New research published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that super spikes, scientifically described as advanced footwear technology (AFT) spikes, can give runners about a 2% edge in middle-distance track races, like the 800- and 1,500-meters. “Track athletes started wearing super spikes about five years ago and they are now commonplace in elite track races,” says Wouter Hoogkamer, assistant professor of kinesiology at UMass Amherst and senior author ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -Ten Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) designed to bring together world-class teams of scientists for groundbreaking fundamental research have been funded in nine states by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).  Since 2009, EFRCs  have brought together diverse, world-class teams of scientists to perform basic research that accelerates ground-breaking scientific advances underlying energy technologies. The centers develop powerful new tools for characterizing, understanding, modeling, and manipulating matter, while training the next-generation scientific workforce by attracting talented students passionate about energy science. “Fundamental ...

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) Quality Summit 2024 will take place on September 17-19 in San Antonio, bringing together cardiovascular leaders from across the nation to discuss the value of NCDR services and quality programs. “ACC’s Quality Summit puts the spotlight on the value of ACC Accreditation and NCDR services for improving health care quality across all health systems,” said ACC Quality Summit Chair Olivia N. Gilbert, MD, MSc, FACC, and Director of Quality and Value for Cardiovascular Medicine at Atrium Health Wake Forest ...

Flexcon Global has exclusively licensed two patented inventions to manufacture a self-healing barrier film from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory for research and development purposes. The film can be incorporated into vacuum insulation panels to increase the efficiency of buildings during retrofits.  Flexcon, based in Spencer, Massachusetts, provides coatings, film laminations and functional technologies to a range of markets including healthcare, sustainable packaging, transportation, consumer durables, electronics, industrial, retail and advertising. Under ...

Poroid fungi, commonly known as "polypores," are among the most frequently encountered fungi throughout the year because of their large size and longevity. Despite the common presence of poroid fungi in North America, most guides include only a limited selection of these fungi. Poroid Fungi of North America, by Leif Ryvarden, offers a necessary, updated account of these fungi, building on the foundational work of the original two-volume North American Polypores, by Ryvarden and R. L. Gilbertson, published in 1987. This comprehensive update incorporates more than three decades of new research, featuring detailed keys, descriptions, and vibrant color ...

Four faculty members from three departments in the College of Natural Resources and Environment have received $1.7 million from the National Science Foundation to fund research into the dynamics of socio-environmental factors impacting coastal fisheries. Holly Kindsvater and Willandia Chaves of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Craig Ramseyer of the Department of Geography, and Michael Sorice of the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation will collaborate with Jonathan van Senten and Fernando Gonçalves of the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research ...

Wildfires leave potent climate heaters behind in their wake, particles that enhance the absorption of sunlight and warm the atmosphere. Dropped on snow like a wool poncho, these aerosols darken and decrease the surface reflectance of snowy places. But it was not yet understood just how different types of smoke particles contribute to these effects. In a study recently published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis model how dark-brown carbon (d-BrC) – light absorbing, water insoluble organic carbon – from wildfires plays a much larger role as a snow-warming agent than previously recorded. ...

Young male northern elephant seals are captured on camera returning to a deep sea cabled observatory off Canada's British Columbia coast, demonstrating new insight into fish foraging behavior ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0308461 Article Title: Deep-sea cabled video-observatory provides insights into the behavior at depth of sub-adult male northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris Author Countries: Canada, USA, Spain Funding: Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is funded through the Canada Foundation for Innovation-Major Science Initiative ...

This release has been removed per request of the submitting organization due to a duplicate submission. You can find the embargoed release here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1055807  For more information, please contact: Charlotte Bhaskar, cbhaskar@plos.org END ...

A diverse and abundant flower planting that provides flowers in bloom all season may be more important to bees and other pollinators than whatever is surrounding the flower garden, according to a study published September 4, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Devon Eldridge from the University of Tennessee, US, and colleagues. As we learn more about how critical pollinators (native and non-native bees, butterflies, and other insects) are to our food supply and ecosystem, many people are planting pollinator-attractive ...

A study of more than 200,000 tweets from 2019 and 2020 finds that anti-immigration content spreads faster than pro-immigration tweets and that a few users disproportionally generated most of the UK-based anti-immigration content. Andrea Nasuto and Francisco Rowe of the Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool, UK, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on September 4, 2024. Online social media platforms are widely considered to contribute significantly to rising tensions in debates about immigration. Increased online polarization, the clout of key influencers, ...

Samples from bottled water, tap water and household-treated tap water in San Francisco Bay Area indicate that all sources may have potential health risks, largely from trihalomethanes. #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000272 Article Title: Bottled water, tap water and household-treated tap water–insight into potential health risks and aesthetic concerns in drinking water Author Countries: United States Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Imagine your DNA as a set of instructions or a recipe book that tells your body how to make everything it needs to function, from proteins to cells. Every time the body needs to build something, it reads these instructions. But sometimes, the body can make small edits to these instructions—this is where RNA editing comes in. RNA editing is like a proofreading process that happens after your DNA’s instructions are copied. Instead of just following the recipe exactly, your cells can make tiny changes to the instructions. These changes can help the body adapt to different situations by creating new versions ...

LOS ANGELES — Oncology specialists at City of Hope®, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, can now provide leading-edge clinical guidance to patients living in Southeast Asia through a second opinion collaboration agreement with the Healthway Cancer Care Hospital, the first comprehensive cancer hospital in the Philippines. This strategic integration of services will enhance Southeast Asia’s access to world-class cancer care by leveraging the strengths of both institutions.   “With ...

Charging stations for electric vehicles are essential for cleaning up the transportation sector. A new study by MIT researchers suggests they’re good for business, too. The study found that, in California, opening a charging station boosted annual spending at each nearby business by an average of about $1,500 in 2019 and about $400 between January 2021 and June 2023. The spending bump amounts to thousands of extra dollars annually for nearby businesses, with the increase particularly pronounced for businesses in underresourced areas. The study’s authors hope the research paints a more holistic picture of the benefits ...

LAWRENCE — A new book of natural history essays co-written by a University of Kansas paleontologist has been published by Columbia University Press. Bruce Lieberman, Dean’s Professor of Evolutionary Biology and senior curator of invertebrate paleontology at KU, co-wrote “Macroevolutionaries” with fellow paleontologist Niles Eldredge in the tradition of their late Harvard mentor and famed science popularizer, Stephen Jay Gould. “Gould inspired me and my collaborator on the book, Niles Eldredge,” Lieberman said. “He’s a well-known evolutionary ...

Summer 2024 is on track to be the hottest on record for hundreds of cities across the U.S. and globe. Even in Antarctica, during the peak of its winter, extreme heat pushed temperatures in parts of the continent more than 50°F above the July normal. In a study published on July 31 in the journal Earth’s Future, scientists, including researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, revealed how heat waves, especially those occurring in Antarctica’s cold seasons, may impact the animals living there. The research illustrates how extreme weather events intensified by climate change could have profound implications for the ...

Injury-related mortality rates, including firearm-related deaths, among children and adolescents increased in almost every state between 2018-2022, according to findings from the University of Michigan.   Researchers from the U-M Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention analyzed mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-ranging Outline Data for Epidemiologic Research and found that nearly 90% of states saw an increase in mortality rates among children and adolescents overall during the study period.   North Dakota's numbers show the largest increase among states at 65% and Rhode Island saw the largest decrease ...

It’s 7 billion years ago, and the universe’s heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found clues in the form of a cosmic question mark, the result of a rare alignment across light-years of space. “We know of only three or four occurrences of similar gravitational lens configurations in the observable universe, which makes this find exciting, as it demonstrates the power of Webb and suggests maybe now we will find ...

Three common variants increase the risk of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome Study by scientists at deCODE genetics/Amgen and collaborators in Denmark and the USA, on the genetics of accessory conduction pathways in the heart (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome), reveals that accessory pathways can cause rhythm disturbances, characterized by an overly fast heartbeat, which can be life-threatening. Accessory pathways are found among around 0.3% of individuals, but their prevalence is likely higher as a majority of them do not cause symptoms that lead to diagnosis. It is believed that other individual factors can influence the likelihood of developing rhythm ...

Washington, D.C., September 4, 2024—Elise Boddie, James V. Campbell Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, has been selected by AERA to present the 2024 Brown Lecture in Education Research. Her lecture, titled “Brown v. Board of Education and the Democratic Ideals,” will take place on Thursday, October 24, 6:30 p.m. ET, at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and will be livestreamed. Registration for in-person attendance and for the livestream will open in early September. The event is free and ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Chris Brown, Ph.D., is a former researcher who now heads research administration at a university with more than $780 million in research expenditures. Yet Brown — like other research administrators across the nation — had to learn his profession on the job because there is no complete, formal, recognized career training for the thousands of people who have a version of “research administrator” in their titles. To fill this critical gap, Brown, vice president for Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will lead a three-year, ...

Images   Much of the nation's stormwater infrastructure, designed decades to a century ago to prevent floods, can exacerbate flooding during the severe weather events that are increasing around the globe, new research led by the University of Michigan demonstrates.   The problem lies in traditional planning's failure to recognize flood connectivity: how surface runoff from driveways, lawns and streets—and the flows in river channels and pipes—are all interlinked. The result ...

Neurosurgery is perhaps one of the most demanding professions in healthcare. Surgeons spend long hours performing operations where expert performance means the difference between a good and bad patient outcome. While operative injuries are rare, when they occur, they can have serious, and lifelong consequences.      Researchers at the Neurosurgical Simulation and Artificial Intelligence Learning Centre at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill University are striving to improve brain surgery training by designing real-time, intelligent tutors powered by AI. These systems are designed ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. Protein expression atlas covers almost all cancer hallmarks The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) provide DNA and RNA data from approximately 11,000 patient samples across 33 cancer types and 1,000 cancer cell lines, but limited protein information is available. Researchers led by Han Liang, Ph.D., Rehan Akbani, ...