DENVER/Jan. 23, 2024 – Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers have delved into various cat species' entire DNA sequence (genome), uncovering novel perspectives on domestic and wild cat evolution. This new work highlights distinct genetic changes and will be a critical tool for researchers investigating feline diseases and characteristics. This study, which led to the findings published in Nature Genetics, used cutting-edge genome sequencing and assembly technologies to generate a more comprehensive and complete cat genome assembly, providing fundamental information on the feline blueprint and aiding in advancements in feline medicine. "This ...

Emerging research suggests it may be easier to use fusion as a power source if liquid lithium is applied to the internal walls of the device housing the fusion plasma. Plasma, the fourth state of matter, is a hot gas made of electrically charged particles. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are working on solutions to efficiently harness the power of fusion to offer a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, often using devices called tokamaks, which confine plasma using magnetic fields. “The purpose of these devices is to confine the energy,” said Dennis Boyle, a staff research physicist ...

Concrete is an essential material in the construction industry, where it is fundamental to the foundations and structures of dwellings and office buildings, as well as roads, dams and bridges, among many other infrastructure projects. However, the service life of concrete is limited, and it must be monitored in order to guarantee the safety of these structures. To facilitate fast, low-cost, in-situ analysis that dispenses with the need to take samples to a laboratory, researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Physics Institute (IF-USP) in Brazil, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Leuven in Belgium, have developed a luminescent material that reveals the presence ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- An interdisciplinary collaboration used a cutting-edge form of RNA tagging to map the gene expression that occurs during follicle maturation and ovulation in mice. The resulting atlas reveals a slew of previously unknown cellular and molecular interactions that drive ovulation, which is crucial for female fertility. The findings could prove pivotal for developing therapeutic treatments for infertility. The research, published Jan. 22 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was ...

A new study at the University of Missouri’s Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment found that propranolol, a medication that treats high blood pressure, can also help lower anxiety for kids and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Given that some individuals with ASD tend to struggle with anxiety at a far greater rate than their neurotypical peers, the new finding can significantly help such individuals with ASD. David Beversdorf, a clinician at the Thompson Center, led the study, which involved 69 patients over a three-year span. Compared to a placebo group, the participants who received propranolol showed ...

An analysis of national survey data conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found a small but statistically significant increase in self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms among respondents in states that banned abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 compared to respondents in states that did not enact bans.  The Dobbs decision, handed down on June 24, 2022, overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion a constitutionally protected right and returned the question of abortion regulation to individual states. The Dobbs decision ...

(Toronto, January, 23, 2024) 2024 will mark the 25th anniversary for JMIR Publications, the leading open access digital health research publisher.  Founded in 1999 by Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH, FACMI,   chief executive officer and executive editor,  JMIR Publications has grown to now include 35 journals that have published over 52,000 papers that have garnered over 500,000 citations and millions of views from users around the world.   JMIR Publications functions as a hub for digital health research. With its reputation for high-quality ...

IntelliGenes, a first of its kind software created at Rutgers Health, combines artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning approaches to measure the significance of specific genomic biomarkers to help predict diseases in individuals, according to its developers. A study published in Bioinformatics explains how IntelliGenes can be utilized by a wide range of users to analyze multigenomic and clinical data. Zeeshan Ahmed, lead author of the study and a faculty member at Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research (IFH), said there currently are no AI or machine-learning ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – With disease and high demand posing threats to the world’s primary natural rubber supply in Southeast Asia, scientists are working to ramp up the U.S. rubber market by advancing methods to extract latex from two sustainable North American plant sources: a dandelion species and a desert shrub. Researchers reported their methods to improve efficiency and increase latex yield in two recent publications, building upon decades of research led by Katrina Cornish, professor of horticulture and crop science and food, agricultural and biological engineering at The Ohio State University.  Cornish and colleagues ...

Glass is being used in a wider range of high-performance applications, including those for consumers and industry, military and aerospace electronics, coatings and optics. Because of the extreme precision demanded for use in products such as mobile phones and jet aircraft, glass substrates must not change their shape during the manufacturing process.  Corning Incorporated, a manufacturer of innovative glass, ceramics and related materials, invests a tremendous amount of resources into studying the stability of different types of glass. Recently, Corning researchers found that understanding the stability ...

Tsukuba, Japan—Nonfunctional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, while rare, are primarily treated through surgery. The presence or absence of lymph node metastasis considerably influences the selection of surgical and other treatment approaches. Particularly controversial is the necessity of surgery for tumors smaller than 2 cm as current clinical guidelines provide no clear consensus. Existing methods for preoperative diagnosis of lymph node metastasis are inadequate. To address the aforementioned challenge, the Tsukuba team has created a predictive model by integrating radiomics features extracted from CT and MRI images using artificial intelligence ...

An international team of researchers from Leibniz University Hannover (Germany) and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (United Kingdom) has disproved a previously held assumption about the impact of multiphoton components in interference effects of thermal fields (e.g. sunlight) and parametric single photons (generated in non-linear crystals). "We experimentally proved that the interference effect between thermal light and parametric single photons also leads to quantum interference with the background field. For this reason, the background cannot simply be neglected and subtracted from calculations, as ...

About The Study: In this analysis of survey data from 718,000 participants from December 2021 to January 2023, residence in states with abortion trigger laws (anticipatory bans that would go into effect should Roe v Wade be overturned) compared with residence in states without such laws was associated with a small but significantly greater increase in anxiety and depression symptoms after the Dobbs v Jackson decision in June 2022.  Authors: Benjamin Thornburg, B.S., of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2023.25599) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Health professionals with weight loss within the prior two years had a significantly higher risk of cancer during the subsequent 12 months compared with those without recent weight loss in this study that included 157,000 participants. Cancer of the upper gastrointestinal tract was particularly common among participants with recent weight loss compared with those without recent weight loss.  Authors: Brian M. Wolpin, M.D., M.P.H., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston, is the corresponding author. To ...

Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for speech and language delay and disorders in children 5 years or younger without signs or symptoms. Speech and language delays and disorders can pose significant problems for children and their families. Evidence suggests that school-aged children with speech or language delays may be at increased risk of learning and literacy disabilities, including difficulties with reading and writing. The USPSTF routinely makes recommendations about the effectiveness of preventive care services and this updated recommendation ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2024 – Today, water pressure technology is ubiquitous, and any person who showers, waters a garden, or fights fires is benefiting from the technology devised to harness it. In the 17th and 18th centuries, though, a steady stream of water not punctuated by pressure drops was a major breakthrough. In 1666, when bucket brigades were the best line of defense, the Great Fire of London burned almost all of the city’s tightly packed, wooden structures. The disaster destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and dozens of churches, demonstrating the need for better firefighting methods and equipment. One landmark advancement was the ...

A 10-year follow up study of nearly 2,500 U.S. men who received prostate cancer treatment will help inform decision making in terms of treatments and side effects for a diverse population.   The CEASAR (Comparative Effectiveness Analysis of Surgery and Radiation for Localized Prostate Cancer) study, coordinated by Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), is a multisite research study conducting long-term follow up on men who were diagnosed with localized prostate cancer between 2011 and 2012.   Researchers have now followed the same cohort of men for more than a decade, administering a series of questionnaires ...

About The Study: In this study of 87,000 women, higher level of maternal autistic traits was associated with increased risk of adverse birth outcomes, particularly very preterm birth. Acknowledging the risks and providing tailored and timely antenatal care support to women with a high level of autistic traits in the general population, particularly women with autistic traits within the clinical range, regardless of formal diagnosis, is warranted. Authors: Mariko Hosozawa, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Center for Global Health ...

About The Study: Self-reported walking limitations were associated with increased risk of fracture in this study of 238,000 participants age 45 and older. These findings suggest that walking ability should be sought by clinicians to identify high-risk candidates for further assessment. Authors: Dana Bliuc, Ph.D., of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.52675) Editor’s ...

For decades, scientists have studied the intricate activity patterns in human and animal brains by observing when different groups of brain cells turn on. Equally important to understanding the brain and related diseases, however, is knowing how long those neurons stay active and when they turn off again. Now, scientists at Scripps Research have developed a new technology that lets them track when, after a burst of activity, brain cells shut off—a process known as inhibition. The technique, published in Neuron on January 23, 2024, provides a new way to study not only the normal functioning ...

Boston – Unintentional weight loss is associated with an increase in the risk of a cancer diagnosis within the coming year, according to a study from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “If you are losing weight and you aren’t trying to lose weight by making changes in your exercise routine or diet, people should see their doctor to consider possible causes,” says lead investigator Brian Wolpin, MD, MPH, Director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber and Director of the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research. “There are ...

AMES, Iowa — Over the last 20 years, researchers in biology and medicine have created Boolean network models to simulate complex systems and find solutions, including new treatments for colorectal cancer. “Boolean network models operate under the assumption that each gene in a regulatory network can have one of two states: on or off,” says Claus Kadelka, a systems biologist and associate professor of mathematics at Iowa State University. Kadelka and undergraduate student researchers recently published a study that ...

People have a tendency to leave their wealth to family members and other loved ones. However, Andrew Carnegie, a famously wealthy industrialist, once said “I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar.” Indeed, Carnegie donated over 90% of his fortune to charity. New research in Social Psychological and Personality Science shows that people can be spurred to look beyond close relationships in favor of philanthropy by having them reflect on their legacy. The researchers called this phenomenon the “Andrew Carnegie ...

(LOS ANGELES) – January 23, 2024 - Vadim Jucaud, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, has been awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a functional organ-on-a-chip to model allogeneic transplant rejection. Such a model would allow the study of allograft tolerance and may ultimately lead to reducing organ transplant rejections without needing immunosuppressive drugs. Organ transplantation is a lifesaving procedure for patients with end-stage organ disease. Over 145,000 organs per year are transplanted worldwide from organ donors to recipients. For these so-called allografts, ...

One of the things that makes developing effective treatments for Parkinson’s disease so challenging is its complexity. While some forms are caused by genetics, others have environmental factors, and patients can show a wide range of symptoms of varying severity.  Diagnosis of Parkinson’s is also currently made very late, after the disease may have been in the brain for a decade or more.  In a paper published in The Lancet Neurology, a group of scientists  argue that this complexity demands a new way of classifying the disease for research purposes, one based not on clinical diagnosis but biology. The authors have called their biological model ...