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 ...

SAN ANTONIO, Oct. 2, 2024 – The Caring for the Caregiver Program (C4CP) of the School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) has earned a national award for its comprehensive education and support for families living with dementia. The 5TH Annual Maude’s Awards were announced in Seattle, rewarding innovations that enrich the quality of life for persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, as well as their care partners. The award was created in 2019 by Richard Ferry, co-founder of management consulting firm Korn Ferry International, ...

If you started watching a movie from the middle without knowing its plot, you’d likely be better at inferring what had happened earlier than predicting what will happen next, according to a new Dartmouth-led study published in Nature Communications. Prior research has found that humans are usually equally good at guessing about the unknown past and future. However, those studies have relied on very simple sequences of numbers, images, or shapes, rather than on more realistic scenarios. "Events in real life have complex associations relating to time that haven't typically been captured in past work, so we wanted to explore how people make inferences ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, October 2, 2024 Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## Sexual and Gender Minorities More Likely to Experience Life Dissatisfaction, Isolation, Stress A new study found that sexual and gender minority adults in the US were more likely to report multiple social risk factors than heterosexual and cisgender adults, highlighting the need for policies that advance the health and socioeconomic well-being of these groups. Until last year, few national surveys collected information about the prevalence of social risk factors—individual-level adverse experiences such as food insecurity ...

The SWOG S1011 randomized phase 3 trial found no significant improvement in disease-free or overall survival but a higher rate of grade 3-4 adverse events and an increased risk of death in the 90 days after surgery. The findings, published in NEJM, should establish a standard bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy that includes the external and internal iliac and obturator nodes as the standard of care for these patients. Final results from the SWOG S1011 randomized phase 3 clinical trial, just published ...

A new book from Cam Brewer, Herb Hammond and SFU Resource and Environmental Management director, Sean Markey explores a nature-directed approach to stewardship that enhances cities, restores our relationships with nature and helps to rebuild our relationships with each other. Situated in the understanding that both people and nature belong in urban spaces, and guided by principles of nature, equity and density, Nature- First Cities offers a vision for reestablishing our relationship with nature in cities. This book is of particular interest to urban planners, ...

The COVID-19 vaccine, introduced in December 2022, played a critical role in reducing mortality and morbidity related to the pandemic globally. Yet, by 2023, only 70% of the US population had completed the primary vaccination series. While factors such as race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, geography and political affiliations have been linked to vaccination rates, its relationship with characteristics of health care delivery sites like community health care centers (CHCs), has not been explored. CHCs, which provide comprehensive primary care to low-income populations, including COVID-19 vaccines, are key players in ...

SAN ANTONIO — October 2, 2024 —The Southwest Research Institute-developed Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) has been delivered and integrated into a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite dedicated to tracking space weather. SWiPS will measure the properties of ions originating from the Sun, including the very fast ions associated with coronal mass ejections that interact with the Earth’s magnetic environment. NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite will orbit the Sun at ...

CRISPR-Cas systems help to protect bacteria from viruses. Several different types of CRISPR-Cas defense systems are found in bacteria, which differ in their composition and functions. Among them, the most studied proteins today are Cas9 and Cas12, also known as DNA or ‘gene scissors’, which have revolutionized the field of genome editing, enabling scientists to edit genomes and correct disease-causing mutations precisely. Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology at the Life Sciences Center of Vilnius University – ...

Global evidence has revealed that women’s environmental quality of life is key to their overall quality of life and health, according to a study published October 2, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Suzanne Skevington from the University of Manchester, U.K., and colleagues. Gender inequalities in health-related quality of life are generally few and small, even in large surveys. Yet many generic measures limit assessment to quality of life overall and its physical and psychological dimensions, while overlooking internationally important environmental, ...

A new analysis assesses the heterogeneity of factors linked with happiness among single Americans who are just entering adulthood, highlighting a particularly strong link between happiness and satisfying friendships. Lisa Walsh of the University of California, Los Angeles, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 2, 2024. Prior research suggests that Americans in their early 20s may be less happy, on average, than at other points in their lives. Meanwhile, a growing percentage of young adults are not in long-term romantic relationships, and researchers are increasingly studying single people as a distinct ...

Wild banana relatives of mainland Southeast Asia reveal hidden diversity and the urgent need to preserve nature’s genetic resources for future crops ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307592 Article Title: Musa species in mainland Southeast Asia: From wild to domesticate Author Countries: France, U.S., Vietnam, Lao P.D.R., China Funding: This study was funded by the Sud Expert Plantes Développement Durable programme through the DivBa SEP2D project (AAP3-97) and the BforBB open science project supported by the Agropolis Fondation under the reference ID 1605-011 through the “Investissements ...

A century of data uncovers how chestnut blight has devastated the American chestnut - and how forest composition has evolved since - in Shenanoah National Park, Virginia ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0306748 Article Title: Floristic changes following the chestnut blight may be delayed for decades Author Countries: U.S. Funding: We were funded by the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. This is a small organization that gives out only a few small awards each year. We do not have a specific grant number associated with this award. ...

Migration in adolescence may double the risk of psychosis in later life, and present even larger risk for migrants from racially minoritized young people, new data from five European countries suggests.  #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/mentalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmen.0000134 Article Title: Age-at-migration, ethnicity and psychosis risk: Findings from the EU-GEI case-control study Author Countries: Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom Funding: The EU-GEI Study was funded by grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI) from the European ...

Small iron-rich formations found within Western Australia’s Pinnacles, which are part of the world’s largest wind-blown limestone belt spanning more than 1000km, have provided new insights into Earth’s ancient climate and changing landscape.   The new research found the pinnacles were formed about 100,000 years ago during what was the wettest period in the past half-million years for the area, and very different from the Mediterranean climate Western Australia experiences today.   Lead author ...

Countries affected by severe climate change may also have a higher prevalence of violence against women, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in PLOS Climate, examined how climate shocks – such as storms, landslides and floods – might be linked to higher rates of intimate partner violence in the two years following the event. The researchers gathered data on intimate partner violence from 363 surveys conducted in 156 countries between 1993 and 2019, focusing on women who currently had a partner. Intimate partner violence was defined as any physical and/or sexual violence in ...

Networks, which include nodes and connections, can help researchers model dynamic systems like the spread of disease or how the brain processes information. Pairwise interactions between nodes can represent links between individuals  — how two neurons connect with one another in the brain, for example — but scientists also study interactions involving three or more nodes. These higher-order interactions reveal changes and phenomena beyond those found by looking only at pairs.  Yuanzhao Zhang, an SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow, has studied how higher-order ...

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have identified a new potential risk marker for cardiovascular disease in women. A new study shows an association between low levels of an anti-inflammatory antibody and the risk of heart attack and coronary heart disease. The study is published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for both women and men in Sweden. However, research on women's heart health has historically been neglected. Women are affected later in life and have more risk factors such ...

Climate change-related landslides, storms and floods are associated with intimate partner violence against women two years after the event, according to a study published October 2 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Jenevieve Mannell from University College London and colleagues. Low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately impacted by climate change’s acute (e.g., flooding) and chronic (e.g., rising sea levels) effects. Countries undergoing climate shocks are more likely to see increased intimate partner violence against women, possibly because climate disasters ...

Governments and other policymakers around the world wrestle with how to deal with people who are sceptical of official positions and guidelines, such as climate sceptics and antivaxxers. Earlier research has linked such scepticism to distrust of scientists among members of the public, while other studies have shown that it is difficult to erode sceptical attitudes that are psychologically motivated by factors such as bias against elite institutions or a conservative world view. New research from the University of Cambridge, reported in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests a more tailored approach could help ...

Electric vehicle owners on average are richer, drive more than the general population, and have a higher than average carbon footprint due to higher disposable income—but owning an EV reduces their traffic related emissions, and their personal experience of EVs is linked with positive attitudes and purchase intentions #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000346 Article Title: But can it drive to Lapland? A comparison of electric vehicle owners with the general population for identification of attitudes, concerns and barriers related to electric vehicle adoption in Finland Author Countries: ...

The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is hosting a free webinar, “Toward Brain-Based Prediction of Recovery: How Neuroimaging Can Help Combat the Substance-Use Epidemic” on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 2:00 pm ET. The presenter, Sarah W. Yip, Ph.D., MSc, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and the Director of the Yale Imaging and Psychopharmacology (YIP) Lab. Her lab uses neuropsychiatric research methods to identify biological mechanisms of mood disorders, addictions, and their treatments. The webinar ...

Nanoporous membranes with atomic-scale holes smaller than one-billionth of a meter have powerful potential for decontaminating polluted water, pulling valuable metal ions from the water, or for osmotic power generators. But these exciting applications have been limited in part by the tedious process of tunneling individual sub-nanometer pores one by one. “If we are to ever scale up 2D material membranes to be relevant for applications outside the laboratory, the ‘one pore at a time’ method just isn't feasible,” said recent UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) PhD graduate Eli ...

Historically, a university’s primary role has been to ensure students excel academically, but higher education can also change lives by supporting their well-being. Despite growing evidence of the importance of student well-being and an abundance of best practices, most institutions have yet to prioritize it as much as they do enrollment, graduation and grades.  A new study led by University of Maine researchers provides guidance on how institutions can support and enhance student well-being, and breaks down the various benefits for learners during and beyond their university career. It was published in PNAS Nexus, the ...

Living with dementia in communities with senior centers providing access to adult day health and social services was associated with fewer hospitalizations and lower health care use and Medicare costs, according to researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and the University of Massachusetts Boston. The results, published in Heath Affairs Scholar, underscore the potential of senior centers in minimizing health care costs and acute care usage among those with dementia, particularly in smaller communities where centers provide access to such services. “Our findings provide evidence to support ...