A new UBC-led study shows that safeguarding key natural ecosystems across Canada can help reduce flood risks for more than half of the country’s urban areas at high risk for flooding. The research reveals that preserving the most important five per cent of watersheds—about 201,000 square kilometres or two per cent of Canada’s land—can significantly reduce rainwater runoff, protect homes and livelihoods, and safeguard croplands. “This is the first national study to assess the role of Canadian ecosystems in flood prevention and to identify where conservation could have the greatest impact,” said Dr. Matthew ...

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications was recognized by the HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards for its outstanding achievements in artificial intelligence and the use of high-performance computing in the physical sciences. Announced at Supercomputing Conference 2024 (SC24) in Atlanta on November 18, NCSA was awarded the Readers’ Choice Award: Best HPC Collaboration and Editors’ Choice: Best Use of HPC in Physical Sciences. It’s the 14th consecutive ...

Book the flight home for Thanksgiving, go to that party even though you’re tired, and write that thank you note. You may feel these experiences are not that significant in your busy life today, but according to Erin Westgate, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida, you are likely wrong. Westgate and her team of researchers at the Florida Social Cognition and Emotion Lab recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the factors that lead people ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 25 November 2024     @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 ...

Special Report Background and Goal: In wars and conflict, family physicians are frequently called on to serve in expanded roles and are witnesses to the enormous mental and physical suffering of individuals, families, communities, and populations. This special report examines the role of family physicians in the Israel–Hamas conflict and other current wars to inform future practices in family medicine. Key Insights: Family physicians must share timely, accurate information with colleagues on all sides of the conflict while acknowledging the narratives ...

Background and Goal: The participatory research approach is an important tool of family medicine and primary health care research. However, standard consensus methods like the Delphi and nominal group techniques can be time consuming and may not represent a broad range of opinions. To address these issues, researchers developed an adapted nominal group technique (aNGT) to efficiently build consensus among stakeholders with diverse perspectives. Approach: This study focused on shaping care trajectories for adults aged 65 and older, aiming to prioritize key domains and identify new care indicators. Researchers used ...

The Bethesda Family Medicine Clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, established a bi-monthly Early Pregnancy Dating & Risk Assessment Clinic in September 2022. The clinic introduced an integrated approach, combining point-of-care ultrasound with immediate, multidisciplinary first-trimester care. This integration allowed the clinic to quickly identify high-risk cases and offer timely intervention for issues such as miscarriage or abnormal pregnancies, reducing emergency visits, urgent clinic appointments, and first-trimester phone inquiries by 81% for non-miscarrying patients. Clinic implementation ...

Research Brief Background and Goal: The October 7, 2023, terrorist attack in southern Israel forced the evacuation of countless individuals, placing intense demands on health care personnel. Primary care clinicians, who are at the forefront of treating severely traumatized evacuees, are often exposed to secondary trauma, which can affect their mental health and job performance. This study investigated the levels of burnout, well-being, and resilience among health care staff working in primary care clinics in Israel during the aftermath of the attack. Study Approach: This cross-sectional ...

Background and Goal: Early detection of cognitive impairment is essential for improving patient outcomes, but primary care settings face significant challenges in screening. This special report summarizes key points and gaps in knowledge about methods for detecting cognitive impairment in primary care clinics. Key Insights: The report highlights the importance of addressing the rising incidence of cognitive impairment as the population ages, particularly with new treatments for early Alzheimer’s disease now available. It advocates for creative solutions to manage the increased workload, such as partnering with community health workers and leveraging telehealth. ...

  Editorial War Takes a Toll on Family Doctors Trying to Care for Patients  Background: This issue of Annals of Family Medicine includes four articles discussing the impact of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on family doctors and patients in the region. These articles offer perspectives from academic family doctors who have firsthand experience living and working in the region to reveal the complexity and impact of this conflict. Editorial Stance: The decision to publish these articles was ...

Original Research Background and Goal: This study explored how chest X-ray results influence antibiotic initiation by general practitioners in France when managing patients with suspected pneumonia. Study Approach: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted with adult patients with suspected pneumonia who received chest X-rays as part of their evaluation. To analyze factors associated with antibiotic initiation, patients’ characteristics were compared at inclusion and at 28 days between patients with positive chest X-rays (indicating pneumonia) and patients with negative chest X-ray results. Main Results: The sample included 259 ...

Background and Goal: Efforts to address the health-related social needs (HRSN) of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, such as housing and food, during the COVID-19 pandemic were insufficient. This research examined HRSN data from the Accountable Health Communities (AHC) study collected in Oregon to understand changes in HRSN for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries at the onset and during the first two years of the pandemic. Study Approach: The study sample included 21,522 Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries screened for overall health-related social needs between ...

As Baby Boomers hit retirement, about 1 in 6 Americans is now over the age of 65. The number of Americans living with dementia is projected to skyrocket — but the proportion of older Americans who develop dementia has actually decreased. The exact reason why is uncertain, but various lifestyle and environmental factors can influence a person’s risk of cognitive decline.   One recently discovered risk is air pollution. Studies have linked exposure to a type of air pollution called fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, with an increased risk of developing dementia, and researchers suspect ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. ؚ— More than six out of 10 U.S. adults who took part in a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine/Morning Consult survey last week say they wouldn’t eat turkey contaminated with feces, yet consumer research has shown more than half of store-bought packages of ground turkey tested positive for it. The poll included 2,183 adults interviewed Nov. 18 to Nov. 20, 82% of whom said they plan to eat turkey for Thanksgiving this year. Of those, 87% said they trust it’ll be free from contaminants, but 65% said if they knew it was contaminated with fecal bacteria, they’d be unlikely to eat it. In research conducted by Consumer Reports in ...

A new therapy for brittle type 1 diabetes, the only treatment currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is available exclusively at UI Health in Chicago. Pancreatic islet cell therapy is a treatment approved by the FDA only for adults with type 1 diabetes who struggle to control their blood sugar levels due to frequent episodes of severe low blood sugar and hypoglycemia unawareness, a condition that occurs when patients can’t detect that their blood sugar is dropping. This new therapy, called Lantidra, is derived from a deceased donor pancreas. To regulate blood glucose, the drug is infused into the patient’s liver where insulin is produced. ...

A future treatment for Alzheimer disease may involve a nasal spray. Researchers at Università Cattolica and Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS have discovered that by inhibiting the brain enzyme S-acyltransferase (zDHHC) through a nasal-spray drug, they can counteract the cognitive decline and brain damage typical of the disease. The study has been led by Professor Claudio Grassi, Director of the Neuroscience Department, and Professor Salvatore Fusco, with the collaboration of the University of Catania.   The researchers observed that the post-mortem brains of Alzheimer patients contained an excess of S-acyltransferase, ...

Diamond rain? Super-ionic water? These are just two proposals that planetary scientists have come up with for what lies beneath the thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, our solar system's unique, but superficially bland, ice giants. A planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, now proposes an alternative theory — that the interiors of both these planets are layered, and that the two layers, like oil and water, don't mix. That configuration neatly explains the planets' unusual magnetic fields and implies ...

Researchers Samuel Poincloux (currently at Aoyama Gakuin University) and Kazumasa A. Takeuchi of the University of Tokyo have clarified the conditions under which large numbers of “squishy” grains, which can change their shape in response to external forces, transition from acting like a solid to acting like a liquid. Similar transitions occur in many biological processes, including the development of an embryo: cells are “squishy” biological “grains” that form solid tissues and sometimes flow to form different organs. Thus, the experimental and theoretical framework elaborated here will help separate the ...

Researchers from Durham University, Jagiellonian University (Poland) and the John Innes Centre have achieved a breakthrough in understanding DNA gyrase, a vital bacterial enzyme and key antibiotic target. This enzyme, present in bacteria but absent in humans, plays a crucial role in supercoiling DNA, a necessary process for bacterial survival. Using high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy the researchers reveal unprecedented detail of gyrase’s action on DNA, potentially opening doors for new antibiotic therapies against resistant bacteria. The research is published in Proceedings of the ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 20:00 GMT / 15:00 ET MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2024 New study reveals the explosive secret of the squirting cucumber IMAGES AND VIDEO AVAILABLE – SEE NOTES SECTION BELOW A team led by the University of Oxford has solved a mystery that has intrigued scientists for centuries: how does the squirting cucumber squirt? The findings, achieved through a combination of experiments, high-speed videography, image analysis, and advanced mathematical modelling, have been published today (25 November) in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium, from the Greek ‘ekballein,’ meaning to throw out) is named for ...

Researchers from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences have uncovered the first example of activity-dependent development of hypothalamic neural circuitry. Although previous research has shown that the hormone leptin acts directly on hunger neurons through leptin receptors to promote the development of neural circuitry, results that will be published in PNAS on Nov. 25 indicate that certain neurons that do not express leptin receptors are nonetheless sensitive to its activity. The research, led by the lab of Richard Simerly, Louise B. McGavock Professor and professor of molecular physiology ...

Filter feeders are everywhere in the animal world, from tiny crustaceans and certain types of coral and krill, to various molluscs, barnacles, and even massive basking sharks and baleen whales. Now, MIT engineers have found that one filter feeder has evolved to sift food in ways that could improve the design of industrial water filters. In a paper appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team characterizes the filter-feeding mechanism of the mobula ray — a family of ...

If you have a meticulous skincare routine, you know that personal skincare products (PSCPs) are a big business. The PSCP industry will reach $74.12 billion USD by 2027, with an annual growth rate of 8.64%. With such competition, companies are always looking to engineer themselves an edge, producing products that perform better without the downsides of current offerings. In a new study published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials from the lab of Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Jin Kim Montclare, researchers have created a novel protein-based gel as a potential ingredient in sustainable and high-performance PSCPs. This protein-based ...

Cannabis — whether marijuana itself or various products containing cannabinoids and/or THC, the main psychoactive compound in weed – have been touted as panaceas for everything from anxiety and sleep problems to epilepsy and cancer pain. Nursing researcher Jennie Ryan, PhD, at Thomas Jefferson University, studies the effects of cannabis on symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Current medical guidelines for ADHD include medications such as Adderall and cognitive behavioral therapy. ...

A new study led by Thomas Jefferson University researchers highlights critical healthcare gaps that hinder long-term recovery for people living with opioid use disorders (OUD) in Philadelphia. The researchers conducted 13 focus groups with 70 participants accessing various types of OUD treatment. Participants reported several challenges, such as lengthy and restrictive assessment processes, inadequate operating hours and lack of sufficient withdrawal management. Participants also reported broader socio-economic needs, such as housing and income support, as barriers to their recovery. Meghan Reed, PhD, MPH, senior ...