Feature Channels: All Journal News

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For couples with decades of shared memories, a partner’s decline in the ability to communicate because of dementia is frightening and frustrating. Communication strategies they’ve used before simply don’t work anymore. By getting creative, an in-home intervention to support couples affected by dementia is showing that “practice does make perfect,” both for the caregiver and the care receiver or person with dementia, and can improve their communication behaviors in just 10 weeks.

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A non-native grass species has been wreaking havoc in wetlands all over the U.S., impacting migratory birds' fueling stops. In response, researchers test the usefulness of reed canarygrass as a feed source for cows, with hopes of controlling the invasive species.

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A new study led by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital used data from a national survey to examine the effectiveness of state-level cellphone laws in decreasing teens’ use of cellphones while driving. The study, done in conjunction with researchers from West Virginia University and the University of Minnesota, and published today in Journal of Adolescent Health, looked at state-level cellphone laws and differences in both texting and hand-held cellphone conversations among teen drivers across four years.

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A new study shows that individuals who possess high primary psychopathic characteristics appear to have distinct advantages over those who don’t, when working for an abusive supervisor.

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Day-night changes in light and temperature power a low-cost material assembly that mimics biological self-copying.

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Engineers develop wires that penetrate neurons and measure their activity

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NYU economist Sylvain Chassang addresses current marketplace uncertainties head-on with an approach that disregards the past as a variable in investment strategy and, instead, champions game theory.

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A perspective article in the March 2018 issue of SLAS Discovery from the biology group at the European Screening Centre Newhouse details how the European Lead Factory (ELF), a large publicly accessible drug discovery platform, uses microscale thermophoresis (MST) to aid in the prioritization of small molecule hits from high-throughput screening.

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Cyanobacteria - which propel the ocean engine and help sustain marine life – can shift their colour like chameleons to match different coloured light across the world’s seas, according to research by an international collaboration including the University of Warwick.The researchers have shown that Synechococcus cyanobacteria – which use light to capture carbon dioxide from the air and produce energy for the marine food chain – contain specific genes which alters their pigmentation depending on the type of light in which they float, allowing them to adapt and thrive in any part of the world’s oceans.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that when mature cells transition to begin dividing again, they all seem to do it the same way, regardless of what organ those cells come from.

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Cuando alguien padece una enfermedad crónica, bien puede poner sus esperanzas en los tratamientos de los ensayos clínicos que, al principio, muestran resultados positivos. Sin embargo, esos resultados posiblemente sean exagerados en 1 de cada 3 de los primeros ensayos clínicos.

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When people are suffering from a chronic medical condition, they may place their hope on treatments in clinical trials that show early positive results. However, these results may be grossly exaggerated in more than 1 in 3 early clinical trials, reports a new study led by Mayo Clinic and published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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Modern humans have brains that are more than three times larger than our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. Scientists don't agree on when and how this dramatic increase took place, but new analysis of 94 hominin fossils shows that average brain size increased gradually and consistently over the past three million years.

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Lingering inflammation after heart attack can lead heart failure. It can also claim another victim — the kidneys. New research shows that a bioactive compound called resolvin D-1, injected as a therapeutic dose, is able to limit this collateral damage in the kidneys, as tested in an animal model.

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Levels of a protein found in the brain called alpha-synuclein (α-syn) are significantly lower than normal in cerebrospinal fluid collected in Parkinson’s disease patients suffering from postural instability and gait difficulty, a study led by movement disorders experts at Rush University Medical Center has found.

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Caregivers of patients with long critical illnesses experience high and persistent rates of depression. Losing a partner can be especially stressful for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Resident physicians experience moral distress when they administer futile treatments at the end of life.

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Gel uses nanoparticles for on-demand control of droplet shapes, of interest for energy storage and catalysis.

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Researchers from the University of Notre Dame warn climate change can not only influence the geographic distribution of a species in response to changing conditions — it could also affect the evolutionary trajectories of interbreeding species.

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Beluga whales that spend summers feeding in the Arctic are diving deeper and longer to find food than in earlier years, when sea ice covered more of the ocean for longer periods, according to a new analysis led by University of Washington researchers.

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Current generated when light hits a material reveals electrons behaving like an elusive particle.

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Lens technologies have advanced across all scales, from digital cameras and high bandwidth in fiber optics to the LIGO lab instruments. Now, a new lens technology that could be produced using standard computer-chip technology is emerging and could replace the bulky layers and complex geometries of traditional curved lenses. Researchers at Harvard and Argonne National Laboratory have developed a device that integrates mid-infrared spectrum metalenses onto MEMS. They report their work in this week’s APL Photonics.

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Researchers describe the role of a transcription factor called TCF-1 in targeting the condensed chromatin and regulating the availability of genome sequences in T-cell development. The new connection between TCF-1 and chromatin will aid in developing new therapies using epigenetic drugs to alter T-cell fate in cancer, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases.

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Women who complain about chest pain often are reassured by their doctors that there is no reason to worry because their angiograms show that the women don’t have blockages in the major heart arteries, a primary cause of heart attacks in men. But a National Institutes of Health study led by investigators at the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute, shows that about 8% of those women actually have scars on their heart that indicate they experienced a heart attack.

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Tiny cages can trap and release inert argon gas atoms, allowing their further study and providing a new way to capture rare gases.

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Weizmann Institute scientists bring together physics and biology to create a new model of brain development.

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The midterm election may signal more than a change of direction in Washington, said Dianne Bystrom, director of Iowa State’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. It also may determine if 2016 was an anomaly or the new norm for future elections.

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Republicans who believe that God is very involved with humanity are like Democrats — more liberal — when it comes to social and economic justice issues, according to a Baylor University study. Meanwhile, Democrats who see God as a strict father tend to agree about with "an eye-for-an-eye" policy when it comes to harsher criminal punishment and military solutions to foreign conflicts.

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Researchers engineered mice in which the damage caused by a mutant human TDP-43 protein could be reversed by one type of brain immune cell. TDP-43 is a protein that misfolds and accumulates in the motor areas of the brains of ALS patients. They found that microglia, the first and primary immune response cells in the brain and spinal cord, are essential for dealing with TDP-43-associated neuron death.

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Organic polymer solar cells show potential to provide solar power to remote microwatt sensors, wearable technology and the Wi-Fi-connected appliances constituting the “internet of things.” While PSCs cannot match the durability or efficiency of inorganic solar cells, the potential to mass-produce nontoxic, disposable solar panels using roll-to-roll production makes them attractive for additional applications. In this week’s Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, researchers review the latest advances and remaining challenges in PSC technology.

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Allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation recipients are at a significantly higher risk of cognitive impairment in the years post-transplantation, according to a study published in Journal of Clinical Oncology. Published by Noha Sharafeldin, M.D., M.Sc., Ph.D., instructor in UAB’s Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship and Division of Hematology and Oncology, this study helps add a missing piece to a long-unsolved puzzle about post-transplant effects on recipients, specifically that vulnerable subpopulations of similar transplants can benefit from targeted interventions in the years after they receive their lifesaving treatment.

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A new University of Chicago study shows how tiny, light-powered wires could be fashioned out of silicon to manipulate electrical signaling between neurons. Published Feb. 19 in Nature Nanotechnology, the study offers a new avenue to shed light on—and perhaps someday treat—brain disorders.

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Studies have shown that talking with teens about sex-related topics is a positive parenting practice that facilitates important sexual health outcomes with heterosexual adolescents. But for LGBTQ youth, the topic of sexuality and sexual health is often ineffectively addressed at home.

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A team of researchers has developed a low-cost, portable medical sensor package that has the potential to alert users of medical issues ranging from severe heart conditions to cancer, according to a study published in the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology.

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In an analysis of clinical data collected on more than 9,000 people, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the number of years spent overweight or obese appear to “add up” to a distinct risk factor that makes those with a longer history of heaviness more likely to test positive for a chemical marker of so-called “silent” heart damage than those with a shorter history.

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An increase in social conflict increases the likelihood of assassinations of political leaders, according to new research co-conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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Simulations discovered the first molecule with three extra electrons and extraordinary stability.

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An analysis of recent Medicare billing records for more than 3,000 hospitals across the United States shows that charges for outpatient oncology services such as chemo infusion or radiation treatment vary widely and exceed what Medicare will pay by twofold to sixfold.

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Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time developed a method to safely charge a smartphone wirelessly using a laser.

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A cell’s membrane is composed of a bilayer of lipids, and the inside-facing layer is made of different lipids than the outside-facing layer. Because different lipids create membranes with different physical properties, researchers wondered whether different lipid compositions in the bilayer could also lead to different physical properties. They will present their work exploring this “lipid asymmetry” during the 62nd Biophysical Society Meeting, held Feb. 17-21.

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Researchers at Stanford University are studying how bacteria living in the gut respond to common changes within their habitat, working with mice. They change the gut environment within the mice, and then measure which bacterial species survive the change and how the gut environment itself has changed. They also study the physiological response of the bacteria -- if they grow faster or slower, or produce different proteins. The work was presented during the Biophysical Society Meeting, held Feb. 17-21.

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A study by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland researchers, has found that “park prescriptions” provided by physicians to their low-income patients can help reduce stress and improve physical well-being in patients and their families.

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African Americans with atrial fibrillation (AF) – a quivering or irregular heartbeat that can lead to a host of dangerous complications – have a significantly higher risk of stroke than Caucasians with the condition, according to new research published today in HeartRhythm by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The new findings build on previous studies examining the impact of race on the risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AF), which is linked to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other complications. It’s well reported that African Americans have a lower risk of developing AF as compared to Caucasians, but until now, there was little data on the additional risks that come with AF for each race.

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Researchers from the University of Chicago, Harvard University and others show that poor immune responses, not egg adaptions, may explain the low effectiveness of the vaccine that year.

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An international team of astronomers led by the University of Southampton has confirmed the discovery of the most distant supernova ever detected – a huge cosmic explosion that took place 10.5 billion years ago, or three-quarters the age of the Universe itself.

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New research finds young women who value their own desires as much as their partner's, are less likely to engage in unwanted sexual activity.

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A therapeutic target to preserve vision in glaucoma patients could have treatment ramifications for age-related neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, according to findings released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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A new model developed by Michigan Medicine researchers could change treatment guidelines for nearly two-thirds of men with localized prostate cancer.

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The observation of an abnormal state of matter in a 2-D magnetic material is the latest development in the race to harness novel electronic properties for more robust and efficient next-generation devices. Neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory helped researchers investigate a graphene-like strontium-manganese-antimony material that hosts what they suspect is a Weyl semimetal phase.

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Tax increment financing (TIF) and other development incentives have become American cities’ primary means of encouraging local economic development. A new study by the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis finds that TIF incentives could promote racial equity by using greater transparency and more equitable targeting of the locations where tax incentives are used.

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Around the clock, cells deep in the brain produces a “grandfather” form of several hormones that help us regulate our appetite and eating. Now, a new discovery sheds new light on how that grandfather molecule gets produced – and more important, what can go wrong and raise the risk of overeating and obesity. The findings could pave the way for new approaches to treating forms of obesity, especially those with genetic roots.