Waltham — March 15, 2024 — For patients undergoing carpometacarpal (CMC) joint surgery for treatment of thumb osteoarthritis, the use of online video instruction for postoperative hand therapy is associated with outcomes similar to in-person therapy visits – while substantially reducing travel time and distance, reports a clinical trial in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.  Video-administered hand therapy provides an "efficient and effective" alternative to in-person therapy after CMC arthroplasty, ...

Researchers have shown that an Amazonian butterfly is a hybrid species, formed by two other species breeding together almost 200,000 years ago.  The discovery, by an international team led by scientists at the University of York and Harvard University, demonstrates how the formation of new species can be more complex than previously imagined. Species are often thought of as the tips, or leaves in a ‘tree of life’. In this model, new species are produced by the tips splitting over thousands to millions of years.  Scientists now understand, however, that the branches in the tree of life are ...

Researchers have discovered toxic protein particles, shaped like umbrellas, that soil bacteria known as Streptomyces secrete to squelch competitors, especially others of their own species. The discovery of the umbrella toxin particles and related information about their structures, composition and mode of action were published April 17 in Nature. The umbrella toxin proteins are the latest example of these bacteria’s varied, combative strikes on their microscopic rivals. The crowded, diverse bacteria communities ...

Traditionally, estimates of how climate change will affect global economies have focused on the effects of annual temperature changes. However, the additional impacts of variability and extremes in rainfall and temperature have remained largely unexplored, until now. Using projections from 33 global climate models, an international research team, led by Paul Waidelich at ETH Zurich, conducted a pioneering study, published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, to quantify such impacts on gross domestic product (GDP) across the globe. Revealing the additional ...

Lost your keys? Can’t remember where you parked the car? If only you had the memory of a mountain chickadee.  These half-ounce birds, with brains slightly larger than a pea, stash tens of thousands of food items like seeds in tree bark, under dead leaves and inside pinecones across the mountains. When winter arrives, they can recall the exact locations of their caches, a skill that helps them survive the bitter cold and deep snow.    In a new study published April 17 in the journal Current Biology, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the ...

April 17, 2024-- Policing of intimate partner violence (IPV) may result in adverse consequences for survivors, according to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. However, the evidence concerning the generalized consequences of IPV policing has not been comprehensively evaluated until now and the results call into question whether IPV policing benefits survivors. This is the first review on the consequences of IPV policing in the U.S. The findings are published in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. IPV, which includes physical violence, sexual violence, psychological abuse, and other forms of coercion between current or former spouses or ...

The warming climate shifts the dynamics of tundra environments and makes them release trapped carbon, according to a new study published in Nature. These changes could transform tundras from carbon sinks into a carbon source, exacerbating the effects of climate change. A team of over 70 scientists from different countries used so called open-top chambers (OTCs) to experimentally simulate the effects of warming on 28 tundra sites around the world. OTCs basically serve as mini-greenhouses, blocking wind and trapping heat to create local warming. The warming experiments led to a 1.4 degrees Celsius increase in air temperature and a 0.4 degrees increase ...

Anyone who regularly watches news or sports has likely noticed the steady creep of content competing for screen space, whether it be stock market prices, social media posts, game scores or some other graphic display. Previous studies have indicated that high intensity visuals that employ vibrant displays of information tend to hamper both long- and short-term memory.   With that in mind, a new study set out to answer a narrower question: how does the inclusion of social media in the televised presidential primary debates impact the viewer’s experience?  If the purpose of primary debates is to help viewers differentiate between candidates they would ...

When a single bacterial cell divides into two during periods of rapid growth, it doesn’t split in half once it reaches a predetermined size. Instead, data has shown, a cell will divide once it has added a certain amount of mass. The two processes sound similar, but they each carry different risks. Many researchers believed it was a safer bet for the cell if it split once it reached a certain size. New mathematical modeling from the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences shows the risks may have been miscalculated, however, because previous calculations ...

When you see an advertisement for a detergent promising to brighten your clothes, something called a fluorescent whitening compound, or optical brightener, is probably involved. Such material absorbs UV light and emits visible blue light via fluorescence. The result? Brighter whites, vibrant colors. Yes, your clothes are glowing.   As it turns out, these brighteners can make their way into the water supply. Luka Vucinic, a lecturer and environmental engineer at Glasgow Caledonian University in London, considers the problem of pollutants like fluorescent whitening compounds, microplastics, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – World governments and other leadership bodies are taking vital steps to protect the ocean but more progress is urgently needed, Oregon State University scientists reported today at the eighth Our Ocean Conference in Athens. “Highly protected areas can safeguard against destructive activities such as high-impact fishing, mining and drilling, allowing marine life to recover and in many cases support nearby human communities,” OSU’s Kirsten Grorud-Colvert said. “We’re honored to ...

To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy counterparts. This could involve altering the crops’ genomes so that they express pigments that are already produced by many plants, for example, anthocyanins, which make blueberries blue, or carotenoids, which make carrots orange. Then, they say, weeding robots could be trained to remove only the weeds using machine learning. The authors outline their proposed strategy on April 17 in the journal Trends in Plant Science. “To improve ...

If evolution was originally depicted as a tree, with different species branching off as new blooms, then new research shows how the branches may actually be more entangled. In "Hybrid speciation driven by multilocus introgression of ecological traits," published in Nature, Harvard researchers show that hybrids between species of butterflies can produce new species that are genetically distinct from both parent species and their earlier forebears. Writing to Charles Darwin in 1861, naturalist Henry Walter Bates described brightly colored Heliconius butterflies of the Amazon as “a glimpse into the laboratory where Nature manufactures ...

Cedars-Sinai investigators have discovered how brain cells responsible for working memory—the type required to remember a phone number long enough to dial it—coordinate intentional focus and short-term storage of information. The study detailing their discovery was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. “We have identified for the first time a group of neurons, influenced by two types of brain waves, that coordinate cognitive control and the storage of sensory information in working memory,” ...

Using new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered methane emission on a brown dwarf, an unexpected finding for such a cold and isolated world. Published in the journal Nature, the findings suggest that this brown dwarf might generate aurorae similar to those seen on our own planet as well as on Jupiter and Saturn. More massive than planets but lighter than stars, brown dwarfs are ubiquitous in our solar neighborhood, with thousands identified. Last year, ...

With long legs and large wings, the white stork is a prominent star of the pageant that is animal migration. Flying from Europe towards Africa in autumn, and then back again in spring, birds can be seen taking to the sky in conspicuous flocks that herald the changing of the seasons. Now, a study from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany, has an explanation for how this collective phenomenon forms: the storks are choosing to fly together. With data on lifetime migrations of 158 storks, the study provides the first evidence of the social preference of storks during migration. In a paper, the researchers show that storks chose routes ...

Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth’s warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event. All but the most specialist sea plankton moved to higher latitudes during the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, an interval of sustained high global temperatures equivalent to worst case global warming scenarios. When the team, comprised of researchers from the University of Bristol, Harvard University, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and the University of Victoria, compared biodiversity and global community structure, they found ...

About The Study: The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrate that most people experiencing homelessness have mental health disorders, with higher prevalences than those observed in general community samples. Specific interventions are needed to support the mental health needs of this population, including close coordination of mental health, social, and housing services and policies to support people experiencing homelessness with mental disorders.   Authors: Rebecca Barry, Ph.D., of the University of Calgary, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

About The Study: The findings of this study including more than 1 million Swedish children suggest that the degree of phenotypic variation attributable to genetic differences (heritability) differs between males and females, indicating that some of the underlying causes of the condition may differ between the two sexes. The skewed sex ratio in autism spectrum disorder may be partly explained by differences in genetic variance between the sexes.  Authors: Benjamin H.K. Yip, Ph.D., of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Sven Sandin, Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed ...

“Strong income reductions are projected for the majority of regions, including North America and Europe, with South Asia and Africa being most strongly affected. These are caused by the impact of climate change on various aspects that are relevant for economic growth such as agricultural yields, labour productivity or infrastructure,” says PIK scientist and first author of the study Maximilian Kotz. Overall, global annual damages are estimated to be at 38 trillion dollars, with a likely range of 19-59 trillion dollars in 2050. These damages mainly result from rising temperatures but also from changes ...

Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) and the Universities of Helsinki and Barcelona have identified a single nucleotide change key in the evolution of human skull morphology, affecting TBX1 gene expression and skull base development Tokyo, Japan – Humans, Homo sapiens, have unique features compared with other closely related hominin species and primates, including the shape of the base of the skull. The evolutionary changes underlying these features were significant in allowing the evolution ...

In patients undergoing colonoscopy to screen for colorectal cancer, deeper sedation using the anesthetic drug propofol may improve detection of "serrated" polyps — a type of precancerous lesion that can be difficult to detect, reports a study in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). "Our study provides the first evidence that monitored anesthesia care with propofol might increase detection of serrated polyps, which are more likely to be missed than adenomatous polyps during colonoscopy," said lead author ...

The electromyographic(EMG) signal is the bioelectrical current generated during muscle contraction. It can be transmitted as an input signal to an intelligent bionic prosthetic hand to control hand movements. By increasing the number of signal acquisition channels, richer information about the intention of the action can be captured, thus improving the success rate of the recognition of the intention of the action. However, it is not better to have more acquisition channels. As the number of channels increases, the hardware system becomes more complex, and the effect of improving the accuracy of gesture recognition gradually ...

The ability of the human wrist to rotate around the forearm axis in 2 directions is crucial for many daily activities. This rotation, limited to a range of approximately [-90°, 90°], restricts the wrist's capacity to execute complex operational tasks. For example, when we open or lock a door with a key, our wrist performs a large rotational movement. When we screw, the wrist needs to twist 180° several times. However, due to the limited rotation angle, the hand needs to leave the key or screwdriver several times to complete the entire work process. In order to realize large rotation ratio in a single actuator, a research team from Zhejiang ...

A research team at DZNE has been awarded around one million US dollars for the development of an innovative, AI-based method to measure the “choroid plexus” three-dimensionally in human brain scans. These finely branched brain structures are the main sources of the “cerebrospinal fluid” and thus of great significance for the function of the brain and spinal cord. It is also assumed that they play a role in various neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s. The research project is funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The “cerebrospinal fluid” (CSF) is ...