Mental illness among US coal miners

Throughout the pandemic, doctors have seen evidence that men with COVID-19 fare worse, on average, than women with the infection. One theory is that hormonal differences between men and women may make men more susceptible to severe disease. And since men have much more testosterone than women, some scientists have speculated that high levels of testosterone may be to blame. But a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that, among men, the opposite may be true: that low testosterone levels in the blood are linked to more severe disease. The study could not prove ...

The research team of Gero, a Singapore-based biotech company in collaboration with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo NY, announces a publication in Nature Communications, a journal of Nature portfolio, presenting the results of the study on associations between aging and the loss of the ability to recover from stresses. Recently, we have witnessed the first promising examples of biological age reversal by experimental interventions. Indeed, many biological clock types properly predict more years of life for those who choose healthy lifestyles or quit unhealthy ones, such as smoking. What has been still unknown is how quickly biological age is changing over time for the same individual. And especially, how one would distinguish between the ...

An international and multidisciplinary team led by researchers at the University of Oxford, University of Glasgow, and University of Heidelberg, has uncovered the interactions that SARS-CoV-2 RNA establishes with the host cell, many of which are fundamental for infection. These discoveries pave the way for the development of new therapeutic strategies for COVID-19 with broad-range antiviral potential. The genetic information of SARS-CoV-2 is encoded in an RNA molecule instead DNA. This RNA must be multiplied, translated, and packaged into new viral particles to produce the viral progeny. Despite the complexity of these processes, SARS-CoV-2 only encodes a handful ...

Swedish and Danish journalists describe their role as monitorial to a greater extent than journalists from other Nordic countries. Journalists from Norway and Iceland state they have the least experience of political influence and thus differ from Finnish journalists. This is shown by a new comparative study published by Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg. In a new study, researchers examine the similarities and differences in Nordic journalists' perceptions of the role of journalists and different kinds of influence on journalistic work. They also compare the Nordic perceptions with journalists in the rest of Europe. The study is ...

With a global impetus toward utilizing more renewable energy sources, wind presents a promising, increasingly tapped resource. Despite the many technological advancements made in upgrading wind-powered systems, a systematic and reliable way to assess competing technologies has been a challenge. In a new case study, researchers at Texas A&M University, in collaboration with international energy industry partners, have used advanced data science methods and ideas from the social sciences to compare the performance of different wind turbine designs. "Currently, there is no method to validate if a newly created technology will increase wind energy production and efficiency by a certain amount," said Dr. Yu Ding, ...

Over a year after the novel coronavirus cemented its grip on the world, much of the conversation surrounding the disease remains simple: how many people died and how many survived? But researchers at Michigan Medicine say a devastating side effect lurks, underreported, between those extremes - the loss of ability caused by the virus. In a study published in the journal PM&R, investigators found that 45% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 experienced significant functional decline after being discharged. "Rehabilitation needs were really, really common for these patients," says lead author Alecia K. Daunter, M.D., a pediatric physiatrist at Michigan Medicine. "They survived, but these people left the hospital in worse physical condition than they started. If they ...

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2021 -- Cosmic rays are high-energy atomic particles continually bombarding Earth's surface at nearly the speed of light. Our planet's magnetic field shields the surface from most of the radiation generated by these particles. Still, cosmic rays can cause electronic malfunctions and are the leading concern in planning for space missions. Researchers know cosmic rays originate from the multitude of stars in the Milky Way, including our sun, and other galaxies. The difficulty is tracing the particles to specific sources, because the turbulence of interstellar gas, plasma, and dust causes them to scatter and rescatter in different directions. In AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, University of Notre Dame researchers developed a simulation model ...

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), also known as scab, is a significant disease of small grain cereals, such as wheat and barley, that impacts farmers around the world. The disease has been reducing acreage and increasing the price of wheat production in the United States since the early 1990s, which in turn increases costs for downstream producers, such as millers and brewers. The disease is caused by a fungus that produces heat-stable trichothecene mycotoxins, which help the disease spread. To stop the spread, plant breeders are working to develop cultivars with improved resistance to FHB. A team of plant pathologists primarily based at Rutgers University recently generated ...

What started as the preliminary analysis of routine laboratory data has since evolved into the largest-ever study of viral load levels in patients with SARS-CoV-2. A team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now analyzed the PCR samples of more than 25,000 persons with COVID-19. Working under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten, the team determined the viral loads of each individual sample and used their results to estimate levels of infectiousness. The research, which has been published in Science*, provides a clear idea of the infectiousness of the disease in different age groups and at different levels of disease severity. It also provides new insights into the ...

LA JOLLA--(May 25, 2021) One of the many effects of aging is loss of muscle mass, which contributes to disability in older people. To counter this loss, scientists at the Salk Institute are studying ways to accelerate the regeneration of muscle tissue, using a combination of molecular compounds that are commonly used in stem-cell research. In a study published on May 25, 2021, in Nature Communications, the investigators showed that using these compounds increased the regeneration of muscle cells in mice by activating the precursors of muscle cells, called myogenic progenitors. Although more work is needed before this approach can be applied in humans, the ...