Tech

Former professional football players who have experienced concussion symptoms, including loss of consciousness, disorientation or nausea after a head injury, are more likely to report low testosterone and erectile dysfunction (ED), according to research published Aug. 26 in JAMA Neurology.

For people with polycystic kidney disease (PKD), life can be a constant cycle of symptoms: aches and pains, abdominal swelling, kidney stones, high blood pressure. At worst, the disease frequently leads to a suite of major issues, including kidney failure, cysts in the liver and vascular problems, including strokes. According to the National Institutes of Health, PKD is a "fairly common genetic disorder," affecting roughly 600,000 people in the United States, with the more common autosomal dominant (AD) form affecting roughly one in 500 to 1,000 people.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm Dorian as it triggered warnings and watches for the  islands of the Eastern Caribbean Sea.

On Monday, August 26, 2019, a Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Barbados, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Dominica, Grenada and its dependencies, Saba and St. Eustatius. A Hurricane Watch is in effect for St. Lucia.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. - Deep in the waterlogged peat of salt marshes, carbon is stored at much greater rates than in land ecosystems, serving as an offset to climate change due to carbon dioxide (CO2) build-up in the atmosphere.

Scientists may have found a way to pull down the protective wall that surrounds tumours, potentially re-exposing them to the killing power of the immune system and immunotherapy treatments, according to a study part funded by Cancer Research UK and published in EBioMedicine today (Monday).

Although this is early research in the lab, the findings suggest this approach could help to boost the effects of innovative cancer treatments, such as CAR-T therapy, which so far haven't been used successfully to tackle solid tumours.

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 26, 2019 -- In addition to their role in plant fertilization and reproduction, pollens and spores have another, hidden talent: With a simple treatment, these cheap, abundant and renewable grains can be converted into tiny sponge-like particles that can grab on to pollutants and remove them from water, scientists report. Even better, these treated particles don't trigger allergies.

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 26, 2019 -- A polymer that self-destructs? While once a fictional idea, new polymers now exist that are rugged enough to ferry packages or sensors into hostile territory and vaporize immediately upon a military mission's completion. The material has been made into a rigid-winged glider and a nylon-like parachute fabric for airborne delivery across distances of a hundred miles or more. It could also be used someday in building materials or environmental sensors.

Animals that do well in urban areas tend to be the ones that learn to make use of resources such as the food humans throw away. But is our food actually good for them? A new study published in The Condor: Ornithological Applications suggests that a diet of human foods such as discarded cheeseburgers might be giving American Crows living in urban areas higher blood cholesterol levels than their rural cousins.

A recent study indicates that certain physicians who care for patients with cancer do not often promote healthy lifestyle changes to cancer survivors, and they may fear that providing such advice would distress or overwhelm patients.

There is a growing demand for diagnostic markers for early disease detection and prognosis. Exosomes are potential biomarkers for cancer progression and neurodegenerative disease but it can be difficult to identify what tissue a specific exosome comes from. Researchers at Uppsala University and spin-off company Vesicode AB have solved this problem by developing a method that maps surface protein complements on large numbers of individual exosomes.

A University of Texas at Dallas physicist has teamed with Texas Instruments Inc. to design a better way for electronics to convert waste heat into reusable energy.

The collaborative project demonstrated that silicon's ability to harvest energy from heat can be greatly increased while remaining mass-producible.

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 25, 2019 -- In 2012, Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. Since then, several other states have joined them, and cannabis-infused edibles, including gummy bears, cookies and chocolates, have flooded the market. But these sweet treats have created major headaches for the scientists trying to analyze them for potency and contaminants. Researchers now report that components in chocolate might be interfering with cannabis potency testing, leading to inaccurate results.

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 25, 2019 -- For years, scientists have been trying to solve a medical mystery: Why do people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing some forms of cancer? Today, researchers report a possible explanation for this double whammy. They found that DNA sustains more damage and gets fixed less often when blood sugar levels are high compared to when blood sugar is at a normal, healthy level, thereby increasing one's cancer risk.

Tokyo, Japan - Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University and Ritsumeikan University have found a link between the "roundness" distribution of tsunami deposits and how far tsunamis reach inland. They sampled the "roundness" of gravel from different tsunamis in Koyadori, Japan, and found a common, abrupt change in composition approximately 40% of the "inundation distance" from the shoreline, regardless of tsunami magnitude. Estimates of ancient tsunami size from geological deposits may help inform effective disaster mitigation.

LA JOLLA--(August 23, 2019) The ability to edit genes in living organisms offers the opportunity to treat a plethora of inherited diseases. However, many types of gene-editing tools are unable to target critical areas of DNA, and creating such a technology has been difficult as living tissue contains diverse types of cells.