Biomaterial vaccines ward off broad range of bacterial infections and septic shock

Feeling anxious about health, family or money is normal for most people--especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But for those with anxiety disorders, these everyday worries tend to heighten even when there is little or no reason to be concerned. Researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine recently studied the behaviors associated with anxiety--published in Psychopharmacology--examining how biological factors impact anxiety disorders, specifically in females. They found that anxiety in females intensifies when there's a specific, life-relevant condition. The team, led by Thatiane De Oliveira Sergio, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Woody Hopf, PhD, professor of ...

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual Veterans from the Vietnam era report PTSD and poorer mental health more often than their heterosexual counterparts, according to an analysis of data from the Vietnam Era Health Retrospective Observational Study (VE-HEROeS). A greater burden of potentially traumatic events among LGB Veterans, such as childhood physical abuse, adult physical assault, and sexual assault, was associated with the differences. "This study is the first to document sexual orientation differences in trauma experiences, probable PTSD, and health-related quality of life in LGB Veterans using a nationally representative sample," said Dr. John Blosnich, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Placing rodent traps and bait stations based on rat and mouse behavior could protect the food supply more effectively than the current standard of placing them set distances apart, according to new research from Cornell University. Rodents cause billions of dollars in losses to the food supply each year, and carry pathogens that can sicken and kill humans, including salmonella, E. coli and Leptospira. In the 1940s and 50s, scientists recommended that farmers, food manufacturers and distributors evenly space rodent traps or bait boxes in their facilities. But in fact, a new study finds placement based on rat and mouse behavior is more effective. "From there, it just became a mantra without anybody scientifically evaluating it to see whether this ...

The new study, titled "Liposomal Extravasation and Accumulation in Tumors as Studied by Fluorescence Microscopy and Imaging Depend on the Fluorescent Label," was published on July 1, 2021, in the prestigious journal of the American Chemical Society, ACS Nano. Liposomes, a type of nanoparticle, are tiny, fat-soluble vesicles (small, fluid-filled sacs) made from lipids, or fats. They are mainly used to deliver cancer-fighting drugs to tumors, since liposomes are not water soluble and can protect some drugs against breaking down in the body. Comparing fluorescent labels on liposomes ...

The recent extreme heat in the Western United States and Canada may seem remarkable now, but events like these are made more likely, and more severe, under climate change. The consequences are likely to be far-reaching, with overwhelmingly negative impacts on land and ocean ecosystems, biodiversity, food production and the built environment. "The main lever we have to slow global warming is the rate at which CO2 is added to the atmosphere," said Marcus Thomson, a postdoctoral scholar at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis at UC Santa Barbara. Thomson is a co-author of a research article just published in Nature ...

When people see a toothbrush, a car, a tree -- any individual object -- their brain automatically associates it with other things it naturally occurs with, allowing humans to build context for their surroundings and set expectations for the world. By using machine-learning and brain imaging, researchers measured the extent of the "co-occurrence" phenomenon and identified the brain region involved. The findings appear in Nature Communications. "When we see a refrigerator, we think we're just looking at a refrigerator, but in our mind, we're also calling up all the other things in a kitchen that we associate with a refrigerator," said corresponding author Mick Bonner, a Johns Hopkins University cognitive scientist. "This is the first time anyone has quantified this and identified ...

A team of the University of Barcelona has analysed for the first time what the dry and hot periods could be like in the area of the Pyrenees depending on different greenhouse emission scenarios. The results, published in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, show that under an intermediate scenario, where these emissions that accelerate the climate change could be limited, there would not be a rise in long-lasting dry episodes, but temperatures would rise during these periods. On the other hand, if those emissions were not reduced during the 21st century, the summer no-rain periods would last an average ...

In a new study assessing the potential of a single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine, a team from the University of Iowa and the University of Georgia found that the vaccine fully protects mice against lethal COVID-19 infection. The vaccine also blocks animal-to-animal transmission of the virus. The findings were published July 2 in the journal Science Advances. "The currently available vaccines against COVID-19 are very successful, but the majority of the world's population is still unvaccinated and there is a critical need for more vaccines that are easy to use and effective at stopping disease and transmission," says Paul McCray, MD, professor of pediatrics-pulmonary medicine, and microbiology and immunology ...

Philadelphia, July 8, 2021 - Fifty-five percent of Midwest university students had tried a plant-based meat alternative and attributed this choice to the enjoyment of new food, curiosity about the products, and environmental concern, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier. For several decades, there has been a steady growth in consumer concerns about the environmental sustainability of the global food supply, animal welfare ethics, and human health consequences of red meat intakes. To assess the prevalence of plant-based alternatives to meat consumption in students; describe associations between demographics, environmental concern attitudes, and consumption; ...

A new study has linked a July 2015 ceasefire of conflict violence in Colombia with better pregnancy outcomes for women who conceived after the ceasefire began. Giancarlo Buitrago of Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia, and Rodrigo Moreno-Serra of the University of York, U.K., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. Previous research has suggested the possibility that women living in areas with armed violence experience adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, methodological problems or inappropriate data have hampered prior investigations into these associations. To better understand these associations, Buitrago and Moreno-Serra examined pregnancy outcome data for women who conceived before and after a ceasefire of conflict violence was declared ...