Excessive administration of analgesic drugs frequently results in medical accidents. To prevent the occurrence of these accidents, a drug infusion pump featuring a technology for safely detecting medication administration has been developed for the first time in the world. The research team led by Senior Researcher Dong-kyu Lee of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Seog-hyun Ryu, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has succeeded in developing the technology for customized sensor modules capable of measuring the extremely low flow rate of analgesic drug infusion pumps as well as the existence ...

There’s always some truth in fiction, and now is about the time to get a step ahead of sci-fi dystopias and determine what the risk in machine sentience can be for humans.   Although people have long pondered the future of intelligent machinery, such questions have become all the more pressing with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learningT. These machines resemble human interactions: they can help problem solve, create content, and even carry on conversations. For fans ...

Our built environment is aging and failing faster than we can maintain it. Recent building collapses and structural failures of roads and bridges are indicators of a problem that’s likely to get worse, according to experts, because it’s just not possible to inspect every crack, creak and crumble to parse dangerous signs of failure from normal wear and tear. In hopes of playing catch-up, researchers in Drexel University’s College of Engineering are trying to give robotic assistants the tools to help inspectors with the job. Augmenting visual ...

The prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is disproportionately high among rural, racially/ethnically diverse older residents. In fact, they face up to an 80 percent greater risk of cognitive impairment in older age, and 2.5 times potentially preventable ADRD-related hospitalizations compared to urban dwellers. It is estimated that early and accurate diagnosis in the mild cognitive impairment stage could save up to $7 trillion in patients’ health and long-term care costs by 2050. To address these health disparities in rural underserved populations, researchers from Florida ...

The digital age has profoundly changed how we communicate as humans. Today, we can regularly interact with people we are unrelated to and unacquainted with in real time across the world. Because of this, individuals can now engage in prosocial behaviors, including cooperating, sympathizing, helping and donating, with complete strangers, but the motivating factors behind these behaviors are poorly understood. Analysis of data generated from a fundraising website suggests that positive emotions elicit higher total donation amounts while negative emotions result in higher individual donation amounts.   Fundraising ...

A lot of factors go into an individual’s comfort, and it’s more than just how one feels about the temperature   The thermal environment refers to the physical surroundings as it pertains to the heat exchange of an individual and its environment. Naturally, the thermal environment also relates to comfort, or more specifically, thermal comfort. This type of comfort is an important metric to measure an individual’s feelings as it relates to their environment and can be directly associated with health, efficiency, comfort, and energy consumption. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A neighborhood alcohol control project in Sacramento that reduced cases of child abuse and neglect soon after implementation still had a positive impact seven years later, a new study found.   Results showed that, in one of the neighborhoods where the program was put into place, total entries into foster care were reduced by 11.8% and alcohol-related foster care entries were reduced by 11.2% a full seven years after implementation.   These new results were not as strong as those found right after the project was implemented, and there are other caveats to the success of the program. But the results are still very encouraging, said Bridget Freisthler, ...

An observational study found links between prenatal substance exposure and mental health in children 10–12, but also found that controlling for environment and genetics eliminated many associations. Qiang Luo and colleagues analyzed longitudinal data from almost 10,000 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development cohort, looking for associations of maternal self-report of prenatal exposure to caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana with mental health outcomes from age 10 to 12. Although the authors found many associations between prenatal exposure to the ...

A new study in mice shows that replacement of a dysfunctional gene could prolong survival in some people with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a rare inherited disorder in which the muscular walls of the heart progressively weaken and put patients at risk of dangerous irregular heartbeats. The investigational treatment targets the loss of function of a gene implicated in many cases of ARVC, plakophilin-2 (PKP2). The PKP2 gene provides instructions for making a protein that holds heart tissues together. When the gene — one of several thought to contribute to the disease —is defective ...

In humans, oral health influences general health and well-being in many ways. Other than reducing the need for oral rehabilitation later in life, maintaining good oral health reduces the risk of several systemic diseases. Therefore, investing time and effort into improving oral health can be highly beneficial for older adults. However, whether the health benefits of improved oral health extend to psychological domains remains unclear. Positive psychological well-being is known to positively affect the survival rates of both healthy and unhealthy populations. Thus, to increase life expectancy, it is important to identify the factors associated with ...

What does an asparagus have in common with a vanilla orchid? Not much, if you are just looking at the two plants’ appearances. However, when you look inside - their leaves are more similar than you would think – as revealed by the composition of their cell walls. By studying plant cell walls – which are to plants what skeletons are to humans – we can reveal the composition of how leaves and stems of plants are actually constructed. This is exactly what a team of University of Copenhagen researchers has done, in a large comprehensive study. In doing so, they have created something truly novel: a large "reference catalogue" ...

 Using a virus-like delivery particle made from DNA, researchers from MIT and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard have created a vaccine that can induce a strong antibody response against SARS-CoV-2. The vaccine, which has been tested in mice, consists of a DNA scaffold that carries many copies of a viral antigen. This type of vaccine, known as a particulate vaccine, mimics the structure of a virus. Most previous work on particulate vaccines has relied on protein scaffolds, but the proteins used in those vaccines tend to generate an unnecessary immune response that can distract the immune system from the target. In the mouse study, the researchers found that the ...

A new research study examined the results from data generated by citizen scientists using a simple web-based motor test. The big data approach provides researchers with a unique way to explore how people correct for motor control errors. The resulting insights may one day pave the way for personalized physical therapy or tailor an athlete’s training routine. The results are available in the January 30th issue of the journal Nature Human Behaviour. “This exploratory approach does not replace lab based studies, but complements ...

New research into the marine phosphorus cycle is deepening our understanding of the impact of human activities on ecosystems in coastal seas.   The research, co-led by the University of East Anglia, in partnership with the Sino-UK Joint Research Centre at the Ocean University of China, looked at the impact of aerosols and river run-off on microalgae in the coastal waters of China.  It identified an ‘Anthropogenic Nitrogen Pump’ which changes the phosphorus cycle and therefore likely coastal biodiversity and associated ecosystem services.  In a balanced ecosystem, microalgae, also known as phytoplankton, provide food for a wide ...

Life has a challenging tempo. Sometimes, it moves faster or slower than we’d like. Nevertheless, we adapt. We pick up the rhythm of conversations. We keep pace with the crowd walking a city sidewalk.  “There are many instances where we have to do the same action but at different tempos. So the question is, how does the brain do it," says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Assistant Professor Arkarup Banerjee.  Now, Banerjee and collaborators have uncovered a new clue that suggests the brain bends our processing of time to suit our ...

People of religious faith may have experienced lower levels of unhappiness and stress than secular people during the UK’s Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, according to new University of Cambridge research. The findings follow a recently published Cambridge-led study suggesting that worsening mental health after experiencing Covid infection – either personally or in those close to you – was also somewhat ameliorated by religious belief. This study looked at the US population during early 2021. University of Cambridge economists argue ...

Stockholm, January 30, 2024 — Members of the AD-RIDDLE consortium announced today that they will begin a new initiative that aims to bridge the gap between Alzheimer’s research, implementation science, and precision medicine. The AD-RIDDLE programme will offer healthcare professionals a suite of validated solutions for timely detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and dementias, to match individuals with the right interventions at the right time, enabling people to better understand what they can do to reduce risk and prevent cognitive decline. Alzheimer’s disease represents a major public ...

HONG KONG (18 Jan 2024) — Goats can tell the difference between a happy-sounding human voice and an angry-sounding one, according to research co-led by Professor Alan McElligott, an expert in animal behaviour and welfare at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK). The study reveals that goats may have developed a sensitivity to our vocal cues over their long association with humans, according to the study published in Animal Behaviour. Long known for their own sonorous vocal skills, goats in the study tended to spend longer gazing towards the source of the sound after a change in the valence of a human voice, i.e., when the playback switched from a happier to ...

Cambridge scientists may have discovered a new way in which fasting helps reduce inflammation – a potentially damaging side-effect of the body’s immune system that underlies a number of chronic diseases. In research published in Cell Reports, the team describes how fasting raises levels of a chemical in the blood known as arachidonic acid, which inhibits inflammation. The researchers say it may also help explain some of the beneficial effects of drugs such as aspirin. Scientists have known for some time that our diet – particular a high calorie Western diet – can increase our risk of diseases ...

Every fluid — from Earth’s atmosphere to blood pumping through the human body — has viscosity, a quantifiable characteristic describing how the fluid will deform when it encounters some other matter. If the viscosity is higher, the fluid flows calmly, a state known as laminar. If the viscosity decreases, the fluid undergoes the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The degree of laminar or turbulent flow is referred to as the Reynolds number, which is inversely proportional to the viscosity. The Reynolds law of dynamic similarity or Reynolds similitude, states that if two fluids flow around similar structures with different length ...

There is substantial geographic variation across the U.S. health care system to diagnose and treat early-stage Alzheimer’s disease with disease-modifying therapies, and engaging primary care providers in the effort may be a key to accelerating delivery of emerging new treatments, according to a new RAND report.   Enabling primary care practitioners to diagnose and evaluate patients for treatment eligibility would make the biggest impact on reducing wait times for specialists and increase the number of people treated with disease-modifying therapies from 2025 through 2044.   While primary care providers are technically capable of performing cognitive assessments, ...

A new causal link has been found between the presence of oncofoetal ecosystems and recurrence and response to immunotherapy in primary liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) The findings will pave the way to use the presence of oncofoetal ecosystems as a biomarker to treat HCC, a disease with a poor prognosis that is typically diagnosed late Singapore, 30 January 2024 - A team of clinician-scientists and researchers from the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and global research partners, has found a causal link between the presence of oncofoetal ...

Hf-based carbides are highly desirable candidates for thermal protection applications above 2000 ℃ due to their extremely high melting point and favorable mechanical properties. However, as a crucial indicator for composition design and performance assessment, the static oxidation behavior of Hf-based carbides at their potential service temperatures has been rarely studied. In a study published in the KeAi journal Advanced Powder Materials, a group of researchers from Central South University and China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology revealed the static oxidation mechanism ...

Laser sources operating at the 1.2 μm wavelength band have some unique applications in photodynamic therapy, biomedical diagnosis and oxygen sensing. Additionally, they can be adopted as pump sources for mid-infrared optical parametric generation as well as visible light generation by frequency doubling. Laser generation at 1.2 μm waveband has been achieved with different solid-state lasers including semiconductor laser, diamond Raman laser, and fiber laser. Among these three types, fiber laser thanks to its simple structure, good beam quality, and operation flexibility, is a great choice for 1.2 μm waveband laser generation.   Researchers ...

We know that our climate is changing. Extreme weather events are becoming more common, sea levels are rising and overall, our planet is getting warmer. Monitoring these changes is critical. One of the best indicators of climate change is the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) estimate, a measurement of overall oceanic temperature calculated by gathering water temperature data in oceans around the world in differing locations, at varying depths and across time. The data necessary to calculate the OHC over such a wide-spread area is gathered by the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), an integrated network of platforms ...