CHAPEL HILL, NC - A study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that wearing two face coverings can nearly double the effectiveness of filtering out SARS-CoV-2-sized particles, preventing them from reaching the wearer's nose and mouth and causing COVID-19. The reason for the enhanced filtration isn't so much adding layers of cloth, but eliminating any gaps or poor-fitting areas of a mask. "The medical procedure masks are designed to have very good filtration potential based on their material, but the way they fit our faces isn't perfect," said Emily ...

Thermoelectrics directly convert heat into electricity and power a wide array of items -- from NASA's Perseverance rover currently exploring Mars to travel coolers that chill beverages. A Clemson University physicist has joined forces with collaborators from China and Denmark to create a new and potentially paradigm-shifting high-performance thermoelectric compound. A material's atomic structure, which is how atoms arrange themselves in space and time, determines its properties. Typically, solids are crystalline or amorphous. In crystals, atoms are in an orderly and symmetrical pattern. Amorphous materials have randomly distributed atoms. Clemson researcher Jian He and the international team created a new hybrid compound in which the crystalline and ...

Russian scientists have proposed a theory of phase transformation in polymer gels. It explains the mechanisms of the dramatic reduction in volume of zwitterionic hydrogels when they are cooled. The results are published in the journal Chemical Communications (ChemComm). Polymer gels have unusual properties, including the ability to absorb water in volumes hundreds of times greater than their own. For example, some hydrogels are capable of holding up to two kilograms of water per gram of dry gel. By changing the temperature or adding solvents, various desired properties can be achieved. This is why polymer gels are used in industry and biomedicine, including for the targeted delivery of medication, creation of artificial skin, children's toys, etc. If you take ...

Two new studies published in Blood suggest that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may have reduced efficacy in individuals with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma, two types of blood cancer. According to researchers, these studies could help inform the ideal time for vaccination of these populations. Study suggests two-dose COVID-19 vaccine is less effective for people with CLL as compared to healthy controls The first study reports that people with CLL had markedly lower immune response rates to the two-dose mRNA COVID-19 vaccine than healthy individuals ...

Underground pipelines that transport oil and gas are very important engineering communications worldwide. Some of these underground communications are built and operated in earthquake-prone areas. Seismic safety or seismic stability of underground pipelines began to be intensively studied since the 1950s. Since then, a number of methodologies were proposed for calculating stress received by an underground pipeline during an earthquake. The purpose of these methodologies was to make an accurate prediction on the structural stress received by a pipeline during an earthquake, and thus it would allow to decide ...

A virtual human can be as good as a flesh-and-blood one when it comes to helping people practice new leadership skills. That's the conclusion from new research published in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality that evaluated the effectiveness of computer-generated characters in a training scenario compared to real human role-players in a conventional setting. Practice-based training techniques, including role-playing, are sometimes used to help improve training outcomes. However, these methods can be expensive to implement, and often require specialized knowledge and even professional actors to create realistic training environments. In addition, some ...

The preliminary trial results of a novel radiopharmaceutical for PET imaging of inflammation developed at the University of Turku, Finland, have been published. The compound, which targets the vascular adhesion protein 1 (VAP-1) that regulates inflammatory cell traffic, is the first radiopharmaceutical that has been developed completely in Finland and has advanced to clinical trials. In the study that started with healthy volunteers, the radiopharmaceutical was found to be well tolerated and safe. The radiopharmaceutical is 68Ga-labelled Siglec-9 peptide. "The dose of the radiopharmaceutical ...

"It is machination, it is deception," said the Director General of the Berlin Royal Museums in his defence when criticized for buying a fake. Wilhelm Bode did not budge an inch: the sculpture he acquired in 1909 was an as yet unknown production of the great Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci. After one hundred years and numerous controversies, a group of scientists led by a CNRS researcher* has just proven him wrong once and for all. The Flora wax bust, conserved at the Bode Museum in Berlin, recently underwent radiocarbon (14C) dating, which provided both a precise date and an incontrovertible result: it was made in the nineteenth century, nearly 300 years after da Vinci's death. As the sculpture was made primarily from spermaceti, ...

The life of almost all animals in the ocean depends on the availability of oxygen, which is dissolved as a gas in seawater. However, the ocean has been continuously losing oxygen for several decades. In the last 50 years, the loss of oxygen accumulates globally to about 2% of the total inventory (regionally sometimes significantly more). The main reason for this is global warming, which leads to a decrease in the solubility of gases and thus also of oxygen, as well as to a slowdown in the ocean circulation and vertical mixing. A new study published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications ...

In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI https://doi.org/10.29026/oea.2021.200031, Researchers led by Professor Baohua Jia at Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria, Australia, Professor Cheng-Wei Qiu at National University of Singapore, Singapore and Professor Tian Lan at Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China considered the generation of super-resolved optical needle and multifocal array using graphene oxide metalenses. Ultrathin and lightweight, metalenses are becoming increasingly significant for their use in photonic chips, biosensors and micro imaging systems such as smart phone cameras. Compared to conventional lenses, metalenses can improve the image quality of current cameras, ...

In most living animals, egg cells are vastly larger than sperm cells. In humans, for example, a single egg is 10 million times the volume of a sperm cell. In a new study, Northwestern University researchers found that competition and natural selection drove this curious size discrepancy. Using mathematical modeling, the researchers considered a time very early in evolution when primordial species reproduced using external fertilization. In the model, bigger reproductive cells, or gametes, presented a competitive edge because they could hold more nutrients for a potential zygote. Smaller gametes, however, required fewer resources to make, which put less stress on the parent. "Organisms either needed to produce the biggest gametes with the most provisions ...

When temperatures drop below zero degrees Celsius, water turns to ice. But does everything actually freeze if you just cool it down enough? In the classical picture, matter inherently becomes solid at low temperatures. Quantum mechanics can, however, break this rule. Therefore, helium gas, for example, can become liquid at -270 degrees, but never solid under atmospheric pressure: There is no helium ice. The same is true for the magnetic properties of materials: at sufficiently low temperatures, the magnetic moments known as 'spins', for example, arrange themselves in such a way that they are oriented opposite/antiparallel to their respective neighbors. One can think of this as arrows pointing alternating up and down along a chain or in a checkerboard pattern. It ...

Snow cover in the Alps has been melting almost three days earlier per decade since the 1960s. This trend is temperature-related and cannot be compensated by heavier snowfall. By the end of the century, snow cover at 2,500 meters could disappear a month earlier than today, as simulations by environmental scientists at the University of Basel demonstrate. Global warming demands huge adjustments in tourism, hydropower generation and agriculture in alpine areas. But the fauna and flora also have to adapt to rising temperatures. By the end of the century, ...

If you are exposed to silica (quartz) dust at work - e.g. from working with concrete and granite - you have a greater risk of certain types of rheumatic disease. This is shown by results from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital, which have just been published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. Exposure to silica dust at work, which is the case especially at workplaces within construction and industry, may lead to autoimmune rheumatic diseases. Photo: Unsplash. Exposure to silica dust at work, which is the case especially at workplaces within construction and industry, may lead to autoimmune rheumatic diseases. Photo: Unsplash. As the research results from Aarhus University show, exposure to ...

The leading newspapers in two nuclear waste management forerunner countries, Finland and France, fulfil their "watchdog" roles in highly distinct ways. The Finnish Helsingin Sanomat (HS) tends to reproduce government and industry framings, whereas Le Monde cherishes its role as an independent critic of the powers that be. These differences reflect distinct cultural, political and media traditions in the two countries. "The critical watchdog model works in a liberal democracy such as the French, based on mistrust towards the governing elites. But would it backfire in Finland by undermining the very institutional trust that the Nordic democracies have been built upon throughout history?" asks the first author of the article, Research Fellow Markku Lehtonen from the Department of Humanities ...

A new study has shown that underweight and overweight women are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing recurrent miscarriages compared to those of average weight. A research team led by the University of Southampton assessed the link between women's lifestyle and risk of recurrent pregnancy loss, defined as women having two or more consecutive early miscarriages. The systematic review and meta-analysis study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports. Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy, affecting 15 - 20% of all pregnancies. Recurrent pregnancy loss is a complex disease and although often attributed to numerous medical factors and lifestyle influences, the cause is deemed "unexplained" ...

Tokyo, Japan - Leukemias are debilitating cancers of the hematopoietic or blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. Now, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) describe an ingenious strategy against chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) wherein an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) comprising a cytotoxic drug payload linked to an antibody that selectively targets specific cell lines effectively blocks malignant cell proliferation at source. Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) continually differentiate into the entire panoply of blood cells, as many as 500 ...

Since fast radio bursts (FRBs) were first discovered over a decade ago, scientists have puzzled over what could be generating these intense flashes of radio waves from outside of our galaxy. In a gradual process of elimination, the field of possible explanations has narrowed as new pieces of information are gathered about FRBs - how long they last, the frequencies of the radio waves detected, and so on. Now, a team led by McGill University researchers and members of Canada's CHIME Fast Radio Burst collaboration has established that FRBs include radio waves at frequencies lower than ever detected before, a discovery that redraws the boundaries for theoretical astrophysicists trying to put their finger on the source of FRBs. "We ...

WHAT: The experimental antiviral drug MK-4482 significantly decreased levels of virus and disease damage in the lungs of hamsters treated for SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to a new study from National Institutes of Health scientists. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. MK-4482, delivered orally, is now in human clinical trials. Remdesivir, an antiviral drug already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use against COVID-19, must be provided intravenously, making its use primarily limited to clinical settings. In their study, published in the journal ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has sped up the process of detecting flooded buildings immediately after a large-scale flood, allowing emergency personnel to direct their efforts efficiently. Now, a research group from Tohoku University has created a machine learning (ML) model that uses news media photos to identify flooded buildings accurately within 24 hours of the disaster. Their research was published in the journal Remote Sensing on April 5, 2021. "Our model demonstrates how the rapid reporting of news media can speed up and increase the accuracy of damage mapping activities, accelerating ...

Collaborative research of the University of Jyvaskyla and Natural Research Institute Finland presents new evidence of the effects of enriched rearing on well-being of aquaculture fishes. The research demonstrates that stone enrichments that have been previously conditioned in lake water significantly improve survival of fish compared to clean stones. Also a higher number of stones has a similar positive effect. The results have practical implications for prevention of aquaculture diseases. The study was published in Antibiotics in March 2021. The volume of aquaculture is continuously increasing. Parasitic diseases represent a significant threat to farmed fishes and ecological solutions to minimize use of medication are being sought. Enriched rearing, where rearing tanks ...

A survey of star formation activity in the Orion Nebula Cluster found similar mass distributions for newborn stars and dense gas cores, which may evolve into stars. Counterintuitively, this means that the amount of gas a core accretes as it develops, and not the initial mass of the core, is the key factor in deciding the final mass of the produced star. The Universe is populated with stars of various masses. Dense cores in clouds of interstellar gas collapse under their own gravity to form stars, but what determines the final mass of the star remains an ...

Academic medical centers continuously strive to enhance patient care. One of the major mechanisms to improve patient health outcomes is through translational research - bringing research breakthroughs from the lab to patients via clinical trials. Making clinical trials more efficient, and ultimately more successful, would significantly advance patient care. However, fragmentation of the relevant data necessary to implement improvements to translational science is a significant barrier. While some bioinformatic tools have attempted to address this problem, they often lacked the ability to assess the efficiency of translational science. ...

Gas accidents such as toxic gas leakage in factories, carbon monoxide leakage of boilers, or toxic gas suffocation during manhole cleaning continue to claim lives and cause injuries. Developing a sensor that can quickly detect toxic gases or biochemicals is still an important issue in public health, environmental monitoring, and military sectors. Recently, a research team at POSTECH has developed an inexpensive, ultra-compact wearable hologram sensor that immediately notifies the user of volatile gas detection. A joint research team led by Professor Junsuk Rho of departments of mechanical and chemical engineering and Dr. Inki Kim of Department of Mechanical ...

A person who owns a car or who has a college education may be less vulnerable to COVID-19, according to an analysis of cases in Tehran, Iran, one of the early epicenters of the pandemic. While such variables do not inherently lower a person's risk, they do indicate an infrastructure of protection that persists despite how densely populated a person's district might be. The international collaboration published their results on April 3 in Sustainable Cities and Society. "In the past few decades, there have been various efforts aimed at increasing urban density to enhance efficiency and contribute to climate change mitigation -- but the COVID-19 pandemic has brought questions about ...