not returned, they are likely to seek others with whom to cooperate. The team’s findings ...

Imperial researchers have discovered a hidden mechanism within hair follicles that allow us to feel touch. Previously, touch was thought to be detected only by nerve endings present within the skin and surrounding hair follicles. This new research from Imperial College London has found that that cells within hair follicles – the structures that surround the hair fibre – are also able to detect the sensation in cell cultures. The researchers also found that these hair follicle cells release the neurotransmitters histamine and serotonin in response to touch – findings that ...

A new large-scale study led by researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Northwell Health, New York's largest health care provider, found the drug metformin can help prevent or reduce weight gain in youth taking medication to treat bipolar disorder. The collaborative team presented its findings during a symposium at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry conference in New York City Oct. 27. Weight gain side effect Medications to treat bipolar disorder, known as second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs), are often effective at helping young ...

By April Toler More than two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2050, according to the United Nations. As urbanization advances around the globe, researchers at the University of Notre Dame and Stanford University said the quality of the urban physical environment will become increasingly critical to human well-being and to sustainable development initiatives. However, measuring and tracking the quality of an urban environment, its evolution and its spatial disparities is difficult due to the amount of on-the-ground data needed to capture these patterns. To address the issue, Yong Suk Lee, assistant professor of technology, ...

A new sounding rocket mission is headed to space to understand how explosive stellar deaths lay the groundwork for new star systems. The Integral Field Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Experiment, or INFUSE, sounding rocket mission, will launch from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Oct. 29, 2023, at 9:35 p.m. MDT. For a few months each year, the constellation Cygnus (Latin for “swan”) swoops through the northern hemisphere’s night sky. Just above its wing is a favorite target ...

INDIANAPOLIS—Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine will play key roles in a national consortium led by Wake Forest University School of Medicine to study the use, interpretation and implementation of biomarkers to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. The multi-institution effort is funded by a five-year, $9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, that will establish the Alzheimer’s Diagnosis in Older Adults with Chronic Conditions (ADACC) Network. IU School of Medicine’s Nicole Fowler, ...

After open public discussion and a unanimous board vote, Tri-City Healthcare District (“Tri-City” or “District”) announced yesterday that UC San Diego Health has been selected as the District’s future health care partner. A Joint Powers Agreement will now be co-developed that allows UC San Diego Health to provide administrative, clinical and operational management for all health care services with direct input and guidance from a diverse community board. Under the future agreement, UC San Diego ...