Latest news with #UniversityofVirginia
USA Today
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Dawn Staley reveals why she'd want WNBA ownership in Philly over coaching
Dawn Staley reveals why she'd want WNBA ownership in Philly over coaching Kylie Kelce has welcomed some truly incredible guests since starting her podcast, Not Gonna Lie back in early December. The mom of four and media personality has had engaging interviews with former First Lady Michelle Obama, Kaitlin Olsen of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Olympians like Alex Morgan, Gabby Thomas and Ilona Maher, rocker Avril Lavigne, actress Kat Dennings, American Idol winner and daytime host Kelly Clarkson and more. This week, Kelce added to the prestigious list of women she's had on her show thus far, inviting women's basketball icon Dawn Staley to chat. Staley was a standout at the University of Virginia, leading the Cavaliers to three Final Fours and earning a laundry list of awards before being drafted ninth overall in the 1999 WNBA Draft. She was a six-time WNBA all-star before becoming the head coach at Temple and then South Carolina, where she has won three NCAA titles. Oh, and she has four Olympic gold medals (three as a player, one as a coach). Naturally, the two Philadelphia fans talked about their love for the City of Brotherly Love and how it's the perfect fit for a WNBA expansion team. Owner Dawn and investor Kylie? Sign us up.
Economic Times
2 days ago
- Health
- Economic Times
Y chromosome disappearing, sperm counts & testosterone levels dropping: What studies are telling about men's health
Y chromosome losing genes over time Rodents offer evolutionary clues Live Events Y chromosome loss already affecting men's health Effects on immunity and cancer 2017 study: Sperm counts declined sharply Testosterone levels also showing long-term decline Chemical exposure, temperature, obesity among possible causes Avoiding further decline Spiny rats' example of shrinking Y Chromosome (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Scientists are raising concerns about the long-term future of male reproductive health. The Y chromosome, which plays a critical role in male development, is losing genetic material and may disappear in about 11 million years. Separately, a major 2017 study revealed that sperm counts in men from industrialised countries have dropped sharply over the last four Y chromosome, which distinguishes biological males from females, is shrinking. Unlike the X chromosome that carries about 900 genes involved in many bodily functions, the Y retains only about 55. Scientists found that since humans diverged from monotremes like the platypus roughly 166 million years ago, the Y chromosome has lost about five genes per million that rate, projections suggest it could vanish completely in about 11 million years. Though once dismissed, the theory has gained ground after researchers found species like the Japanese spiny rat and certain mole voles reproducing without a Y 2022, researchers discovered a duplicated DNA segment near the SOX9 gene in the Japanese spiny rat. Normally, male traits develop when a gene on the Y chromosome (SRY) activates SOX9. But in this species, the new DNA copy triggers SOX9 on its own, even in animals with two X this fragment was inserted into mice, the animals still developed testes. This shows evolution can find workarounds. If humans ever lose the Y chromosome, natural selection may promote new pathways for male development. Over time, this could lead to different populations evolving in separate any evolutionary shift happens, scientists say many men already lose the Y chromosome in some cells as they age. From around the age of 50, bone marrow stem cells can divide abnormally, resulting in white blood cells that no longer carry the Y chromosome – a condition called 'mosaic loss of Y.'By age 80, more than 40% of men show this loss in a large portion of their blood cells. In a study of 1,153 older Swedish men, those with the loss had shorter lifespans, higher risk of heart disease and cancer, and were seven times more likely to develop Alzheimer' Walsh from the University of Virginia bred mice with Y-lacking blood stem cells. The mice later developed heart failure and died early, indicating the chromosome loss plays a direct role.A gene on the Y chromosome known as UTY influences immune responses. Without it, some immune cells become less effective, while others produce more scar tissue. Tumors in mice grew twice as fast in the absence of the Y human cases, bladder cancers without the Y chromosome were found to be more aggressive, but also more responsive to certain treatments like checkpoint inhibitors. This highlights the Y chromosome's complex role in immune function and cancer 2017, an international research team led by Dr. Hagai Levine of Hebrew University of Jerusalem analysed data from 185 studies involving over 42,000 men. The analysis showed that between 1973 and 2011, sperm concentration dropped by 52%, and total sperm count fell by 59% among men in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.'The extent of the decline is a heartache,' said Levine. 'It's hard to believe – it's hard to believe for me.'The researchers observed that many men now fall below 40 million sperm per millilitre – a level associated with reduced chances of conception. In contrast, no significant decline was found in men from South America, Asia, or addition to falling sperm counts, research shows that average testosterone levels in men have been steadily declining over the past several decades. A well-known study from Massachusetts, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that testosterone levels in men dropped by about 1% per year between 1987 and 2004, even after adjusting for age and other health factors. This means a 65-year-old man in 2004 had significantly lower testosterone than a 65-year-old in 1987. Researchers believe the decline may be linked to rising rates of obesity, lack of exercise, exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and overall lifestyle the study did not examine causes, researchers pointed to various environmental and lifestyle factors. Past research links prenatal exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals with poor sperm quality. Substances like pesticides, lead, and flame retardants can interfere with hormone experts suggested global warming could play a role. Dr. Harry Fisch from Weill Cornell Medicine noted that sperm counts vary by season and climate. 'I think global warming, not phthalates, is responsible,' said Dourson from the University of Cincinnati, while supporting the study's conclusions, questioned the broader health impact, noting that life expectancy has continued to rise in many of the same agree that individuals can take steps to limit further sperm and Y chromosome loss. Avoiding smoking, reducing exposure to industrial chemicals, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are seen as effective measures. Good sleep, a balanced diet, and exercise may help slow the are now testing antifibrotic drugs to treat heart damage linked to Y chromosome loss. In cancer care, Y chromosome status is already being used to guide some treatments. Future health check-ups could include Y-loss scores, much like cholesterol Japanese spiny rat shows that mammals can survive without a Y chromosome, sparking interest among evolutionary scientists. But while biology may adapt over millions of years, today's middle-aged men already face health risks from losing the situation creates a contrast between species-level evolution and individual-level medical concerns. Researchers say that both areas will shape future debates on male health and evolution.'The impact of the modern environment on health of populations and individuals is clearly huge, but remains largely unknown,' said Dr. Levine. 'Sperm count has previously been plausibly associated with environmental and lifestyle influences, including prenatal chemical exposure, adult pesticide exposure, smoking, stress and obesity. Every man can reduce exposure to chemicals, avoid smoking, keep balanced diet and weight and reduce stress.'
The Hill
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Republicans allege massive ‘cover up' of Biden's cognitive decline as Democrats boycott hearing
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) on Wednesday accused former Biden Cabinet officials, Democratic members of Congress and the media of participating in a massive 'cover up' to hide what they claim was President Biden's obvious and alarming cognitive decline during his final two years in office. 'There was a conspiracy to hide the president's true condition by his family, by his staff, by the media, and many elected officials. This was a constitutional crisis bigger than President Biden, bigger than any single election, and one that cannot be absolved by the collective apology of the press and an election where the president's party lost,' Cornyn said in his opening statement of a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cornyn and Schmitt rolled out their accusations against the former president and his inner circle to a mostly empty room after most Democrats on the panel boycotted the hearing. Yet Cornyn argued that Congress has a responsibility to investigate who was in charge of the executive branch during the final months of Biden's presidency, when Biden was having difficulty navigating the demands of his job and his reelection campaign, according to books that provided insider-sourced accounts of that time. 'We need to know who was in charge during the last months of the Biden administration. Was it his wife, his chief of staff, nameless others? None of these people were elected by the American people, nor were they authorized by the Constitution and laws of the United States to carry out the duties of the president of the United States,' Cornyn said at the hearing. Schmitt declared that Biden was 'mentally unfit to carry out the responsibilities of the most powerful office in the world.' 'Given his mental incapacity, the American people deserve to know who was running the country the last four years,' he said. Schmitt called it 'deeply disappointing' that most Democrats on the panel chose to 'boycott' the meeting and decided not to call a single witness to testify. Schmitt claimed that Biden's decline 'did not suddenly begin in June of 2024,' when he performed disastrously at the presidential debate against Trump. 'It was a persistent and obvious truth that was evident for years to anyone who was willing to see it,' he said. Cornyn and Schmitt called on former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer to testify along with University of Virginia law school professor John Harrison and Heritage Foundation fellow Theodore Wold. The Republicans claims of a cover-up received pushback from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who provided some opening remarks before leaving the room. Durbin dinged his GOP colleagues for not holding oversight hearings about the Trump administration or looking into the recent detainment of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) at a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Krisi Noem or Trump's deployment of active-duty Marines during protests in Los Angeles. 'So far this year the Republican majority on this committee has not held a single oversight hearing, despite numerous critical challenges facing the nation that our under our jurisdiction,' he said. Durbin accused his GOP colleagues of 'armchair diagnosing' Biden instead of investigating issues he argued would be more deserving of congressional oversight.
Scientific American
5 days ago
- Science
- Scientific American
Mathematicians Come Up with ‘Mind-Blowing' Method for Defining Prime Numbers
For centuries, prime numbers have captured the imaginations of mathematicians, who continue to search for new patterns that help identify them and the way they're distributed among other numbers. Primes are whole numbers that are greater than 1 and are divisible by only 1 and themselves. The three smallest prime numbers are 2, 3 and 5. It's easy to find out if small numbers are prime—one simply needs to check what numbers can factor them. When mathematicians consider large numbers, however, the task of discerning which ones are prime quickly mushrooms in difficulty. Although it might be practical to check if, say, the numbers 10 or 1,000 have more than two factors, that strategy is unfavorable or even untenable for checking if gigantic numbers are prime or composite. For instance, the largest known prime number, which is 2¹³⁶²⁷⁹⁸⁴¹ − 1, is 41,024,320 digits long. At first, that number may seem mind-bogglingly large. Given that there are infinitely many positive integers of all different sizes, however, this number is minuscule compared with even larger primes. Furthermore, mathematicians want to do more than just tediously attempt to factor numbers one by one to determine if any given integer is prime. 'We're interested in the prime numbers because there are infinitely many of them, but it's very difficult to identify any patterns in them,' says Ken Ono, a mathematician at the University of Virginia. Still, one main goal is to determine how prime numbers are distributed within larger sets of numbers. Recently, Ono and two of his colleagues—William Craig, a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Jan-Willem van Ittersum, a mathematician at the University of Cologne in Germany—identified a whole new approach for finding prime numbers. 'We have described infinitely many new kinds of criteria for exactly determining the set of prime numbers, all of which are very different from 'If you can't factor it, it must be prime,'' Ono says. He and his colleagues' paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, was runner-up for a physical science prize that recognizes scientific excellence and originality. In some sense, the finding offers an infinite number of new definitions for what it means for numbers to be prime, Ono notes. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. At the heart of the team's strategy is a notion called integer partitions. 'The theory of partitions is very old,' Ono says. It dates back to the 18th-century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, and it has continued to be expanded and refined by mathematicians over time. 'Partitions, at first glance, seem to be the stuff of child's play,' Ono says. 'How many ways can you add up numbers to get other numbers?' For instance, the number 5 has seven partitions: 4 + 1, 3 + 2, 3 + 1 + 1, 2 + 2 + 1, 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 and 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. Yet the concept turns out to be powerful as a hidden key that unlocks new ways of detecting primes. 'It is remarkable that such a classical combinatorial object—the partition function—can be used to detect primes in this novel way,' says Kathrin Bringmann, a mathematician at the University of Cologne. (Bringmann has worked with Ono and Craig before, and she's currently van Ittersum's postdoctoral adviser, but she wasn't involved with this research.) Ono notes that the idea for this approach originated in a question posed by one of his former students, Robert Schneider, who's now a mathematician at Michigan Technological University. Ono, Craig and van Ittersum proved that prime numbers are the solutions of an infinite number of a particular type of polynomial equation in partition functions. Named Diophantine equations after third-century mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria (and studied long before him), these expressions can have integer solutions or rational ones (meaning they can be written as a fraction). In other words, the finding shows that 'integer partitions detect the primes in infinitely many natural ways,' the researchers wrote in their PNAS paper. George Andrews, a mathematician at Pennsylvania State University, who edited the PNAS paper but wasn't involved with the research, describes the finding as 'something that's brand new' and 'not something that was anticipated,' making it difficult to predict 'where it will lead.' The discovery goes beyond probing the distribution of prime numbers. 'We're actually nailing all the prime numbers on the nose,' Ono says. In this method, you can plug an integer that is 2 or larger into particular equations, and if they are true, then the integer is prime. One such equation is (3 n 3 − 13 n 2 + 18 n − 8) M 1 (n) + (12 n 2 − 120 n + 212) M 2 (n) − 960 M 3 (n) = 0, where M 1 (n), M 2 (n) and M 3 (n) are well-studied partition functions. 'More generally,' for a particular type of partition function, 'we prove that there are infinitely many such prime detecting equations with constant coefficients,' the researchers wrote in their PNAS paper. Put more simply, 'it's almost like our work gives you infinitely many new definitions for prime,' Ono says. 'That's kind of mind-blowing.' The team's findings could lead to many new discoveries, Bringmann notes. 'Beyond its intrinsic mathematical interest, this work may inspire further investigations into the surprising algebraic or analytic properties hidden in combinatorial functions,' she says. In combinatorics—the mathematics of counting—combinatorial functions are used to describe the number of ways that items in sets can be chosen or arranged. 'More broadly, it shows the richness of connections in mathematics,' she adds. 'These kinds of results often stimulate fresh thinking across subfields.' Bringmann suggests some potential ways that mathematicians could build on the research. For instance, they could explore what other types of mathematical structures could be found using partition functions or look for ways that the main result could be expanded to study different types of numbers. 'Are there generalizations of the main result to other sequences, such as composite numbers or values of arithmetic functions?' she asks. 'Ken Ono is, in my opinion, one of the most exciting mathematicians around today,' Andrews says. "This isn't the first time that he has seen into a classic problem and brought really new things to light.' There remains a glut of open questions about prime numbers, many of which are long-standing. Two examples are the twin prime conjecture and Goldbach's conjecture. The twin prime conjecture states that there are infinitely many twin primes—prime numbers that are separated by a value of two. The numbers 5 and 7 are twin primes, as are 11 and 13. Goldbach's conjecture states that 'every even number bigger than 2 is a sum of two primes in at least one way,' Ono says. But no one has proven this conjecture to be true. 'Problems like that have befuddled mathematicians and number theorists for generations, almost throughout the entire history of number theory,' Ono says. Although his team's recent finding doesn't solve those problems, he says, it's a profound example of how mathematicians are pushing boundaries to better understand the mysterious nature of prime numbers.
Fox News
5 days ago
- General
- Fox News
Fathers play crucial role for daughters' mental health, sons' school behavior, study finds
Children with actively involved fathers thrive significantly more — academically, emotionally and behaviorally — than their peers without involved fathers, according to a new study from the University of Virginia and Hampton University. The research, which analyzed U.S. census data from over 1,300 children across Virginia, revealed that children with engaged dads were more likely to earn top grades, less likely to have school behavioral problems and less likely to exhibit depression. Girls in particular were more likely to get better grades with engaged dads (53% compared to 45% without) and were far less likely to have diagnosed depression (1% vs. 10%), according to the report. Boys were far less likely to get into trouble at school. Only 22% of boys with involved fathers had school behavior issues — compared to 35% of boys with less engaged dads. "Dads matter for both boys and girls," study co-author Brad Wilcox wrote. "But they matter more for boys' school behavior and girls' emotional well-being." The study defines "engaged" fathers as those who reported managing parenting demands "very well" and regularly share meals with their families, at least four times a week. "The results here are consistent with literature indicating that boys respond to family problems by acting out ("externalizing" in the literature), whereas girls turn inward ("internalizing" in the literature). In other words, the pain experienced by paternal disengagement is more likely to be manifested externally for boys and internally for girls. And that is what we see here in the state of Virginia," the authors wrote. There was no racial divide in school performance or school behavior problems between White and Black children from intact families in the state, the authors said. The study also found no correlation between a father's race or education level and his level of involvement. However, marital status made a "significant" difference in paternal involvement. Over half (51%) of children with married parents have highly engaged fathers — compared to just 15% of those with cohabiting parents. Children in blended families or living with only their fathers were as likely to have engaged fathers, the study also found. The authors say the good news is that the marriage rate has leveled off in Virginia since 2020, after being on a decline for decades. Nearly 70% of children live in households with married parents in Virginia, according to their research. They are proposing that Virginia lawmakers launch a bipartisan "father-friendly policy" initiative, following in the footsteps of states like Florida and Tennessee, to support fathers and families in the state. Their policy proposals suggest making schools "boy-friendly," "create a positive culture of fatherhood," "limit access to pornography," "revive civic efforts to promote prosocial masculinity," develop pro-father programs to help disadvantaged dads and make more efforts to help formerly incarcerated fathers succeed. The report was authored by scholars at UVA, the American Enterprise Institute, the American Institute for Boys and Men, the Brookings Institution, the National Center for Black Family Life at Hampton University, the Institute for Family Studies, and the National Marriage Project.
