Blog

Menopause – the unspoken challenge for female workers: For women between the ages of 40 and 58, balancing the effects of menopause with the demands of their jobs is daunting, with financial losses put at $1.8 billion, and sometimes impossible, with about a quarter of women in one survey saying they were considering leaving their jobs. Bristol Myers Squibb, Adobe, and Bank of America are among the few companies that offer menopause benefits, and grassroots campaigns like Menopause Mandate and Let’s Talk Menopause raise awareness about the issue.

Can contraceptives prevent NYC rat overpopulation? The New York City Council is considering a proposal to try distributing rat contraceptives as a humane way to control the city’s rat population without the use of chemicals that harm nontarget species. The proposed pilot test would involve distributing male and female contraceptives encased in salty, fatty pellets in rat-infested areas.

WHO reports on the global hepatitis crisis: The 2024 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Hepatitis Report reveals a rise in viral hepatitis-related deaths, making it the second-leading infectious cause of death worldwide, with over 6,000 new infections and 3,500 deaths daily. This is attributed to lacking diagnosis and treatment in many countries, although the WHO hepatitis elimination goal of 2030 may still be possible with expanded access to diagnostics, simplified service delivery, and increased funding for priority countries.

New arthritis research program gets $10M from Congress: Congress has allocated $10 Million toward a new arthritis research program under the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), with funding opportunities expected to open by July or August 2024. Despite being under the DOD, the research funding from the CDMRP can extend to populations outside the military and is not limited to military treatment facilities, said Akua Roach, Program Manager for the CDMRP Arthritis Research Program.

Global cancer cases could reach 35 Million in 2050 according to a report: A new American Cancer Society (ACS) report predicts that new cancer cases will jump 77% worldwide from about 20 million in 2022 to 35 million in 2050, largely due to population growth and the aging population. About 9.7 million people died from cancer globally in 2022, and lung cancer was the most commonly diagnosed cancer type and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, according to the report published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Making room for the things that matter by prioritizing: Societal expectations may imply that women should try to be superior at every aspect of their jobs; however, taking that approach can lead to exhaustion, lack of focus, and dissatisfaction, writes Neuroscientist Juliette Han, a Professor at Columbia Business School. Han recommends sorting job responsibilities into three (3) categories in order to concentrate your time on the ones where you want to excel and make space for networking and other personal advancement tasks.

Dog sniff out Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) episodes in research: Human breath odor can warn trained service dogs of oncoming flashbacks in people who have PTSD, according to a study published in Frontiers in Allergy, making it possible to stop the episodes earlier and more effectively. PTSD service dogs already predict episodes from cues like fist-clenching or elevated respiration and heart rates, and the successful dogs in the study seem to respond to separate olfactory biomarkers, one tied to human participants’ self-reported shame and another to self-reported anxiety, says researcher Laura Kiiroja.

Menopause may help whale species survive: Female short-finned pilot whales, orcas, false killer whales, narwhals and beluga whales all experience menopause and live an average of 40 years longer than similar-size females of other whale species, researchers reported in the journal Nature. Female toothed whales are known to share food and guide their pods to food sources, suggesting that menopause enables the species to help ensure their families’ survival without continuing to reproduce, said researcher Darren Croft, Executive Director of the Center for Whale Research.

Cool scientist “humbled” by Girl Scouts: The Girl Scouts of San Diego named Suzie Alarcón one of this year’s Cool Women, an honor that “humbled and wowed and inspired” Alarcón, who is Director of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology’s Next Generation Sequencing Core. Alarcón led the team that won the grand XPrize for its COVID-19 test and is the founder of genome sequencing firm UGenomics. “I don’t know if I can be an inspiration to [young girls], but I can show them they can be complicated people and get to something that suits you in your career,” Alarcón said.

Massive dog research project has implications for humans: The “Dog Aging Project”, now in its fourth year, has collected data from 47,000 dog owners acting as volunteer scientists, with the information gathered ranging from tracking the amount eaten and other activities through more detailed environmental monitoring through wearing silicone tags that are later assessed by mass spectrometry. “A lot of the environmental factors that influence the health of dogs also affect humans in a very similar way, because our genetic structure is so similar,” said Audrey Ruple, a Veterinary Professor who also serves on the project’s board.