New GSA Bulletin articles published ahead of print in April

PHILADELPHIA - Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the U.S. and the leading cause of cancer death, with about 80% of the total 154,000 deaths recorded each year caused by cigarette smoking. Black men are more likely to develop and die from lung cancer than persons of any other racial or ethnic group, pointing to severe racial disparities. For example, research has shown that Black patients are less likely to receive early diagnosis and life-saving treatments like surgery. Now researchers at Jefferson have found that a commonly used risk prediction model does not accurately identify high-risk Black patients who could gain life-saving benefit from early screening, and paves the way for improving screenings and guidelines. The research was published in JAMA Network ...

A new study, published in JCI Insight, looks at how Brd4, a regulator of the innate immune response, influences diet-induced obesity. The researchers believe that Brd4 could be used as a target for obesity and insulin resistance. Approximately one-third of the adults and one in five children in the U.S. have obesity problems. Unfortunately, the condition is also associated with the development of other diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer. "One of the biggest challenges we face is trying to understand how people develop obesity. If we can understand that, we can develop solutions for treating or preventing these diseases," said Lin-Feng Chen (MME), a professor of biochemistry. The researchers investigated the role of the ...

The soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is the most damaging pathogen of soybean in the United States and Canada and it is spreading rapidly, according to information compiled by Gregory Tylka and Christopher Marett, nematologists at Iowa State University. SCN was first found in the United States in 1954 and most recent estimates show that SCN results in $1.5 billion in annual yield losses. "The continuing spread of SCN is alarming, but not surprising," said Tylka. "Anything that moves soil can move the nematode, including wind, water, and farm machinery." ...

Educating athletes, parents and coaches about concussion treatment and prevention has been a priority during the last decade, but are the intended audiences hearing the message? New research from the University of Michigan found that 1 in 4 adolescents self-reported at least one concussion in 2020, up from about 20% in 2016. During that same time period, youth who reported one concussion rose from roughly 14% to 18%, and those who reported at least two concussions increased from about 6% to 7%. "Self-reported concussions could be increasing given that both children and parents have greater ...

Researchers at AMBER, the SFI Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research, and from Trinity's School of Physics, have developed next-generation, graphene-based sensing technology using their innovative G-Putty material. The team's printed sensors are 50 times more sensitive than the industry standard and outperform other comparable nano-enabled sensors in an important metric seen as a game-changer in the industry: flexibility. Maximising sensitivity and flexibility without reducing performance makes the teams' technology an ideal candidate for the emerging areas ...

A hot topic symposia session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting will address the persistent controversies and questions in preterm infant nutrition. After six years of interdisciplinary expert discussion and critical evidence review, the 2014 vision to develop evidence-informed guidance for the nutritional care of preterm infants has come to fruition. The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) initiated this multiphase process involving expert physician, dietitian, and pharmacology scientists. The first phase, Pre-B, addressed the existing evidence and research ...

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2021 -- How body clocks work could lead to science that can turn an early bird into a night owl or vice versa as well as other advances, like helping crops grow all year long. In Applied Physics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, scientists at Penn State report on their work advancing knowledge about circadian rhythms, the natural process that governs sleep and waking patterns in humans, animals, and plants. Researchers have identified a set of genes, called clock genes, that control these rhythms. But a more complicated network of genes than previously known appears related to circadian rhythms. More fully ...

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2021 -- If a respiratory droplet from a person infected with COVID-19 lands on a surface, it becomes a possible source of disease spread. This is known as the fomite route of disease spread, in which the aqueous phase of the respiratory droplet serves as a medium for virus survival. The lifespan of the respiratory droplet dictates how likely a surface is to spread a virus. While 99.9% of the droplet's liquid content evaporates within a few minutes, a residual thin film that allows the virus to survive can be left behind. This begs ...

What The Study Did: This survey study estimated change in the percentage of adolescents in the United States who reported at least one diagnosed concussion during their lifetime. Authors: Phil Veliz, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2021.1538) Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, ...

During our waking hours, the brain is receiving a near-constant influx of sensory signals of various strengths. For decades, scientists have wondered why some signals rise to the light of conscious awareness while other signals of a similar strength remain in the dark shadows of unconsciousness. What controls the gate that separates the shadows and the light? In a new study from the Department of Anesthesiology and Center for Consciousness Science at Michigan Medicine, researchers identify a key area in the cortex that appears to be the gate of conscious awareness. "Information processing in the brain ...