Ear infections are a common childhood experience, but a new study suggests parents should take these infections seriously to preserve their children’s language development. That’s because each ear infection can potentially impair hearing with fluid building up behind the eardrum. New research from University of Florida scientists reveals that when ear infections become chronic, this repeated, temporary hearing loss can lead to deficits in auditory processing and language development in children years later. “Ear ...

About The Study: In this study of more than 1.3 million inpatient admissions for treatment of COVID-19 from March 2020 through March 2022, researchers estimated an average national medical resource use or hospital cost to deliver care per COVID-19 inpatient stay at $11,275. Hospital costs increased more than five times the rate of medical inflation over this period. This was explained partly by changes in the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, which also increased over time. Nonetheless, costs to provide inpatient care increased even as care practices changed, vaccination rates increased, and the variants of concern evolved. Authors: Kandice A. ...

About The Study: This study that included 525 Black adolescents found an association between individual online racial discrimination and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and between posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and suicidal ideation. These risk factors are important to consider in continuing studies of the cause of suicidal ideation for Black adolescents in the U.S.  Authors: Brendesha M. Tynes, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, is the corresponding author. To ...

The average cost of providing care to hospitalized COVID-19 patients increased five times faster than the rate of medical inflation during the first two years of the pandemic, at least partly because of the application of additional medical technologies over the period, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Examining patients treated at academic medical centers across the nation, researchers found that the average cost of treatment for COVID-19 infection increased from $10,094 during the first weeks of the pandemic to $13,072 during March 2022. Significant ...

New Haven, Conn. — Yale researchers have identified a drug target that may alleviate joint degeneration associated with osteoarthritis, a debilitating condition that afflicts as many as 30 million people in the United States alone, which they report on Jan. 3 in the journal Nature. Pain relievers and lifestyle changes, such as exercise and reduced excess weight, have long been the therapies most commonly used to treat the joint stiffness and pain caused by degenerative disease, but there ...

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms held together by the strongest bonds known. Semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity under specific conditions, are foundational components of electronic devices. The team’s breakthrough throws open the door to a new way of doing electronics. Their discovery comes at a time when silicon, the material from which ...

An atomic-level investigation of how Eastern equine encephalitis virus binds to a key receptor and gets inside of cells also has enabled the discovery of a decoy molecule that protects against the potentially deadly brain infection, in mice. The study, from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is published Jan. 3 in the journal Cell. By advancing understanding of the complex molecular interactions between viral proteins and their receptors on animal cells, the findings lay a foundation for treatments and vaccines ...

New study sheds light on the previously overlooked Mongolian Arc—a monumental wall system in eastern Mongolia spanning 405 kilometers. This discovery not only reveals the significance of this ancient architectural marvel but also prompts crucial questions about the motives, functionality, and broader implications of such colossal constructions. Their findings contribute to a larger multidisciplinary project exploring historical wall systems and their socio-political, economic, and environmental impacts, marking a pivotal milestone in understanding ancient civilizations and their enduring legacies. [Jerusalem, ...

The General Assembly 2024 of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) will be held at the Austria Center Vienna (ACV) in Vienna, Austria and online, from 14–19 April 2024. eLTER will organise the following session: BG8.14: Integrated solutions for landscape management of GHG balance and biodiversity in a changing environment Convener: Syed Ashraful Alam, Katri Rankinen, Thomas Dirnböck, Harry Vereecken, Olga Vindušková The session is co-sponsored by eLTER. The abstract submission deadline is Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 13:00 CET. Society is placing increasing and potentially competing demands on our environment. ...

As cities grow bigger and faster, water pollution is becoming a serious problem. We need good ways to clean the water. Traditional cleaning methods, Persulfate (PS)- Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs), are good at treating the bad stuff in the water, but they require a lot of energy and chemicals, like special light and metals ions. This is costly and environmentally harmful. It's urgent to find better and more eco-friendly ways to clean it. In a recent study published in Volume 18 of the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, scientists ...

Peptide nanotubes are tubular-shaped structures formed by the controlled stacking of cyclic peptide components. These hollow biomaterials show inner and outer faces, allowing the control over their properties.  Led by Juan R. Granja, researchers from the Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS) presented a novel kind of cyclic peptide that, when light-irradiated, induces the formation or desegregation of nanotubes on demand. At the appropriate wavelength, the peptide switches from a folded to a flat conformation. When the planar conformation is ...

 (Boston)—While musculoskeletal imaging volumes are increasing, there is a relative shortage of subspecialized musculoskeletal radiologists to interpret the studies. Is AI the solution?   “With the ongoing trend of increased imaging rates and decreased acquisition times, a variety of AI tools can support musculoskeletal radiologists by providing more optimized and efficient workflows,” says corresponding author Ali Guermazi, MD, PhD, chief of radiology at VA Boston Healthcare System and professor of radiology and medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. In a new article in the journal Radiology, BU researchers provide ...

CLEVELAND—Diagnosing cancer today involves using chemical “contrast agents” to improve the accuracy of medical imaging processes such as X-rays as well as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.  But those agents can be expensive, take more time to use and pose potential health concerns. With a new four-year, $1.125 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers at Case Western Reserve University hope to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) alternative ...

The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is hosting a free webinar, “PTSD: The Brain Basis of Susceptibility” on Tuesday, January 9, 2024, at 2:00 pm ET. The presenter will be Nathaniel G. Harnett, Ph.D., Director of the NATE Lab at McLean Hospital and Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Harnett is also the recipient of a 2021 Young Investigator Grant. The webinar will be hosted by Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., President & CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and host of the public television series Healthy Minds. Register today ...

INDIANAPOLIS — Drug-drug interactions causing adverse effects are common and can cause significant patient harm and even death. A new study is one of the first to examine how clinicians become aware of and process information about potential interactions and subsequently make their real-world decisions about prescribing. Based on these findings, the research team makes specific recommendations to aid clinician decision-making to improve patient safety. “Drug-drug interactions are very common, more common than a lot of people outside the healthcare system expect. In the U.S., these interactions lead to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations ...

A type of immune cell can help predict which patients may benefit most from cancer immunotherapies, researchers from King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital Trust, and the Francis Crick Institute have found. The study, published today in Nature Cancer, found that a rare type of T cells (a type of immune cell), can help predict the likelihood of whether a patient with advanced skin cancer will be responsive to immunotherapy treatments. The results could also lead to the development of new and more effective treatments for patients with melanoma who do not benefit from current ...

Mutations of the tumor suppressor p53 not only have a growth-promoting effect on the cancer cells themselves, but also influence the cells in the tumor's microenvironment. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Weizmann Institute in Israel have now shown that p53-mutated mouse breast cancer cells reprogram fat cells. The manipulated fat cells create an inflammatory microenvironment, impairing the immune response against the tumor and thus promoting cancer growth. No other gene is mutated as frequently in human tumors as the gene for the tumor suppressor p53. In around 30 percent of all cases of breast cancer, the cancer cells show mutations or losses ...

Primates – and this includes humans – are thought of as highly social animals. Many species of monkeys and apes live in groups. Lemurs and other Strepsirrhines, often colloquially referred to as “wet-nosed” primates, in contrast, have long been believed to be solitary creatures, and it has often been suggested that other forms of social organization evolved later. Previous studies have therefore attempted to explain how and when pair-living evolved in primates. More recent research, however, indicates that many nocturnal Strepsirrhines, which are more challenging to investigate, are not in fact solitary but live in pairs of males and females. But ...

Research team draws up criteria for PET-based examinations of malignant brain tumors Diffuse gliomas are malignant brain tumors that cannot be optimally examined by means of conventional MRI imaging. So-called amino acid PET scans are better able to image the activity and spread of gliomas. An international team of researchers (RANO Working Group), led by scientists from LMU and the Medical University of Vienna, has now drawn up the first ever international criteria for the standardized imaging of gliomas using amino acid PET. It has published its results ...

The mini-halos of dark matter scattered throughout the Cosmos could function as highly sensitive probes of primordial magnetic fields. This is what emerges from a theoretical study conducted by SISSA and published in Physical Review Letters. Present on immense scales, magnetic fields are found everywhere in the Universe. However, their origin are still subjects of debate among scholars. An intriguing possibility is that magnetic fields originated near the birth of the universe itself, that is they are primordial magnetic fields. In the study, researchers showed that if magnetic fields are indeed primordial then it could cause an increase in dark matter density perturbations ...

Perovskite materials are still attracting a lot of interest in solar cell applications. Now, the nanostructures of perovskite materials are being considered as a new laser medium. Over the years, light amplification in perovskite quantum dots has been reported, but most of the works present inadequate quantitative analysis. To assess the light amplification ability, “gain coefficient” is necessary, whereby the essential characteristic of a laser medium is revealed. An efficient laser medium is one that has a large gain. Scientists have been exploring ways to boost this gain. Now, in a recent study, a team of researchers, led by Professor ...

Scientific researchers draw inspiration from nature’s brilliance as they seek to develop transformative solutions to unresolved challenges. Prof. WANG Zuankai, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Chair Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), has meticulously explored the intricacies of nature and made remarkable findings with very significant real-world applications. His recently published research on cooling ceramic successfully translates novel discovery into sustainable applications.   Findings from his research project “Hierarchically structured passive radiative cooling ceramic with high ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Acetaminophen is considered the safest over-the-counter pain reliever and fever reducer available during pregnancy. Studies have shown that 50%-65% of women in North America and Europe take acetaminophen during pregnancy. A new study from researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explored the relationship between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and language outcomes in early childhood. It found that increasing acetaminophen use was associated with language delays. The findings are reported in the journal Pediatric ...

Hydrothermal vents are an unlikely environment for animals to flourish, characterized by rapid changes in temperature and a challenging chemistry: acidic pH, rich in sulfur and methane. Not to mention the high hydrostatic pressure and the darkness of the deep sea. A team of scientists at the Sanya Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering (China) have now sequenced the full genome of a particularly unusual inhabitant of the hydrothermal vent environment: the sea cucumber Chiridota heheva. The research has been published in the Open Science ...

A UC Riverside study to motivate your new year’s resolutions: it demonstrates that high-fat diets affect genes linked not only to obesity, colon cancer and irritable bowels, but also to the immune system, brain function, and potentially COVID-19 risk. While other studies have examined the effects of a high-fat diet, this one is unusual in its scope. UCR researchers fed mice three different diets over the course of 24 weeks where at least 40% of the calories came from fat. Then, they looked not only at the microbiome, but also at genetic changes in all four parts of the intestines.  One group of ...