Philadelphia, January 16, 2024 – Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, reduces the risk of serious acute illness in children and adolescents. However, its role in protecting against persistent health problems in the months after COVID-19, or “long COVID,” was less clear. Now, researchers from 17 health systems in the U.S., in work led by investigators at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), have found that vaccination provides moderate protection against ...

The first research study of the entire UK population highlights gaps in COVID-19 vaccine coverage. Between a third and a half of the populations of the four UK nations had not had the recommended number of COVID vaccinations and boosters by summer 2022. Findings suggest that more than 7,000 hospitalisations and deaths might have been averted in summer 2022 if the UK had had better vaccine coverage, according to the paper, published today in The Lancet. With COVID-19 cases on the rise and a new variant strain recently identified, this research provides a timely insight into vaccine ...

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. Trazadone and CBT ...

Climate change is reshaping forests differently across the United States, according to a new analysis of U.S. Forest Service data. With rising temperatures, escalating droughts, wildfires, and disease outbreaks taking a toll on trees, researchers warn that forests across the American West are bearing the brunt of the consequences. The study, led by UF Biology researchers J. Aaron Hogan and Jeremy W. Lichstein was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study reveals a pronounced regional imbalance in forest productivity, a key barometer of ...

The unique underwater kelp forests that line the Pacific Coast support a varied ecosystem that was thought to have evolved along with the kelp over the past 14 million years. But a new study shows that kelp flourished off the Northwest Coast more than 32 million years ago, long before the appearance of modern groups of marine mammals, sea urchins, birds and bivalves that today call the forests home. The much greater age of these coastal kelp forests, which today are a rich ecosystem supporting otters, sea lions, seals, and many birds, fish and crustaceans, means that they likely were a ...

Phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5i)—an erectile dysfunction drug sold under the names Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, and others—are a common medical treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED) in men with cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, a new Swedish study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that patients are at higher risk for morbidity and mortality over time when PDE5is and nitrate medication are both prescribed. Erectile dysfunction is a common condition in middle-aged and older men and is a strong predictor of coronary ...

Curtin-led research has for the first time precisely dated some of the oldest fossils of complex multicellular life in the world, helping to track a pivotal moment in the history of Earth when the seas began teeming with new lifeforms - after four billion years of containing only single-celled microbes.   Lead author PhD student Anthony Clarke, from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said to determine the age of the fossils, researchers used volcanic ash layers like bookmarks in the geological sequence.   “Located ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Arctic, Earth’s icy crown, is experiencing a climate crisis like no other. It’s heating up at a furious pace — four times faster than the rest of our planet. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are pulling back the curtain on the reduction of sunlight reflectivity, or albedo, which is supercharging the Arctic’s warming. The scientists are not armed with parkas and shovels. Instead, they have tapped into data from GPS satellite radiometers, capturing the sunlight bouncing off the Arctic. This ...

The equations that describe physical systems often assume that measurable features of the system — temperature or chemical potential, for example — can be known exactly. But the real world is messier than that, and uncertainty is unavoidable. Temperatures fluctuate, instruments malfunction, the environment interferes, and systems evolve over time. The rules of statistical physics address the uncertainty about the state of a system that arises when that system interacts with its environment. But they’ve ...

East Hanover, NJ – January 15, 2024 – Kessler Foundation received a $39,994 grant from the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers to investigate the impact of a unique combination of a single bout of aerobic cycling and virtual reality (VR) on processing speed in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) and mobility disability. Processing speed is the most common cognitive problem in persons with MS and may actually contribute to broader cognitive difficulties, according to the grant recipient, Carly Wender, PhD, research scientist in the Center for Neuropsychology ...

Organic optoelectronic devices, such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), use molecules with specific structures arranged on thin films. Additionally, the arrangement of these molecules on any surface is crucial for various processes that occur within these devices. This arrangement is guided by two primary factors: the deposition rate (how fast the molecules are placed) and the surface temperature. Slower deposition rates and higher temperatures facilitate the proper arrangement, resulting in more stable structures. Finding the right time scale for this process is also critical, and ...

Synthetic, non-biodegradable plastics are major sources of environmental pollution and have prompted a rising interest in sustainable, biodegradable alternatives derived from natural polymers. “Tara gum,” derived from the seeds of the tara tree (Caesalpinia spinosa), stands out as a promising solution. This natural, water-soluble substance contains polysaccharides (complex carbohydrates), including the widely used “galactomannan,” which is employed in coatings, edible films, and as a stabilizer and thickener. The biocompatibility, biodegradability, and safety of tara gum also make it valuable in industries like food and drug delivery. ...

Memristive devices constitute a category of devices capable of retaining their internal resistance, thus offering superior performance compared to conventional devices that use integrated circuits. Several materials have been explored to manufacture these devices. In recent years, transition metal oxides have gradually become widely popular for this purpose. Due to their increasing application in diverse domains like artificial intelligence systems, memristive devices must now overcome several issues related to data retention, endurance, and a large number of conductance states. Moreover, the individual fabrication ...

Three decades of data have informed a new Nebraska-led study that shows how the depletion of groundwater — the same that many farmers rely on for irrigation — can threaten food production amid drought and drier climes. The study found that, due in part to the challenges of extracting groundwater, an aquifer’s depletion can curb crop yields even when it appears saturated enough to continue meeting the demands of irrigation. Those agricultural losses escalate as an aquifer dwindles, the researchers reported, so that its ...

Two teams from UNIL and EPFL have succeeded in demonstrating that the insect synthesizes nutrients for native gut microbes. A study published in « Nature Microbiology ». Bacteria have adapted to all terrestrial environments. Some have evolved to survive in the gut of animals, where they play an important role for their host; they provide energy by degrading indigestible food, they train and regulate the immune system, they protect against invasion by pathogenic bacteria, and they synthesize neuroactive molecules that regulate the behavior and cognition of their host. These are great ...

Researchers have developed a platform that combines automated experiments with AI to predict how chemicals will react with one another, which could accelerate the design process for new drugs. Predicting how molecules will react is vital for the discovery and manufacture of new pharmaceuticals, but historically this has been a trial-and-error process, and the reactions often fail. To predict how molecules will react, chemists usually simulate electrons and atoms in simplified models, a process which is computationally expensive and often inaccurate. Now, researchers from the University of Cambridge ...

Textbook models will need to be re-drawn after a team of researchers found that water molecules at the surface of salt water are organised differently than previously thought. Many important reactions related to climate and environmental processes take place where water molecules interface with air. For example, the evaporation of ocean water plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and climate science. Understanding these reactions is crucial to efforts to mitigate the human effect on our planet. The distribution of ions at the interface of air and water can affect atmospheric processes. However, a precise understanding of ...

Over the last decades, air pollution emissions have decreased substantially; however, the magnitude of the change varies by demographics, according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The results indicate there are racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in air pollution emissions reductions, particularly in the industry and energy generation sectors. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. The research provides a national investigation of air pollution emission changes in the 40 years following the enactment of the Clean Air ...

The chromosomes of American and Chinese chestnut are not so similar after all, at least in one key region of the genome – the nucleolus organizing region (NOR).  The finding, published in a forthcoming article in Scientific Reports, has major implications for anyone with the goal of conferring blight-resistance to American chestnuts through hybridization with the Chinese chestnut.   “This is an unprecedented finding in the field of plant cytology,” says Nurul Faridi, a Forest Service geneticist and lead author of the study.    Traditional ...

New findings debunk previous wisdom that solid-state qubits need to be super dilute in an ultra-clean material to achieve long lifetimes. Instead, cram lots of rare-earth ions into a crystal and some will form pairs that act as highly coherent qubits, shows paper in Nature Physics. Clean lines and minimalism, or vintage shabby chic? It turns out that the same trends that occupy the world of interior design are important when it comes to designing the building blocks of quantum computers. How to make qubits that retain their quantum information long enough to be useful is one of the major barriers to practical quantum computing. It’s widely accepted that the ...

Bladder cancer has one of the highest incidence rates in the world and ranks as the fourth most common tumour in men. Despite its relatively low mortality rate, nearly half of bladder tumours resurface within 5 years, requiring ongoing patient monitoring. Frequent hospital visits and the need for repeat treatments contribute to making this type of cancer one of the most expensive to cure. While current treatments involving direct drug administration into the bladder show good survival rates, their therapeutic efficacy remains low. A promising alternative involves the use of nanoparticles capable of delivering therapeutic agents directly to the tumour. ...

New research has cracked a vital process in the creation of a unique rock type from the Moon. The discovery explains its signature composition and very presence on the lunar surface at all, unravelling a mystery which has long eluded scientists. The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals a key step in the genesis of these distinctive magmas.  A combination of high temperature laboratory experiments using molten rocks, together with sophisticated isotopic analyses of lunar samples, identify a critical reaction that controls their composition. This reaction took place in the deep lunar interior some three and a half ...

Worldwide, an estimated, 40 million people live with HIV. Two-thirds of this group on the African continent. In 2022, more than 600,000 people died from HIV-related causes and more than 1.3 million were infected. There is no vaccine against the world's second most deadly infection, after TB. Thanks to a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Amsterdam UMC's Rogier Sanders leads a project that aims to develop the first effective HIV vaccine.   "We hope to be able ...

Philadelphia, January 15, 2024 – The use of the antipsychotic drugs quetiapine and haloperidol is associated with an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death (SCD) caused by drug-induced QT prolongation, reports a new study in Heart Rhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, and the Pediatric & Congenital Electrophysiology Society, published by Elsevier. Caution is advised to manage cardiac risks in patients prescribed ...

Leveraging neuroimaging data from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort, researchers from A*STAR’s Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) identified an association between early life adversity and the pace of brain development in childhood. SINGAPORE – A study led by researchers from A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) has found evidence suggesting that children exposed to elevatec levels of early life adversity (ELA) exhibit an accelerated pattern of brain development during the preschool years. When exposed to ELA, such as a mother's mental and ...