Curated News: Staff Picks

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Irvine, Calif., June 21, 2022 — If you are skilled at playing puzzles on your smartphone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puzzles, or more broadly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the language of psychologists, does “near transfer” predict “far transfer”? A team of psychologists from the University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Riverside reports in Nature Human Behavior that people who show near transfer are more likely to show far transfer.

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Whether it’s sports practice, music lessons or a casual catch up with friends, when children are involved in after-school activities, they’re more likely to feel happier and healthier than their counterparts who are glued to a screen.

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Rabies virus kills a shocking 59,000 people each year, many of them children. In a new study, researchers from La Jolla Institute for Immunology and Institut Pasteur share a promising path to better vaccine design.

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UC San Diego researchers report significant decrease in national cases of Kawasaki disease during COVID-19 pandemic; findings hint at origins of disease.

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A team of U.S. and Chinese scientists mapping oil pollution across the Earth’s oceans has found that more than 90% of chronic oil slicks come from human sources, a much higher proportion than previously estimated. Their research, published in Science, is a major update from previous investigations into marine oil pollution, which estimated that about half came from human sources and half from natural sources.

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Many disease-linked variants are declining in frequency in breeds regularly screened for the marker.

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A team of researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center were the first to generate a bona fide mouse model of a Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and potentially aggressive form of skin cancer. The study outlining these results appeared in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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Researchers at the University of Oklahoma have found that the warming climate is decreasing microbial diversity, which is essential for soil health

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June 16 is World Sea Turtle Day, an occasion to consider the role these creatures play in the marine ecosystem. Florida State University Associate Professor Mariana Fuentes researches sea turtles and looks for ways to help turtles and humans coexist. She answered five questions about her work and how science can help inform public policy.

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Valproic acid (VPA) keeps nervous system cells from growing and dividing correctly, researchers discovered.

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A new study by the University of Georgia found Florida panthers are the No. 1 cause of mortality for white-tailed deer in Southwest Florida.

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A world-first study from the University of South Australia could make this a reality as new genetic research shows a direct link between dementia and a lack of vitamin D.

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The more a person stares at themselves while talking with a partner in an online chat, the more their mood degrades over the course of the conversation, a new study finds. Alcohol use appears to worsen this effect.

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For the first time in the last 30 years, the consumption of ultra-processed foods among teenagers in the United States declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study presented at ENDO 2022, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Atlanta, Ga.

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Scientists have been warning for quite some time that monarch butterflies were headed for extinction. But to misquote Mark Twain, rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated. A new study found that growth in the summer population has compensated for losses during the winter.

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McMaster University scientists who compared respiratory vaccine-delivery systems have confirmed that inhaled aerosol vaccines provide far better protection and stronger immunity than nasal sprays.

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Princeton geneticist Stephen Gaughran recently confirmed that 'Fernanda' comes from the same species as a tortoise collected from Fernandina Island more than a century ago, and those two are genetically distinct from all other Galápagos tortoises.

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Marine predation intensifies in warmer waters; could reshape ocean communities as climate changes.

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A robotic finger with living skin tissue points to future manufacturing methods.

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Research involving palaeontologists from the Universities of Portsmouth and Southampton has identified the remains of one of Europe’s largest ever land-based hunters: a dinosaur that measured over 10m long and lived around 125 million years ago.

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A Quantum Science Center-supported team has captured the first-ever appearance of a previously undetectable quantum excitation known as the axial Higgs mode.

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It’s no secret that puffing cigarettes is the culprit behind a host of ailments, including respiratory diseases and throat cancer. But a new UNLV study reveals that male smokers — who, demographically, are more likely than women to light up — are also placing themselves at a significantly increased risk of osteoporosis, bone fractures, and early death.

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People who can skillfully interpret other people’s emotional states might also be better at assessing the emotions conveyed by music, new research shows.

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New research published in the June 3, 2022 journal Science reveals that 44 percent of Earth’s land area – some 64 million square kilometers (24.7 million square miles) requires conservation to safeguard biodiversity.

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Researchers at the University of California, Irvine are conducting pioneering research into the concept that unpredictable parental behaviors, together with unpredictable environment, such as lack of routines and frequent disasters, disrupt optimal emotional brain circuit development in children, increasing their vulnerability to mental illness and substance abuse.

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The AREDS2 dietary supplement formula not only reduces risk of lung cancer due to beta-carotene, but is also more effective at reducing risk of AMD progression, compared to the original AREDS formula.

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A recent study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has revealed that consuming at least one cup of coffee a day may reduce the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) when compared to those who do not drink coffee.

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To prevent the worst outcomes from climate change, the U.S. will need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in the next eight years. Scientists from around the nation have developed a blueprint for success.

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Not a fan of mowing the lawn? Good news, cutting the grass less may be better for the environment. Trimming the number of times you run the mower around the yard, known as “low mow”, can help reduce carbon emissions, build soil organic matter and even enhance pollinating habitats for bees.

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A study by University of Oregon researchers found that stores that adopted responsible scheduling practices were more productive and saw increased sales and reduced labor hours compared to Gap stores that maintained the status quo.

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A study from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management finds teammates who thanked each other before performing a high-stress task had a better cardiovascular response compared to teams who did not express gratitude. The enhanced cardiovascular response leads to increased concentration, more confidence, allowing individuals to give their peak performance.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center have found a cell nuclear receptor activated by high fat diets and synthetic substances in unregulated athletic performance enhancers fuels the progression of precancerous pancreas lesions into pancreatic cancer.

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A National Institutes of Health-funded study has found that people with food allergies are less likely to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, than people without them.

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New research from University of Washington associate professor of management Abhinav Gupta shows that narcissism can cause knowledge barriers within organizations. Narcissists hinder cooperations between units due to a sense of superiority.

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A small, rare crayfish thought to be extinct for 30 years has been rediscovered in a cave in the City of Huntsville in northern Alabama by a team led by an assistant professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

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Limonene – a compound in orange peels – is used in flavorings, perfumes and cleaners. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have treated limonene with electricity and ethanol, resulting in a mixture of fragrant aroma compounds, some of which haven’t been identified before.

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Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to University of Copenhagen research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms.

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Tomatoes gene-edited to produce vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, could be a simple and sustainable innovation to address a global health problem.

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Young children who grow up with a dog or in a large family may have some protection later in life from a common inflammatory bowel disease known as Crohn’s disease, according to a study to be presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2022.