Human noroviruses are the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis worldwide, a major global health problem for which there are no specific treatments or vaccines. Understanding the first phase of infection – the process the virus follows to invade cells – is a decisive step in the development of effective preventive and therapeutic strategies. A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine is making strides in that direction. The researchers report in the journal Nature Communications that the globally dominant human norovirus GII.4 strain invades gastrointestinal cells via an unexpected mechanism. The viral strategy involves interactions ...

A team of researchers from the University of British Columbia and BC Cancer have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that predicts cancer patient survival more accurately and with more readily available data than previous tools. The model uses natural language processing (NLP) – a branch of AI that understands complex human language – to analyze oncologist notes following a patient’s initial consultation visit—the first step in the cancer journey after diagnosis. By identifying characteristics unique to each ...

Research Highlights: A study of people ages 70 and older found walking an additional 500 steps per day, or an additional quarter mile of walking, was associated with a 14% lower risk of heart disease, stroke or heart failure. Compared to adults who took less than 2,000 steps per day, adults who took about 4,500 steps per day had a 77% lower observed risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event. Only about 3.5% of participants who took around 4,500 steps per day had a cardiovascular event, compared to 11.5% of those who took less than 2,000 steps per day, over the 3.5-year follow-up period. Embargoed until 10:45 a.m. CT/11:45 a.m. ET, ...

The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) fully supports the new “Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Obesity” issued from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) calling for earlier and more intensive treatment of obesity in children and teens. Published in the journal Pediatrics in February, this is the first comprehensive guideline on obesity in 15 years from the AAP, the largest professional association of pediatricians in the U.S.  According to AAP, more evidence ...

Most firearm owners keep at least one firearm unlocked, with some viewing gun locks as an unnecessary obstacle to quick access in an emergency, according to a Rutgers study. But when they do lock their firearms, Rutgers researchers found that firearm owners are most likely to use gun safes. In a study published in JAMA Network Open and funded by the Defense Health Agency, researchers surveyed a national sample of 2,152 English-speaking adult firearm owners, asking them what locking devices they used and why. Unlike previous studies, participants were presented with both words and images describing each ...

In a new study published in Nature Sustainability an international team of scientists from the Earth Commission, convened by Future Earth, investigates how global biophysical boundaries need to be adjusted to ensure a safe and just future for people, nature and the planet. The Earth Commission is the scientific cornerstone of the Global Commons Alliance This new framework integrates methods to reduce harm to people, increase access to resources, address tradeoffs, and challenge powerful interests whilst addressing inequality between generations and between humans and nature ...

Africa, where humans first evolved, today remains a place of remarkable diversity. Diving into that variation, a new analysis of 180 indigenous Africans from a dozen ethnically, culturally, geographically, and linguistically varied populations by an international scientific team offers new insights into human history and biology, and may inform precision medicine approaches of the future. The work clarifies human migration histories, both historical and more recent, and provides genetic evidence of adaptation to local environments, ...

More than two million citizens across 30 European countries have been involved in thousands of projects and initiatives as part of efforts to transition to renewable energy, according to an analysis published in Scientific Reports. With investments ranging between 6.2 and 11.3 billion Euros, these findings highlight the important role of collective action in the decarbonisation of Europe. The energy system in Europe is undergoing a significant transition towards renewables and decarbonisation. However, the contribution ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that despite calls for the expansion of outpatient surgery to mitigate the growing backlog of surgical cases in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, uptake of this practice occurred in only a small subset of operations. Further studies should explore potential barriers to the uptake of this approach, particularly for procedures that have been shown to be safe when performed in an outpatient setting.  Authors: Cornelius A. Thiels, D.O., M.B.A., of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is the corresponding author To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/   (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.1198) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The results of this study of more than 20,000 men with low-risk prostate cancer suggest that active surveillance rates are rising nationally but are still suboptimal, and wide variation persists across practices and practitioners. Continued progress on this critical quality indicator is essential to minimize overtreatment of low-risk prostate cancer and by extension to improve the benefit-to-harm ratio of national prostate cancer early detection efforts.  Authors: Matthew R. Cooperberg, M.D., M.P.H., of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Francisco, is the corresponding ...

Researchers from the group of Eva van Rooij in collaboration with the UMC Utrecht identified a new mutation that leads to the cardiac disease arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM). They assessed the effect of this mutation on heart muscle cells and obtained new insights into the underlying mechanism that causes the disease. The results of this study, published on March 2nd in Stem Cell Reports, could contribute to the development of new treatments for ACM.   Desmosomes Millions of heart muscle cells contract to let the heart fulfill ...

WASHINGTON, DC – The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today kicked off a multiyear initiative with an initial investment of $50 million to advance the uptake of practice-changing comparative clinical effectiveness research results into health care practice with the selection of 42 U.S. health systems to participate in its groundbreaking Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII). In addition, PCORI initiated the first in two stages of HSII funding, focusing on initial capacity-building efforts.   The array of participating health systems representing a wide range of care settings and populations will develop and implement ...

High in a narrow, seawater-filled crevasse in the base of Antarctica’s largest ice shelf, cameras on the remotely operated Icefin underwater vehicle relayed a sudden change in scenery. Walls of smooth, cloudy meteoric ice suddenly turned green and rougher in texture, transitioning to salty marine ice. Nearly 1,900 feet above, near where the surface of the Ross Ice Shelf meets Kamb Ice Stream, a U.S.-New Zealand research team recognized the shift as evidence of “ice pumping” – a process never before directly observed in an ice shelf crevasse, important to its stability. “We were looking at ice that ...

Party loyalty and partisan motivation may interfere less with Americans’ thinking than previously believed, MIT behavioral researchers Ben M. Tappin, Adam J. Berinsky, and David G. Rand report in new research published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.   The study, which looked at how Democrats and Republicans react to persuasive messaging that doesn't align with their party leader’s position, challenges the view that party loyalty distorts how Americans process evidence and arguments.   “Our results are clear and unequivocal: Learning the in-party leader’s ...

Even in their dark isolation from the atmosphere above, caves can hold a rich archive of local climate conditions and how they've shifted over the eons. Formed over tens of thousands of years, speleothems — rock formations unique to caves better known as stalagmites and stalactites — hold secrets to the ancient environments from which they formed. A newly published study of a stalagmite found in a cave in southern Wisconsin reveals previously undetected history of the local climate going back thousands of years. The new findings provide strong ...

•    The blood-brain barrier prevents most drugs from reaching brain tumors. •    A new method using nanoparticles transported drugs across this barrier in mice. •    The nanoparticles target a protein on tumor blood vessel cells called P-selectin. •    The nanoparticles improved the treatment in a model of aggressive pediatric brain cancer Brain tumors are notoriously hard to treat. One reason is the challenge posed by the blood-brain barrier, a network of blood vessels and tissue with closely spaced cells. The barrier forms a tight seal to protect ...

Göttingen, March 2, 2023. A sense of fairness has long been considered purely human – but animals also react with frustration when they are treated unequally by a person. For instance, a well-known video shows monkeys throwing the offered cucumber at their trainer when a conspecific receives sweet grapes as a reward for the same task. Meanwhile, researchers have observed similarly frustrated reactions to unfair rewards in wolves, rats and crows. However, researchers still debate the reasons for this behavior: Does the frustration really stem from a dislike of unequal treatment, or is there another explanation? In a study with long-tailed ...

Researchers from Bochum and Saarbrücken have detected security vulnerabilities, some of them serious, in several drones made by the manufacturer DJI. These enable users, for example, to change a drone’s serial number or override the mechanisms that allow security authorities to track the drones and their pilots. In special attack scenarios, the drones can even be brought down remotely in flight. The team headed by Nico Schiller of the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr University Bochum, ...

New research led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has confirmed that coastal water pollution transfers to the atmosphere in sea spray aerosol, which can reach people beyond just beachgoers, surfers, and swimmers. Rainfall in the US-Mexico border region causes complications for wastewater treatment and results in untreated sewage being diverted into the Tijuana River and flowing into the ocean in south Imperial Beach. This input of contaminated water has caused chronic coastal water pollution in Imperial ...

The large number of oily wastewater discharges and oil spills are bringing about severe threats to environment and human health. Corresponding to this challenge, a number of functional materials have been developed and applied in oil-water separation as oil barriers or oil sorbents. These materials can be divided into two main categories which are artificial and natural. Natural materials such as green bio-materials are generally low cost and abundant with biological degradability, which are also regarded as promising alternatives for oil-water separation ...

Existing colour systems, such as RGB and CYMK, are all text-based and require a large range of values to represent different colours, making them difficult to compute and time-consuming to convert. Recently, researchers from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) made a breakthrough by inventing an innovative colour system, called “C235”, based on prime numbers, enabling efficient encoding and effective colour compression. It can unify existing colour systems and has the potential to be applied in various applications, like designing an energy-saving LCD system and colourizing DNA codons. Currently, ...

The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, has announced University College Dublin (UCD) Archaeologist, Dr Anita Radini, as one of nine recipients for 2023. Each of the winners - who work in Kenya, Denmark, Israel, Canada, the US and Ireland - will receive $300,000 (USD) in recognition of their achievements as emerging scholars and to support their future endeavours in the study of the human past. Dr Radini is the first in Ireland to receive this award. “Our winners represent the next generation of historians,” said Ariel ...

When it comes to venturing into and enjoying nature, forests are the people’s top choice – at least in Denmark. This is also reflected in the sales prices of properties with private forest. But beyond earnings potential, this first study of its kind, conducted by the University of Copenhagen, puts a price tag on the so-called amenity value of Danish private forests. Forests have a nearly therapeutic effect on humans. Perhaps that is why eight out of ten of Danes have wandered in the woods over ...

What are humans? What are animals? And what makes humans unique? The comparative psychologist Fumihiro Kano has set himself a life goal to answer those questions. On 28 February 2023 it was announced that the scientist from the Cluster of Excellence “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz will receive the Manfred Fuchs Prize from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities of the State Baden-Württemberg for his interdisciplinary work in animal behaviour research. Photo gallery for the article: https://www.campus.uni-konstanz.de/en/science/the-map-to-human-behaviour Fumihiro ...

Sarcopenia is the decline of skeletal muscle mass with age, leading to loss of muscle strength (to move objects, shake hands etc.) and performance (walking and making other routine movements effectively). It involves chronic inflammation and is associated with cognitive alterations, heart disease and respiratory disorders. In short, it affects the quality of life, reducing independence and increasing the risk of injury, falls and even death. Sarcopenia affects 15% of adults over the age of 60 and 46% of those over 80. Sleep disorders are also common in these age groups. The aging ...