Obesity is a significant global health issue and is on the increase. In addition to a variety of chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, obesity is also linked to reduced sperm quality and male infertility. Scientists have also linked obesity to increased inflammation. Obese people can experience chronic inflammation in various tissues, and previous studies show that fat cells can produce and release specific signaling proteins that cause inflammatory responses....

Scientists at Scripps Research have uncovered new insights into the role of the immune system in the cycle of alcohol use disorder (AUD). In a study published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, they found that the levels of the immune signaling molecule interleukin 1β (IL-1β) are elevated in the brains of mice with alcohol dependence. Furthermore, the IL-1β pathway operates differently in these mice, leading to inflammation in crucial regions of the brain that are associated with decision-making....

Doing Good Does You Good Regular volunteer work provides demonstrable benefits for the health and well-being of older adults, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, takes a closer look at the benefits of volunteering to the health and well-being of volunteers, both validating and refuting findings from previous research. The results verify that adults over 50 who volunteer for at least 100 hours a year (about two hours per week) have a substantially reduced risk of mortality and developing physical limitations, higher levels of subsequent physical activity, and improved sense of well-being later on compared to individuals who do not volunteer....

Now, a team at MIT and other institutions has come up with a way to bypass such expensive and time-consuming fabrication and testing, allowing for a rapid screening of far more variations than would be practical through the traditional approach. The new process could not only speed up the search for new formulations, but also do a more accurate job of predicting their performance, explains Rachel Kurchin, an MIT graduate student and co-author of a paper describing the new process that appears this week in the journal Joule....

Study shows treatment does no harm, but provides no benefit. A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of adults hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been stopped by the National Institutes of Health. A data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) met late Friday and determined that while there was no harm, the study drug was very unlikely to be beneficial to hospitalized patients with COVID-19....

That is the general idea of the “depressive realism” theory, which has been prevalent in science and popular culture for more than forty years. The issue is that it’s just untrue, according to a recent study. “It’s an idea that exerts enough appeal that lots of people seem to believe it, but the evidence just isn’t there to sustain it,” says Professor Don Moore, the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair in Leadership and Communication at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and co-author of the study, in press at the journal Collabra:Psychology....

Tick-borne diseases have become a worldwide threat to public health. In the United States, cases more than doubled, from 22,000 in 2004 to more than 48,000 in 2016, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Tick-borne diseases range from subclinical to fatal infections with the disproportionate incidence in children or the elderly. Moreover, some infections can also be transmitted by blood transfusions and cause severe disease in patients with underlying disorders....

The findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. While it’s been demonstrated before that light and sound waves can manipulate objects, the objects have always been smaller than the wavelength of sound or light, or on the order of millimeters to nanometers, respectively. The University of Minnesota team has developed a method that can move larger objects using the principles of metamaterial physics. Metamaterials are materials that are artificially engineered to interact with waves, like light and sound....

Our universe is expanding, but our two main ways to measure how fast this expansion is happening have resulted in different answers. For the past decade, astrophysicists have been gradually dividing into two camps: one that believes that the difference is significant, and another that thinks it could be due to errors in measurement. If it turns out that errors are causing the mismatch, that would confirm our basic model of how the universe works....

Our brains have an upper limit on how much they can process at once due to a constant but limited energy supply, according to a new UCL study using a brain imaging method that measures cellular metabolism. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that paying attention can change how the brain allocates its limited energy; as the brain uses more energy in processing what we attend to, less energy is supplied to processing outside our attention focus....

This comprehensive cross-disciplinary effort has resulted in a paper – entitled “An unusual association of hadrosaur and therizinosaur tracks within Late Cretaceous rocks of Denali National Park, Alaska” – published in Scientific Reports, an online open access scientific mega journal published by the Nature Publishing Group, covering all areas of the natural sciences. Anthony R. Fiorillo, Ph.D., chief curator and vice president of research and collections at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas, is the lead author....

Their findings raise concerns about the quality of evidence underpinning many of these studies, and highlight the need to improve their design and reporting standards. Artificial intelligence (AI) is an innovative and fast moving field with the potential to improve patient care and relieve overburdened health services. Deep learning is a branch of AI that has shown particular promise in medical imaging. The volume of published research on deep learning is growing, and some media headlines that claim superior performance to doctors have fuelled hype for rapid implementation....

The faint, lumpy glow given off by the very first objects in the universe may have been detected with the best precision yet, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. These faint objects might be wildly massive stars or voracious black holes. They are too far away to be seen individually, but Spitzer has captured new, convincing evidence of what appears to be the collective pattern of their infrared light. The observations help confirm the first objects were numerous in quantity and furiously burned cosmic fuel....

The study utilized topological photonics, an emergent direction in photonics which leverages fundamental ideas of the mathematical field of topology about conserved quantities—topological invariants—that remain constant when altering parts of a geometric object under continuous deformations. One of the simplest examples of such invariants is number of holes, which, for instance, makes donut and mug equivalent from the topological point of view. The topological properties endow photons with helicity, when photons spin as they propagate, leading to unique and unexpected characteristics, such as robustness to defects and unidirectional propagation along interfaces between topologically distinct materials....

New research from Cornell University shows that plants can communicate with each other when they come under attack from pests. The study shows that plants can share messages in the form of airborne chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that transfer information among plants. Andre Kessler, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell, and his team looked at Solidago altissima, a species of goldenrod native to the Northeast, and monitored the impact of a specific herbivore: the goldenrod leaf beetle....

The new study, recently published in Ecological Applications, includes satellite tracking and visual monitoring of polar bears in the 1990s compared with more recent years. “Climate-induced changes in the Arctic are clearly affecting polar bears,” said lead author Kristin Laidre, a UW associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. “They are an icon of climate change, but they’re also an early indicator of climate change because they are so dependent on sea ice....

The “Mickey Mouse problem” commonly referenced in religious psychology refers to the difficulty in predicting which supernatural beings are capable of eliciting belief and religious devotion. Why, for example, don’t fictional characters such as Mickey Mouse achieve the same belief and devotion as society’s more traditional religious icons? In research published in the journal PLOS ONE, lead author Dr Thomas Swan has developed a god template that distinguishes such religious and secular supernatural beings by exploring the attributes people associate with each....

Tunneling reactions in chemistry are very difficult to predict. The quantum mechanically exact description of chemical reactions with more than three particles is difficult, with more than four particles it is almost impossible. Theorists simulate these reactions with classical physics and must neglect quantum effects. But where is the limit of this classical description of chemical reactions, which can only provide approximations? Roland Wester from the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics at the University of Innsbruck has long wanted to explore this frontier....

All life on Earth is based on 20 amino acids, which are governed by the DNA to form proteins. In the inherited DNA, it is always three sequential DNA bases, or codons, which combine to “encode” one single of these 20 amino acids. The resultant grid of codons is what is known as the genetic code. “Researchers have been puzzled for decades why evolution has selected these 20 amino acids for genetic encoding,” said Professor Bernd Moosmann....

Entanglement involves two quantum particles – photons, for example – forming a single physical system in spite of the distance between them. Every action performed on one of the two photons has an impact on its “twin” photon. This principle of entanglement leads to quantum non-locality: the measurements and statistics of the properties observed on one of the photons are very closely correlated with the measurements made on the other photon....