Curated News: Top Clipped Stories

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Parag Chitnis of George Mason University led a team that developed a wearable ultrasound system that can produce clinically relevant information about muscle function during dynamic physical activity. The system uses a patented approach that uses long-duration chirps and ultrasound sensing, and it allowed the team to design a simpler, cheaper system that could be miniaturized and powered by batteries. The result is an ultrasound monitor with a small, portable form factor that can be attached to a patient.

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Many of the most potent human oncoproteins belong to a class of proteins called transcription factors, but designing small molecule drugs that target transcription factors is a major challenge.

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Two new studies led by researchers from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center give insight into how cells use energy to influence the way prostate tumors survive and grow — advancements that can help explain why some prostate cancers become resistant to hormone therapy, the most commonly used treatment for men with advanced stages of the disease.

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About 20% of patients whose medical records showed them as being alive were in fact deceased according to California data.

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The sound a disc makes while soaring through the air is full of information about how fast the disc is flying and how quickly it spins.

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Darcy Dunn-Lawless, a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, is investigating the potential of a painless, needle-free vaccine delivery by ultrasound. The method uses cavitation, which is the formation and popping of bubbles in response to a sound wave. Though initial in vivo tests reported 700 times fewer vaccine molecules were delivered by the cavitation approach compared to conventional injection, the cavitation approach produced a higher immune response. The researchers theorize this could be due to the immune-rich skin the ultrasonic delivery targets. The result is a more efficient vaccine that could help reduce costs and increase efficacy.

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A new study from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that dopamine release in the human brain plays a crucial role in encoding both reward and punishment prediction errors.

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Atmospheric scientists at UAlbany and China’s Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory recently co-published a new paper in AGU’s Geophysical Research Letters that finds unstable atmospheric conditions have significantly increased over the last several decades.

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An 170-year-old law describing the ratio of heat conductivity to electronic conductivity in metals was thought not to apply to quantum materials. Now theoretical physicists suggest that the Wiedemann-Franz law does, in fact, apply to one class of quantum materials -- the copper oxides, or cuprates.

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Space is a harsh environment, but some areas are even harsher than others. A star-forming region known as the Lobster Nebula is host to some of the most massive stars in our galaxy. Massive stars are hotter, and therefore emit more ultraviolet (UV) light.

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A future quantum network may become less of a stretch thanks to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Chicago and Cambridge University.

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A study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Mid-America Transplant showed that the long-standing practice of treating deceased organ donors with thyroid hormone does not help preserve heart function, may cause harm and should be discontinued.

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For many people with migraine, it can be difficult to find a treatment that is effective and reliable, and information on how medications compare to one another is lacking. A new study draws data from nearly 300,000 people using a smartphone app to help people make decisions about their medications. The study found that certain migraine medications like triptans, ergots and anti-emetics may be two to five times more effective than ibuprofen for treating migraine attacks, according to new research published in the November 29, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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New calculations from Google DeepMind grow Berkeley Lab's Materials Project, an open-access resource that scientists use to develop new materials for future technologies. Some of the computations were used alongside data from the Materials Project to test A-Lab, a facility at Berkeley Lab where artificial intelligence guides robots in making new materials.

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As the 2023 hurricane season comes to a close, the living shorelines of Cedar Key should be considered one of the year’s success stories in fight against impact of climate change.

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In a new study using brain scans of former NFL athletes, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they found high levels of a repair protein present long after a traumatic brain injury such as a concussion takes place.

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A new study finds that doing just one minute of squatting exercises periodically during long periods of sitting may help preserve the brain’s cognitive and executive function. The study is published ahead of print in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

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University of Washington researchers found that when prompted to make pictures of “a person,” the AI image generator over-represented light-skinned men, failed to equitably represent Indigenous peoples and sexualized images of certain women of color.

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A new Phase Ib/II study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Moffitt Cancer Center found that combining sensitizing drugs with a specific form of radiation therapy may be more effective in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer, yielding a higher progression-free survival (PFS) and overall response rate (ORR).

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Researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that country of birth – not just geographic region – is a key risk factor for gastric intestinal metaplasia, a precursor lesion of stomach cancer.

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Researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found certain immune cells can still fight cancer even when the cancer cells lack an important protein that the immune system relies on to help track down cancer cells.

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In diseased hearts, low-dose radiation therapy appears to improve heart function. The research, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, could lead to new heart failure therapies.

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A new George Washington University Politics Poll shows significant liabilities for U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump heading into the 2024 election.

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A new study from the UW found that unfiltered air from rush-hour traffic significantly increased passengers’ blood pressure, both while in the car and up to 24 hours later. 

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A promising new form of ammonium phosphate fertilizer has been field-tested by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers. The fertilizer, struvite, offers a triple win for sustainability and crop production, as it recycles nutrients from wastewater streams, reduces leaching of phosphorus and nitrogen in agricultural soils, and maintains or improves soybean yield compared to conventional phosphorus fertilizers.

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COVID-19 caused an alarming surge in premature births, but vaccines were key to returning the early birth rate to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new analysis of California birth records.

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Computer scientists led by Ning Zhang at the McKelvey School of Engineering developed AntiFake, a tool to protect voice recordings from unauthorized speech synthesis.

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Chula Engineering lecturer’s innovation “The Balance Assessment Device”—gold medal winner at ITEX 2023, Malaysia, and recipient of World Invention Intellectual Property Associations’ (WIIPA) Special Award (Gold Medal)—checks body balance and balance loss for behavior changes and fall prevention to promote fall risk awareness and knowledge.

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Wits researchers pioneer a new way of searching for Dark Matter. Researchers explore whether Dark Matter particles actually are produced inside a jet of standard model particles.

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Scientists rely on pyrite, also known as “fool’s gold,” as a sensitive recorder of oceanic conditions, used to reconstruct timelines of global environmental change. Research from Washington University in St. Louis helps separate out local effects and sheds new light on the role of ancient microbial activity in driving the signals.

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New research led by the University of Portsmouth in England has revealed moderate intensity exercise can improve cognitive function in people who are sleep deprived and have low levels of oxygen.

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New research finds female surgeons had slightly lower patient mortality than males for elective surgeries, but no gender difference for non-elective procedures.

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Black people who eat more foods with whole grains, including some breads and cereals, quinoa, and popcorn, may have a slower rate of memory decline compared to Black people who eat fewer whole grain foods, according to a study published in the November 22, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The researchers did not see a similar trend in white participants.

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Research and development is an expensive undertaking for any company — which is why so many startups begin with a new patent, a brand new idea foundationally tested and ready to be scaled up.

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A gene previously linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers appears to play an important role in steering cells in the brain’s hippocampus toward their ultimate identities, the same team reported in a new study.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a form of cholesterol known as cholesteryl esters builds up in the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s-like disease, and that clearing out the cholesteryl esters helps prevent brain damage and behavioral changes.

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Scientists show for the first time that bacteria can cause itch by activating nerve cells in the skin. The findings can inform new therapies to treat itch that occurs in inflammatory skin conditions like eczema and dermatitis.

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During missions into space, astronauts are exposed to high levels of galactic cosmic radiation and weightlessness. Simulation experiments in male rats indicated that these aspects of spaceflight can negatively affect vascular tissues relevant to erectile dysfunction, even after a period of long-term recovery.

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There’s a popular saying in some circles that “a calorie is a calorie,” but science shows that it may not be true. In fact, it may be possible to eat more of some kinds of calories while also improving your health.“We like to say a calorie is not just a calorie,” says Dudley Lamming, a professor and metabolism researcher at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

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Guided by machine learning, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a record-setting carbonaceous supercapacitor material that stores four times more energy than the best commercial material.

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A new artificial intelligence computer program created by researchers at the University of Florida and NVIDIA can generate doctors’ notes so well that two physicians couldn’t tell the difference, according to an early study from both groups.

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Results showed that bilinguals seem to be more efficient at ignoring information that's irrelevant, rather than suppressing — or inhibiting information

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In Physics of Fluids, scientists demonstrate how bloodstains can yield valuable details by examining the protrusions that deviate from the boundaries of otherwise elliptical bloodstains. The researchers studied how these “tails” are formed using a series of high-speed experiments with human blood droplets less than a millimeter wide impacting horizontal surfaces at various angles. They found that the tail length can reflect information about the size, impact speed, and impact angle of the blood drop that formed the stain.

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Children who had preexisting health problems or who lived in the Southern United States had a higher risk for severe health outcomes from acute COVID-19 infections, according to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The results, reported in the journal Hospital Pediatrics that is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, also showed the importance of vaccinations in reducing the severity of illness for those who became infected.

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The emergence of artificial intelligence has caused differing reactions from tech leaders, politicians and the public. While some excitedly tout AI technology such as ChatGPT as an advantageous tool with the potential to transform society, others are alarmed that any tool with the word “intelligent” in its name also has the potential to overtake humankind.

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Wild caviar, a pricey delicacy made from sturgeon eggs, has been illegal for decades since poaching brought the fish to the brink of extinction.