Study Take-Aways: Different African populations were genetically interrelated suggesting abundant gene flow across Africa such that all African population should be considered together as single subspecies. There appeared a striking genomic distance between leopards living in Asia vs. leopards in Africa. Asian leopards are more genetically separated from African leopards than brown bear species are from polar bear species, the researchers found. The two leopard groups actually diverged around the same time as Neanderthals split apart from modern humans. The genetic differences between African and Asian leopards have been maintained ...

It took an unlikely food innovation -- earth-friendly vegetarian patties, made to taste and "bleed" like the familiar meaty ones -- to make people aware of heme. But heme is an essential part of proteins found in most life forms, from tiny bacteria to soy plants to the human body. Heme plays a crucial role in supplying cells with the energy needed to carry out chemical reactions. In human cells, iron-containing heme is the essential cofactor of two types of molecules. One is the hemoglobin molecules that bind oxygen in the lungs and ferry it around the body. More than half ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Two groups of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have published papers on the droplets of liquid sprayed by coughs or sneezes and how far they can travel under different conditions. Both teams used Sandia's decades of experience with advanced computer simulations studying how liquids and gases move for its nuclear stockpile stewardship mission. Their findings reinforce the importance of wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, avoiding poorly ventilated indoor spaces and washing your hands frequently, especially with ...

Trinity study finds people homeless in their 20s, 30s and 40s are physically comparable to those housed in their 70s and 80s A Trinity College study published today (Monday, 10th May 2021) demonstrates an extremely high burden of physical and mobility problems experienced by people who are homeless and were admitted for inpatient care to an acute hospital in Dublin. The study found that only one third of participants could climb a hospital stairs and there was a very common presentation of geriatric conditions such as frailty, falls and needing a mobility aid on a long term basis, despite a low median participant age of 45 years. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports here: http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-88590-0 Overall ...

Dental and orthopedic implants are widely used around the world. Common causes for implant failure are the immune response against oral bacteria and titanium particles shed by the implant. These and other phenomena can generate an inflammatory response, activating the osteoclasts (bone resorbing cells), and ultimately leading to osteolysis (destruction of bone tissue) around the implants. After this process begins, it is almost impossible to control, eventually leading to loss of the implant. A similar process occurs around natural teeth, with bacteria as the main cause, and bone resorption triggered by the immune response and inflammatory cells. Researchers from Tel Aviv University have developed ...

LAWRENCE -- The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new world of challenges for education. But a new study from the University of Kansas shows the voices and experiences of students who are already among the most marginalized can help lead the way in making young people's strengths the focus of education. Students with disabilities already faced a disproportionate amount of inequities in the American educational system before the pandemic. Researchers interviewed students in this population about their experiences during the pandemic and found that students relied on their own strengths, resilience and self-determination. The findings not only highlight the importance ...

Extreme weather is harming UK agriculture - but many farmers have not yet made adapting to the effects of the climate emergency a priority, a new study shows. All farmers who took part in the research said they had experienced or witnessed issues caused by extreme weather such as heavy rain or prolonged dry spells in recent years, and expected these to intensify further. Many were concerned about the impact of heat and drought on crop and grass growth, with knock-on impacts for yield and winter animal feed, and the implications of heavy rainfall/flooding for soil run-off and erosion and for field operations such as drilling and harvesting. ...

Greater Presence of Family Physicians, Midwives May Be Key Component to Decreasing Cesarean Delivery Rates Surgical cesarean births can expose new mothers to a range of health complications, including infection, blood clots and hemorrhage. As part of Healthy People 2020 and other maternal health objectives, the state of California exerted pressure to reduce cesarean deliveries, and statewide organizations established quality initiatives in partnership with those goals. In this study, researchers from Stanford University and the University of Chicago examined unit culture and provider mix differences on hospital and delivery units to identify characteristics of units that successfully reduced their cesarean delivery rates. The mixed-methods study surveyed ...

SALT LAKE CITY - Today in Nature Communications, researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah report critical new insights into how cells mount an attack against melanoma tumors. Melanoma is an aggressive type of skin cancer that can arise from excess exposure to sun, frequent sunburns, genetics, and other environmental factors. Melanoma, like all cancers, begins within cells. Specially designed and refined over billions of years, cells are experts at working to root out and fix routine errors that arise. A tumor begins when a cell makes faulty copies of itself over and over again. If left unchecked, these faulty cell copies ...

A new Dartmouth Engineering study shows that integrating renewable energy into the American Electric Power System (AEPS) would enhance the grid's resilience, meaning a highly resilient and decarbonized energy system is possible. The researchers' analysis is based upon the incremental incorporation of architectural changes that would be required to integrate renewable energy into AEPS. The paper, "A Hetero-functional Graph Resilience Analysis of the Future American Electric Power System," was recently published by IEEE Access. "We concluded that there are no structural trade-offs between grid sustainability and resilience enhancements, meaning these strategic goals can be pursued ...

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 ...