Cannabis use, even for medical purposes, could make some people sick due to harmful fungi that contaminate the plants. That is the finding of a recently published peer-reviewed journal article, whose authors recommend further study and consideration of changes to regulations to protect consumers, especially those who are immunocompromised. They examined data, previous studies, and U.S. and international regulations related to the cannabis and hemp industry. The article was published in Frontiers in Microbiology. It was researched and written by Kimberly Gwinn, professor of entomology and plant pathology at the University of Tennessee Institute ...

Since 2011, California has significantly reformed its criminal justice system, reducing the size of its prison population, with no effect on violent crime and only marginal impacts on property crime statewide. The COVID-19 pandemic furthered decarceration as the state reduced state prison and jail populations to slow the spread of the virus. Concerns emerged that releases under the auspices of COVID mitigation harmed public safety. A new study explored this notion and found no consistent relation between COVID-19-related jail decarceration and violent or property ...

It’s a familiar story to many of us: In prehistoric times, men were hunters and women were gatherers. Women were not physically capable of hunting because their anatomy was different from men. And because men were hunters, they drove human evolution. But that story’s not true, according to research by University of Delaware anthropology professor Sarah Lacy, which was recently published in Scientific American and in two papers in the journal American Anthropologist.  Lacy and her colleague Cara Ocobock from the University of Notre Dame examined the division of labor according to sex during the Paleolithic era, approximately 2.5 million to 12,000 ...

Felix Parra Diaz, the head of the Theory Department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has been elected a 2023 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). This honor recognizes scientists who have helped advance physics by contributing original research, showing how to apply physics to the worlds of science and technology, or exhibiting excellence in physics teaching. Parra Diaz was cited for “transformational contributions to the theory ...

ESMO announces Public Policy Manifesto on key issues for oncology to bring to European institutions after 2024 elections.   Studies presented at the ESMO Congress 2023 set new standards of care across a wide range of tumour types.    Madrid, Spain, 20 October 2023 – Evidence is building up that strong political action has the potential to tackle two of our era’s biggest challenges: climate change and the increasing burden of cancer on society. At the opening press conference of the ESMO Congress 2023 taking place 20-24 October in Madrid, Spain, a slew of studies marking meaningful ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass.—The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) has awarded $4.3 million to the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) to expand its imaging capabilities to serve the Massachusetts life sciences community. The grant, which will be used to procure two state-of-the art microscopes capable of increased resolution and advanced technology, such as milling for the reconstruction of samples in 3D, was announced at a press conference on October 18 at the grand opening of a new incubator, the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI). MBL Director of Research Anne Sylvester ...

Urbanization and human activities have transformed a significant proportion of the land on Earth, resulting in the formation of urban environments. These urban environments are man-made habitats that often impose several selective pressures on their inhabitants. A key characteristic of such environments is the presence of impermeable, heat-retaining surfaces created using brick, stone, asphalt, and concrete. Notably, these surfaces form urban heat islands, i.e., regions with elevated surface temperatures. An unexpected result of heat stress ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—October 20, 2023—Millions of couples worldwide experience infertility with half of the cases originating in men. For 10% of infertile males, little or no sperm are produced. Now, new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, in collaboration with the Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, is shedding light on what may be going wrong in the process of sperm formation, leading to potential theories on possible treatments.   “A ...

Women faculty are more likely to leave academia than men faculty throughout all career stages in U.S. universities, University of Colorado Boulder researchers revealed in the most comprehensive analysis of retention in academia to date.  The team published the findings Oct. 20 in the journal “Science Advances.” The researchers found that a harsh workplace climate, which can include harassment and feelings of not belonging, was the most common reason women left academia. This attrition affects not only early-career professionals, ...

It's said that a dog is a man’s best friend, but the wild dingo is much maligned in Australia. This may not always have been the case though, with new research led by experts at The Australian National University and The University of Western Australia suggesting that dingoes were buried – and even domesticated – by First Nations people prior to European colonisation.  The researchers examined remains at the Curracurrang archaeological site, south of Sydney, where radiocarbon dating of dingo bones revealed the animals were buried alongside humans as far back as 2,000 years ago.  The care taken to bury the animals ...

A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has developed soft yet durable materials that glow in response to mechanical stress, such as compression, stretching or twisting. The materials derive their luminescence from single-celled algae known as dinoflagellates. The work, inspired by the bioluminescent waves observed during red tide events at San Diego’s beaches, was published Oct. 20 in Science Advances. “An exciting feature of these materials is their inherent simplicity—they need no electronics, no external ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Scientists from La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and The University of Southampton, UK, have uncovered a group of immune cells that may drive severe asthma. These cells, called cytotoxic CD4+ tissue-resident memory T cells, gather in the lungs and appear to possess the molecular weaponry to cause the most harm in men who developed asthma later in life. "If you are male and you develop asthma after age 40, there's a high chance this T cell population is in your lungs," says LJI Research Assistant Professor Gregory Seumois, Ph.D., who co-led the study with LJI Professor Pandurangan ...

Key Takeaways  A cancer survival calculator prototype developed with machine learning showed that for each of three cancer types tested, more factors than cancer stage significantly influenced patients’ survival.  Preliminary research on the calculator found high accuracy of this individualized survival estimator.  BOSTON (October 20, 2023): Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI)–based tool for estimating a newly diagnosed cancer patient’s chances for surviving long term, according ...

Key takeaways  This is the first study to examine the impact of school redistricting on firearm violence in urban communities, examining data from 63,000 urban census tracts.  Any school redistricting event was associated with a 10.6% higher firearm incidence rate compared with communities that had no redistricting, and school boundary adjustments were associated with a 21.3% increase.  In areas that had a school redistricting event, firearm violence increased 14% in the year the redistricting occurred over the previous year.  BOSTON (October 20, ...

Key Takeaways  Tattoos, especially those related to gangs and sex work, can make individuals targets for violence.  Tattoos may also make it more difficult for individuals to make changes in their lives, including finding a job or joining the military.  Nearly nine out of 10 of the program’s clients (88%) desired tattoo removal to transition to a healthier life, and more than eight of 10 clients (81%) reported success in achieving their goals after tattoo removal.  BOSTON (October 20, 2023): Tattoo removal may help to reduce violence and trauma in East Los Angeles, according to study results being presented at the American ...

Key takeaways  Using Fitbit activity tracking data, researchers identified patients who might be at higher risk of postoperative complications. Fewer daily steps were associated with a higher rate of complications postoperatively.   The odds of complications within 90 days after hospital discharge were reduced by half if a patient took more than 7,500 steps a day before the operation, after adjusting for the complexity of the procedure, comorbidities, and other factors.   CHICAGO (October 20, 2023): Patients who recorded more ...

Key Takeaways  Childhood trauma rates increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and were disproportionately higher for children in socioeconomically deprived areas.  In this vulnerable population, injuries were most often due to motor vehicle crashes, firearms, and non-accidental trauma.  The study adds to growing evidence of pandemic-related effects on health and reinforces the need for efforts to prevent pediatric trauma.  BOSTON (October 20, 2023): Injuries from gunshots and motor vehicle ...

Key Takeaways  Trauma centers with the highest pediatric readiness scores (93 or greater) on a national assessment have much lower death rates than centers scoring lower.  All trauma centers should address gaps in pediatric emergency care — most importantly, the lack of having a pediatric-specific quality improvement plan.  BOSTON (October 20, 2023): Children initially treated at trauma centers with the highest level of preparedness to care for children, called pediatric readiness, are significantly less likely to die than those initially treated at trauma facilities with lower pediatric readiness levels, new research shows. The findings are being presented ...

Key Takeaways  Women with breast cancer, who are making complex decisions about treatment options during an already stressful time, may turn to the wide variety of materials available online, which are not always from data-driven sources.  Researchers found that educational materials often vary in quality, can have a negative tone, and are written above the sixth-grade reading level recommended by the National Institutes of Health.  BOSTON (October 20, 2023): Women with breast cancer must often make complex decisions about surgery and treatment options ...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, USA (Oct. 20, 2023) — The 50 families stretch from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to the United States and China. Each family has a child who is paralyzed from a mutation in a single gene named Contactin-Associated Protein 1 (Cntnap1). The children are locked inside their bodies, unable to move. The families feed them and change them, and someone monitors them 24/7. Thousands of miles away in South Texas, Manzoor Bhat, MS, PhD, and his team at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio are making ...

A new study is gathering extensive data about people with bipolar disorder to improve diagnosis and treatment of this mental health condition that affects 40 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. UCLA Health is among six inaugural sites of the BD2 Integrated Network, which aims to enroll 4,000 participants for the study. Researchers intend to collect health metrics, brain scans, self-reported symptoms and data on movement and sleep from wearable trackers, over time, in what’s known as a longitudinal cohort study. The BD2 Integrated Network also forms a learning collective among the ...

Executives from clinical stage artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company Insilico Medicine will present on the impact of AI on biotechnology at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine and Petrina Kamya, PhD, Head of AI Platforms and President of Insilico Medicine Canada will present on the topic “Will AI Rebuild Biotech?” on Oct. 26, 11:45am Arabic Standard Time. The event is available to be livestreamed.  The FII Conference brings together the world’s foremost CEOs, policymakers, ...

Allogeneic invariant natural killer T cells (allo-iNKTs) from a healthy donor have been shown to have therapeutic effects in treatment-resistant cancers and improve survival from COVID-19-related acute respiratory failure in previous studies. Unlike T cells, allo-iNKTs can be transferred from one person to another without causing graft-versus-host disease. But allo-iNKT cells rapidly become undetectable in the body after infusion, raising concerns over their rejection and disease relapse. Their functioning also varies from person to person. Researchers from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine hypothesized ...

Stimulating muscle fibers with magnets causes them to grow in the same direction, aligning muscle cells within tissue, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston University investigators report October 20 in the journal Device. The findings offer a simpler, less time-consuming way for medical researchers to program muscle cell alignment, which is strongly tied to healthy muscle function. “The ability to make aligned muscle in a lab setting means that we can develop model tissues for understanding muscle in healthy and diseased states and for developing and testing new therapies ...

The ability of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), a serious respiratory infection, to form snake-like cords was first noted nearly 80 years ago. In a study published October 20 in the journal Cell, investigators report the biophysical mechanisms by which these cords form and demonstrate how several generations of dividing bacteria hang together to create these structures that enable resistance to antibiotics. “Our work clearly showed that cord formation is important for infection and why this highly ordered architecture might be important for pathogenesis,” says senior author Vivek Thacker (@DrVivekThacker), who ...