December, 2023

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AI's memory-forming mechanism found to be strikingly similar to that of the brain

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

An interdisciplinary team consisting of researchers has revealed a striking similarity between the memory processing of artificial intelligence (AI) models and the hippocampus of the human brain. This new finding provides a novel perspective on memory consolidation, which is a process that transforms short-term memories into long-term ones, in AI systems.

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4 Ways to Leverage Data to Help Grow Your Business

Smart Data Collective

Big data technology has been extremely valuable for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. However, many companies still are not using big data to its full potential. According to one survey cited by Dataversity, only 53% of companies report having formalized data strategies.

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The 2023 Re-Cap: The New Social Worker’s Top 10 Articles for 2023.PLUS

The New Social Worker

What can we say about 2023? The New Social Worker’s list of Top 10 Articles for 2023 tells us the story of what social workers have been reading here. We look forward to seeing you, our readers, our friends, in 2024.

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Botulism: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, History, and Epidemiology

Gideon

Did you know that less than one gram of botulism toxin can wipe out all of humankind? While the botulism toxin is one of the deadliest toxins known, a very diluted version, known as Botox, is used routinely as a chemical ‘fountain of youth.’ While botulism poisoning doesn’t spread from person to person, outbreaks do occur and, in severe cases, lead to hospitalization and even death.

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Why we need a new measure of maternal health: the “lifetime risk of maternal near miss”

International Journal of Epidemiology Blog

Ursula Gazeley According to the most recent data from the World Health Organization , the lifetime risk of maternal death for a girl in Chad is a staggering 1 in 15, compared with 1 in 43,000 in Norway. This means that a girl in Chad has an almost 3000 times greater risk of dying from a maternal cause during her reproductive lifetime than a girl in Norway.

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Reflections on the past year and looking forward to 2024

Public Health Informatics Institute Newsletters

PHII Director Vivian Singletary gives well wishes for the new year: I encourage you to embrace life. Live it to the fullest; don't wait! The post Reflections on the past year and looking forward to 2024 appeared first on PHII.

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AI Boosts Business Productivity with Open Source Calendars

Smart Data Collective

Tons of businesses are looking for new ways to utilize AI technology to improve productivity. A report by Content @ Scale was published this summer showing that 80% of businesses are using AI to some degree. However, many businesses are still trying to figure out how to make the most of AI.

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What exactly is my culture?

EpidemioLogical

I’m doing some “homework” for work, reading What If I Say The Wrong Thing by Vernā A. Myers. One of the lessons in the book is about being culturally competent. The author describes an experience in China where locals gawked her at.

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10 Bacterial Infections From Your Pets: How to Stay Safe

Gideon

Having pets welcomes us to a world filled with wagging tails and purring companions. From loyal dogs to cuddly cats, these furry friends offer more than just companionship—they bring love, laughter, and a lot of happiness to our homes. However, pets can also be carriers of infectious diseases that may put human health at risk. This article discusses the risk of bacterial infections associated with household animals and ways to protect our health and that of our pets.

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Podcast From Washington: Harassment of Public Health Officials During COVID-19 and its Lasting Impact

The NACCHO Podcast Series

On this week’s podcast, the National Association of County and City Health Officials ’ Victoria Van de Vate, Director of Government Affairs, and Lauren Mastroberardino, Government Affairs Senior Specialist, provided a Congressional update on upcoming government funding challenges. They also discussed recent letters that NACCHO sent to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion on Healthy People 2030 objectives and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of STD

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Immunization information systems: why they matter and what’s next!

Public Health Informatics Institute Newsletters

PHII’s Charisse LaVell and Treonda Chapman summarize the history of immunization information systems (IIS) in the U.S., how IIS changed during COVID and what’s ahead. The post Immunization information systems: why they matter and what’s next! appeared first on PHII.

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New protein linked to early-onset dementia identified

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Scientists have identified abnormal aggregates of a protein called TAF15 in the brains of individuals with early-onset dementia, known as frontotemporal dementia, where the cause was not previously known.

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7 Jobs Humans Can Do Better Than Robots And AI

Smart Data Collective

The rise of artificial intelligence or AI in the past decades has resulted in collective anxiety worldwide. The common apprehension is that there will be a massive loss of jobs as robots and computers eventually replace employees.

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The weirdest 2023 ever

EpidemioLogical

Another year is about over, and it’s time to do that thing I do where I look back on it and think of all the things I could have done differently, and how things would have worked out. Then again, if I could go back and change things, I wouldn’t.

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How technology and economics can help save endangered species

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

A lot has changed in the world since the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted 50 years ago in December 1973. Experts are now discuss how the ESA has evolved and what its future might hold.

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Harvesting water from air with solar power

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Researchers have developed a promising new solar-powered atmospheric water harvesting technology that could help provide enough drinking water for people to survive in difficult, dryland areas: They synthesized a super hygroscopic gel capable of absorbing and retaining an unparalleled amount of water. One kilogram of dry gel could adsorb 1.18 kilograms of water in arid atmospheric environments and up to 6.4 kilograms in humid atmospheric environments.

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Stimulating nerves connected to the pancreas regenerates insulin-producing cells, mouse study shows

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Decreasing pancreatic beta cell numbers -- the only cells that produce insulin -- is a leading cause of diabetes. In a promising development, a research group has revealed that stimulating autonomic vagal nerves connected to the pancreas can improve the function and also increase the number of pancreatic beta cells in mice.

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Can we decode the language of our primate cousins?

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Are we able to differentiate between the vocal emissions of certain primates? A team asked volunteers to categorize the vocalizations of three species of great apes (Hominidae) and humans. During each exposure to these ''onomatopoeia'', brain activity was measured. Unlike previous studies, the scientists reveal that phylogenetic proximity -- or kinship -- is not the only factor influencing our ability to identify these sounds.

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How a drought led to the rise of skateboarding in 1970s California

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Why did professional skateboarding arise in southern California in the 1970s? Was it a coincidence, or was it a perfect storm of multiple factors? It's fairly well-known that a drought in southern California in the mid-1970s led to a ban on filling backyard swimming pools, and these empty pools became playgrounds for freestyle skateboarders in the greater Los Angeles area.

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Human behavior guided by fast changes in dopamine levels

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

A new study shows that dopamine release in the human brain plays a crucial role in encoding both reward and punishment prediction errors. This means that dopamine is involved in the process of learning from both positive and negative experiences, allowing the brain to adjust and adapt its behavior based on the outcomes of these experiences.

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Snail-inspired robot could scoop ocean microplastics

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Inspired by a small and slow snail, scientists have developed a robot protype that may one day scoop up microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas and lakes.

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Researchers study a million galaxies to find out how the universe began

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Researchers have analyzed more than one million galaxies to explore primordial fluctuations that seeded the formation of the structure of the entire universe.

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Exoplanets'climate -- it takes nothing to switch from habitable to hell

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

The Earth is a wonderful blue and green dot covered with oceans and life, while Venus is a yellowish sterile sphere that is not only inhospitable but also sterile. However, the difference between the two bears to only a few degrees in temperature. A team of astronomers has achieved a world's first by managing to simulate the entirety of the runaway greenhouse process which can transform the climate of a planet from idyllic and perfect for life, to a place more than harsh and hostile.

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What happens in the brain while daydreaming?

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

During quiet waking, brain activity in mice suggests the animals are daydreaming about a recent image. Having daydreams about a recently viewed image predicted how the brain would respond to the image in the future. The findings provide a clue that daydreams may play a role in brain plasticity.

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Scientists unveil complete cell map of a whole mammalian brain

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Researchers have created a complete cell atlas of a whole mammalian brain. This atlas serves as a map for the mouse brain, describing the type, location, and molecular information of more than 32 million cells and providing information on connectivity between these cells.

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ChatGPT often won't defend its answers -- even when it is right

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

ChatGPT may do an impressive job at correctly answering complex questions, but a new study suggests it may be absurdly easy to convince the AI chatbot that it's in the wrong.

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Fossil CO2 emissions at record high in 2023

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have risen again in 2023 -- reaching record levels, according to new research.

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One of the largest magnetic storms in history quantified: Aurorae covered much of the night sky from the Tropics to the Polar Regions

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

An international multidisciplinary team consisting of solar physicists, geophysicists, and historians from nine countries analysed observations of an extreme solar-terrestrial storm reported in historical records from February 1872. Their findings confirm that a moderate sunspot group triggered one of the largest magnetic storms ever recorded, almost covering the entire night sky with colourful aurorae in both hemispheres.

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How jellyfish regenerate functional tentacles in days

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

At about the size of a pinkie nail, the jellyfish species Cladonema can regenerate an amputated tentacle in two to three days -- but how? Regenerating functional tissue across species, including salamanders and insects, relies on the ability to form a blastema, a clump of undifferentiated cells that can repair damage and grow into the missing appendage.

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Cells of the future: A key to reprogramming cell identities

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

The intricate process of duplicating genetic information, referred to as DNA replication, lies at the heart of the transmission of life from one cell to another and from one organism to the next. This happens by not just simply copying the genetic information; a well-orchestrated sequence of molecular events has to happen at the right time. Scientists have recently uncovered a fascinating aspect of this process known as 'replication timing' (RT) and how special this is when life commences.

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Mysterious fruit shown to be the oldest known fossils of the Frankincense and Myrrh family

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

Early in the 1970s, paleontologists discovered strange fossilized fruits between hardened rock from one of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth's history. The identity of these fossils remained elusive for the next several decades. Using CT scanning, scientists have now determined they are the oldest fossils from species in the Frankincense and Myrrh family.

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Diverse gut bacteria communities protect against harmful pathogens by nutrient blocking

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

New study demonstrates that diverse communities of resident bacteria can protect the human gut from disease-causing microorganisms. However, this protective effect is lost when only single species of gut bacteria are present. The researchers found that protective communities block the growth of harmful pathogens by consuming nutrients that the pathogen needs.

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'Long flu' has emerged as a consequence similar to long COVID

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

New research comparing the viruses that cause the flu and COVID-19 shows that people hospitalized with seasonal influenza also can suffer long-term, negative health effects, especially involving their lungs and airways. The study also found that in the 18 months after infection, patients hospitalized for either COVID-19 or seasonal influenza faced an increased risk of death, hospital readmission, and other health problems.

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Major breakthrough for severe asthma treatment

Science Daily: Pharmacology News

A landmark study has shown that severe asthma can be controlled using biologic therapies, without the addition of regular high-dose inhaled steroids which can have significant side effects.

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