Assessing brain capillaries in COVID-19

PHILADELPHIA--The "scarred villain" is one of the oldest tropes in film and literature, from Scar in "The Lion King" to Star Wars' Darth Vader and the Joker in "The Dark Knight." The trope is likely rooted in a long-evolved human bias against facial anomalies -- atypical features such as growths, swelling, facial paralysis, and scars. A new brain-and-behavior study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania illuminates this bias on multiple levels. The researchers, whose findings were published this week in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, used surveys, social simulations, and functional MRI (fMRI) studies to study hundreds of participants' responses and attitudes towards ...

Since ancient times, St. John's Wort has been used as a medicinal herb covering a wide range of applications such as the treatment of burns, skin injuries, neuralgia, fibrosis, sciatica and depression. Due to its high medicinal potential, the plant known in technical terminology as Hypericum perforatum even became "Medicinal Plant of the Year" in 2015. Now, scientists at TU Dresden have shown that there is much more to the herb than its healing properties. To this end, two interdisciplinary groups from biology and inorganic chemistry have joined forces and thus achieved astonishing results. Originally, the research groups led by botanist Prof. Stefan Wanke ...

Less intense mean daily precipitation, more intense and localised extreme events. This is what the future climate scenarios indicate for the Eastern Alps, according to the study "Evaluation and Expected Changes of Summer Precipitation at Convection Permitting Scale with COSMO-CLM over Alpine Space", published by the CMCC Foundation in the journal Atmosphere. The research is conducted in the context of the European project H2020 EUCP (European Climate Prediction system) and contributes to the work of the international scientific community for the development of climate models that can support ...

Photos A new analysis of thousands of native and nonnative Michigan bees shows that the most diverse bee communities have the lowest levels of three common viral pathogens. University of Michigan researchers netted and trapped more than 4,000 bees from 60 species. The bees were collected at winter squash farms across Michigan, where both managed honeybee colonies and wild native bees pollinate the squash flowers. All but one species--Apis mellifera, the common European honeybee--are native bees. The number of bee species found at each farm ranged from seven to 49. Consistently, lower virus levels were strongly linked to greater species richness among the local bee communities. ...

In Huntington's disease, a faulty protein aggregates in brain cells and eventually kills them. Such protein aggregates could, in principle, be prevented with a heat shock protein. However, it is not well known how these proteins interact with the Huntington's disease protein. New research by Patrick van der Wel (University of Groningen, the Netherlands) and colleagues at the University of Texas has partially resolved the structure of heat shock proteins that bind to such aggregating proteins, helping us to understand how they work. The results were published on 11 February in the journal Nature Communications. Heat shock proteins (Hsp) are produced by cells that are exposed to stressful conditions. The Hsp family is diverse, and quite a few of the ...

A new study has identified early risk factors that predicted heightened anxiety in young adults during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The findings from the study, supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, could help predict who is at greatest risk of developing anxiety during stressful life events in early adulthood and inform prevention and intervention efforts. The investigators examined data from 291 participants who had been followed from toddlerhood to young adulthood as part of a larger study on temperament and socioemotional development. The researchers ...

Osteoporosis is a leading global health challenge. Besides its own adverse effects, it also impairs the function of bone implants - normally made of a metal called titanium (Ti). Because there is less bone than normal in the implantation site, the implants could easily loosen, and persistent inflammation often accompanies. Recently, Chinese scientists from the University of Macau and Nanjing University, in collaboration with National Dental Centre Singapore, invent a bioactive coating that can be chemically linked onto normal Ti surface. This coating, ...

WHAT: The rise of several significant variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has attracted the attention of health and science experts worldwide. In an editorial published in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, experts from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, outline how these variants have arisen, concerns about whether vaccines currently authorized for use will continue to protect against new variants, and the need for a global approach to fighting SARS-CoV-2 as it spreads and acquires additional mutations. The article was written by NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.; John R. Mascola, ...

How much does a power system's reliability depend on the temperature? Electric power system generator resource adequacy modeling is designed to help determine capacity requirements for electric power system operators across the United States. While calculating resource adequacy requirements has been done for a century, it requires ongoing attention as the generation mix is constantly expanding and changing. A new paper contributes to these ongoing reliability considerations by using a unique data set to determine how both low and high temperatures reduce the reliability of coal, gas, diesel, hydroelectric, and nuclear power generators and thus affect the amount of generation markets should contract for. The paper, "Resource Adequacy Implications ...

In a courtesy call to HE the President of Malta at San Anton Palace on Thursday, February 11, 2021, Dr Noel Aquilina from the Department of Chemistry, accompanied by Professor Emmanuel Sinagra, Head of the Department of Chemistry and Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Malta, presented the findings of a landmark study. This study shows and confirms that airborne particulate matter (PM), apart from several toxic components, is also contaminated with tobacco smoke-driven particulates. After 30 years, Dr Noel Aquilina, alongside world renowned tobacco smoke-related researchers, ...