ResearchPod

Despite being toxic when consumed, lead ammunition is still commonly used by traditional game hunters and makes it way into the diet of millions of people worldwide. Dr Jon M. Arnemo and colleagues from the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences have researched this, and continue to battle to make hunters aware of this great danger. Read the article in Research Outreach Read the original res...

There is currently a mental health epidemic among adolescent girls, which was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have argued that digital technologies are to blame for this, however, empirical reports have been conflicting, with some research highlighting both positive and negative effects of social technology use on teen emotional health Dr. Jennifer Silk and Dr. Kiera James at the Univer...

Despite heavy menstrual bleeding, or HMB, affecting many women worldwide, studies into HMB and effective primary care measures remain scarce.  Professor Joe Kai and a multi-disciplinary team at the University of Nottingham and the University of Birmingham, UK, have provided invaluable insight into treatments for HMB, and the critical role of the primary care physician, revolutionising understandin...

Migrant women can find it challenging to access maternity care for a number of reasons. Chinese women may also encounter poor treatment as a result of racial discrimination and social stigma as further barriers, besides language and communication issues affecting their ability talk about their medical history and current health concerns.  Dr Sarah Gong at the University of Leicester investigates h...

The use and management of fluorine-based chemical pollutants is problematic, making better group approaches and analysis necessary.  Researchers from the AIST institute, Japan and Örebro University, Sweden have offered novel insight into how these chemicals disproportionally affect younger women, and offer new standards and techniques for better identifying organofluorines, many of which at presen...

There is an urgent need to focus on women’s health to identify differences between sexes, including response to medications, to allow effective clinical decisions to be made using a person-centered, evidence-based approach. At the University of California Irvine in the US, Dr Dequina Nicholas studies the links between reproductive science, metabolism, and immunology and explores how diet may be a...

In recent years, vaping has emerged as an alternative to traditional smoking, with e-cigarette devices forming a key part of plans to reduce smoking rates and associated health risks.   Linsey Haswell and Nathan Gale are part of a team that’s set out to measure the nature and extent of toxicant exposure and potential biological effects from e-cigarette use. The team compared clinical measurements...

The ever-chaning nature of cybersecurity threats means that up-to-date skills training is critical. Dr Liqaa Nawaf from Cardif Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK, in collaboration with colleagues from King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, are conducting research into how to make cybersecurity more effective and inclusive, and have launched a year-long project to support women in cybersecurity....

Meditation has gained increased popularity in recent years, and is a well-established practice in many Eastern cultures. Why, then, has this remained largely unpractised in schools?  Dr Veruska Oppedisano and co-authors have been studying the feasibility of implementing and evaluating a meditation intervention in primary schools, with exciting results and direction for future studies.  Read the or...

COVID-19 infection can have varying affects an individual’s health. So, in the wake of the pandemic, how can we better determine why some people experience severe illness when contracting COVID-19, and others don’t?    A research team based at Yale University, USA, have identified a particular gene that may explain the significant variation of the disease, showing great promise for improved outcom...

Professor Eriks Rozners and colleagues at Binghamton University in New York, USA, are using innovative nucleic acid chemistry to modify RNA-based technologies such as RNA interference and CRISPR to enhance their utility in molecular biology. These technologies suffer from off-target effects that limit their clinical utility. By replacing phosphates in the backbone with amides, the team aims to imp...

In today’s business environment where a company is judged as much for its moral code as its commercial output, it might seem like integrity is highly prized and indeed, demanded.  However, dishonesty isn’t just tolerated – it’s contagious.    An international team led by Leopold Ried from Erasmus University takes an in-depth look at the ethics behind buyer-supplier negotiations and the knock-on ef...

Loneliness and social isolation are known to cause several mental health issues, as the COVID-19 pandemic reminded us.  This can cause long-term difficulties and seriously impact the brain and overall brain function. By studying the different biological and behavioural effects of social isolation on mice, Dr Jing Liang and her team have recently identified a promising therapeutic with the power to...

Online dating has surged in recent years, providing unique opportunities for people to meet prospective partners, find lifelong friends, as well as to form alternative connections, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the digitalization of dating may facilitate genuine connections for some, for others, they are presented with a mixture of love, lies, and surprise, as investigat...

Pregnancy and fertility research come with powerful emotive and political connections beyond medicine alone.  Professor Richard Santen, a reproductive endocrinologist and past-president of the Endocrine Society of America shares his decades of experience in research and care for patients reproductive health, and shares his view on  how to reshape perspectives on, and provisions of care for, unexpe...

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shortage of FFRs – Filtering Facepiece Respirators, also known as face masks - raised questions about UV surface disinfection for surfaces, which has not been well studied for effectiveness and is not regulated. Castine Bernardy, a PhD candidate at the University of New Hampshire, set out to determine if UV is a practical technology for FFR disinfection,...

With the rapid growth of online shopping, e-commerce retailers face shifting operating costs and challenges, including shipping across geographic regions and time periods.   Research conducted by Yun Fong Lim and Marcus Ang from Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University and Song Jiu from the School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University explores strateg...

Cybersecurity has become increasingly important in recent years, with cyber-related crime on the rise. This had made cybersecurity, risk evaluation, and mitigation increasingly important, particularly for companies wanting to reduce their vulnerabilities to cyber risks and refine their insurance offerings.  Meng Sun, a PhD Candidate at Simon Fraser University and Senior data scientist investigatin...

Separating the self from non-self cells is an important part how your immune system is supposed to recognise disease, and the same mechanisms are how cancer evades that immune surveillance.  So, what if that escape route can be closed off? Dr Alberto Pavan describes his research into how lung cancer can be brought to the attention of immune cells, the molecular signs of treatment success, and how...

No longer just for gamers, VR is also becoming progressively more widespread, with uses in medicine to give an interactive visualisation of the human body, to provide employee training with reduced risk of accidents and even beginning to find its place in reimagining education. A team from Singapore Management University has been researching how virtual reality, or VR, can be used in teaching unde...

Psychological science has been trying to understand what exactly causes mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, or eating disorders. Different theories assume that symptoms arise from past experiences in interaction with biological risk factors, and use this as guidance for treatment. A new trend says that we should move away from finding the underlying cause and rather explain disorders by i...

In Richard Feynman's words, turbulence is ‘the most important unsolved problem of classical physics’ with  seemingly too many mathematical descriptions – each valid, more or less, under a series of restrictive conditions. The research of Professor Fabio Gori and Dr Andrea Boghi from the University of Rome Tor Vergata  into turbulence in solutions is revealing new insights about molecular diff...

Quantum computing is coming close to reality, and its applications seem almost boundless. However, the bounds of those applications and of the very atoms involved are real, with research bridging quantum energy, uncertainty, and newly discovered limits of just how fast a quantum computer can get. Dr Gal Ness discusses his research into quantum speed limits opens up new understandings of the cuttin...

Proteins are important biomolecules, fulfilling tasks in every cell of your body and with a central role in health and disease. Dr. Harald Weinstabl and Dr. Will Farnaby lead collaboration at Boehringer Ingelheim and the University of Dundee  working on PROTACs, a new class of molecules with the potential to  selectively target and destroy disease-causing proteins. Drs. Weinstabl and Farnaby'...

Voice-based marketing is becoming increasingly popular on social media and video sites - Even in this very podcast, your player may drop an advert in for you to listen too. How successful are voice-overs at increasing sales, though? And for a product or charity still raising funds, is it possible to increase their appeal through narration alone? Researchers from Singapore Management University, Co...