INFORMS Journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management New Study Key Takeaways: Researchers develop a method to more accurately predict and showcase hospital wait times to patients and emergency personnel by using new information that is learned in the intake process. This method provides more up-to-date wait times allowing patients and paramedics to make choices about which emergency department to go to. This process streamlines patient flow, creates more uniform spread of patients and lowers congestion across emergency departments, and could improve patient outcomes ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Wildfires. Many see them as purely destructive forces, disasters that blaze through a landscape, charring everything in their paths. But a study published in the journal Ecology Letters reminds us that wildfires are also generative forces, spurring biodiversity in their wakes.  “There’s a fair amount of biodiversity research on fire and plants,” said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist with UC Cooperative Extension who is based at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and is the study’s lead author. Research has shown that in ecosystems where fire is a natural and regular occurrence, there ...

What exactly makes for a fit Fido? And how does a dog’s environment factor into their dog years?   “People love their dogs,” said ASU School of Life Sciences assistant professor Noah Snyder-Mackler.  “But what people may not know, is that this love and care, combined with their relatively shorter lifespans, make our companion dogs a great model for studying how and when aspects of the social and physical environment may alter aging, health and survival.”   Now, the largest survey and data compilation of its kind--- from more than 21,000 dog owners--- has revealed the social determinants that may be ...

Examining the Ethics and Impacts of Laws Restricting Transgender Youth‐Athlete Participation Valerie Moyer, Amanda Zink, Brendan Parent As of this writing, 21 states have passed laws barring transgender youth-athletes from competing on public school sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. Proponents of these regulations claim that transgender females in particular have inherent physiological advantages that threaten a “level playing field” for their cisgender competitors. Existing evidence is limited but does not support these restrictions. Gathering more robust ...

Geisel Study Offers New Insights into How Medicare Fraud Has Spread Across U.S. Regions in Recent Years   Findings from an innovative study conducted by a team of researchers at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, are providing new insights into how the rapid spread (or diffusion) of fraudulent Medicare home healthcare billing has occurred across the U.S. in recent years.   To understand the significant growth of Medicare fraud during the 2000s in just a few regions of the country, the research team examined the network structure of home health agencies (HHAs) and identified a set ...

The U.S. government could save taxpayers between $228 million-$2.15 billion a year if insurers who operate its Medicare Part D plans purchased seven generic oncology drugs at the same prices obtained by the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC), according to a study published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,   The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) study, led by Ruchika Talwar, MD, a urologic oncology fellow, estimated potential savings by switching to MCCPDC prices with the implication ...

ANN ARBOR—Young adults ages 19 to 30 nearly doubled their past 12-month use of non-LSD hallucinogens in the United States from 2018 to 2021, according to a study by the University of Michigan and Columbia University. In 2018, the prevalence of young adults' past-year use of non-LSD hallucinogens was 3.4%. In 2021, that use increased to 6.6%. "While non-LSD hallucinogen use remains substantially less prevalent than use of substances such as alcohol and cannabis, a doubling of prevalence in just three years is a ...

To help solve hunger and malnutrition while also slowing climate change, some farmers could shift from land to sea, suggests a recent study from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. The study was published in Global Food Security. Producing and selling seaweed could boost incomes for farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in coastal regions of Africa and Southeast Asia, said Patrick Webb, the Alexander McFarlane Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School and senior author of the study. The other ...

When we listen to our favorite song, what sounds like a continuous wave of music is actually transmitted as tiny packets of quantum particles called phonons. The laws of quantum mechanics hold that quantum particles are fundamentally indivisible and therefore cannot be split, but researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago are exploring what happens when you try to split a phonon. In two experiments – the first of their kinds – a team led by Prof. Andrew Cleland used a device called an acoustic beamsplitter ...

Unmanned ground vehicles can be used to identify and eliminate the breeding sources of mosquitos that carry dengue fever in urban areas, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases by Wei-Liang Liu of the Taiwan National Mosquito-Borne Diseases Control Research Center, and colleagues. Dengue fever is an infectious disease caused by the dengue virus and spread by several mosquito species in the genus Aedes, which also spread chikungunya, yellow fever and zika. Through the process of urbanization, ...

Taurine deficiency may be a driver for aging, according to a new study, which evaluated the amino acid’s effect on health and longevity across several animal models. According to the authors, reversing age-associated taurine loss via supplementation improved the healthy lifespan in worms, rodents, and non-human primates – findings that warrant further human trials to examine taurine’s effect on healthy lifespan in humans and the potential risks involved. Taurine – a semi-essential micronutrient – is one of the most abundant amino acids in animals. Previous studies in several species have shown that taurine deficiency during early life causes functional ...

Reduced traffic and human mobility during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown restrictions rapidly altered some mammals’ movement behaviors, according to a new study. The findings illustrate how human activities constrain animal movement and how they react when those activities cease, which provides valuable insight into future conservation strategies designed to improve human-wildlife coexistence. During the initial global outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, governments worldwide introduced lockdown measures to curb the spread of the virus, resulting in a drastic reduction in human mobility and vehicular traffic. This “anthropause,” as it’s come to be known, ...

Two new studies in Science and Science Immunology spotlight a group of intestinal T cells with α4β7 integrin receptors that could be targeted to prevent resistance to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) cancer immunotherapy. Both studies were conducted in mice and corroborated in samples from patients. In the Science study, Marine Fidelle and colleagues evaluated how interactions between antibiotics, the gut microbiome, and α4β7+ CD4+ T cells promote ...

Coupled field observations and phytoclimatic modeling show that the distribution of African forest and savanna ecosystems are highly predictable by climate, researchers report in a new study. The findings suggest that the effects of climate change on the distribution of African forests and savanna may be more easily forecasted than previously recognized. An important yet challenging goal for ecological science is predicting how global vegetation patterns will be altered by ongoing climate change. Generally, the distribution of Earth’s vegetation biomes is determined by climate. However, at local or regional ...

Tucker and 174 colleagues, including members of the COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiative, analysed global data from land mammals tracked by GPS devices. Tucker: “There were many media reports that nature was recovering during those first lockdowns. For example, cougars were roaming the streets of Santiago, Chile, but we wanted to know: is there any evidence of this? Or were people simply paying more attention to everything while being at home?”  Movements of mammals Tucker and colleagues collated ...

LAWRENCE — A new study appearing today in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE shows how federal and state lockdowns and health mandates implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 affected the mental health of people living in four U.S. geographic regions and affiliated with two major political parties.  A group of faculty, staff and student researchers at the University of Kansas generated data-based maps to look for spatial trends and communities with similar mental health and COVID-19 outcomes. ...

Inflammasomes make up an intricate system of molecular sensors that our bodies use to sound an alarm when an infection occurs. However, the mechanisms behind these sensors, which initiate responses to threats such as invading pathogens, and how they operate has been an area of intrigue for immunologists. In a new study, University of California San Diego biologists describe a previously unknown way that the immune system detects certain viruses. The inflammasome immune protein known as CARD8, they found, can serve as a trip wire to detect a range of viruses, including SARS-Cov-2, which causes COVID-19. Adding ...

Without more legally binding and well-planned net-zero policies, the world is highly likely to miss key climate targets. In the new study, led by Imperial College London and published today in Science, researchers ranked 90% of global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions pledges as providing low confidence in their full implementation. The researchers recommend nations make their targets legally binding and back them up with long-term plans and short-term implementation policies to increase the likelihood of avoiding ...

Scientists from the Radboud University have developed synthetic molecules that resemble real organic molecules. A collaboration of researchers, led by Alex Khajetoorians and Daniel Wegner, can now simulate the behaviour of real molecules by using artificial molecules. In this way, they can tweak properties of molecules in ways that are normally difficult or unrealistic, and they can understand much better how molecules change. Emil Sierda, who was in charge of conducting the experiments at Radboud University: ‘A few years ago we had this crazy idea to build a quantum simulator. We wanted to create artificial ...

A global observational study co-led by UCL (University College London), which involved more than 3,200 newborn babies suffering from sepsis in 19 hospitals in 11 countries, has shown that many newborns are dying because the antibiotics used to treat sepsis are losing their effectiveness.  The study, conducted from 2018 to 2020, found there was high mortality among infants with culture-positive sepsis (almost 1 in 5 across the hospital sites), and a significant burden of antibiotic resistance. The study has provided a wealth of high-quality data aimed at improving the treatment of newborn babies with sepsis. The findings of the observational study ...

As warming waters threaten fish populations and disrupt fisheries around the world, it is critical to find ways to sustain fisheries while at the same time allowing those fisheries to remain economically viable to those who depend on them for their livelihoods. In the United States, commercial fishing employs 1.2 million Americans and generates more than $165 billion annually.  The primary way that the United States has protected its fisheries is through the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which was modernized in 1996 to foster the long-term biological and economic sustainability ...

Philadelphia, June 8, 2023 – The US Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) provides nutrition programming to individuals with low income, including students and their families, through a network of community partners who implement the programs. Findings of a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier, suggest SNAP-Ed implementers could develop a school’s readiness for programming by concentrating efforts on cultivating relationships, program-specific capacity, and motivation at schools. Lead author Erin McCrossan, PhD, Office of ...

A new study that sheds light on how B cells react to skin cancer cells could pave the way for innovative therapy design.  The study, published today in Nature Communications and led by researchers from King’s College London, reveals that antibody-producing B cells in patients may be defective in responding to the most aggressive skin cancer, melanoma. Antibodies are produced by B cells, a type of white blood cell, and are made to prevent and help fight infections. However, there is limited understanding about how B cells are prompted to respond to melanoma and why the antibodies they make are not effective. Researchers ...

A novel collaboration between the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Arizona (UA), and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), has resulted in the Water Reuse Consortium. This groundbreaking partnership has been awarded a $12.3 million cooperative agreement for phase one of a three-phase $38 million program with ERDC-CERL to tackle pressing water challenges through innovative research, education, communication, and unprecedented collaborative efforts between government, local communities, industry, and academia. The Water Reuse Consortium brings together ...

DETROIT (June 8, 2023) – Researchers in the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Health are leading a Phase I clinical trial studying the maximum tolerated dose of an oncolytic adenovirus, a mutated virus engineered to selectively replicate in and destroy cancer tissue, in combination with fractionated stereotactic radiosurgery among patients who are undergoing resection of a recurrent high-grade astrocytoma brain tumor.   “The participants in this study have progressive high-grade astrocytoma as well as glioblastoma, and are scheduled to undergo repeat surgery,” said Tobias ...