'Fortunate accident' may yield immunity weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria

When gravitational waves were first detected in 2015 by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), they sent a ripple through the scientific community, as they confirmed another of Einstein's theories and marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. Five years later, numerous gravitational wave sources have been detected, including the first observation of two colliding neutron stars in gravitational and electromagnetic waves. As LIGO and its international partners continue to upgrade their detectors' sensitivity to gravitational waves, they will be able to probe a larger volume of the universe, thereby making the detection ...

As the COVID-19 pandemic wanes in the U.S., a new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) finds that hospitals nationwide may not be adequately prepared for the next pandemic. A 10-year analysis of hospitals' preparedness for pandemics and other mass casualty events found only marginal improvements in a measurement to assess preparedness during the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was published last month in the Journal of Healthcare Management. "Our work links objective healthcare data to a hospital score that ...

If a virtual world has ever left you feeling nauseous or disorientated, you're familiar with cybersickness, and you're hardly alone. The intensity of virtual reality (VR)--whether that's standing on the edge of a waterfall in Yosemite or engaging in tank combat with your friends--creates a stomach-churning challenge for 30-80% of users. In a first-of-its kind study, researchers at the University of Maryland recorded VR users' brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) to better understand and work toward solutions to prevent cybersickness. The research was conducted by Eric Krokos, who received his Ph.D. in computer science in 2018, and Amitabh Varshney, a professor of computer science ...

Although wastewater disposal has been the primary driving force behind increased earthquake activity in southern Kansas since 2013, a new study concludes that the disposal has not significantly changed the orientation of stress in the Earth's crust in the region. Activities like wastewater disposal can alter pore pressure, shape and size within rock layers, in ways that cause nearby faults to fail during an earthquake. These effects are thought to be behind most recent induced earthquakes in the central and eastern United States. It is possible, however, that human activity could also lead to earthquakes by altering the orientation of stresses that act on faults in the region, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist ...

As more evidence emerges that opioid overdose deaths have increased dramatically since the onset of COVID-19, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), in collaboration with subject matter experts and medical regulatory authorities across Canada, have now released updated national clinical guidelines for the treatment of opioid use disorder. END ...

When someone is suspected of criminal activity, one of the most important questions they are asked is if they have a credible alibi. Playing back past events in our minds, however, is not like playing back a video recording. Recollections of locations, dates, and companions can become muddled with the passage of time. If a suspect's memories are out of line with documented events, a once-plausible alibi can crumble and may be seen as evidence of guilt. To put people's memories of past whereabouts to the test, a team of researchers tracked the locations of 51 volunteers for one month and found that their recollections were wrong approximately 36% of the time. "This is the first study to examine memory for where ...

Uppsala University scientists have designed a new mouse model that facilitates study of factors contributing to the progression of human bladder cancer and of immune-system activation when the tumour is growing. Using this model, they have been able to study how proteins change before, while and after a tumour develops in the bladder wall. The study has now been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. "The model was designed both to contain specific oncogenes, as they're called -- mutations that can drive tumour growth -- and to show a high incidence of harmful mutations, which we often see in people who get bladder cancer. These harmful mutations arise because of smoking, for instance, which is ...

Sudanese Islamic burial sites are distributed according to large-scale environmental factors and small-scale social factors, creating a galaxy-like distribution pattern, according to a study published July 7, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stefano Costanzo of the University of Naples "L'Orientale" in Italy and colleagues. The Kassala region of eastern Sudan is home to a vast array of funerary monuments, from the Islamic tombs of modern Beja people to ancient burial mounds thousands of years old. Archaeologists don't expect these monuments are randomly placed; their ...

GPS data from cell phones may provide insight into how city inhabitants are using their urban greenspaces, in a study published July 7, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Meghann Mears and Paul Brindley from the University of Sheffield, UK, and colleagues. Urban greenspaces confer a range of health and well-being benefits on city inhabitants and provide connection to nature. In this study, Mears and colleagues use cellphone GPS data to assess how frequently residents of the city of Sheffield in the UK engage with their local urban greenspaces, and whether this engagement was different across demographic groups. The authors used the "Shmapped" app, developed as part of the Improving Well-being through Urban Nature project, to track how frequently 240 users based in Sheffield ...

New iguanodon-like dinosaur identified from jawbone fossil from Spain was likely a 6-8m long herbivore, closely related to species found in modern-day China and Niger. INFORMATION: Article Title: A new Styracosternan hadrosauroid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Early Cretaceous of Portell, Spain Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253599 ...