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    Elevated Lipoprotein(a) found to increase the Risk of Recurrent Coronary Heart Disease

    June 13, 2023, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    cholesterol
    Space-filling model of the Cholesterol molecule. Credit: RedAndr/Wikipedia

    Increased levels of lipoprotein(a), a variant of “bad cholesterol” in the bloodstream, are a risk factor for recurrent coronary heart disease (CHD) in people aged 60 or over, according to the results of a new study which tracked the issue over the course of 16 years.

    The results, published today in Current Medical Research & Opinion, suggest that current cholesterol-lowering medications may not be effective at reducing the risk of recurrent CHD—such as a heart attack—due to elevated Lp(a).

    “This finding adds to growing evidence of a relationship between increased Lp(a) and the risk of recurrent CHD,” says lead author Associate Professor Leon Simons, from the School of Clinical Medicine, at the Universi...

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    DeepMind achieves Giant Leap in Sorting Speed

    June 13, 2023, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Fundamentally different algorithms discovered by AlphaDev. a, A flow diagram of the variable sort 4 (VarSort4) human benchmark algorithm. In this algorithm, a sequence of unsorted numbers are input into the algorithm. If the sequence length is four, three or two numbers, then the corresponding sort 4, sort 3 or sort 2 sorting network is called that sorts the resulting sequence. The result is then returned and output by the function. b, The VarSort4 algorithm discovered by AlphaDev. This algorithm also receives sequences of length four, three or two numbers as input. In this case, if the length is two, then it calls the sort 2 sorting network and returns. If the length is three then it calls sort 3 to sort the first three numbers and returns...
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    Population health study: Alcohol Consumption Increases the Risks of over 60 Diseases

    June 12, 2023, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Even moderate drinking linked to a decline in brain health. Credit: Shutterstock

    Alcohol consumption increases the risks of over 60 diseases in Chinese men, including many diseases not previously linked to alcohol, according to a new study by researchers from Oxford Population Health and Peking University, published in Nature Medicine.

    Alcohol consumption is estimated to be responsible for about 3 million deaths worldwide each year, and it is increasing in many low- and middle-income countries such as China. The harmful effects of heavy drinking for certain diseases (such as liver cirrhosis, stroke and several types of cancer) are well known, but very few studies have systematically assessed the impact of alcohol use on an extensive range of diseases within the same population.

    T...

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    Ultrashort Light Pulses Shaped like a Spring Toy bring a new Twist to Photonics

    June 12, 2023, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    It's spring time! Ultrashort light pulses shaped like a spring toy bring a new twist in photonics
    Synthesizing space–time beams with broadband topological–spectral correlations. Credit: Nature Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01223-y

    We’ve all played at least once with a spring toy, but did you know that light can be shaped like a spring too?

    An international team of researchers, led by Marco Piccardo, a former researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and now a Professor in the Physics Department of Técnico Lisboa and Principal Investigator at the Engineering Institute for Microsystems and Nanotechnologies (INESC MN), has harnessed ultrafast optics and structured light to synthesize in the laboratory a new family of spatiotemporal light beams, known as light springs.

    The research was done in collaboration between IIT, Politecnico di Milano and Téc...

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