Leesburg, VA, January 17, 2024—According to the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), the No Surprises Act’s (NSA) independent dispute resolution (IDR) process would be financially unfeasible for a large portion of out-of-network (OON) claims for hospital-based specialties—more so for radiologists than other specialists. “Although the NSA enacted important patient protections, IDR fees limit clinicians’ opportunities to dispute payer-determined payments and potentially undermine their bargaining power in contract negotiations,” ...

[Boston, MA—January 17, 2024] The American Meteorological Society (AMS) will open its 104th Annual Meeting with a Presidential Forum on how to advance society’s acceptance and use of climate science. Distinguished atmospheric scientist Dr. Kerry Emanuel will moderate a “fireside chat” with Monica Medina, President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society and former Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department, and Bob Inglis, Executive Director of RepublicEn.org and former congressman from South Carolina. The Forum, with opening remarks by AMS President ...

Bacterial infections can lead to the formation of abscesses — pockets of dead cells and debris surrounded by inflammatory immune cells. Bacteria multiply within abscesses, causing more inflammation and further damage to surrounding tissues. In severe cases, these immune reactions spread across the body, resulting in life-threatening organ failure, or sepsis. But how these abscesses form and what can be done to prevent them were previously not well understood. Using preclinical models, investigators from Brigham and ...

January 17, 2024   The Heat is on: UMass Amherst Scientists Discover Southern Africa’s Temps Will Rise Past the Rhinos’ Tolerance  New research shows that rising temperatures caused by climate change are impacting the remaining black and white rhinoceros populations on the African continent, suggests taking steps to mitigate impact now   AMHERST, Mass. – Southern Africa contains the vast majority of the world’s remaining populations of both black and white rhinoceroses ...

A civil engineer at the University of Pittsburgh is applying his expertise in bridges and infrastructure to develop new materials that better treat spinal injury, repair, and recovery. Amir Alavi’s proposal received a $557,000 boost from the National Institutes of Health to test the first “metamaterial” orthopedic implants. With an estimated 342,000 procedures per year in the U.S.1, interbody spinal fusion is a popular procedure to treat a range of spinal pain and injuries, from herniated discs and degenerative diseases to trauma. Interbody fusion cages are spinal implants that are used in most of ...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - An innovative study at Marshall University published in ArthroplastyToday explores the use of robotic-assisted joint replacement in revision knee scenarios, comparing the pre- and post-revision implant positions in a series of revision total knee arthroplasties (TKA) using a state-of-the-art robotic arm system. In this retrospective study, the orthopaedic team at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and Marshall Health performed 25 revision knee replacements with a robotic assisted computer system. The procedure involved placing new implants at the end of the thighbone and top of the shinbone with the computer's aid to ensure ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- After COVID vaccination, it usually takes weeks for our bodies to develop protective antibody responses. Imagine, however, a vaccine that speeds up the production of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that spreads COVID-19. A research team led by Rong Hai, an associate professor of microbiology and plant pathology at the University of California, Riverside, has developed such a vaccine by using preexisting immunity to a separate virus (the influenza virus) to help kickstart the process of making antibodies ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Approximately 23% of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or another related dementia in their 60s and later have cases that can be explained by controllable risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, physical inactivity, and too little or too much sleep, and that percentage varies depending on race and ethnicity, according to a new study published in the January 17, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. When including APOE ε4, a gene variant associated with the strongest genetic risk for late-age Alzheimer’s disease, the study found about a third of cases could be explained ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Migraine can impact many aspects of a person’s life, but less is known about how feelings of stigma about the disease affect quality of life. For people with migraine, these feelings of stigma were linked to more disability, increased disease burden and reduced quality of life, according to new research published in the January 17, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Stigma is common where the disease is not readily apparent to others, and there is indication that it could be especially relevant for those living with migraine,” said study author Robert Evan Shapiro, ...

WHAT: Three different HIV antibodies each independently protected monkeys from acquiring simian-HIV (SHIV) in a placebo-controlled proof-of-concept study intended to inform development of a preventive HIV vaccine for people. The antibodies—a human broadly neutralizing antibody and two antibodies isolated from previously vaccinated monkeys—target the fusion peptide, a site on an HIV surface protein that helps the virus fuse with and enter cells. The study, published in Science Translational Medicine, was led by the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.  Antibodies ...

Social networks of sanctuary-living Grauer’s gorillas provide unique insights into the behavior of a critically endangered species and inform on their care and future release. Adult female gorillas are at the centre of social networks in a sanctuary-living Grauer's Gorilla group, according to social network analysis which also finds them to be the most gregarious. #### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295561 Article Title: Group structure and individual relationships of sanctuary-living Grauer’s ...

In a study of nearly 5,000 North American first-year college students, those who were more extraverted, more agreeable, or less neurotic were more likely to feel a greater sense of belonging at school. Alexandria Stubblebine, an independent researcher in Ocala, Florida, USA, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 17, 2024. Prior research has suggested that one’s personality traits are associated with one’s general sense of belonging. Within a college-specific context, other research has linked a secure sense of belonging to many positives, such as better academic performance and better mental health. Some studies have investigated ...

When it comes to trends in mortality over the last thirty years, countries around the world can be grouped into five clusters, roughly representing the five continents, according to a new study published January 17, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David Atance of Universidad de Alcalá, Spain, and colleagues. While the clusters follow different trajectories, they share some commonalities, including longer life expectancies and fewer disparities between genders and groups of countries with different mortality and longevity indicators. Most countries in the world have seen improvements in longevity over the last two centuries, ...

Mothers with high levels of dental plaque are 8 times more likely to transfer Candida albicans, involved in tooth decay, to their babies, underlining the need for moms to keep their own teeth clean ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0290938 Article Title: Multilocus sequence typing of Candida albicans oral isolates reveals high genetic relatedness of mother-child dyads in early life Author Countries: Kuwait, USA Funding: JX; grants K23DE027412 and R01DE031025 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/ The funders ...

Dancing is an effective way for overweight and obese people to lose weight and fat, per meta-analysis ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0296089 Article Title: Is dancing an effective intervention for fat loss? A systematic review and meta-analysis of dance interventions on body composition Author Countries: China Funding: We are sure that our funder is the Hunan Provincial Social Science Achievements Evaluation Committee project, the award number is XSP21YBZ163, and the Grant recipient is Longjun Jin. The funder had no role in study design, data collection ...

Arsenic concentrations are predicted to increase significantly in Bangladesh's drinking well water, consumed by around 97% of Bangladeshis, thanks to sea level rise from climate change ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295172 Article Title: Sea level rise from climate change is expected to increase the release of arsenic into Bangladesh’s drinking well water by reduction and by the salt effect Author Countries: USA Funding: The fieldwork in Bangladesh was funded by the United States Agency of International Development (USAID; contract number US AID RE III 388-0070; https://www.usaid.gov/). ...

A third of surveyed United Nations staff working in Geneva report having personally experienced racial discrimination, and a third having witnessed colleagues being racially discriminated against ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295715 Article Title: Racial discrimination within United Nations offices in Geneva: Results from an online survey Author Countries: Germany, USA Funding: The article was produced as part of the project "Racism and Mental Health: A Qualitative Study with Humanitarian Workers". The project is ...

A study of more than 25,000 U.S. dogs and 238 breeds has linked dog size to varying patterns of risk for health conditions over the course of a dog’s lifespan. Yunbi Nam of the University of Washington, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 17. On average, smaller dogs tend to live longer than larger dogs. Evidence suggests that larger dogs do not tend to have more health conditions, but that dogs of different sizes may face different levels of risk for different conditions. However, more research is needed to clarify links between dog age, size, and disease prevalence. To deepen understanding, ...

KINGSTON, R.I. – Jan. 17, 2024 – A University of Rhode Island professor of Ocean Engineering and Oceanography, along with a multidisciplinary research team from multiple institutions, successfully demonstrated new technologies that can obtain preserved tissue and high-resolution 3D images within minutes of encountering some of the most fragile animals in the deep ocean. URI Professor Brennan Phillips, the principal investigator on the project, and a team of 15 researchers from six institutions, including URI, have shown ...

Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the relationship between the iconic species and some of the earliest people to travel across the Bering Land Bridge. Scientists made those connections by using isotope analysis to study the life of a female mammoth, named Élmayųujey'eh, by the Healy Lake Village Council. A tusk from Elma was discovered at the Swan Point archaeological site in Interior Alaska. Samples from the tusk revealed details about Elma and the roughly 1,000-kilometer journey she took through Alaska ...

Attention editors: Embargoed by Science Advances until Wednesday, January 17th, 2 p.m. eastern High resolution photos, background footage, video clips can be downloaded at this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sn4unWFGHb5ULdeB9     Hamilton, ON, Jan. 17, 2024 – An international team of researchers from McMaster University, University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Ottawa has tracked and documented the movements and genetic connections of a female woolly mammoth that roamed the earth more than 14,000 years ago. She travelled ...

An innovative computational tool dubbed “SNAF” may help the research world bring the emerging promise of cancer immunotherapy to a wider range of patients, according to a study published Jan. 17, 2024, in Science Translational Medicine.  The research tool, called the Splicing Neo Antigen Finder (SNAF), was developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Cincinnati Children’s and the University of Virginia. The project was led by Guangyuan Li, PhD, and Nathan Salomonis, PhD, both with the Division of Biomedical Informatics at Cincinnati ...

A new study reported that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, can infect dopamine neurons in the brain and trigger senescence—when a cell loses the ability to grow and divide. The researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons suggest that further research on this finding may shed light on the neurological symptoms associated with long COVID such as brain fog, lethargy and depression. The findings, published in Cell Stem Cell on Jan. 17, show that dopamine neurons infected with SARS-CoV-2 stop working and send out chemical signals that cause ...

Metalenses have been used to image microscopic features of tissue and resolve details smaller than a wavelength of light. Now they are going bigger.  Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a 10-centimeter-diameter glass metalens that can image the sun, the moon and distant nebulae with high resolution. It is the first all-glass, large-scale metalens in the visible wavelength that can be mass produced using conventional CMOS fabrication technology.  The ...

EDMONTON — A University of Alberta professor is co-leading a new international vaccine safety network to examine why some people who received a COVID-19 vaccine experienced very rare adverse events associated with the vaccine. The International Network of Special Immunization Services (INSIS), based at the U of A, is a consortium of academic medical centres around the world coming together to study very rare adverse events after vaccination. An adverse reaction is considered very rare when it affects less than .001 per cent of the population. “The bar for safety with vaccines is very high because we’re giving them ...