Argonne National Laboratory researchers to showcase leading-edge work in high performance computing, AI and more at SC24 international conference.

For many of us creative folks, periods of low inspiration and creative block are inevitable. Max Kent also felt disconnected from his craft, but found...

The post From burnout to breakthrough: Five key steps to breaking the creative block appeared first on DIY Photography.

“Last month brought good news for the great Indian bustard, a critically endangered bird found mainly in India,” reports the BBC: Wildlife officials in the western state of Rajasthan have performed the first successful hatching of a chick through artificial insemination. A lone adult male in one of two breeding centres in Jaisalmer city was […]

The post Breakthrough achieved to save huge native bird appeared first on Liberty Unyielding.

Nov. 13, 2024 — Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory will highlight their work in using powerful supercomputers to tackle challenges in science and technology at SC24, […]

The post Argonne Researchers to Highlight Breakthroughs in Supercomputing and AI at SC24 appeared first on HPCwire.

Newly developed lignin-based hydrogel proves to be a promising tool for wound healing and controlled drug release, according to a new study. With the

New lignin-based hydrogel represents a breakthrough in the fields of wound healing and drug delivery, offering innovative solutions for improved medical treatments.

Argonne National Laboratory researchers to showcase leading-edge work in high performance computing, AI and more at SC24 international conference.

As they seek to establish a church, God gives OM Spain the opportunity to minister to the community, break down barriers and share the gospel.

A well-preserved section of the 2,000-year-old road, known as Watling Street, was unearthed under Old Kent Road in Southwark

Aachen, Germany, 22 May 2023 – Grünenthal today announced that its investigational non-opioid medicine resiniferatoxin (RTX), currently undergoing clinical Phase III development, received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for pain associated with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. The decision is based on clinical phase I and II data indicating significant pain relief and a favourable safety profile.

You stare at a blank screen for what seems like hours, waiting for your brain to come up with a brilliant idea, and it never comes. There has to be a better way to brainstorm, right?

There is--and it might be as simple as doing the laundry.

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When it comes to human organs, none is quite so mysterious as the brain. For centuries, humans have had numerous misconceptions and misunderstandings about how the organ works, grows, and shapes our ability to learn and develop. While we still have a long way to go before we truly unravel all the mysteries the brain has to offer, scientists have been making some major breakthroughs that have gone a long way in explaining both how the brain functions and how we use it to organize, recall, and acquire new information. Here, we list just a few of the biggest and most impactful of these breakthroughs that have contributed to our understanding of the science of learning.

1. More information doesn’t mean more learning.

   
   The brain is equipped to tackle a pretty hefty load of information and sensory input, but there is a point at which the brain becomes overwhelmed, an effect scientists call cognitive overload. While our brains do appreciate new and novel information, as we’ll discuss later, when there is too much of it we become overwhelmed as our minds simply can’t divide our attention between all the different elements vying for it. This term has become a major talking point in criticisms of multi-tasking and in the modern information-saturated online sphere, but the discovery of this cognitive phenomenon also has major implications for education. In order to reduce mental noise, teachers have had to take new approaches to presenting material, using techniques like chunking, focusing on past experiences, and eliminating non-essential elements to help students remember a large body of information.

2. The brain is a highly dynamic organ.

   
   Until the past few decades, people believed that the connections between the neurons in your brain were fixed by the time you were a teenager, and perhaps even earlier. One of the biggest breakthroughs in understanding the science of learning happened when scientists began to realize that this just wasn’t the case. In fact, the brain’s wiring can change at any age and it can grow new neurons and adapt to new situations, though the rate at which this happens does slow with age. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity, and it has had major ramifications in our understanding of how the brain works and how we can use that understanding to improve learning outcomes.

3. Emotion influences the ability to learn.

   
   The ability to learn, retain, and use information isn’t just based on our raw IQs. Over the past few decades it has become increasingly clear that how we feel and our overall emotional state can have a major impact on how well we can learn new things. Educational situations where students feel stressed, shamed, or just uncomfortable can actually make it more difficult for them to learn, increasing negative emotions and sparking a vicious cycle that may leave some children reluctant to attend class. Research is revealing why, as the emotional part of the brain, the limbic system has the ability to open up or shut off access to learning and memory. When under stress or anxiety, the brain blocks access to higher processing and stops forming new connections, making it difficult or impossible to learn. It may seem like common sense that classrooms should be welcoming, non-stressful environments, but different students have different triggers for negative emotional states, making it key for educators to watch for signs that indicate this in students.

4. Mistakes are an essential part of learning.

   
   Failure is a dirty word in most aspects of modern American society, but when it comes to the science of learning, research shows that they’re essential. A recent study found that students performed better in school and felt more confident when they were told that failure was a normal part of learning, bolstering a growing body of research that suggests much of the same. Much like it takes multiple tries to get the hang of riding a bike or completing an acrobatic feat, it can also take multiple tries to master an academic task. Neuroscience research suggests that the best way to learn something new isn’t to focus on mistakes but instead to concentrate on how to do a task correctly. Focusing on the error only reinforces the existing incorrect neural pathway, and will increase the chance that the mistake will be made again. A new pathway has to be built, which means abandoning the old one and letting go of that mistake. This idea has formed the basis for a growing debate about education in American schools, which many believe doesn’t allow children to embrace creativity and problem solving as they are too focused on memorization and test scores.

5. The brain needs novelty.

   
   Turns out boredom really can kill you, or at least your will to pay attention and learn. Repetition may have its place in learning, but what the brain really craves is novelty. Researchers have found that novelty causes the dopamine system in the brain to become activated, sending the chemical throughout the brain. While we often regard dopamine as the “feel good” chemical, scientists have shown that it actually plays a much bigger role, encouraging feelings of motivation and prompting the brain to learn about these new and novel stimuli. This breakthrough has led to some major changes in how we think about learning, and has motivated many schools to embrace learning methods that cater to our brains’ need for new and different experiences.

6. There are no learning styles.

   
   What kind of learner are you? Chances are good that at some point during your educational career someone labeled you as a particular type of learner, either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. This idea that there are distinct types of learners who learn best with certain assortment of stimuli has been showing up in education and brain science for decades, but recent studies have shown that this idea really doesn’t hold much water. Students may have preferences for how they learn, but when put to the test, students were found to have equivalent levels of learning regardless of how information is presented. Attention to the individual talents, preferences, and abilities of students, which helps to cater to the emotional and social needs of students and improves their ability to learn, is more important than styles (of which there have been 71 different models over the past few decades).

7. Brains operate on the “use it or lose it” principle.

   
   There’s a reason that you forget how to speak a language or work out a trigonometry problem if you don’t use those skills on a regular basis. Information in the brain that isn’t used is often lost, as neural pathways are weakened over time. Research has found that the brain generates more cells than it needs, with those that receive both chemical and electrical stimuli surviving and the rest dying off. The brain has to receive regular stimulation through a given pathway in the brain to sustain those cells, which is why lifelong learning is so important to brain health. These findings also have implications for vacations in K-12 education as well, as students who don’t get intellectual stimulation over the summer are much more likely to forget important skills in reading and math when they return to class.

8. Learning is social.

   
   While some select individuals may learn well cloistered in a library with a stack of books, the majority of people need a social environment to maximize their learning. Research has found that from infancy on, people learn better through social cues, much more easily recalling and emulating the actions or words of another human. Aside from social cues, socialization has been shown to have other learning benefits. Peer collaboration offers students access to a diverse array of experiences and requires the use of nearly all the body’s senses, which in turn creates greater activation throughout the brain and enhances long-term memory. Group work, especially when it capitalizes on the strengths of its members, may be more beneficial than many realize, both for teachers and their students.

9. Learning is best when innate abilities are capitalized on.

   
   All of us, from the time we are born, possess innate abilities to see and hear patterns, something that psychologists doubted was true for decades but that we now know to be the case. Research suggests that reinforcing those innate capabilities by teaching patterns early on may actually help kids learn more and sharpen their brains. Aside from being able to see and hear patterns, the human mind has a number of innate abilities (the ability to learn a language, for instance) that when capitalized on in the right way, can help make learning any concept, even one that is abstract, much easier. Combining these innate abilities with structured practice, repetition, and training can help make new ideas and concepts “stick” and make more sense.

10. Learning can change brain structure.

    
    Brain structure and function are intertwined, and you can’t improve one without taking the other into consideration. Yet, in years past, most ideas about learning ignored ways that the brain’s structure itself could be modified, instead focusing on brain function or the brain’s output. The reality is that brain function can only be changed through changing brain structure, which is actually less complicated than it sounds. For example, brain cells fired up during both perception and action overlap in people, and lessons that engage both allow students to more easily identify with their teachers and to learn concepts more quickly, as their brain cells are getting twice the attention and workout. In fact, any new information, if used enough, can modify the structure of the brain, something educators and neuroscientists are just starting to fully explore. 

Researchers at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have developed a single genomic test that can quickly detect virtually any kind of pathogen in a patient. This allows for much quicker diagnoses, enables targeted treatment to begin sooner, and could lower healthcare costs.

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Category: Medical Innovations, Body & Mind

Tags: Health care, Disease, Genome, DNA, University of California San Francisco

Returning after a long absence from the podcast, Fr. John in this episode introduces a new reflection on the crisis of western Christendom prior to the Reformation by discussing the penitential context of Martin Luther's famous Ninety-Five Theses.

Fewer international students are coming to the US for post-graduate degrees in science and engineering. We look into why.

Also: Cuba has a lung cancer vaccine but many US patients can’t get it without breaking the law; a tech start-up synthesizes Marco Werman’s voice; tomato pickers in Florida work together to stop sexual abuse; a bioengineer has a plan to defeat disease-bearing mosquitoes with mobile phones; plus the band Mosquitos releases their first album in 10 years and the buzz is that it’s great.

(Image: Stanford bioengineer Haripriya Mukundarajan, center, began the Abuzz project after contracting malaria while she was in college. Credit: Kurt Hickman)

It’s said some cooks are born, not made, and Anne Grimes agrees.  “I think I was born with a pan and a spoon in my hand, ” laughs Anne. “By the time I was nine, I was baking cakes for neighbors and had a business going.”   Anne’s love of cooking continued after she married. She and her husband started a local bakery. But after a few years, jobs in her town were scarce, and the people there moved out. “All of a sudden, the town just dried up. And so, there was very little business there. So, we...

Escaping the entrepreneur's trap in the construction industry.

The breakthrough will enable the company to produce cultivated meat significantly faster and at lower costs than industry norms, and is therefore an important step towards the commercialization of Meatable’s technology and large-scale production of cultivated meat products more broadly.

Patrick Doherty volunteered for a new medical intervention of gene-editor infusions for the treatment of genetically-based diseases.; Credit: /Patrick Doherty

Patrick Doherty had always been very active. He trekked the Himalayas and hiked trails in Spain.

But about a year and a half ago, he noticed pins and needles in his fingers and toes. His feet got cold. And then he started getting out of breath any time he walked his dog up the hills of County Donegal in Ireland where he lives.

"I noticed on some of the larger hill climbs I was getting a bit breathless," says Doherty, 65. "So I realized something was wrong."

Doherty found out he had a rare, but devastating inherited disease — known as transthyretin amyloidosis — that had killed his father. A misshapen protein was building up in his body, destroying important tissues, such as nerves in his hands and feet and his heart.

Doherty had watched others get crippled and die difficult deaths from amyloidosis.

"It's terrible prognosis," Doherty says. "This is a condition that deteriorates very rapidly. It's just dreadful."

So Doherty was thrilled when he found out that doctors were testing a new way to try to treat amyloidosis. The approach used a revolutionary gene-editing technique called CRISPR, which allows scientists to make very precise changes in DNA.

"I thought: Fantastic. I jumped at the opportunity," Doherty says.

On Saturday, researchers reported the first data indicating that the experimental treatment worked, causing levels of the destructive protein to plummet in Doherty's body and the bodies of five other patients treated with the approach.

"I feel fantastic," Doherty says. "It's just phenomenal."

The advance is being hailed not just for amyloidosis patients but also as a proof-of-concept that CRISPR could be used to treat many other, much more common diseases. It's a new way of using the innovative technology.

"This is a major milestone for patients," says Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, who shared a Nobel Prize for her work helping develop CRISPR.

"While these are early data, they show us that we can overcome one of the biggest challenges with applying CRISPR clinically so far, which is being able to deliver it systemically and get it to the right place," Doudna says.

CRISPR has already been shown to help patients suffering from the devastating blood disorders sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. And doctors are trying to use it to treat cancer and to restore vision to people blinded by a rare genetic disorder.

But those experiments involve taking cells out of the body, editing them in the lab, and infusing them back in or injecting CRISPR directly into cells that need fixing.

The study Doherty volunteered for is the first in which doctors are simply infusing the gene-editor directly into patients and letting it find its own way to the right gene in the right cells. In this case, it's cells in the liver making the destructive protein.

"This is the first example in which CRISPR-Cas9 is injected directly into the bloodstream — in other words systemic administration — where we use it as a way to reach a tissue that's far away from the site of injection and very specifically use it to edit disease-causing genes," says John Leonard, the CEO of Intellia Therapeutics, which is sponsoring the study.

Doctors infused billions of microscopic structures known as nanoparticles carrying genetic instructions for the CRISPR gene-editor into four patients in London and two in New Zealand. The nanoparticles were absorbed by their livers, where they unleashed armies of CRISPR gene-editors. The CRISPR editor honed in on the target gene in the liver and sliced it, disabling production of the destructive protein.

Within weeks, the levels of protein causing the disease plummeted. Researchers reported at the Peripheral Nerve Society Annual Meeting and in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

"It really is exciting," says Dr. Julian Gillmore, who is leading the study at the University College London, Royal Free Hospital.

"This has the potential to completely revolutionize the outcome for these patients who have lived with this disease in their family for many generations. It's decimated some families that I've been looking after. So this is amazing," Gillmore says.

The patients will have to be followed longer, and more patients will have to be treated, to make sure the treatment's safe, and determine how much it's helping, Gillmore stresses. But the approach could help those struck by amyloidosis that isn't inherited, which is a far more common version of the disease, he says.

Moreover, the promising results potentially open the door for using the same approach to treatment of many other, more common diseases for which taking cells out of the body or directly injecting CRISPR isn't realistic, including heart disease, muscular dystrophy and brain diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"This is really opening a new era as we think about gene-editing where we can begin to think about accessing all kinds of different tissue in the body via systemic administration," Leonard says.

Other scientists who are not involved in the research agree.

"This is a wonderful day for the future of gene-editing as a medicine,"
agree Fyodor Urnov, a professor of genetics at the University of California, Berkeley. "We as a species are watching this remarkable new show called: our gene-edited future."

Doherty says he started feeling better within weeks of the treatment and has continued to improve in the weeks since then.

"I definitely feel better," he told NPR. "I'm speaking to you from upstairs in our house. I climbed stairs to get up here. I would have been feeling breathless. I'm thrilled."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A single breakthrough discovery for managing citrus greening in Florida in the future is unlikely, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies the most promising scientific breakthroughs that are possible to achieve in the next decade to increase the U.S. food and agriculture system’s sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends changes in the way that the U.S. Department of Energy manages science and technology (S&T) development in order to accelerate the cleanup of radioactive waste and contaminated soil, groundwater, and facilities at U.S. nuclear weapons sites.

On November 15, 2020, after 4 months in large-scale Phase 3 clinical testing, Moderna received resounding proof that its new class of medicines based on messenger RNA encased in lipid nanoparticles could be safely deployed as a highly effective vaccine to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

With a $1 million donation, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation joins a growing number of individuals and institutions that are supporting an NAS effort to help displaced Ukrainian researchers relocate, continue their work, and stay connected to the international scientific community.

With a $3 million donation from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, a high-level, international coordinating group of scientific organizations has been established to take concrete steps to support Ukraine’s scientists and research community with the aim of rebuilding a successful global science and innovation system in Ukraine.

Launch comes amid an estimated 8.6 million Americans struggling with at-risk or problematic gaming disorder since COVID-19

Infinite 8 Industries Unveils Particle 11, A Pioneering Dark Matter Candidate with Unprecedented Renewable Energy Potential

One-of-a-kind tool created by Realityworks, Inc., offers hands-on practice diagnosing and testing common sports injuries

Drug discovery and development through live cell imaging

Contactless LAser Satellite Stethoscope (CLASS) will enable audio and harmonic diagnostics

New study demonstrates the potential of veterinary telehealth to reach different species of animals

Italian-American scientist Dario Crosetto expresses his gratitude to the 2024 IEEE-NSS-MIC-RTSD General Chair and NSS Chairs for supporting Transparency in Science and calls for other scientific institutions to join them

Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, spent a decade in healthcare and biotechnology before launching the DNA testing and analysis company in 2006. Her goal was twofold: to help individuals learn more about their own genetics, enabling them to pursue more personalized medical care, and to create a database of genetic information for commercial and academic researchers to promote broader improvements to the healthcare system. She speaks with HBR's Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius about tackling challenges in an emerging industry.

How can oceanic microbes help produce antibiotics? This is what a recent study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as a team of researchers

How can oceanic microbes help produce antibiotics? This is what a recent study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as a team of researchers

University of Toronto among extensive list of global collaboratorsTORONTO, ON – International high-energy physics research project IceCube has been named the 2013 Breakthrough of the Year by British magazine Physics World. The Antarctic observatory has been selected for making the first observation of cosmic neutrinos, but also for overcoming the many challenges of creating and […]

The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) is pleased to present its Innovation Summit in Irvine, CA, March 13-14. Leading industry innovators and longtime lean and innovation advocates will converge at the Irvine Marriot to share exclusive insider knowledge with attendees.

Escaping the entrepreneur’s trap

Ireland-based Orreco has developed a new app to help athletes optimise their performances.

Read more: Breakthrough app aims to smash taboos about training during your period

SoundHound AI, based in Santa Clara, Calif., this year launched, among other things, Chat AI, a voice-enabled digital assistant with generative artificial intelligence; and Smart Answering, which uses voice AI to handle inbound customer calls.

A UK-backed biotech company has achieved a pioneering biocomputer breakthrough which is accelerating the development and manufacture of cheaper drugs and vaccines.

While it may not yet be on the tip of everyone’s tongue, a potentially game-changing new federal medical research agency called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is gearing up to power breakthroughs in biomedical and health research.

The post How a new federal agency for scientific breakthroughs can succeed first appeared on Federal News Network.

Artificial neural networks mimic human brains, but the technology has its roots in physics.

During my lifetime, there have been numerous seminal breakthroughs in medicine that greatly changed our ability to prevent or treat disease. I have a good idea of what the next ones will be.

West Midlands CARE Team join Blood on Board initiative.

The Oilers look to claw themselves up above .500 against the team that started their memorable turnaround last season.

What was the motivation behind the American Ingenuity Award winner's medical breakthrough that will save thousands of lives

The technology, enabled by thorium atoms, could keep time more accurately than atomic clocks and enable new discoveries about gravity, gravitational waves and dark matter

Bobby Smyrniotis, shut out in five previous nominations, finally has a Coach of the Year Award to go with his four Canadian Premier League titles.