Researchers identify why COVID-19 patients develop life-threatening clots

A new antibody testing study examining samples originally collected through the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in five states earlier than had initially been reported. These findings were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The results expand on findings from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that suggested SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was present in the U.S. as far back as December 2019. In the All of Us study, researchers analyzed more than 24,000 stored blood samples contributed ...

Chemotherapy kills tumour cells by causing damage to them. One of the most effective ways of causing damage is to prevent the two DNA strands from separating so that the cellular machinery cannot read the instructions written in the genes. But sometimes, the cell manages to repair the damage and survive, evading the effect of chemotherapy. CNIO researchers have found out how the cell does that and plan to use this knowledge to enhance cancer treatments. The key lies in a peculiar protein called PrimPol, as explained in a publication in The EMBO Journal by the CNIO's DNA Replication Group, led by Juan Méndez. The DNA molecule harbours the genes that direct the life of the cell and, ...

The University of Ottawa has been awarded four new Canada Research Chairs (CRC) that will strengthen its expertise in artificial intelligence, health and law. The University is also proud to announce the renewal of two CRCs that will conduct leading-edge research in quantum communications and photonics. "The Canada Research Chairs Program provides invaluable support to our researchers as they forge their paths of discovery at a world-class level," said Sylvain Charbonneau, vice-president, research. "The results of this most recent competition will ...

A review of more than 9,000 U.S. patients with severe COVID-19 infection showed less than 1% contracted the illness again, with an average reinfection time of 3.5 months after an initial positive test. Those are the findings from a study conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and MU Health Care. The researchers teamed up with the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics and the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation to review data from 62 U.S. health care facilities. They found 63 of the 9,119 patients (0.7%) with severe COVID-19 infection contracted the virus a second time, with a mean reinfection period of 116 days. Of the 63 who were reinfected, two (3.2%) died. Patients categorized as ...

Plants evolve specialised defence chemicals through the combined effects of genes, geography, demography and environmental conditions, a study published today in eLife reports. The findings reveal a pattern in the types of defence chemicals plants produce across Europe, and describe some of the evolutionary processes that create them. As plants are immobile organisms, they rely on producing defence chemicals called specialised metabolites for survival. Specialised metabolites have extensive variation in their structure, such as the number of carbon molecules ...

June 15, 2021 - Canadian researchers have discovered that a bee thought to be one of the rarest in the world, as the only representative of its genus, is no more than an unusual specimen of a widespread species. Scientists with the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN) and York University have reclassified the mystery bee, collected somewhere in Nevada in the 1870s, as Brachymelecta californica. They note that it's an aberrant individual of a species, the California digger-cuckoo bee, that is part of a group that includes five other species. All are cleptoparasitic bees, with females that lay eggs in the nests of digger bees. Brachymelecta californica itself is known to be widespread ...

A recent UCLA clinical trial has shown encouraging results in helping daily smokers who are also heavy drinkers quit smoking and cut down their alcohol intake. The study of 165 people tested two prescription drugs -- varenicline, for smoking addiction, and naltrexone, which is used to treat alcoholism. Studies have shown that varenicline, marketed under the brand name Chantix, may also be effective in reducing alcohol consumption. Participants, who ranged in age from 21 to 65, smoked at least five cigarettes a day, with male participants generally consuming more than 14 drinks a week and women more than seven per week. Over the 12-week study period, each participant received 2 milligrams of varenicline twice a day. Roughly half the group -- 83 participants -- also received a 50-milligram ...

Hippopotamus aren't the first thing that come to mind when considering epidemiology and disease ecology. And yet these amphibious megafauna offered UC Santa Barbara ecologist Keenan Stears(link is external) a window into the progression of an anthrax outbreak that struck Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, in the dry season of 2017. Through surveys and GPS monitoring, Stears and his colleagues, Wendy Turner, Doug McCauley and Melissa Schmitt, revealed that reduced dry-season flows in the Great Ruaha River indirectly spread the disease by affecting hippo movement. The results, which appear in the journal Ecosphere(link is external), present a unique perspective on disease ecology and illustrate how anthropogenic changes can impact wildlife and human health. The ...

A team of scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed millimetre-sized robots that can be controlled using magnetic fields to perform highly manoeuvrable and dexterous manipulations. This could pave the way to possible future applications in biomedicine and manufacturing. The research team created the miniature robots by embedding magnetic microparticles into biocompatible polymers -- non-toxic materials that are harmless to humans. The robots are 'programmed' to execute their desired functionalities when magnetic fields are applied. The made-in-NTU robots improve on many existing small-scale robots by optimizing their ability to move ...

Is artificial intelligence the key to preventing relapse of severe mental illness? New AI software developed by researchers at Flinders University shows promise for enabling timely support ahead of relapse in patients with severe mental illness. The AI2 (Actionable Intime Insights) software, developed by a team of digital health researchers at Flinders University, has undergone an eight-month trial with psychiatric patients from the Inner North Community Health Service, located in Gawler, South Australia. The digital tool is tipped to revolutionise consumer-centric timely mental health treatment provision outside hospital, with researchers labelling it as readily available and scalable. In the trial of 304 ...