Culture

PULLMAN, Wash. - Researchers at Washington State University have developed an implantable, biofuel-powered sensor that runs on sugar and can monitor a body's biological signals to detect, prevent and diagnose diseases.

A cross-disciplinary research team led by Subhanshu Gupta, assistant professor in WSU's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, developed the unique sensor, which, enabled by the biofuel cell, harvests glucose from body fluids to run.

URBANA, Ill. - Crop yield predictions are a key driver of regional economy and financial markets, impacting nearly the entire agricultural supply chain. That's why economists, agricultural researchers, government agencies, and private companies are working to improve the accuracy of these predictions.

Even after being severely damaged by blast fishing and coral mining, coral reefs can be rehabilitated over large scales using a relatively inexpensive technique, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis, in partnership with Mars Symbioscience.

Many migrant children separated from their parents at the U.S. border, some of them very young, have landed in shelters where they often experience stress, neglect and minimal social and cognitive stimulation.

A vaccine against deadly foal pneumonia might finally be within reach, thanks to Morris Animal Foundation-funded research conducted at two major universities. The breakthrough could potentially save the lives of thousands of foals every year.

At a moment when boundaries of religious rights are in conflict and prominent in American conversation, Andrew Lewis looks at perspectives often unconsidered.

Lewis, a University of Cincinnati political scientist and award-winning author, focuses his research on the nexus of American politics and religion and sees a potential shift in Christian conservative political strategies, especially for religious rights advocacy.

A review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses the effects of alcohol use on various forms of liver disease, as well as the assessment and treatment of alcohol use in patients with chronic liver disease.

Liver-related mortality is increasing worldwide, due in large part to the increase in alcohol consumption. This review is very timely, as recent epidemiological studies have shown that alcohol consumption that does not reach the risky range is associated with increased morbidity and mortality.

Below is a summary of the review article:

Only one in 20 US children in the study met the full recommended guidelines on recreational screen time, physical activity and sleep.

Limiting recreational screen time to less than two hours a day, and having sufficient sleep and physical activity is associated with improved cognition, compared with not meeting any recommendations, according to an observational study of more than 4,500 US children aged 8-11 years old published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.

Bottom Line: Adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were significantly more likely to relapse than pediatric ALL patients, and factors including lower clinical trial enrollment and shorter duration of therapy were associated with relapse.

Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

AMHERST, Mass. - One of the outstanding questions in neurodevelopment research has been identifying how connections in the brain change to improve neural function during childhood and adolescence. Now, results from a study in rats just reported by neuroscientists Heather Richardson, Geng-Lin Li and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggest that as animals transition into adolescence, specific physical changes to axons speed up neural transmission, which may lead to higher cognitive abilities.

Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have shown that autologous fecal microbiota transplantation (auto-FMT) is a safe and effective way to help replenish beneficial gut bacteria in cancer patients who require intense antibiotics during allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In their study, patients who underwent the procedure were randomly assigned into two groups: one group received standard care and the other received auto-FMT.

Severe weather events, such as summer hurricanes, tornadoes, and winter snow storms often result in widespread and prolonged power outages, interrupting essential household functions, including home heating. Power losses may also compromise food storage and home cooling devices. In such a scenario, people may turn to dangerous remedies to compensate for lost electrical power.

An editorial article in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health addresses the threat of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning.

Scientists have known for decades that certain bacteria produce small spherical versions of themselves. Although they lack basic materials to reproduce or function like normal cells, recent interest in such "minicells" has spiked due to their proficiency as nano-sized delivery tools for drugs and vaccines to targeted cells and tissues.

Robots may one day tackle obstacles and traverse uneven terrains thanks to collaborative research analysing the motion of lizards.

The study, which featured a University of Queensland researcher, used a slow motion camera to capture the nuanced movement of eight species of Australian agamid lizards that run on two legs - an action known as 'bipedal' movement.

UQ School of Biological Sciences researcher Nicholas Wu said the study's findings challenged existing mathematical models based on the animals' movement.

Is pain treatment more helpful if it is provided by a person from our own social group, or is the help of a stranger more efficient? A study conducted by researchers from the Universities of Wuerzburg, Amsterdam and Zurich investigated this question and found that people experience a stronger pain relief if they are treated by a person that belongs to a different social group.