Feature Channels: All Journal News

• share
• favorite_border

People who have been exposed to paint, varnish and other solvents and who also carry genes that make them more susceptible to developing multiple sclerosis (MS) may be at much greater risk of developing the disease than people who have only the exposure to solvents or the MS genes, according to a study published in the July 3, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

• share
• favorite_border

A Smidt Heart Institute patient is the first in the country to receive a new device to fix a leaky heart valve. The patient, Sheldon Kardener, MD, received the device July 1 during a 30-minute minimally invasive procedure in Cedars-Sinai’s Cardiac Catheterization Lab as a treatment for mitral valve regurgitation. The procedure was performed by Saibal Kar, MD, widely regarded as one of the foremost experts in mitral valve repair. Kardener was discharged and returned home Monday morning.

• share
• favorite_border

Florida State scientists have devised a new strategy for synthesizing notoriously difficult carbocyclic 5-8-5 fused ring systems, a molecular structure with broad therapeutic potential.

• share
• favorite_border

Older adults living in public senior housing communities experience a large degree of loneliness, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.Nevertheless, senior housing communities may be ideal locations for reducing that loneliness, the study finds.“There are many studies on loneliness among community-dwelling older adults; however, there is limited research examining the extent and correlates of loneliness among older adults who reside in senior housing communities,” wrote Harry Chatters Taylor, doctoral student at the Brown School and lead author of “Loneliness in Senior Housing Communities,” published in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

• share
• favorite_border

Mount Sinai researchers use data science and genomics to help determine best treatment options for specific types of disease

• share
• favorite_border

As climate change continues to push summer temperatures ever higher, the increased use of air conditioning in buildings could add to the problems of a warming world by further degrading air quality and compounding the toll of air pollution on human health, according to a new study.

• share
• favorite_border

Sex plays a role in hypertension, diabetes, arthritis – and in many neurological and psychiatric disorders. To better understand the molecular underpinnings of this disparity, Tracy Bale of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, along with several colleagues, focused on a molecule that plays a key role in placental health. In a study of mice, they found that the molecule, O-linked N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT) works by establishing sex-specific patterns of gene expression.

• share
• favorite_border

A collaboration between researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, RTI International and the UNC School of Medicine has resulted in the first study to assess and compare United States travelers’ knowledge levels about the Zika virus across three regions

• share
• favorite_border

Past research has shown a link between interstitial fluid flow and an increased invasion rate of glioblastoma cells, and a team of biomedical researchers and electrical engineers recently developed a new method to measure and reconstruct interstitial fluid flow velocities in the brain. This method gives researchers a first look at interstitial fluid flow dynamics in glioma models, and the technique can readily translate to clinical models already using contrast-enhanced MRI. The team describes their method in APL Bioengineering.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have discovered a new metabolic vulnerability in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) that can be targeted by existing drug therapies.

• share
• favorite_border

Without exploring how white youth are socialized about race and ethnicity current race relations will remain unbalanced

• share
• favorite_border

Mothers want the best for their sons, but what happens to a mother’s hopes and dreams when her son is charged as a juvenile offender? A new study from Michigan State University published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence reveals that mothers don’t lose hope for their sons’ futures and potential – even if they are arrested as a minor.

• share
• favorite_border

Using oscillating liquid streams, breakup and drop formation can be improved compared to common straight jets, but the many dynamic interactions make it difficult for scientists to understand the mechanisms behind this breakup. Now, researchers have simulated the breakup of an oscillating stream using numerical modelings. Their findings, published in Physics of Fluids, give researchers a better understanding of how an oscillating jet achieves these results. The report also offers a way to predict the device’s behavior numerically, which could save time and money in industry.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team is running tests on the largest and most sophisticated stellerator, the Wendelstein 7-X fusion experiment. This complex machine is housed at the Max-Planck-Institute of Plasma Physics, and researchers are analyzing data from the first experiment campaign that took place in 2016, hoping to understand the science of fusion reactors. In a new report in Physics of Plasma, the scientists recount the first detailed characterization of plasma turbulence at the outer edge of the stellerator.

• share
• favorite_border

Using a new computational strategy, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified 29 genetic changes that can contribute to rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive childhood cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study finds surgeon attitudes about genetic testing have a big impact on whether women receive testing after a breast cancer diagnosis.

• share
• favorite_border

A new microfluidics innovation shows hope to improve artificial placentas so preterm newborns can properly develop lungs following birth. An international team demonstrated the new technique to construct microchannels with a more efficient gas exchange between infant blood and air. The improved design uses both sides of the membrane for gas exchange; the group used this design to develop a prototype that oxygenates blood through a thin membrane. They report their findings in Biomicrofluidics.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have found that cancer stem cells exist in more than one state and can change form, sliding back and forth between a dormant state and a rapidly growing state. The cell's metabolism controls this change, suggesting a possible way in to attack the stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Harmful gender, religious and cultural norms contribute to risky pregnancies in older women and women who already have five or more children, endangering the lives of these women and their babies, suggests new research from the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. CCP is based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• share
• favorite_border

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, which affects roughly 100 million Americans, costs the United States healthcare system $32 billion annually, according to a first-of-its-kind study by Intermountain Healthcare researchers on the economic impact of the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Adelaide-led research has moved the world one step closer to reliable, high-performance quantum computing.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the University of Michigan found that serum levels of two biomarkers of traumatic brain injury, tau and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1, are elevated following high-acceleration head impacts, even when there is no clinical diagnosis of concussion.

• share
• favorite_border

In new research, Cornell University psychologists find that study participants, on average, were more than twice as likely to call male professionals – even fictional ones – by their last name only, compared to equivalent female professionals. This example of gender bias, say researchers, may be contributing to gender inequality.

• share
• favorite_border

Brain activity is driven by encounters with external stimuli and situations, simultaneously occurring with internal mental processes. A team of researchers from Stanford University, with funding from the NIH BRAIN Initiative, has discovered how the brain dynamically handles cognitive tasks while it also is engaged in internal mental processes.

• share
• favorite_border

Experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have confirmed the predictive power of a new computational approach to materials synthesis. Researchers say that this approach, developed at the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, could streamline the creation of novel materials for solar cells, batteries and other sustainable technologies.

• share
• favorite_border

Therapist- and computer-led alcohol interventions held in the emergency department also can reduce teenage dating violence perpetration and depression symptoms, a new study finds.

• share
• favorite_border

Areas of the Arctic seas are becoming ice-free in late summer and early fall. A new study considers impacts on all the marine mammals that use this region and finds narwhals will be the most vulnerable.

• share
• favorite_border

Lawns in the Salt Lake Valley up to 100 years old are not yet saturated in the nutrient nitrogen, which is added by fertilizer, according to a new study from University of Utah researchers. The result is surprising, since previous studies in the Eastern U.S. suggested that fertilized soil would become saturated with nitrogen within a few decades.

• share
• favorite_border

Marine research could soon be possible without the risk of polluting either the air or the ocean. It’s thanks to a new ship design and feasibility study led by Sandia National Laboratories. Despite many advantages, the feasibility of a hydrogen-powered research vessel has never been studied or proven. Until now.

• share
• favorite_border

In this study, BIDMC researchers developed a means of tracking the activity of the far-reaching ends of retinal neurons (called boutons) as they deliver visual information to the thalamus, a brain region involved in image processing.

• share
• favorite_border

A research team with funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering has developed an advanced computing technique for rapidly and cost effectively improving the quality of biomedical imaging. The technology, called AUTOMAP finds the best computational strategies to produce clear, accurate images for various types of medical scans.

• share
• favorite_border

Experts provide on-site complimentary skin cancer and healthy heart screenings

• share
• favorite_border

Polymer plastic solar cells remain an industry priority because of their light weight, flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Now scientists from Stony Brook University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have demonstrated that these types of solar cells can be more efficient and have more stability based on new research findings.

• share
• favorite_border

A regimen of low-dose aspirin potentially may reduce plaques in the brain, which will reduce Alzheimer’s disease pathology and protect memory, according to neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center, who published the results of their study today in the July issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

• share
• favorite_border

Stimulating the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for controlling complex ideas and behaviors, can reduce a person’s intention to commit a violent act by more than 50 percent, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania and Nanyang Technological University.

• share
• favorite_border

Using data from large clinical trials, UT Southwestern researchers developed a way to predict which patients will benefit most from aggressive high blood pressure treatment.

• share
• favorite_border

Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey researchers have elucidated the mechanism behind an ‘on/off’ switch in the the most commonly mutated gene in human cancer – p53 – findings which they say could lead to a new paradigm in cancer therapeutics.

• share
• favorite_border

Damage to DNA is a daily occurrence but one that human cells have evolved to manage. Now, in a new paper published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Mayo researchers have determined how one DNA repair protein gets to the site of DNA damage. The authors say they hope this discovery research will help identify new therapies for ovarian cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have added to evidence that rising and chronic inflammation as measured by a biomarker in the blood in middle and late age are linked to visible structural changes in the brains of people with poor cognition and dementia.

• share
• favorite_border

Everyone’s so busy these days that it is easy to think you need to schedule time to have fun. But be careful about how you do that, said Selin Malkoc, a time management expert at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. Research shows that scheduling can undermine enjoyment if it is not done right,

• share
• favorite_border

Understanding and addressing what patients need from an emergency room encounter could help improve patient care.

• share
• favorite_border

A collaborative study between six of the National Primate Research Centers shows pregnancy loss due to Zika infections that don’t cause women any symptoms may be a common but unrecognized cause of miscarriages and stillbirths.

• share
• favorite_border

A new review published online on Monday, July 2, in Nature Medicine highlights cutting-edge research associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its more advanced, and worrisome, form, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have developed an experimental drug, similar to compounds used to treat diabetes, that slows the progression of Parkinson’s disease itself — as well as its symptoms — in mice.

• share
• favorite_border

Participants in Stony Brook University's (SBU) High School Women in Science and Engineering program brought the graphene oxide microspheres they synthesized at SBU to the Center for Functional Nanomaterials for imaging via electron microscopy.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have shown — for the first time — that established lung fibrosis can be reversed using a drug treatment that targets cell metabolism. This is important because, despite significant advances in the pathological mechanisms of persistent fibrosis, effective interventions are lacking.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study puts large-scale evidence behind what many hospital patients already know: Having a urinary catheter may help empty the bladder, but it can hurt, lead to urinary tract infections, or cause other issues in the hospital and beyond. In fact, in-depth interviews and chart reviews from more than 2,000 patients shows that more than half of catheterized hospital patients experienced a complication of some kind.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at six National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs) combined results from individual studies to find that 26 percent of pregnancies in 50 monkeys infected with Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy ended in miscarriage or stillbirth, dwarfing the nearly 8 percent rate found earlier this year by a study of women infected with Zika early in pregnancy.

• share
• favorite_border

Wolters Kluwer Health announced today it will begin publishing the Journal of Bio-X Research under its Lippincott portfolio. The first issue of the Journal of Bio-X Research, the newest open access journal of the Chinese Medical Association (CMA), is available today.

• share
• favorite_border

ORNL story tips: Oak Ridge National Laboratory assists FEMA with structural damage data from Hawaii lava flows; self-healing super-stretchy material could lead to longer-lasting consumer products; ORNL 3D prints plant-based plastic polymers; mini-grid safely tests components to the max; neutrons uncover pathway to new algae strains for sustainable biofuels.