Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 7 October 2024   @Annalsofim        Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.        ----------------------------        1. First ...

PHILADELPHIA (October 7, 2024) – A new Penn Nursing Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR) study – published in INQUIRY – has found a strong association between the quality of the nurse work environment and COVID-19 mortality rates among socially vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries. The study examined data from 238 acute care hospitals across New York and Illinois. The researchers found that patients from socially vulnerable communities, including those facing higher levels of poverty, housing insecurity, and limited transportation, were more likely to die from COVID-19 if they were ...

Key Takeaways: A new systematic review led by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute examined a wide body of evidence documenting pediatric mental health outcomes in the period following FDA Black-Box Warnings that antidepressants may be associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors among youth. The data indicate that these warnings, meant to increase monitoring of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, resulted in reduced essential medication use and mental health treatment of pediatric depression and increased suicide attempts and deaths. The findings support a re-evaluation of the Black-Box ...

Embargoed for release: Monday, October 7, 4:00 PM ET Key points: Among more than 15,000 SNAP participants across 35 states, food insufficiency increased by 8.4% after pandemic-era Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) emergency allotments expired. Emergency allotments provided participants up to $250 additional support per month. Emergency allotment expiration also led to a 2.1% increase in use of food pantries and a 2% increase in difficulty paying expenses, as well as greater anxiety symptoms among Black SNAP participants. According to the researchers, the findings ...

Most U.S. hospital emergency departments — lacking staffing, training and equipment — are not fully prepared to care for children. Maximizing their readiness to handle pediatric emergencies would be a cost-effective way to save children’s lives, according to a new Stanford Medicine-led study. The study, which will publish Oct. 7 in Health Affairs, is based on data from hundreds of hospitals in 11 states. About 80% of emergency departments are not highly prepared to treat children, they found. The research team studied whether it would be cost-effective to upgrade these less-prepared emergency departments to make them more ready to treat babies, ...

Lower-income adults with Medicare Advantage plans are more likely to have difficulty paying for dental, vision, and hearing services than higher-income beneficiaries—despite enrolling in plans that cover these benefits, according to a new study published in Health Affairs. Medicare Advantage plans offer a private insurance alternative to traditional Medicare coverage for health insurance. The most common supplemental benefits are dental, vision, and hearing, with more than 90 percent of Medicare Advantage plans providing coverage for one or more. These supplemental benefits, which are ...

MADISON — For years, cancer researchers have noticed that more men than women get a lethal form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. They’ve also found that these tumors are often more aggressive in men. But pinpointing the characteristics that might help doctors forecast which tumors are likely to grow more quickly has proven elusive. University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers are turning to artificial intelligence to reveal those risk factors and how they differ between the sexes. Radiology and biomedical engineering professor Pallavi Tiwari and her colleagues have published ...

George Mason Researchers Conducting AI Exploration For Snow Water Equivalent Forecasting In Western U.S. With Physics-Informed Neural Network & GeoWeaver Ziheng Sun, Research Assistant Professor, Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS), Geography and Geoinformation Science, College of Science; Mingrui Liu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC); and Keren Zhou, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, CEC, are studying the dynamics of snow water equivalent (SWE).  SWE measures the amount of water available in snow.  The researchers will use ...

Sarah Huskisson, PhD candidate, Environmental Science and Policy, College of Science, is characterizing the gastrointestinal (GI) health of red pandas using short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations. Huskisson is advised by Elizabeth Freeman, Associate Professor, School of Integrative Studies. Huskisson is co-Principal Investigator on the project. Huskisson and Freeman aim to provide the first characterization of SCFA concentrations for red pandas and hope that differences in concentrations can be pinpointed between healthy and mucoid/loose stools.  They have two hypotheses.  First, they hypothesize that ...

Scientists have long theorized about a network of pathways in the brain that are believed to clear metabolic proteins that would otherwise build up and potentially lead to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. But they had never definitively revealed this network in people — until now. A new study involving five patients undergoing brain surgery at Oregon Health & Science University provides imaging of this network of perivascular spaces — fluid-filled structures along arteries and veins — within the brain for the first time. “Nobody has shown it before now,” said senior author Juan Piantino, ...

EXPERT AVAILABLE  Embargoed until Tuesday 8 October at 06:00 AEDT New research from the University of Sydney shows that international conservation efforts account for approximately 10 percent of fish stocks on coral reefs.   The global study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by Professor Joshua Cinner from the School of Geosciences and lead analyst Dr Iain Caldwell from the Wildlife Conservation Society. The international research team also included scientists from US, UK, Kenya, France and Germany among others.    Looking at fish survey data across nearly 2,600 tropical ...

An international research team led by the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna has used long-term demographic data from Japanese macaques – a monkey species within the family of Old World monkeys – to show that, unlike humans, there is no maternal mortality in these primates linked to childbirth. The results of the study were recently published in the renowned scientific journal PNAS. The evolution of large brains and associated large fetal heads are key factors linked to maternal mortality in primates during childbirth. For humans, the baby's large head in relation ...

Five George Mason Researchers Receive Funding For Center For Climate Risks Applications Luis Ortiz, Assistant Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences (AOES), College of Science; Fengxui Zhang, Assistant Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government; Edward Oughton, Assistant Professor, Geography and Geoinformation Science, College of Science; Natalie Burls, Associate Professor, AOES, and Director, Climate Dynamics Program, College of Science; and James Kinter, Director, Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA); Director, ...

CRISPR is a revolutionary tool that allows scientists to precisely modify the genome and gene expression of cells in any organism. It’s a reagent—a substance that facilitates a reaction—that combines an enzyme with a programmable RNA capable of locating specific genetic sequences. Once guided to the correct spot, the enzyme acts like a pair of scissors, cutting, replacing, or deleting sequences of DNA. Researchers are now using the technology to, among many things, treat genetic diseases, develop medical therapeutics, and design diagnostic tools. “CRISPR is very powerful, but it comes with side effects,” says Lehigh University ...

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers found that the possibility of parental disclosure through online patient portals led older adolescents to hesitate in sharing complete health information with doctors, putting them at risk of missed diagnoses and treatments. The paper noted that confidentiality concerns were increased among females and those who are sexual and gender minorities. The results, published Oct. 7 in JAMA Pediatrics, are based on a national online survey that targeted 18 to 26 years olds who ...

Benjamin Gatling, Associate Professor, English, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), is set to receive funding for a project in which he will digitize a significant portion of the archive of the Folklore Fund at the Rudaki Institute of Language and Literature in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.  Gatling aims to train local archive staff in best practices, the preservation of materials, and digitization and metadata creation for the majority of the archive’s holdings, as well as the curation of digitized materials. The archive’s holdings include bound notebooks, notecards, ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Jill Inderstrodt, PhD, MPH, has received notification of a five-year, $1.9 million collaborative grant to improve health and the care of people living with congenital heart defects (CHD). Awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr, Inderstrodt will lead a multidisciplinary team from the Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health and the Regenstrief Institute. Also part of the research team is Brian Dixon, PhD, MPA, a Regenstrief researcher, Fairbanks School professor and interim director of the Regenstrief Center for Biomedical Informatics. “I am honored to lead this initiative alongside ...

The European Commission (EC) has released the 10-year assessment of the Human Brain Project (HBP), an EU-Flagship initiative that concluded in 2023. The report was authored by a panel of independent scientific experts. Their assessment of the HBP’s development and results over the full 10 years comes to a strongly positive conclusion. The report highlights that the HBP made major contributions and had a transformative impact on brain research. One of the main outcomes of the HBP is EBRAINS, the open research infrastructure ...

Yuntao Wu, Professor, Molecular and Microbiology, School of Systems Biology, College of Science, is studying the structure of dicameric repeats (DR) of PSGL-1, a host protein that inhibits HIV virion infectivity. These are repeated stretches of 10 amino acids with numerous O-glycosylated threonines and prolines. Wu and his collaborators hypothesize that the structural rigidity and glycosylation of dicameric repeats affect anti-HIV activity. The researchers have two aims. First, they aim to determine the structure-function of DR. Second, they intend to test and validate the anti-HIV activity of PSGL-1 (P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1) that inactivates ...

Thanhvu Nguyen, Associate Professor, Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), received funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: “Collaborative Research: FMitF: Track II: From Theory to Practice: Making Complex Invariants Accessible with DIG.” Nguyen and his collaborators are developing the invariant generator DIG-I, which is more efficient and scalable than other invariant generators. It also has applications beyond just invariant discovery. The researchers hold that DIG-I will be ...

The current expectation is that every ovulatory menstrual cycle will have a luteal phase (the time from egg released until the next flow) that lasts approximately 14 days. It is simple, ovulation covers half of the expected, classical 28-day menstrual cycle. That fits with another current concept, “All regular month-apart menstrual cycles are ovulatory.” “We discovered a wide variety of luteal phase lengths, even in healthy premenopausal women who needed two cycles in a row that were both of normal cycle length and ovulatory in order to join the original study,” said this study’s first author, ...

It’s not a bad thing if you pick a toasted bagel for breakfast, while your partner chooses eggs. In fact, according to a new study from the University of Waterloo, that difference could help you lose some weight.  The study, which employed a mathematical model of men’s and women’s metabolisms, showed that men’s metabolisms respond better on average to a meal laden with high carbohydrates like oats and grains after fasting for several hours, while women are better served ...

SAN ANTONIO — October 7, 2024 —Southwest Research Institute’s Nathan Andrews has been named an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). AIAA Associate Fellows are recognized for overseeing important engineering or scientific work and outstanding contributions to their field. To receive this honor, nominees must be recommended by at least three other associate fellows, be a senior member in good standing of the AIAA and have at least 12 years of professional experience. AIAA selects only one Associate Fellow for each 150 members each ...

The invasive mosquito species, the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), poses significant threats to human and animal health due to its ability to spread over large geographic areas and act as a vector for numerous pathogens. Understanding the ecological relationships this species establishes in different locations is crucial for assessing its worldwide dispersion success and its role in disease transmission. To uncover how invasiveness couples with the ability to adapt to various food sources László Zsolt Garamszegi from the ...

Researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 7 have made the surprising discovery that one species of comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi) can fuse, such that two individuals readily turn into one following an injury. Afterwards, they rapidly synchronize their muscle contractions and merge digestive tracts to share food. “Our findings suggest that ctenophores may lack a system for allorecognition, which is the ability to distinguish between self and others,” says Kei Jokura (@Ctenophore18) of the University of Exeter, UK, and National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Okazaki, ...