Little Foot fossil shows early human ancestor clung closely to trees

Recent growth in the number of healthcare workers providing home care for Medicare patients is "small and inadequate" compared with the increasing demand in an aging America, a new study suggests. To have hope of keeping up, Medicare likely will need to reconsider how it compensates providers for home care, the researchers say. "Only 0.7 percent of physicians in Medicare provided home care regularly," said Nengliang "Aaron" Yao, PhD, a researcher with the University of Virginia School of Medicine's Section of Geriatric Medicine. "Targeted policies are needed to support home-based medical care." Trends in Home Care Growth in the field of home care was "modest but steady" between 2012 and 2016, with most of the growth coming from increasing numbers of nurse practitioners providing home ...

A novel system of chilled panels that can replace air conditioning can also help reduce the risk of indoor disease transmission, suggests new analysis from the University of British Columbia, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University. The researchers computed air conditioning requirements in 60 of the world's most populous cities--with the additional ventilation required due to COVID-19. Then, they compared the energy costs with their cooling method, using the chilled panels and natural ventilation. The results, published in the COVID-19 edition of Applied Energy, showed that the alternative solution can save up to 45 per cent of the required energy, while ensuring building occupants are comfortable ...

Nearly three-quarters of Earth's land had been transformed by humans by 10,000BC, but new research shows it largely wasn't at the expense of the natural world. A study involving University of Queensland researchers combined global maps of population and land use over the past 12,000 years with current biodiversity data, demonstrating the effective environmental stewardship of Indigenous and traditional peoples. UQ's Professor James Watson said the findings challenged the modern assumption that human 'development' inevitably led to environmental destruction. "There's a paradigm among natural scientists, conservationists and policymakers that ...

Unless you've studied chemistry in college, it's unlikely you've come across the name aziridine. An organic compound with the molecular formula, C2H4NH, aziridines are well-known among medicinal chemists, who make use of the compound to prepare pharmaceutical drugs such as Mitomycin C, a chemotherapeutic agent known for its anti-tumor activity. Specifically, aziridines are what chemists call "enantiomers"--molecules that are mirror images of each other and cannot be superposed on one another. A peculiarity with enantiomers is that the biological activity ...

A team headed by Dr. Phillip M. Maffettone (currently at National Synchrotron Light Source II in Upton, USA) and Professor Andrew Cooper from the Department of Chemistry and Materials Innovation Factory at the University of Liverpool joined forces with the Bochum-based group headed by Lars Banko and Professor Alfred Ludwig from the Chair of Materials Discovery and Interfaces and Yury Lysogorskiy from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Materials Simulation. The international team published their report in the journal Nature Computational Science from 19 April 2021. Previously manual, time-consuming, error-prone Efficient analysis of X-ray diffraction data (XRD) plays a crucial role in the discovery of new materials, for example for the energy ...

A new study at Tel Aviv University found that the British variant (termed: B.1.1.7) of Covid-19 is 45% more contagious than the original virus. The researchers relied on data from about 300,000 PCR tests for Covid-19 obtained from the COVID-19 testing lab, which was established in collaboration with the Electra Group. The new study was conducted by Prof. Ariel Munitz and Prof. Moti Gerlitz of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, together with Dr. Dan Yamin and PhD student Matan Yechezkel from the Laboratory for Epidemic Modeling and Analysis (LEMA) at the Department of Industrial Engineering, all at Tel Aviv University. The study's results were published in the prominent scientific ...

Musty, moldy, smoky or horse dung-like smelling cocoa is not suitable for chocolate production. As part of a larger research project, a team of scientists led by Martin Steinhaus from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has identified the odorants responsible for such off-flavors. The food industry can now use these results to objectively assess the sensory quality of fermented cocoa based on odorant concentrations. The research team published the data in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Who likes chocolate ...

An international group of scientific experts co-directed by CNRS oceanographer Jean-Pierre Gattuso* has stated the requirements for coral reef survival in an article published in Biological Conservation. Over 500 million people rely on coral reefs for the protection they confer against submersion, the fishing resources they offer, and the tourism they help attract. Yet these ecosystems are among the most threatened by global warming: since the 1980s, there has been a rise in the number of bleaching episodes, during which corals expel the microscopic algae that keep them alive. While these events are reversible if the temperature change is only ...

The largest study of its type in the UK has identified differences in the immune response to COVID-19, between people with no symptoms, compared to those suffering a more serious reaction to the virus. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Newcastle University, University College London, University of Cambridge, EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and their collaborators within the Human Cell Atlas initiative, found raised levels of specific immune cells in asymptomatic people. They also showed people with more serious symptoms had lost these protective cell types, but gained inflammatory cells. These differences in the immune response could help explain serious lung inflammation and blood clotting symptoms, and could be used to identify potential ...

Scientists have developed a new biomaterial that regrows blood vessels and bone, potentially providing a single-stage approach when repairing large bone defects. The study, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and SFI AMBER Centre, is published in the Journal of Controlled Release. Previous RCSI-led research had found that activating a mechanosensitive gene, called placental growth factor (PGF), at different doses promoted bone regeneration and grew new blood vessels. Using this knowledge, the researchers developed a biomaterial that delivers PGF at different concentrations. Inspired by the natural way in ...