A recent study provides insights on the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on employment, anxiety, and financial distress among women who have gynecologic cancer and low income. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. For the study, Y. Stefanie Chen, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, and her colleagues conducted telephone interviews with 100 women with gynecologic cancer living in New York City who were covered by Medicaid health insurance. Among the major findings: 31 percent of patients reported being employed prior to the pandemic, and 21 percent had a change in employment status due to the pandemic. 50 percent ...

A majority of gay and bisexual Generation Z teenage boys report being out to their parents, part of an uptick in coming out among young people that researchers have noted in recent decades, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. However, stigma and religious beliefs still prevent some young people from disclosing their sexual identity. This study offers a glimpse into the coming out practices of Generation Z, those born between 1998 and 2010, a group that researchers are only beginning to study. "This study is encouraging in that it shows that many teens, including those under 18 years old, are comfortable with their sexuality," said lead author David A. Moskowitz, PhD, assistant professor of medical ...

KANSAS CITY, MO--One of the evolutionary disadvantages for mammals, relative to other vertebrates like fish and chickens, is the inability to regenerate sensory hair cells. The inner hair cells in our ears are responsible for transforming sound vibrations and gravitational forces into electrical signals, which we need to detect sound and maintain balance and spatial orientation. Certain insults, such as exposure to noise, antibiotics, or age, cause inner ear hair cells to die off, which leads to hearing loss and vestibular defects, a condition reported by 15% of the US adult population. In addition, the ion composition of the fluid surrounding the hair cells needs to be tightly controlled, otherwise ...

Protecting long-term care residents from outbreaks requires different infrastructure, proper staffing conditions and a culture of quality assurance, researchers have found. The experts further determined that designing smaller, more homelike spaces would minimize the spread of viruses while promoting better health and quality of life for residents. "Community outbreaks and lack of personal protective equipment were the primary drivers of outbreak occurrence in long-term care homes, and the built environment was the major determinant of outbreak severity," said George Heckman, a professor in Waterloo's School of Public Health and Health Systems and Schlegel Research Chair in Geriatric Medicine with the Research Institute for Aging. "We need to distinguish ...

MUNICH -- Rewilding--a hands-off approach to restoring and protecting biodiversity--is increasingly employed across the globe to combat the environmental footprint of rapid urbanization and intensive farming. The recent reintroduction of grey wolves in Yellowstone, America's first national park, is regarded as one of the most successful rewilding efforts, having reinvigorated an ecosystem that had been destabilized by the removal of large predators. However, successful attempts to rewild the landscape hinge on more than just the reintroduction of a plant or animal species, they also require that geography and geology be taken into account, according to new research from the University of Amsterdam and the Dutch State Forestry Service. It is the landscape that ultimately ...

MUNICH -- The first emergence and persistence of continental crust on Earth during the Archaean (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) has important implications for plate tectonics, ocean chemistry, and biological evolution, and it happened about half a billion years earlier than previously thought, according to new research being presented at the EGU General Assembly 2021. Once land becomes established through dynamic processes like plate tectonics, it begins to weather and add crucial minerals and nutrients to the ocean. A record of these nutrients is preserved in the ancient rock record. Previous research used strontium isotopes in marine carbonates, but these rocks are usually scarce ...

Researchers have successfully grown cells from the stony coral, Acropora tenuis, in petri dishes The cell lines were created by separating out cells from coral larvae, which then developed into eight distinct cell types Seven out of eight cell types were stable and could grow indefinitely, remaining viable even after freezing Some of the cell types represented endoderm-like cells, and could therefore shed light on how coral interacts with photosynthesizing algae and how bleaching occurs The cell lines could be used in many avenues ...

Researchers have developed the first LiDAR-based augmented reality head-up display for use in vehicles. Tests on a prototype version of the technology suggest that it could improve road safety by 'seeing through' objects to alert of potential hazards without distracting the driver. The technology, developed by researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and University College London (UCL), is based on LiDAR (light detection and ranging), and uses LiDAR data to create ultra high-definition holographic representations of road objects which are beamed directly to the driver's eyes, instead of 2D windscreen projections used in most head-up displays. While the technology has not yet been ...

Patients receiving an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) should be regularly screened for anxiety and depression, according to research presented at EHRA 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 Study author Professor Susanne Pedersen of Odense University Hospital, Denmark said: "Most patients adapt well to living with an ICD. For others it completely changes their life, with worries about shocks from the device, body image, and livelihood as some need to change their job." Previous studies have shown ...

Management and outcomes of adults with atrial fibrillation are presented today at EHRA 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The document is published in EP Europace,2 a journal of the ESC. Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder, affecting more than 40 million people globally.3 Those with the disorder have increased risks of complications including stroke, heart failure and dementia, and are twice as likely to be admitted to hospital as their peers without the condition. The economic burden of atrial fibrillation is rising, mainly due to complications and hospitalisations.4 Effective therapies ...

Sophia Antipolis - 24 April 2021: Atrial fibrillation can be detected during annual foot assessments in patients with diabetes, according to research presented today at EHRA 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 "In our study, one in six patients with diabetes had previously undiagnosed atrial fibrillation," said study author Dr. Ilias Kanellos of the European University of Cyprus, Nicosia. "This presents an opportunity to provide treatment to prevent subsequent strokes." Diabetes is an independent risk factor for atrial fibrillation.2 Prevalence of the heart rhythm disorder is at least two-fold higher in patients with diabetes compared to those ...

Lung cancer is a major global cause of mortality, reportedly accounting for 1.7 million deaths each year. The most common form of lung cancer is non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and early-stage NSCLCs can often be surgically resected. Unfortunately, some patients still experience poor outcomes after surgical resection, prompting further research on the relationship between a patient's preoperative status and the likelihood of good postoperative outcomes. Given this need for information, Dr. Shinya Tanaka from the Department of Rehabilitation and Prof. Naoki Ozeki from the ...

As an indicator and "amplifier" of global climate change, the Arctic's health and stability is the cornerstone of the stability of our climate system. It has far-reaching impacts on ecosystems, coastal resilience, and human settlements in the middle and high latitudes. The Arctic has experienced amplified warming and extensive sea-ice retreat in recent decades. On 15 September 2020, the Arctic sea-ice extent (SIE) reached its annual minimum, which, based on data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, was about 3.74 million km2 (1.44 million square miles). This value was about 40% less than the climate average (~6.27 million km2) during 1980-2010. It was ...

Anastasia Malashina, a doctoral student at HSE University, has proposed a new method to assess vulnerabilities in encryption systems, which is based on a brute-force search of possible options of symbol deciphering. The algorithm was also implemented in a programme, which can be used to find vulnerabilities in ciphers. The results of the study were published in a paper 'Software development for the study of natural language characteristics'. Most of online messages are sent in encrypted form since open communication channels are not protected from data interception. Messengers, cloud services, banking systems--all of these ...

A breakthrough astrophysics code, named Octo-Tiger, simulates the evolution of self-gravitating and rotating systems of arbitrary geometry using adaptive mesh refinement and a new method to parallelize the code to achieve superior speeds. This new code to model stellar collisions is more expeditious than the established code used for numerical simulations. The research came from a unique collaboration between experimental computer scientists and astrophysicists in the Louisiana State University Department of Physics & Astronomy, the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, Indiana University Kokomo and Macquarie University, Australia, culminating in over of a year of benchmark testing and scientific simulations, supported by multiple NSF grants, ...

Fentanyl, oxycodone, morphine--these substances are familiar to many as a source of both pain relief and the cause of a painful epidemic of addiction and death. Scientists have attempted for years to balance the potent pain-relieving properties of opioids with their numerous negative side effects--with mostly mixed results. Work by John Traynor, Ph.D., and Andrew Alt, Ph.D., and their team at the University of Michigan Edward F. Domino Research Center, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, seeks to side-step these problems by harnessing the body's own ability to block pain. All opioid drugs--from poppy-derived opium to heroin--work on receptors that are naturally present in the brain and elsewhere in the body. One such receptor, the mu-opioid receptor, ...

LEBANON, NH - Researchers at Dartmouth's and Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) hope to make estrogen therapy a more accessible treatment option for breast cancer patients who could benefit from it. Anti-estrogen treatments, which block growth signals from estrogen receptors (ER) in tumors, are effective treatments for ER+ breast cancer. But it is common for breast tumors to become resistant to anti-estrogen treatments over time. The research team, led by molecular biologist Todd Miller, PhD, and Nicole Traphagen, a PhD candidate in the Miller Laboratory, found that in mice, cycling between estrogen treatment and anti-estrogen treatment at a specific point in time can dramatically increase ...

FRANKFURT. Originally, oxygen radicals - reactive oxygen species, or ROS for short - were considered to be exclusively harmful in the body. They are produced, for example, by smoking or UV radiation. Because of their high reactivity, they can damage many important molecules in cells, including the hereditary molecule DNA. As a result, there is a risk of inflammatory reactions and the degeneration of affected cells into cancer cells. Because of their damaging effect, however, ROS are also deliberately produced by the body, for example by immune or lung epithelial cells, which destroy invading bacteria and viruses with ROS. This requires relatively high ROS concentrations. In low concentrations, on the ...

Copper remains one of the single most ubiquitous metals in everyday life. As a conductor of heat and electricity, it is utilized in wires, roofing and plumbing, as well as a catalyst for petrochemical plants, solar and electrical conductors and for a wide range of energy related applications. Subsequently, any method to harvest more of the valuable commodity proves a useful endeavor. Debora Rodrigues, Ezekiel Cullen Professor of Engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, in collaboration with Francisco C. Robles Hernandez, ...

Anyone with children knows that while controlling one child can be hard, controlling many at once can be nearly impossible. Getting swarms of robots to work collectively can be equally challenging, unless researchers carefully choreograph their interactions -- like planes in formation -- using increasingly sophisticated components and algorithms. But what can be reliably accomplished when the robots on hand are simple, inconsistent, and lack sophisticated programming for coordinated behavior? A team of researchers led by Dana Randall, ADVANCE Professor of Computing and Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor of Physics, both at Georgia Institute of Technology, sought to show that ...

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in America and causes about 30% of all cancer deaths. That's why researchers with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center wanted to study the impact of a California law passed in 2016 that raised the tobacco sales age from 18 to 21. Their new study published in Preventive Medicine examines smoking behavior after the state implemented one of the first tobacco 21 (T21) policies. The study, conducted by UC Davis researchers Melanie Dove, Susan Stewart and Elisa Tong, looked at smoking patterns before and after the law passed and compared California and other states without a T21 policy. The data was from the 2012-2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. "Most adult tobacco users start smoking ...

Batteries are a part of everyday modern life, powering everything from laptops, phones and robot vacuums to hearing aids, pacemakers and even electric cars. But these batteries potentially pose safety and environmental risks. In a study recently published in Cell Reports Physical Science, researchers at Texas A&M University investigated the components of a different kind of battery -- a metal-free, water-based battery -- which would reduce the flammable nature of standard batteries and decrease the number of metal elements used in their production. Most batteries are ...

Researchers led by Katsunori Tanaka and Kenward Vong at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) in Japan have demonstrated that tumor growth can be reduced by therapy that tags cancer cells with different therapeutic molecules. In one case, the group was able to prevent tumors from forming in mice by targeting cancer cells with a compound that makes it difficult for the cells to clump together and form tumors. For tumors that already existed, they targeted cancer cells with toxic compounds that destroyed them. This study was published on April 23 in Science Advances. One of the major problems with current cancer treatments is that their effects are not limited to cancerous cells in ...

An international team of researchers led by the University of Bergen has uncovered how organisms from crops to corals may avoid deadly DNA damage during evolution. Our cells, and those of animals, plants and fungi, contain compartments that produce chemical fuel. These compartments contain their own DNA, which stores instructions for important cellular machinery. But this so-called oDNA (organelle DNA) can become mutated, corrupting the instructions and preventing cells making enough energy. In humans and some other animals, a process called the "bottleneck" allows some offspring to inherit less mutated oDNA. This process needs mothers' egg cells to develop early, like in humans, where a human girl is born with all ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Fruits and veggies are good for you and if you are a lemur, they may even help mitigate the effects of habitat loss. A new study sequencing the genome of four species of sifakas, a genus of lemurs found only in Madagascar's forests, reveals that these animals' taste for leaves runs all the way to their genes, which are also more diverse than expected for an endangered species. Sifakas are folivores, meaning that the bulk of their diet is composed of leaves. Leaves can be difficult to digest and full of toxic compounds meant to prevent them from being eaten. Unlike our carefully selected spinach, tree leaves also don't taste great, and are not very nutritious. Because of that, leaf-eaters ...