A finding by a McGill-led team of neuroscientists could open doors to new treatments for a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders attributed to dysfunctions in specific dopamine pathways. For those struggling with a psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenia, addiction or ADHD, or with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s, there might be good news ahead. The neuroscientists have discovered that a small group of dopamine neurons in the striatum play a crucial role in balancing several essential brain functions, including those related to reward, cognition and movement. Dopamine ...

Whether between galaxies or within doughnut-shaped fusion devices known as tokamaks, the electrically charged fourth state of matter known as plasma regularly encounters powerful magnetic fields, changing shape and sloshing in space. Now, a new measurement technique using protons, subatomic particles that form the nuclei of atoms, has captured details of this sloshing for the first time, potentially providing insight into the formation of enormous plasma jets that stretch between the stars. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) created ...

Crime films, action films, comedies, or documentaries? A person's favourite film genre reveals a lot about how their brain works. This is the finding of a new study led by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) that compared data on film preferences with recordings of the brain activity of around 260 people. Fans of action films and comedies reacted very strongly to negative emotional stimuli, while participants who favoured documentaries or crime films and thrillers had a significantly weaker reaction. The results were published in the journal "Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience". Films are ...

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations achieving the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of the Earth, by detecting light from the centers of distant galaxies at a frequency of around 345 GHz. When combined with existing images of supermassive black holes at the hearts of M87 and Sgr A at the lower frequency of 230 GHz, these new results will not only make black hole photographs 50% crisper but also produce multi-color views of the region immediately outside the boundary of these cosmic beasts.  The new detections, led by scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) that ...

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other facilities, that achieved the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of Earth [1]. They managed this feat by detecting light from distant galaxies at a frequency of around 345 GHz, equivalent to a wavelength of 0.87 mm. The Collaboration estimates that in future they will be able to make black hole images that are 50% more detailed than was possible before, bringing the region immediately outside the boundary of nearby supermassive black holes into sharper focus. They will also ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A proposed artificial intelligence tool to support clinician decision-making about hospital patients at risk for sepsis has an unusual feature: accounting for its lack of certainty and suggesting what demographic data, vital signs and lab test results it needs to improve its predictive performance. The system, called SepsisLab, was developed based on feedback from doctors and nurses who treat patients in the emergency departments and ICUs where sepsis, the body’s overwhelming response to an infection, is most ...

At the MIT Press, we believe that everyone deserves access to scholarship. Our dedication to this mission remains strong as we head into the fourth funding cycle for Direct to Open (D2O), our model for open access monographs. Libraries and consortia can commit to support the program through November 30, 2024. “Direct to Open is a game changer,” said Amy Brand, Director and Publisher at the MIT Press. “We know that open scholarship benefits authors, readers, and the academy at large. This is why we ...

A study finds an increased risk of developing a productive SARS-CoV-2 infection in obese people. Obesity is known to predict worse outcomes and higher mortality for those with COVID-19. Masanori Aikawa and colleagues sought to determine if obesity also affected the likelihood of getting ill in the first place. To investigate, the authors analyzed electronic medical records for 687,813 patients from the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, including 72,613 individuals with suspected SARS-CoV-2 exposure, 18,447 of whom tested positive. The authors limited their data to a timeframe before vaccination became widespread in Massachusetts, to avoid the possible confounding ...

A close reading of Darwin’s work suggests a deep interest in cyclical events. Rhythmic phenomena in nature—today the subjects of the field of chronobiology—have been studied since at least the 18th century. In a perspective, Tiago Gomes de Andrade and Andrew D. Beale examined the writings and work of Charles Darwin to explore and share the eminent naturalist’s deep fascination with biological rhythms. Darwin’s work on the “sleep movements” in plants, published in 1880 with his son Francis is well known. This work examined the daily cycle of opening and closing of leaves. But as far ...

Amidst the ongoing energy crisis and under the threat of climate change, exploiting renewable energy sources has quickly become a global necessity. Though our options are varied, solar energy seems to be our best bet—experts estimate that it may become our main energy source well before the turn of the century. Despite its clear advantages, solar energy generation has some limitations. Much like the wind, solar irradiance in a given region can vary quickly depending on weather conditions, causing fluctuations in power ...

Sophia Antipolis, France – 27 August 2024: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the most common cause of death across Europe but while CVD mortality rates are generally decreasing, the decline is much less in middle-income than in high-income countries, according to new data from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Atlas of Cardiology, published in the European Heart Journal.1  The fourth edition of ESC Atlas statistics again demonstrate that CVD is the most common cause of death in the 55 ESC member countries studied. There are over 3 million deaths due to CVD per year – the equivalent of 8,500 deaths per day – which represents 37.4% of all deaths annually. ...

Researchers from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with colleagues from the Faculty of Tropical AgriScience of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, are unravelling the mysteries of the life of termites. Colonies of the species Neocapritermes taracua boast a unique type of defence, which is provided by worker termites at the end of their lives. When attacked, they sacrifice themselves by setting off an explosive chemical reaction, the ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – While meant to simulate wood bats, regulation USA Baseball metal bats are more forgiving than wood for young players who might not connect with the ball on a bat’s optimal “sweet spot.” After testing wood bats and two types of metal bats with youth players, Washington State University researchers found that the exit speed of a hit ball was as much as 5% faster with metal bats over wood. Analyzing the data, they found that the performance of the USA Baseball metal bats at the sweet spot was similar to wood. It was when the hits were on less optimal areas that there was a bigger difference. “There’s ...

Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the Fundación Biofisica Bizkaia (FBB, located in Biofisika Institute) have developed an artificial intelligence which can differentiate cancer cells from normal cells, as well as detect the very early stages of viral infection inside cells. The findings, published today in a study in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, pave the way for improved diagnostic techniques and new monitoring strategies for disease. The tool, AINU (AI of the NUcleus), scans high-resolution images of cells. The ...

London, United Kingdom – 27 August 2024: Clinical follow-up using virtual voice technology helped identify complications after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) with a high degree of patient satisfaction, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2024.1  Explaining the rationale for the development of the virtual voice assistant for TAVI patients, study author Dr. Marta Herrero Brocal from the Dr. Balmis General University Hospital of Alicante, Spain said: “Aortic valve stenosis is common, especially in the ageing population.2 It can be treated with surgery ...

London, United Kingdom – 27 August 2024: Research from two studies in different European cities1,2 highlights that urban noise pollution has a significant negative impact on heart health, according to data presented at ESC Congress 2024.  “The DECIBEL-MI study shows that young patients aged 50 years or less who had a myocardial infarction (MI) had been exposed to higher levels of noise than the general population. The study demonstrates that urban noise could significantly increase the risk of early-onset MI in young people with low traditional risk factors. Including ...

Scientists at deCODE genetics and collaborators, have identified a sequence variant in the CCDC201 gene that when inherited from both parents homozygous causes menopause on average nine years earlier.  deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, and collaborators from Iceland, Denmark, the UK, and Norway published a study in Nature Genetics today revealing a rare genotype with a significant impact on women's health. Age at menopause significantly affects fertility and disease risk. This research focused on ...

London, United Kingdom – 27 Aug 2024: New research presented at the ESC Congress 2024 in London, UK (30 August – 2 September) shows that women in the menopause transition period show changes in their blood cholesterol profiles which could have an adverse impact on their cardiovascular health.   “There is an increase in ‘bad’ low-density type lipoprotein (LDL) particles and a decrease in ‘good’ high-density lipoprotein particles (HDL) that takes place during and after the menopause transition,” says study author Dr Stephanie Moreno, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA. “Taken ...

Millions of women who work in the fisheries industry are being left behind as technologies develop to counter the effects of climate change and economic pressures.  New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) looks specifically at post-harvest fisheries and aquaculture, where women constitute 50 per cent of the total workforce. Despite their significant contributions women often remain invisible, are unpaid or underpaid, their work seen as an extension of household work.  The findings, ‘A systematic review of the impact of post-harvest aquatic food ...

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds—objects with planetlike masses but untethered from any star’s gravity—including the lightest ever identified with a dusty disk around it. The elusive objects offer new evidence that the same cosmic processes that give birth to stars may also play a common role in making objects only slightly bigger than Jupiter. “We are probing the very limits of the star forming process,” said lead author Adam Langeveld, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University. “If you have an object that looks like a young Jupiter, is it possible that ...

A two-faced star, a star as massive as the Sun but as compact as the Moon, and star ‘corpses’ that engulf entire planets and disrupt planetary orbits. Ilaria Caiazzo, an astrophysicist who has made stunning discoveries, joins the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) as a new assistant professor. Her path led her from philosophy to studying stellar evolution and death while managing her broad interests including movie production. Ilaria Caiazzo has always had a broad spectrum of interests. Her path to astrophysics started in philosophy and ...

Dungeons and Dragons is a hugely popular roleplaying game enjoyed by millions of people all over the world, both in person and online, every day. However, new research has found it could be particularly beneficial for people with autism, giving them a safe space to engage in social interactions away from some of the challenges they face in their daily lives. The study, published in the journal Autism, was led by researchers from the University of Plymouth’s School of Psychology along with colleagues at Edge ...

27 August 2024, Singapore – A KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) study[1] on breastfeeding practices revealed that among the women who exclusively breastfed, those with high body mass index[2] (BMI) before pregnancy lost more weight than women with a healthy BMI pre-pregnancy. Women with high BMI who exclusively breastfed, in addition to losing their pregnancy weight, lost an extra 200 grammes on average, 12 months after childbirth. Women with normal BMI who exclusively breastfed lost weight ...

The authors investigate the physiological functions of Terc-53 by creating transgenic mice that overexpress this noncoding RNA. They observe that Terc-53 overexpression affects normal aging in mammals, contributing to cognitive decline and shortened lifespan. Mechanistically, they find that Terc-53 binds to and promotes the degradation of Hmmr, leading to enhanced inflammation in tissues and accelerated aging. They also note that Hmmr levels decrease with age in certain brain regions, similar to Terc-53's pattern, and that restoring Hmmr levels can improve cognitive abilities ...

A next-generation COVID-19 mucosal vaccine is set to be a gamechanger not only when delivering the vaccine itself, but also for people who are needle-phobic. New Griffith University research, published in Nature Communications, has been testing the efficacy of delivering a COVID-19 vaccine via the nasal passages. Professor Suresh Mahalingam from Griffith’s Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics has been working on this research for the past four years. “This is a live attenuated intranasal vaccine, called CDO-7N-1, designed ...