Prescribing of opioids, buprenorphine during COVID-19 pandemic

BOSTON - Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have used a couples-based framework to describe the experiences of individuals diagnosed with young-onset dementia (YOD) and their partners. In a study published in JAMA Network Open, the team conducted in-depth interviews to understand how couples navigate challenges related to YOD. This framework has been used to successfully develop patient-caregiver treatments for other severe medical conditions, including stroke, breast cancer and neurological injury. Using this approach to understand couples' coping patterns within YOD can help increase much-needed resources for affected couples. Young-onset dementias ...

PHILADELPHIA-- A new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found significant disparities in the use of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, a class of drugs proven to treat type 2 diabetes, with usage remaining low with Black, Asian, and lower-income groups despite an increase in overall usage for patients with type 2 diabetes. The END ...

Technology and commercial advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the world's foremost wind power experts. Experts anticipate cost reductions of 17%-35% by 2035 and 37%-49% by 2050, driven by bigger and more efficient turbines, lower capital and operating costs, and other advancements. The findings are described in an article in the journal Nature Energy. The study summarizes a global survey of 140 wind experts on three wind applications - onshore (land-based) wind, fixed-bottom offshore wind, and ...

The causes of the serious muscle disease ALS still remain unknown. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, among others, have examined a type of cell in the brain blood vessels that could explain the unpredictable disease origins and dynamics. The results indicate a hitherto unknown connection between the nervous and vascular systems. The study, which is published in Nature Medicine, has potential implications for earlier diagnoses and future treatments. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a neurodegenerative disease of the motor neurons that eventually ...

PHILADELPHIA--Real-word evidence is suggesting, for the first time, the most beneficial treatment courses that could help extend the lives of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, according to research from the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. In a new study published online today in JAMA Oncology, researchers show that patients harboring a KRAS gene mutation with high levels of PDL-1 lived longer when treated with immunotherapy alone, compared to patients without this mutation. This survival difference by KRAS status was not seen, however, in patients treated with both chemotherapy and immunotherapy, suggesting combination therapy for patients without the mutation may be preferred. The new findings, based off an analysis of the Flatiron ...

Inspired by the workings of a bat's ear, Rolf Mueller, a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, has created bio-inspired technology that determines the location of a sound's origin. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buFM5KkAnEo Mueller's development works from a simpler and more accurate model of sound location than previous approaches, which have traditionally been modeled after the human ear. His work marks the first new insight for determining sound location in 50 years. The findings were published in Nature Machine Intelligence ...

There is no cheaper way to generate electricity today than with the sun. Power plants are currently being built in sunny locations that will supply solar electricity for less than two cents per kilowatt hour. Solar cells available on the market based on crystalline silicon make this possible with efficiencies of up to 23 percent. Therefore they hold a global market share of around 95 percent. With even higher efficiencies of more than 26 percent, costs could fall further. An international working group led by photovoltaics researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich ...

More than 20 years after the launch of a landmark clinical trial, follow-up examinations and analyses found that not all patients with elevated eye pressure need pressure-lowering treatment to prevent vision loss from glaucoma. When the study was launched, it was universally accepted that all patients with elevated eye pressure should be given medication to lower that pressure. The Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study -- funded by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine ...

Prime editing (PE), a "search-and-replace" CRISPR-based genome editing technique, has great potential for gene therapy and agriculture. It can introduce desired base conversions, deletions, insertions, and combination edits into target genomic sites. Prime editors have been successfully applied in animals and plants, but their off-target effects, which can be a major hindrance to real-life application, have not been thoroughly evaluated until now. Prof. GAO Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and her research team recently performed a comprehensive and genome-wide analysis of the off-target effects of PEs in rice plants. Off-target ...

It is an old-standing theory in evolutionary ecology: animal species on islands have the tendency to become either giants or dwarfs in comparison to mainland relatives. Since its formulation in the 1960s, however, the 'island rule' has been severely debated by scientists. In a new publication in Nature Ecology and Evolution on April 15, researchers solved this debate by analysing thousands of vertebrate species. They show that the island rule effects are widespread in mammals, birds and reptiles, but less evident in amphibians. Dwarf hippos and elephants in the Mediterranean islands are examples of large ...