A biochemical reaction between an enzyme called luciferase and oxygen causes fireflies to glow and is considered one of the most well-known examples of bioluminescence in nature. Now, an international team of researchers led by Elena Goun at the University of Missouri is working to harness the power of bioluminescence in a low-cost, noninvasive portable medical imaging device that could one day be applied to many uses in biomedical research, translational medicine and clinical diagnoses. Potential uses include developing better treatments for cancer, diabetes and infectious diseases, along with monitoring various metabolic functions, such as gut health, in both animals ...

A University of Alberta virology lab has uncovered how an oral antiviral drug works to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in findings published May 10 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The researchers demonstrated the underlying mechanism of action by which the antiviral drug molnupiravir changes the viral genome, a process known as excessive mutagenesis or “error catastrophe.” “The polymerase, or replication engine of the virus, mistakes molnupiravir molecules for the natural building blocks required for viral genome replication and mixes them in,” ...

Ann Arbor, May 11, 2021 - Social isolation among older adults is associated with poor health and premature mortality, but the connection between social isolation and physical functioning is poorly understood. New research generates more robust evidence about the associations between social isolation and physical functioning and how this accelerates over time, reports the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier. It also highlights the importance of incorporating strategies to reduce social isolation and promote successful aging. "Physical functioning is understood to influence the health of individuals. And social isolation is prevalent among older adults," ...

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have developed a novel chip-based antigen test that can provide ultrasensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A, the viruses that cause COVID-19 and flu, respectively. The test is sensitive enough to detect and identify individual viral antigens one by one in nasal swab samples. This ultrasensitive technique could eventually be developed as a molecular diagnostic tool for point-of-care use. The researchers reported their findings in a paper published May 4 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This is a chip-based biosensor capable of detecting individual proteins one ...

Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) remains a major cause of cardiovascular disease in Africa, even as acute rheumatic fever and RHD have become rare in high-income countries. In a new study led by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the team modeled the investment case for control of RHD in the African Union (AU) region. Results showed the potential to reduce RHD death by almost a third by increasing coverage of RHD interventions in regions of the AU to 2030, with a high return on investment in both the long and short term. Their results are published in The Lancet Global Health. "Investing in early detection of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease and providing cardiac surgery to those who need it ...

Gram-negative bacteria are the bane of health care workers' existence. They're one of the most dangerous organisms to become infected with--and one of the hardest to treat. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests a component of bacteria's cell walls may hold the key to crushing the antibiotic-resistant microbes. The reason Gram-negative bacteria are difficult to kill is their double cell membranes, which create an almost impenetrable shield of protection. This shield blocks antibiotics from entering, preventing medications from doing their job of destroying the bacteria. Meanwhile, toxic molecules, known as lipopolysaccharides, on the surface of the bacteria's outer membrane provoke a potentially deadly immune response. In ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - A project based in Tanzania found significant improvements in the diversity of children's diets and food security for households after farmers learned about sustainable crop-growing methods, gender equity, nutrition and climate change from peer mentors. The farmers experimented with practices introduced to them by Malawian farmers and Tanzanian and American scientists, decided which ones to incorporate within their own farms, and met monthly to share experiences and problem-solve. The three-year study builds on longer-term research where these environmentally-friendly farming methods, called agroecology, combined with peer-mentoring and farmers collaborating in the process, had successfully improved adult nutrition in Malawi. "There were a lot of questions about whether ...

May 11, 2021 - For patients seen at a urology clinic, patient satisfaction scores vary by insurance status - with higher scores for patients on Medicare and commercial insurance, but lower scores for those on Medicaid, reports a study in Urology Practice®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Our study adds to previous evidence showing patient satisfaction scores are affected by the type of insurance - not just by the quality of care provided," comments senior author Werner de Riese, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Urology of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center ...

Columbia Engineering/UCLA team is first to demonstrate that phase precession plays a significant role in the human brain, and links not only sequential positions, as seen in animals, but also abstract progression towards specific goals. New York, NY--May 11, 2021-- For decades the dominant approach to understanding the brain has been to measure how many times individual neurons activate during particular behaviors. In contrast to this "rate code," a more recent hypothesis proposes that neurons signal information by changing the precise timing when they activate. One such timing code, called phase precession, is commonly observed in rodents as they navigate through spaces and is thought to form the ...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2021 -- Improved ventilation can lower the risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus, but large numbers of decades-old public school classrooms lack adequate ventilation systems. A systematic modeling study of simple air cleaners using a box fan reported in Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, shows these inexpensive units can greatly decrease the amount of airborne virus in these spaces, if used appropriately. A low-cost air cleaner can be easily constructed from a cardboard frame topped by an air filter and a box fan. The air filter is placed between the fan and the cardboard base. The fan is oriented so that air is drawn in from the top and forced through ...

PITTSBURGH, May 11, 2021 - Patients with clinically diagnosed neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 are six times more likely to die in the hospital than those without the neurological complications, according to an interim analysis from the Global Consortium Study of Neurologic Dysfunction in COVID-19 (GCS-NeuroCOVID). A paper published today in JAMA Network Open presents early results of the global effort to gather information about the incidence, severity and outcomes of neurological manifestations of COVID-19 disease. "Very early on in the pandemic, it became apparent that a good number of people who were sick enough to be hospitalized also develop neurological problems," said lead author Sherry Chou, ...

What The Study Did: This global observational study included patients with COVID-19 representing 13 countries and four continents, and its findings suggest neurological manifestations are prevalent among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and associated with higher in-hospital death. Authors: Sherry H-Y. Chou, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 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.2021.12131) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, ...

Furthering efforts to understand why potentially life-saving statins are so under-prescribed among American patients with heart disease, a new study shows that clinicians are more likely to sign a script for them earlier in the day. The new study by researchers in Penn Medicine's Nudge Unit found that patients with the very first appointments of the day were most likely to have statins prescribed, and the odds progressively fell through the morning and remained low throughout the afternoon. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open. In recent years, researchers ...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2021 -- When trauma, illness, or injury causes significant muscle loss, reconstructive procedures for bioengineering functional skeletal muscles can fall short, resulting in permanent impairments. Finding a synergy in the importance of biochemical signals and topographical cues, researchers from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University, and Chonnam National University developed an efficient technique for muscle regeneration and functional restoration in injured rats. They describe results from the technique in the journal Applied Physics Reviews, from AIP Publishing. The group expanded on a method they previously developed using muscle-specific materials derived from ...

To protect their newly formed fragile organs, dark-grown dicotyledonous plants form an apical hook when penetrating through the soil. The apical hook of pifq (pif1 pif3 pif4 pif5) mutant was fully opened, even in complete darkness, suggesting that PIF proteins are required for maintaining the apical hook in the darkness and are involved in regulation of the apical hook opening. But the underlying mechanism for PIF proteins mediated apical hook development remains elusive. To better understand how PIF proteins affect apical hook development, scientists from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently investigated their roles ...

The Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) is a bird of prey living in plains and forest-steppes in the West and semi-desert montane plateaus and cliffs in the East. The majority of its Central and Eastern European population is migratory and spends winters in the Mediterranean, the Near East and East Africa. With its global population estimated at 6,100-14,900 breeding pairs, the species is considered endangered according to the IUCN Red List. In Bulgaria, the Saker Falcon, considered extinct as a breeding species since the early 2000s, was recovered in 2018 with the discovery of the first active nest from its new history in Bulgaria. The nest is built by two birds that were reintroduced back in 2015 as part of the first ever Saker Falcon reintroduction programme. The results of the 5-year programme ...

Northern Chile is an ideal natural laboratory to study the origin of earthquakes. Here, the Pacific Nazca plate slides underneath the South American continental plate with a speed of about 65 millimetres per year. This process, known as subduction, creates strain between the two plates and scientists thus expected a mega-earthquake here sooner or later, like the last one in 1877. But although northern Chile is one of the focal points of global earthquake research, until now there was no comprehensive data set on the structure of the marine subsurface - until nature itself stepped in to help. On 1 April 2014, a segment of the subduction zone ...

St. Petersburg, like other cities in the Russian Federation, is actively participating in the establishment of the "Smart City" program, which will provide new services for residents of the megalopolis, increasing the safety of citizens. Digital services are essential for such a system. Due to the Internet of Things (IoT) systems, the environment can adapt to the needs of humanity on its own accord. Cybersecurity threats are especially dangerous for such infrastructure. Specialists from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) developed the methodology for assessing cyber risks in intelligent systems of a Smart City. The developed methodology was tested on the "smart crossroads" ...

A reliable projection of extreme El Niño frequency change in future warmer climate is critical to managing socio-economic activities and human health, strategic policy decisions, environmental and ecosystem managements, and disaster mitigations in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, long-standing common biases in CMIP5 models, despite enormous efforts on the numerical model development over the past decades, make it hard to achieve a reliable projection of the extreme El Niño frequency change in the future. While increasing attentions have been paid to estimate possible impacts of models' biases, it is not yet fully understood whether and how much models' common biases would impact the projection ...

Using Zebrafish, researchers from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Faculty of Life Sciences of Tel Aviv University have developed an advanced simulation of a key process in the brain - the activation of the stem cells responsible for generating neurons. The simulation revealed that the process, which until today was considered to be random, is in fact coordinated, thereby ensuring the normal production of neurons in the brain. According to the researchers, their findings add another layer of understanding to brain development, ...

Ishikawa, Japan - History tells us that games are an inseparable facet of humanity, and mainly for good reasons. Advocates of video games laud their pros: they help develop problem-solving skills, socialize, relieve stress, and exercise the mind and body--all at the same time! However, games also have a dark side: the potential for addiction. The explosive growth of the video game industry has spawned all sorts of games targeting different groups of people. This includes digital adaptations of popular board games like chess, but also extends to gambling-type games like online casinos and betting on ...

According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory diseases cause more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all deaths in the UK, which equates to more than 160,000 deaths each year - or one death every three minutes. The research, published in the top science journal Advanced Science, found that injection of the trace mineral manganese could enhanced MRI scans so that they provided more accurate details of heart function than traditional MRI methods. These findings, if confirmed in human subjects, could have major implications for the treatment of heart attack patients. The findings could also be of great use in the preclinical evaluation of treatments for patients who suffer from cardiac ischemia - a reduction in blood supply ...

By combining two medications, researchers at Michigan Medicine optimized a therapy for people with gout, a condition that causes severe damage and disability if left untreated. The study revealed how a second drug taken orally more than doubled the effectiveness of Pegloticase, an intravenous gout treatment used to dissolve crystalized uric acid in the joints when oral medications fail. "Gout is a challenging disease to treat because there are only a handful of oral therapies to lower uric acid," says Puja Khanna, M.D., M.P.H., a rheumatologist at Michigan Medicine. "Now, we have a medication that works and gives us a ...

New guidelines for coral reef restoration aiming to reduce the risk of flooding in tropical coastal communities have been set out in a new study that simulated the behavior of ocean waves travelling over and beyond a range of coral reef structures. Published in Frontiers in Marine Science, these guidelines hope to optimize restoration efforts not only for the benefit of the ecosystem, but also to protect the coast and people living on it. "Our research reveals that shallow, energetic areas such as the upper fore reef and middle reef flat, typically characterized by physically-robust coral species, should be targeted for restoration to reduce coastal flooding," says Floortje Roelvink, lead author on the paper and researcher at Deltares, a Dutch research ...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in children and adolescents is associated with impaired education and worse general health later in life. Access to specialist treatment is often limited. According to a study from Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Region Stockholm, internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be as effective as conventional CBT. The study, published in the prestigious journal JAMA, can help make treatment for OCD more widely accessible. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a potentially serious mental disorder that normally debuts in childhood. Symptoms include intrusive thoughts that trigger anxiety ...