Deaths among older adults with dementia fell starkly in nursing homes and long-term care centers after COVID-19 vaccinations became available, yet remained high for those living at home, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco.     The nationwide study published July 17, 2023 in JAMA Neurology, is the first to use data from 2019 to 2022 to quantify “excess” deaths – or those above what would have been anticipated had there been no pandemic – taking into account age, sex, racial and ethnic groups, as well as the settings where people died.  In the first year, there were 509,179 dementia-related ...

Bioengineers have found a way to program the size and shape of virus particles by combining viral protein building blocks and templates made from DNA. The resulting nanostructures could have applications in vaccine development and transporting drugs inside the body. Virus capsid proteins—the proteins that shield the genome of a virus—can be used to build precisely structured protein assemblies. Their shapes and geometry, however, depend largely on the virus strain. Reprogramming these assemblies, no matter the original ...

Penicillin allergy affects more than 25 million people in the United States (up to 1 in 10 Americans) and has been shown to lead to particularly poor health outcomes in pregnant women and surgical patients. It is also a public health threat, leading to antibiotic resistance and infections in hospitalized patients that can be life threatening. Seventy-five% or more penicillin allergy labels come on by age 3 due to, for example, confusion with a viral rash. The majority of these rashes were never allergic, but the labels ‘stick’ into adulthood and carry many adverse consequences.”   Many low-risk patients with a penicillin allergy were able to have their ...

Scent dogs may represent a cheaper, faster and more effective way to detect COVID-19, and could be a key tool in future pandemics, a new review of recent research suggests. The review, published in De Gruyter’s Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, found that scent dogs are as effective, or even more effective, than conventional COVID-19 tests such as RT-PCR. Dogs possess up to 300 million olfactory cells, compared to just 5 or 6 million in humans, and use one-third of their brains to process scent information, ...

“Detecting and sensing our environment is essential for understanding how to interact with it effectively,” says Sonja Groß. An important factor for interactions with objects is their shape. “This determines how we can perform certain tasks,” says the researcher from the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) at TUM. In addition, physical properties of objects, such as their hardness and flexibility, influence how we can grasp and manipulate them, for example. Artificial hand: interaction with the robotic system The ...

Chitin hydrogel is recognized as a promising material for a variety of biomedical applications. Its biocompatibility and biodegradability make it useful in tissue repair, artificial organs, and wound healing. Yet scientists continue to face challenges in fabricating chitin hydrogel. A team of researchers has developed a green, efficient and scalable preparation method for chitin hydrogels.   The team’s work provides a rational strategy to fabricate chitin hydrogels and paves the way for its practical applications as a superior biomedical material.   Their ...

Improving diagnosis in health care is a moral, professional and public health imperative, according to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. However, little is known about the full scope of harms related to medical misdiagnosis — current estimates range widely. Using novel methods, a team from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence and partners from the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions sought to derive what is believed to be the first rigorous national estimate of permanent disability and death from diagnostic error.   The original research article ...

Press materials are now available for NUTRITION 2023, the annual flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN). Top nutrition scientists and practitioners from around the world will gather to share the latest research findings on food and nutrition during NUTRITION 2023, held July 22-25 at the Sheraton Boston.   Register for a press pass to attend NUTRITION 2023 in person or to access embargoed press materials before the meeting. Explore the meeting schedule, poster presentations, and oral presentations to see all the exciting research topics covered at this year’s meeting.   EMBARGOED MATERIALS   Researchers Identify Genes ...

Annapolis, MD; July 17, 2023—Responsible use of pesticides includes striving to avoid negative effects on the environment, often with an emphasis on protecting bees and other pollinators. A new study, however, finds that many common methods for minimizing pesticides' impact on bees—even some recommendations on product labels—are backed by minimal scientific evidence. The researchers behind the study say stronger testing is needed to evaluate which bee-protection measures are truly effective ...

FEMSelect Ltd., a women-led company developing innovative technologies to make a lasting impact on women's health, today announced positive results from a large six-month safety and outcome study of EnPlace® in 123 women with pelvic organ prolapse, published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics(IJGO).  The article, titled The EnPlace® sacrospinous ligament fixation—A novel minimally invasive transvaginal procedure for apical pelvic organ prolapse repair: Safety and short-term outcome results,1 discusses how investigators found that EnPlace, cleared by the FDA for attaching sutures to ligaments of the ...

Giving patients with operable pancreatic cancers a three-pronged combination immunotherapy treatment consisting of the pancreatic cancer vaccine GVAX, the immune checkpoint therapy nivolumab and urelemab, an anti-CD137 agonist antibody treatment, is safe, it increases the amount of cancer-killing immune system T cells in the tumors and it appears effective when given two weeks prior to cancer-removal surgery, according to new research directed by Johns Hopkins investigators. A description of the work was published online June 20 in the journal Nature Communications. This study, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the Bloomberg~Kimmel ...

The nonprofit PhRMA Foundation launched a new grant program to provide more than $1 million in funding for research on the use of digital health technologies (DHTs) in underrepresented populations in clinical trials to advance regulatory decision-making.  Based on applicants’ letters of intent, the Foundation will award up to eight $25,000 planning grants to support the development of detailed research proposals to compete for two $500,000 grants. Planning grant award recipients will also be offered a $5,000 promotional credit from ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (7/17/2023)  – Putting truth to the test in the “post-truth era”, Boston College psychologists conducted experiments that show when Americans decide whether a claim of fact should qualify as true or false, they consider the intentions of the information source, the team reported recently in Nature’s Scientific Reports. That confidence is based on what individuals think the source is trying to do – in this case either informing or deceiving their audience. “Even when people know precisely how accurate or inaccurate a claim of fact is, whether they consider that claim to be true or false hinges on the intentions ...

The vast scale of global trade presents a constant threat of introducing new plant diseases, which is challenging to the United States system of biosecurity. Plant health professionals often must respond quickly to a newly introduced or emerging plant disease outbreak even before a well-validated diagnostic test is available. Additionally, thousands of plant pathogens that already exist have been routinely diagnosed with assays that were not fully or consistently validated, which can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, delays in proper disease management, and significant consequences for growers and the public. Growing awareness of this gap in coordination and resources for plant disease ...

Political apathy is growing in democracies around the world. Political apathy, also known as political alienation, describes feelings of separation and disaffection, a sense of powerlessness and an indifference to politics and political institutions. A hallmark of political alienation is a refusal to vote or participate in political activities. Adolescents and young adults are no exception to these trends. In many countries in Europe and North America, the youngest voters have the lowest participation rates. Why are new voters so apathetic about politics? Many factors are ...

Ambitious global $1 billion per year ‘mission science’ model needed to win on sustainable development in time, warns experts   From the climate emergency and global health to the energy transition and water security, new report argues the global science and science funding efforts must be fundamentally redesigned and scaled up to meet complex needs of humanity and the planet.    July 17, 2023, NEW YORK – The current sustainability science model requires a fundamental redesign to keep up with the pace and complexity of the challenges facing the planet, argues the high-level ...

Ophiothrix angulata, a widely recognized and prevalent ophiuroid species in the Western Atlantic, has long been the subject of taxonomic debate due to its remarkable morphological diversity. A new study just published in PeerJ Life & Environment has shed light on the species' taxonomy, revealing a significant scientific breakthrough.  Led by a team of researchers from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Católica del Maule and Florida Natural History Museum,  the comprehensive study aimed to assess species delimitation ...

On the occasion of its annual general assembly in Singapore on 16 July 2023, the International Institute of Welding presented Sergio Amancio, from the Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), with this year’s Yoshiaki Arata Award in recognition of his scientific achievements. This award, consisting of a medal and a certificate, is considered one of the world’s most important awards for research in welding and additive manufacturing and usually goes to veteran researchers who are recognised for their life’s work. For ...

Statement Highlights: The number of people who use electronic nicotine delivery systems, typically referred to as e-cigarettes, has grown exponentially, especially among youth and young adults. E-cigarette use more than doubled from 2017 to 2019 among middle and high school students. Ingredients of e-cigarettes, including nicotine, flavoring agents, sweeteners and propylene glycol and vegetable glycerol, may each independently pose dangerous health risks. More clinical studies on the long-term impact of e-cigarettes on the heart, blood vessels and lungs are needed, and experts emphasize additional molecular and laboratory research ...

In order for future mobility, such as urban air mobility (UAM), to become a reality, it must be fuel efficient and reduce carbon emissions, which requires the development of new materials with excellent physical properties and recyclability. Self-reinforced composites (SRCs) are inexpensive, lightweight, and have advantages in terms of disposal and recycling as the reinforcement and the base material are composed of the same material. For this reason, it is attracting attention as a next-generation composite material to replace carbon fiber-reinforced composites used in aircraft. Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President ...

‘Routine’ infanticide of newborns by married parents in early modern Europe was a much more widespread practice than previously thought, a new book posits. This fresh insight sits at the heart of a new book, Death Control in the West 1500–1800: Sex Ratios at Baptism in Italy, France and England, by Gregory Hanlon and contributors. The French-trained behavioural historian explains: “In most cases, infanticide was a crime leaving no aggrieved party seeking revenge if it was committed right away. It could be overlooked and forgotten with the passage of time.” Widespread infanticide Hanlon, who is Distinguished Research Professor at Dalhousie University in ...

Growing evidence supports prescribing psychostimulant medications to help reduce use of illegal stimulants such as methamphetamine, authors write in a CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) commentaryhttps://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230266. Illegal stimulant use is rising, judging by the presence of these drugs in at least half of all opioid deaths in Canada in 2022. Following evidence from clinical trials in Australia, Europe and the United States, physicians and nurse practitioners in Canada and other countries are increasingly prescribing psychostimulants as harm reduction for stimulant use disorder. "This emerging ...

Commercial, rather than patient interests, often drive cancer care and research and patients deserve better, argue a group of global oncologists and patient advocates in a Comment published in The Lancet Oncology journal. The authors also establish core guidelines for the development of a new patient-centred movement in cancer care - Common Sense Oncology.   The Comment says there has been a shift over the past few decades from predominantly publicly funded clinical trials designed to answer questions important to patients, to industry-funded trials which aim to achieve ...

Both ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions for ADHD medication have increased significantly over the past two decades, except in children under five, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research, published in BJPsych Open, reviewed data from 7 million individuals aged three to 99, from IQVIA Medical Research Data, a UK primary care database, between 2000 and 2018. Of these individuals, 35,877 had an ADHD diagnosis and 18,518 received prescriptions for ADHD medication from their GP. Although the number of individuals receiving medication for ADHD is still relatively low, the researchers found ...

Today at the International Alzheimer's Congress (AAIC) in Amsterdam, new guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease developed by clinicians and researchers from around the world were presented. In these criteria, the disease is diagnosed in the clinic through the use of blood biomarkers, just as with other major diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.   A blood test has been developed for this purpose in recent years that gives very good results, according to recent research. Charlotte Teunissen, professor of neurochemistry at Amsterdam ...