An analysis published today in the The BMJ examines the risks faced by frontline workers in the United States during the pandemic and suggests reforms that could protect population health and save lives. Lead author Professor David Michaels at the George Washington University and his colleagues note that from the onset laws and regulations in the United States inadequately protected frontline workers. The gaps allowed a rapid spread of disease in US workplaces like meat packing plants. At the same time, these essential workers were rarely seen as a population that needed special attention ...

Results of a large-scale innovative Citizen Science experiment called Project M which involved over 1000 scientists, 800 samples and 110 UK secondary schools in a huge experiment will be published in the prestigious RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) journal CrystEngComm on 29 January 2024. The paper is titled: “Project M: Investigating the effect of additives on calcium carbonate crystallisation through a school citizen science program”. The paper shares a giant set of results from the school citizen scientists who collaborated with a team at Diamond to find out how different additives affect the different forms of calcium carbonate produced. These additives affect the ...

Washington, D.C.—Researchers have identified 2 strains of probiotics that can be used to reduce weight in obese dogs. The research is published this week in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. In the new study, the research team investigated metabolic diseases in companion animals and set out to identify probiotics suitable for long-term and safe treatment. “The initial challenge involved selecting specific metabolic diseases for examination, leading us to focus on the prevalent issue of 'obesity in pets,’” said study principal investigator Younghoon Kim, Ph.D., professor in the ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – An intricate, honeycomb-like structure of struts and beams could withstand a supersonic impact better than a solid slab of the same material. What’s more, the specific structure matters, with some being more resilient to impacts than others. That’s what MIT engineers are finding in experiments with microscopic metamaterials — materials that are intentionally printed, assembled, or otherwise engineered with microscopic architectures that give the overall material exceptional properties. In a study appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the engineers report on a new way ...

Global tree-planting campaigns have reached fad-like proportions over the past decade, and it’s easy to understand their appeal. Healthy forests help in the fight against climate change by absorbing some of our excess carbon dioxide emissions, and they can provide wildlife habitat and quality-of-life benefits for local human communities too. So why not plant more trees? It seems like an easy win.  But the problem is, there’s a huge difference between simply planting a tree and making sure that trees survive and grow over the long-term. And without the necessary ecological understanding or long-term planning and ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 29 January 2024   Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet    @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. ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — Prenatal exposure to air pollution increases the risk of severe respiratory distress in newborn babies, according to new research conducted at the Penn State College of Medicine in collaboration with the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) Study led by Health Canada. The risk increases with exposure specifically to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which occur in wildfire and cigarette smoke and vehicle emissions, among other sources. The findings, which published on Jan. 25 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, reveal a better understanding of ...

New research from University of Utah psychology researchers is helping prove what American authors John Muir and Henry David Thoreau tried to teach more than 150 years ago: Time spent in nature is good for the heart and soul. Amy McDonnell and David Strayer are showing it is good for your brain, too. Their latest research, conducted at the university’s Red Butte Garden, uses electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain with small discs attached to the scalp, to measure participants’ attentional capacity. “A walk in nature enhances certain executive control processes in the brain above and beyond the benefits associated with exercise,” ...

A new guideline to help define the emerging field of Medical Extended Reality. Which seeks to standardize terminology, categorize existing work, and provide a structured framework for future research development in MXR.   END ...

Statement Highlights: Despite significant advances in research, education, clinical practice and community-based programs, survival from cardiac arrest remains low. Significant disparities also exist in cardiac arrest outcomes. This scientific statement specifically identifies impact goals to achieve or exceed by 2030 to improve cardiac arrest for all people. DALLAS, January 22, 2024 — Only 10% of people who experience a cardiac arrest survive.[1] In new challenge goals outlined in the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care 2030 Impact Goals and Call to Action to Improve Cardiac Arrest Outcomes, the American Heart Association’s volunteer ...

“An improved understanding of the molecular basis of thyroid cancer has led to the development of new targeted agents.” BUFFALO, NY- January 29, 2024 – A new research perspective was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on January 24, 2024, entitled, “Genetic alterations in thyroid cancer mediating both resistance to BRAF inhibition and anaplastic transformation.” In this new paper, researchers Mark Lee and Luc GT Morris from New York Presbyterian Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center discuss thyroid cancer. A subset of thyroid cancers present at advanced stage or with dedifferentiated histology and have limited response to standard therapy. ...

Previous studies focused on cocaine use have found that women are more likely than men to develop an addiction, try cocaine at a younger age, use larger amounts of the drug, and suffer from overdose. Now, a new study from researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior finally validates what scientists have long suspected: The female sex hormone estradiol (a synthetic version of the naturally occurring estrogen) is responsible for why women are more susceptible to cocaine addiction than men. “For the first time, we have shown that estradiol enhances the cocaine-conditioned reward,” said Linda Perrotti, ...

By Ileana Wachtel January 29, 2024 Chinese citizens who rarely voice open criticism of their government reveal stronger negative views when they can answer questions anonymously, according to a new study published in The China Quarterly. The study by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences shows an enormous drop in citizen support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government policies when citizens are surveyed using a method that hides their identities and makes them feel more anonymous than a typical survey. Why ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- School nurses are more than just health care heroes. They also play a key role in identifying students who are at risk for chronic absenteeism — a growing problem that diminishes academic success and can hurt students’ health and lead to a variety of negative long-term life outcomes. A recent study by a University of Missouri researcher found that school nurses are often well-positioned to identify students at-risk for chronic school absenteeism. The finding could help schools implement assessments and interventions to ultimately better support students ...

LA JOLLA, CA — Nerve cells in the brain demand an enormous amount of energy to survive and maintain their connections for communicating with other nerve cells. In Alzheimer’s disease, the ability to make energy is compromised, and the connections between nerve cells (called synapses) eventually come apart and wither, causing new memories to fade and fail. A Scripps Research team, reporting in the journal Advanced Science on January 18, 2024, has now identified the energetic reactions in brain cells that malfunction and lead to neurodegeneration. By using a small molecule ...

HOUSTON – (Jan. 29, 2023) – Rice University scientists have discovered a first-of-its-kind material, a 3D crystalline metal in which quantum correlations and the geometry of the crystal structure combine to frustrate the movement of electrons and lock them in place. The find is detailed in a study published in Nature Physics. The paper also describes the theoretical design principle and experimental methodology that guided the research team to the material. One part copper, two parts vanadium and four parts sulfur, the alloy features a 3D pyrochlore lattice consisting ...

It has long been known that agricultural pesticides are one of the greatest threats to bees and other essential pollinators. What farmers have lacked is an understanding of how different pesticides, applied at various times on a variety of crops, affect the risk of exposure to bees living near the fields. Researchers have drawn from real-world data to try to address this gap, developing and testing a spatial model for predicting pesticide exposure in bumblebees. The journal Science of the Total Environment published the work, based on the interactions of the yellow-faced bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii) ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY, 29 JANUARY 2024, 21:00 CET (20:00 LONDON TIME, 15:00 U.S. EASTERN TIME) Have you ever seen a hummingbird hawk moth? When people encounter this moth for the first time, they are usually intrigued: Looking like a cross between a butterfly and a bird – hence the name – this animal has the amazing ability to hover like a helicopter for long periods. On closer inspection, another feature of the hummingbird hawk moth quickly catches the eye: the spiralling curled proboscis, which is as long as the entire animal. The moth uses its proboscis ...

There are many lingering mysteries from the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, why does SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the disease, cause severe symptoms in some patients, while many other coronaviruses don’t? And what causes strange symptoms to persist even after the infection has been cleared from a person’s system?   The world may now have the beginning of answers. In a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a UCLA-led multidisciplinary research team explores one way that COVID-19 turns the ...

New research finds that individual behavioural flexibility and not evolutionary selection is driving the northward shift of Balearic shearwaters. The findings were revealed through a decade-long study which tagged individual birds. The results indicate that individual animals may have greater behavioural flexibility to respond to climate change impacts than previously thought. How individual animals respond to climate change is key to whether populations will persist or go extinct. Many species are shifting their ranges as the environment warms, but up to now the mechanisms underlying ...

Scientists have found that the spatial arrangement of plants in drylands can be a sign of the environment degrading, according to a new study. One of the iconic features of drylands is the striking appearance of islands of plants surrounded by bare soil. This spatial structure of arid vegetation has long fascinated scientists, but now a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has shed new light on why these plants group in this way. An international team of scientists, including from the University of Birmingham, combined field data from 115 sites around the world, and used mathematical models and remote sensing to build a picture of how the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The next generation of advanced telescopes could sharpen the hunt for potential extraterrestrial life by closely scrutinizing the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets, new research suggests. The next generation of advanced telescopes could sharpen the hunt for potential extraterrestrial life by closely scrutinizing the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets, new research suggests. Published recently in The Astronomical Journal, a new paper details how a team of astronomers from The Ohio State University examined upcoming telescopes’ ability to detect chemical ...

A startling number of people conceal an infectious illness to avoid missing work, travel, or social events, new research at the University of Michigan suggests. The findings are reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Across a series of studies involving healthy and sick adults, 75% of the 4,110 participants said they had either hidden an infectious illness from others at least once or might do so in the future. Many participants reported boarding planes, going on dates, and engaging in other social interactions while secretly sick. More than 61% of healthcare workers participating in the study also ...

A new study in the peer-reviewed journal Telemedicine and e-Health found that hypertension management via telehealth increased among Medicaid recipients regardless of race and ethnicity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Click here to read the article now. Jun Soo Lee, PhD, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and coauthors, reported that from February-April 2023, the number of hypertension-related telehealth outpatient visits per 100 persons increased from 0.01 to 6.13, and the number of hypertension-related in-person visits decreased from 61.88 to 52.63. The investigators ...

Michiganders will continue to have the opportunity to advance medical research aimed at advancing individualized health care through a renewed award to Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) All of Us Research Program. The award includes $18.3 million in initial funding to support a consortium of 8 health care provider organizations with a presence in 16 states.  Henry Ford has led the consortium since 2017. The renewed award allows participation to continue until at least 2028. The multimillion-dollar multi-year award represents the largest NIH research grant in Henry Ford’s 108-year history.  All ...