Connecting Research and Experts with Journalists

• share
• favorite_border

Quantum technologies promise breakthroughs in communication, computing, sensors and much more. However, quantum states are fragile, and their effects are difficult to grasp, making research into real-world applications challenging. Empa researchers and their partners have now achieved a breakthrough: Using a kind of “quantum Lego”, they have been able to accurately realize a well-known theoretical quantum physics model in a synthetic material.

• share
• favorite_border

The research team, led by Dr. In-Deok Park at KIMM, successfully developed an underwater laser cutting technology.

• share
• favorite_border

Ten years after undergoing bariatric surgery as teens, over half of study participants demonstrated not only sustained weight loss, but also resolution of obesity-related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, according to the report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

The amount of money people pay out-of-pocket for branded drugs to treat neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease continues to rise, especially for MS drugs, according to a study published in the October 30, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

• share
• favorite_border

A research team exploring how genes and environmental factors interact in psychiatry has discovered that a history of sexual trauma and a genetic tendency to develop mental illness are associated with increased risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study – published in Nursing Research – has found that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted patient safety indicators in U.S. hospitals. The study, from Penn Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), examined data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators to assess trends in nursing-sensitive quality indicators from 2019 to 2022. The prevention of these very distressing, uncomfortable conditions is considered to be under the nurse’s purview and directly influenced by nursing care.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at WashU Medicine have found a process by which the brain guards against attack by the immune system. In mice with multiple sclerosis, such "guardian" proteins that train the immune system were drastically depleted, and replenishing them improved symptoms, according to a study in Nature.

• share
• favorite_border

Superweeds that have developed resistance to common herbicides is jeopardizing weed management in agriculture. Robots for mechanical weeding is an emerging technology that could potentially provide a solution. A new study from the University of Illinois estimates farmer adoption of weeding robots.

• share
• favorite_border

Doctors at Mayo Clinic used a new catheter-based approach to draw out resistant pockets of infection that settle in the heart, known as right-sided infective endocarditis, without surgery. Unless treated quickly, the walled-off infections can grow, severely damaging heart valves and potentially affecting other organs as well. In a recent study, over 90% of the participants had their infection cleared, and they had lower in-hospital mortality compared to those whose infections remained.