A form of computerised attention and memory training can improve impaired attention and memory issues in women treated for breast cancer, University of Reading researchers have found. ‘Chemo-brain’ refers to cognitive problems like forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, and lapses in everyday attention, which are common side effects of breast cancer treatments including chemotherapy. The findings, published in the journal Psycho-Oncology, suggest that an adaptive “dual memory tracking” training program may help breast cancer survivors cope ...

Large chunks of the Navajo Nation in the Southwest lack access to clean drinkable water, a trend that has been rising in many parts of the U.S. in recent years. A research team led by engineers with The University of Texas at Austin aims to change that. The team has developed a new water filtration solution for members of the Navajo Nation, lining clay pots with pine tree resin collected from the Navajo Nation and incorporating tiny, silver-based particles that can be used to purify water to make it drinkable. “Making water filtration technology cheap doesn’t solve ...

NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment, or AWE, mission is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in November 2023, where it will make use of a natural, ethereal glow in Earth's sky to study waves in our planet's atmosphere. Built by Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory in North Logan, Utah, AWE will be mounted on the exterior of the space station. From this perch, AWE will stare down toward Earth, tracking undulations in the air known as atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs). Primarily ...

Scientists may be on the verge of taking a big step closer to the net-zero carbon emissions goal, thanks to University of Houston research into algae. Hidden potential is being revealed in the major algae studies at the microbial products lab, located at UH at Sugar Land. The research project is detailed in a newly published article in Green Chemistry, a journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Venkatesh Balan, associate professor of engineering technology in UH’s Cullen College of Engineering’s Division of Technology, is ...

JMIR Infodemiology Editor-in-Chief: Tim Ken Mackey, MAS, PhD welcomes submissions to a special theme issue “Exploring the Intersection Between Health Information, Disinformation, and Generative AI Technologies.” JMIR Infodemiology, currently indexed in PubMed Central, PubMed, Scopus, DOAJ, and CABI, is a peer-reviewed premier journal in the field of infodemiology, health information, data science, and misinformation and is inviting submissions from different disciplines of health communication, public health, informatics, data science, social ...

Yale School of Nursing (YSN) has received a landmark gift — the largest single donation in the school’s history. The $11.1 million gift from a generous anonymous donor was announced on Sept. 21 by Azita Emami, dean of the Yale School of Nursing, at an event kicking off the school’s yearlong centennial celebration (September 2023–May 2024). This endowed gift will support the YSN Community Scholars program, providing full-tuition scholarships to six students each year in the Master of Science in Nursing ...

A Principals’ meeting of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) has confirmed that HyProMag Ltd, which uses a technology developed by the University of Birmingham’s Magnetic Materials Group has been selected as one of the projects that will help to develop responsible critical mineral supply chains. Formed in 2022 by 14 governments, the Mineral Security Partnership (MSP) aims to ensure adequate supplies of minerals such as rare earths to meet net zero-carbon goals. It aims to support public and private sector investments building diverse, secure, and responsible global critical minerals supply chains. HyProMag was one ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have identified a small molecule named 5D4 that can suppress the growth of breast and ovarian cancers in animal models. 5D4 works by binding to TopBP1 protein in cancer cells, disrupting its interactions with several pathways that promote cancer growth. Combining 5D4 with another cancer inhibitor, talazoparib, enhances the effectiveness of the anti-cancer activity. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, strongly supports continuing the investigation toward further developing this strategy for clinical use. “Cancer development involves many steps of genetic alterations and signaling ...

When targeting problem proteins involved in causing or spreading disease, a drug will often clog up a protein’s active site so it can’t function and wreak havoc. New strategies for dealing with these proteins can send these proteins to different types of cellular protein degradation machinery such as a cell’s lysosomes, which act like a protein wood chipper. In a new study published in Science on Oct. 20, Stanford chemists have uncovered how one of the pathways leading to this protein “wood chipper” works. In doing so, they have opened the ...

Acoustic resonators are everywhere. In fact, there is a good chance you’re holding one in your hand right now. Most smart phones today use bulk acoustic resonators as radio frequency filters to filter out noise that could degrade a signal. These filters are also used in most Wi-Fi and GPS systems.  Acoustic resonators are more stable than their electrical counterparts, but they can degrade over time. There is currently no easy way to actively monitor and analyze the degradation of the material quality of these widely used devices. Now, researchers at the Harvard John ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A study spearheaded by Oregon State University has shown why certain polyunsaturated fatty acids work to combat a dangerous liver condition, opening a new avenue of drug research for a disease that currently has no FDA-approved medications. Scientists led by Oregon State’s Natalia Shulzhenko, Andrey Morgun and Donald Jump used a technique known as multi-omic network analysis to identify the mechanism through which dietary omega 3 supplements alleviated nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, usually abbreviated to NASH. The mechanism involves ...

A perspective recently published in Frontiers in Nutrition underscores the unique role starchy vegetables play as a vital vehicle for essential nutrients. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans currently recommend that most adults consume five to six cups (or cup equivalents) of starchy vegetables each week to help meet their total vegetable goals.1 Yet, as confusion around “good versus bad carbs” persists among consumers, there is a risk of starchy vegetable avoidance in favor of other carbohydrate foods perceived as ...

When it comes to the architecture of the human genome, it’s only a matter of time before harmful genes — genes that could compromise future generations — arise in a population. These mutations accumulate in the gene pool, primarily affected by a population’s size and practices like marrying within a small community, according to researchers. But much of the information about the effects of a population’s mutation load is based on genetic theory, with limited direct evidence concerning the effects on evolutionary fitness, or fertility. New research from University ...

New Haven, Conn. — When Yale neuroscientist Joy Hirsch used sophisticated imaging tools to track in real time the brain activity of two people engaged in conversation, she discovered an intricate choreography of neural activity in areas of the brain that govern social interactions. When she performed similar experiments with two people talking on Zoom, the ubiquitous video conferencing platform, she observed a much different neurological landscape. Neural signaling during online exchanges was substantially suppressed compared to activity observed ...

In the 2009 film "Gifted Hands," based on a true story, the audience follows Black neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson as he successfully performs three risky surgeries, earning praise from the media and medical community. This movie was not only a hit with critics and audiences, but it also inspired Bismarck Christian Odei, MD, an assistant professor in radiation oncology at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, to follow his passion.  “Seeing a physician who looked like me, ...

Law enforcement officers in the United States own firearms at high rates and rarely engage in secure firearm storage, which could increase their risk for suicide, according to a Rutgers study. The researchers, whose study appears in the journal Injury Prevention, examined data from 369 law enforcement officers in the U.S. Information about firearm ownership, storage, suicide risk and demographics were included in the present study. Overall, 70.5 percent of law enforcement officers report owning a firearm. The most common type of firearms owned were handguns (79.7 percent) followed by shotguns (61.1 percent) and rifles (57.5 percent). A sharp majority, 78.9 percent, ...

New research from Japan published in the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecology suggests that increasingly severe weather driven by climate change may push oceangoing seabirds to their limits.   In August 2019, Kozue Shiomi, a seabird biologist at Tohoku University, attached GPS bio-loggers to 14 adult streaked shearwaters (Calonectris leucomelas) from a nesting colony on Mikurajima, a small island near Tokyo, as part of a study on the species homing behavior.   In September of that same year, an exceptionally powerful storm, Typhoon Faxai, barreled into southeastern Japan, causing considerable physical damage to the mainland. But the typhoon, ...

DENVER/Oct. 25, 2023 – A recently published paper in Animal Conservation provides crucial insights into the health of sihek, a species eradicated from its native habitat and that may now face threats in captivity. The latest data underscores a stark gender disparity, revealing that female sihek are at greater risk for death and disease than their male counterparts.  As part of an ongoing Morris Animal Foundation-funded study, researchers at The Zoological Society ...

INDIANAPOLIS — It’s no secret that a good night’s rest can do wonders for one’s health, but those who struggle with insomnia have a nearly 50% increased risk of cardiovascular disease. One scientist in the School of Science at IUPUI will spend the next five years trying to figure out how those risks can be reduced. Jesse Stewart, a professor of psychology at the school, has received a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for a project named the Strengthening Hearts ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – Older people who have higher levels of triglycerides, a type of fat, may have a lower risk of dementia and a slower cognitive decline over time compared to people who have lower levels, according to new research published in the October 25, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. While the study found a link, it does not prove that higher levels of triglycerides prevent dementia. Triglycerides are fatty acids and are the most common type of fat in the blood. Triglycerides contribute ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – People who have experienced traumatic events in childhood such as abuse, neglect or household dysfunction may be more likely to experience headache disorders as adults, according to a meta-analysis published in the October 25, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This research does not prove that such experiences cause headaches; it only shows an association. “Traumatic events in childhood can have ...

Brittle star fossils found in South Africa are over 410 million years old, the oldest known examples who lived at high latitude ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0292636 Article Title: Earliest known ophiuroids from high palaeolatitude, southern Gondwana, recovered from the Pragian to earliest Emsian Baviaanskloof Formation (Table Mountain Group, Cape Supergroup) South Africa Author Countries: South Africa, Luxembourg Funding: RWG: Millennium Trust, South Africa (no number). https://www.mtrust.co.za ...

In a study of different types of distraction involving more than 1,000 participants, researchers statistically derived a novel measure—dubbed the “d factor”—that could represent a person’s general tendency towards distraction and may be linked with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Han Zhang of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 25, 2023. Prior research has explored various types of distraction, such as external stimulations, repetitive ...

A new study explores themes in Twitter discussions of deepfake videos related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the potential for real videos to be mistaken for deepfakes and for deepfakes to fuel conspiracy theories. John Twomey of University College Cork, Ireland, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 25, 2023. Created using artificial intelligence, deepfake videos typically feature a person saying and doing things they never actually did in real life. Deepfake technology has advanced considerably, sparking concerns about its potential harms. ...

Ancient people immigrated to Cancun Island and were treated just like locals, according to a study published October 25, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andrea Cucina of the Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico and colleagues. The Late Postclassic (AD 1200-1500) in the northern Maya lowlands was a period of major changes, including the development of many settlements along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, influenced in part by expanded trade routes. Previous research has found that these settlements were home to many non-local individuals, but it remains unclear whether these people were treated as “foreigners” ...