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How to turn water into wine, with raisins

It's astonishing to realize how innovative our ancestors were in food and beverage production before modern science and technology. Without understanding or isolating them, ancient peoples made use of yeasts like Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the primary species behind the fermentation process that creates alcohol, though there are some non-Saccharomyces yeasts that can also produce alcohol with different characteristics.

The seamounts of Cape Verde: A biodiversity hotspot and a priority for marine conservation

An international team has published the first comprehensive study on the seamounts of the Cape Verde archipelago, their biodiversity, ecological functionality and socio-economic relevance in the journal Progress in Oceanography. The team was led by Covadonga Orejas, a researcher at the Gijón Oceanographic Center of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC); Veerle Huvenne, a researcher at the UK National Oceanography Center (NOC); and Jacob González-Solís, professor at the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

Finding 40,000 asteroids before they find us

The number 40,000 might not sound particularly dramatic, but it represents humanity's growing catalog of near-Earth asteroids, rocky remnants from the solar system's violent birth that cross paths with our planet's orbit. We've come a long way since 1898, when astronomers discovered the first of these wanderers, an asteroid called Eros.

How 'relationship anarchy' is changing the nature of connection for millennials and Gen Z

When the term anarchy pops up in everyday conversations, images of lawlessness and chaos after a government breakdown or catastrophic event come to mind. Think of the anti-hero comic character the Joker or the famed "Sons of Anarchy" series about an outlaw biker club that values family loyalty as much as violent crime.

Earthquakes shake up Yellowstone's subterranean ecosystems

Up to 30% of life, by weight, is underground. Seismic activity may renew the energy supply for subterranean ecosystems. Published in PNAS Nexus, Eric Boyd and colleagues chronicled the ecological changes in subsurface microbial communities that took place after a swarm of small earthquakes rattled the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field in 2021.

Seal milk more refined than breast milk, research reveals

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have discovered that milk from gray seals in the Atlantic Ocean may be more potent than breast milk. An analysis of seal milk found approximately 33% more sugar molecules than in breast milk. Many of these sugars are unique and may pave the way for even better infant formula for babies.

From orbit to X-ray: Imaging the entire EURECA satellite to reveal hidden structural damage

Whether it's a sprained ankle or a backpack at the airport, X-ray images are an everyday occurrence in many areas. Empa researchers at the Center for X-Ray Analytics have succeeded in taking images that are far less commonplace: In collaboration with the Swiss Space Center (now Space Innovation at EPFL) and the Swiss Museum of Transport, they have X-rayed an entire satellite.

Low-cost catalyst could lower hydrogen production costs

A study co-authored by SUNY Polytechnic Institute Associate Professor Dr. Iulian Gherasoiu looks at how a new, low-cost catalyst material behaves inside a hydrogen electrolyzer, a device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Producing hydrogen this way is important for building a clean-energy future, but current systems can be expensive and wear out over time.

Earth system models overstate carbon removal: New findings suggest nitrogen fixation is 50% lower than thought

High levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide intensify climate change, but high carbon dioxide levels can also stimulate plant growth. Plant growth removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, partially mitigating the effects of climate change. However, plants only grow faster in the presence of high levels of carbon dioxide if they can also acquire enough nitrogen from the atmosphere to do so.

Pediatric Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP)

Immune thrombocytopenia is a classic childhood disease. All pediatricians should be aware of it, and pediatric hematologists need to be adept in the management of immune thrombocytopenia. Despite its abrupt onset, conspicuous bruising, and sometimes dramatic mucosal bleeding, pediatric immune thrombocytopenia typically resolves spontaneously over a few weeks to several months. Troublesome bleeding is uncommon, and severe bleeding is rare even when severe thrombocytopenia occurs. Most children can be managed with anticipatory counseling alone, without pharmacotherapy while awaiting spontaneous resolution.

Promise of Digital Direct-to-Patient Intervention to Improve Lung Cancer Screening Rates

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the US. Randomized trials have demonstrated that annual lung cancer screening reduces lung cancer–specific mortality by approximately 20% among individuals at high risk due to age and smoking history. Despite being recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force for more than a decade, uptake of lung cancer screening remains low, with less than 20% of eligible people receiving screening. Multilevel barriers including limited patient awareness, stigma surrounding tobacco use, fatalistic beliefs about lung cancer, and fragmented implementation systems contribute to underuse. These barriers disproportionately affect historically underserved populations, reinforcing disparities in access to lung cancer screening and outcomes by race, ethnicity, geographic location (particularly rural), socioeconomic status, and insurance coverage.

Heartache in Medicine and the Limits of Elegy

Health care is rife with seemingly inevitable loss, where suffering and death often lurk behind symptoms, differentials, and patient outcomes. Processing such tragedies or even paying tribute to their occurrence can be challenging, but also redemptive, for both patients and clinicians. Poets have named and revisited grief to honor the dead and to humanize loss, usually in the form of elegy. In “8 Weeks, No Discernible Cardiac Activity,” the speaker seeks some way to mourn in a poem that unsentimentally memorializes a miscarriage. Using literary apostrophe, dialogue with the “you” who is gone poignantly juxtaposes the pain of early fetal loss with daily life. This plainspoken anti-elegy of sorts, said aloud but refusing to sugarcoat or monumentalize, shares the aftermath of what is typically shushed; poetry, with its trademark elision, helps set stigma aside, allowing the speaker to wistfully “wish” and “wonder” without external judgments or expectations. She does not mention courage, higher powers, or inspiring next steps to soften the diagnosis but instead provides sober recollections of emotional connection with understated frankness (“I wish there had been/another way to say goodbye”) and examples of solace through togetherness, relating bittersweet escapes of kid-friendly “rice with rainbow sprinkles” with her toddler and more grown-up, warming “chai lattes” with her partner. Articulating unrealized dreams and genuine sadness, the poem includes us in experiencing heartache with the speaker and in turn an understanding that begins not to fill, but perhaps to ease, a void created by the unfathomable, yet all too real.

8 Weeks, No Discernible Cardiac Activity

If you had been born after all that I wonder whether you would have enjoyed rice with rainbow sprinkles and had a left dimple just like your sister, whether you would have climbed the high tunnel slide at the playground all by yourself and shot down, headfirst, emerging with a grin and waving to us both.

Lesser-Known Lobular Breast Cancer on the Rise

Invasive lobular carcinoma is now increasing faster than other types of breast cancers among US women. A recent study published in Cancer found that new cases of lobular breast cancer, which originates in the milk-producing glands, are climbing at a rate of nearly 3% per year, compared with less than 1% for all other breast cancers combined. As of 2021, 14 cases per 100 000 women with invasive lobular carcinoma have been reported, which accounted for 10% of breast cancer cases.

Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation After Cardiac Surgery

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is currently a diagnosis held by at least 10.5 million individuals in the US, more than 4.5% of the adult US population. The causes of AF in any given individual are often mysterious, and the causes underlying a particular episode at a given time are often even more inscrutable. Although identifying the exposures that might trigger an AF episode is a high priority for patients with AF and objective evidence of near-term triggers (such as alcohol) of AF has been demonstrated, there is no evidence that prevention of AF episodes by avoidance of acute triggers can truly reverse AF. In other words, patients who have episodes of alcohol-associated AF should not be deprived of the same evaluation or consideration of possible treatment modalities compared with one with more spontaneous forms of repeated AF. Indeed, the most recent clinical practice guidelines for the management of AF recommend anticoagulation to prevent stroke and thromboembolism based on other stroke risk factors, such as age and cardiovascular comorbidities, and not based on the type of AF or, generally, the circumstances under which the AF occurred.