Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have helped confirm the dosing, safety and effectiveness of a drug formulation designed for treating children with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The study was published today in The Lancet HIV and reveals a new dispersible formulation and an immediate-release tablet containing three medications - dolutegravir, abacavir and lamivudine - in a single fixed dose combination (FDC) formulation is safe, well tolerated, and effective for treating children with HIV. The dosing based on the concentrations of each medication in the blood was also appropriate. “This is the first FDC containing dolutegravir ...

BOSTON – The thymus gland—which produces immune T cells before birth and during childhood— is often regarded as nonfunctional in adults, and it’s sometimes removed during cardiac surgery for easier access to the heart and major blood vessels. New research led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and published in the New England Journal of Medicine has uncovered evidence that the thymus is in fact critical for adult health generally and for preventing cancer and perhaps autoimmune disease. To determine whether the thymus provides health benefits to adults, the team evaluated the risk of death, cancer, ...

If there’s one thing most office workers can agree on, it’s that they tend to feel less productive toward the end of the day and the end of each work week. Now, a team of researchers at Texas A&M University has found objective evidence of this phenomenon in action. A recent interdisciplinary study at the Texas A&M School of Public Health used a novel method of data collection to show that employees really are less active and more prone to mistakes on afternoons and Fridays, with Friday afternoon representing the lowest point of worker productivity. The ...

Dean Pierce of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a research team led by ORNL’s Alex Plotkowski were honored by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office for development of novel high-performance alloys that can withstand extreme environments.  At this year’s Vehicle Technologies Annual Merit Review, held virtually on June 12, VTO recognized Pierce, an R&D staff scientist in the Physical Sciences Directorate, and the DuAlumin-3D research team under Plotkowski. VTO honored Pierce, a member of ORNL’s Alloy Behavior and Design group, ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a faster and more comprehensive way of testing personal protective equipment, or PPE. The basic principle: modeling a device to fit the human form and human behavior. When COVID-19 hit, PPE testing became an urgent need. In March 2020, when the country went into lockdown, many people turned to Sandia for PPE testing support. They were trying to bring new masks to the market, provide quality assurance for imported masks and vet cleaning processes for reuse of single-use PPE. “Whether using in-house or commercial filter ...

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries power smartphones, electric vehicles and storage for solar and wind energy, among other technologies. They descend from another technology, the lithium-metal battery, that hasn’t been developed or adopted as broadly. There’s a reason for that: While lithium-metal batteries have the potential to hold about double the energy that lithium-ion batteries can, they also present a far greater risk of catching fire or even exploding. Now, a study by members of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA reveals a fundamental discovery that could lead to safer lithium-metal ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. – A new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers across six different countries found that affective polarization, or the tendency to dislike people who belong to opposing political parties while favoring people from their own political party, is a global bias — not just an American one. The research further indicates that the dislike grows stronger when two people think about political issues the same way but come away with different beliefs about those issues.   For instance, two people from two separate political parties both may think that tax policy and ...

The public can follow a team of scientists aboard the research vessel Sikuliaq as they spend the month of August studying conditions that existed on the Bering Land Bridge during the last ice age. The project, led by University of Alaska Fairbanks geology professor Sarah Fowell, will collect samples from beneath the sea floor to learn about the vegetation and climate of the region about 25,000 years ago. The project team will share updates during their journey via several digital and social media channels: Facebook Aboard the ...

Treatment with modern antidepressants may help prevent patients with bipolar disorder from relapsing into a depressive episode, according to an international clinical trial led by researchers at the University of British Columbia. The findings, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, challenge current clinical practice guidelines and could change how bipolar depression is managed globally. “Treating depression in bipolar disorder is challenging and the depressive episodes can be quite devastating for patients ...

AURORA, Colo. (August 2, 2023) – Individuals with Down syndrome, the genetic condition caused by triplication of human chromosome 21, also known as trisomy 21, display a very high risk of hospitalization and mortality after developing lung infections. Respiratory disease is second only to congenital heart defects as a cause of death among children with Down syndrome, and lower respiratory tract pathology is the most common cause of acute hospital admissions in this population. Furthermore, adults with Down syndrome have a much higher risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Despite many research efforts, ...

The Science In chemical reactions, molecules proceed during their transformation from reactants into reaction products through a critical geometry. In chemistry, geometry refers to the arrangement of atoms in a molecule. Scientists often call critical geometry in reactions a transition state. This state has an almost incomprehensibly short lifetime of less than one millionth of one millionth of a second. Scientists recently captured a critical geometry using the ultra-high speed “electron camera” at SLAC. In combination with quantum simulations of the reaction, ...

Wildfires are an ancient force shaping the environment, but they have grown in frequency, range and intensity in response to a changing climate. At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists are working on several fronts to better understand and predict these events and what they mean for the carbon cycle and biodiversity. Two months into the 2023 peak summer fire season from June through August, Canadian wildfires had burned more than 25 million acres of land, disrupted the lives of millions and spread beyond the traditional confines of western Canada east to Nova Scotia. The phenomenon attracted renewed attention as smoke drifted to heavily populated ...

When driving through a rainstorm, traction is key. If your tires lack sufficient tread, your vehicle will slip and slide and you won’t have the grip needed to maneuver safely. When torrential rains hit nearshore, shallow water ecosystems, sea urchins experience a similar challenge. Heavy precipitation can alter the concentration of salt in the ocean waters causing lower salinity levels. Even a slight change in salinity can affect the ability of sea urchins to securely attach their tube feet to their surroundings – like tires gripping the road. This ...

HOUSTON – (Aug. 2, 2023) – Rice University physicists have shown that immutable topological states, which are highly sought for quantum computing, can be entangled with other, manipulable quantum states in some materials. “The surprising thing we found is that in a particular kind of crystal lattice, where electrons become stuck, the strongly coupled behavior of electrons in d atomic orbitals actually act like the  f orbital systems of some heavy fermions,” said Qimiao Si, co-author of a study about the research in Science Advances. The unexpected find provides ...

In 2022, a team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine discovered that a little-known enzyme called MAPK4 is involved in the growth of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and its resistance to certain therapies. Looking into the details of this novel role of MAPK4, the researchers have now identified a strategy that can potentially control MAPK4-promoted growth in TNBC and other cancers. The study, published in PLOS Biology, opens new options for treating this devastating disease. “Some cancers depend on MAPK4 for their growth, and our team studies cellular processes or pathways that participate in ...

New interference radar functions employed by a team of researchers from Chapman University and other institutions improve the distance resolution between objects using radar waves. The results may have important ramifications in military, construction, archaeology, mineralogy and many other domains of radar applications. This first proof-of-principle experiment opens a new area of research with many possible applications that can be disruptive to the multi-billion dollar radar industry. There are many new avenues to pursue both in theory and experiment. The ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Black people and people living in less affluent neighborhoods—areas with higher poverty levels and fewer educational and employment opportunities— may be less likely to be seen at a memory care clinic compared to white people and people living in neighborhoods with fewer disadvantages, according to new research published in the August 2, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.   “Our results are concerning, especially ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Teens who have been bullied by their peers, or who have considered or attempted suicide, may be more likely to have more frequent headaches than teens who have not experienced any of these problems, according to a study published in the August 2, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that bullying or thoughts of suicide cause headaches; it only shows an association. “Headaches are a common problem for teenagers, but our study looked beyond the biological factors to also consider the psychological and social factors that are associated with headaches,” ...

Patients who live in less affluent neighborhoods and those from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups are less likely than others to receive specialized care for dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates. Further, the research shows that Black people are more likely than white people to be diagnosed with dementia at a later, more advanced stage, which could contribute to inequities in access to new treatments. The study appears Aug. 2 in the journal Neurology. New medications ...

CONTACT: Camille Jewell cjewell@vancomm.com or 202-248-5460   SAN DIEGO—Contrary to the results of a seminal study in the field, a recent analysis presented today at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s (SNIS) 20th Annual Meeting indicates that surgical approaches (embolization, microsurgery, radiosurgery) for treating selected patients with unruptured arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is safe and effective.   AVMs are tangled blood vessels with abnormal connection between arteries and veins, bypassing the capillary ...

CONTACT: Camille Jewell cjewell@vancomm.com or 202-248-5460   SAN DIEGO—Today at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s (SNIS) 20th Annual Meeting, researchers discussed a smartphone app created that reliably recognizes patients’ physical signs of stroke with the power of machine learning.   In the study, “Smartphone-Enabled Machine Learning Algorithms for Autonomous Stroke Detection,” researchers from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and multiple medical institutions in Bulgaria used data from 240 patients with stroke at four metropolitan stroke centers. Within 72 hours of the ...

Nose-picking healthcare workers were more likely to catch COVID-19 during the pandemic than their colleagues who refrained, per Netherlands cohort study ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288352 Article Title: Why not to pick your nose: Association between nose picking and SARS-CoV-2 incidence, a cohort study in hospital health care workers Author Countries: The Netherlands Funding: This work was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development ZonMw (S3 study, grant agreement no. 10430022010023 to M.K.B.) and the Corona ...

Half of popular TikTok videos about Baby Boomers portray older adults negatively, risking reinforcing stereotypes and creating intergenerational conflict ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285987 Article Title: Videos about older adults on TikTok Author Countries: Singapore Funding: We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Science Research Council SSHR Fellowship (MOE2018-SSHR-004). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to ...

Extreme climates may have driven Middle Pleistocene hominins towards (positive) assortative mating and evolution of bigger brains, according to economic model of climate change impacts ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287964 Article Title: An economic model and evidence of the evolution of human intelligence in the Middle Pleistocene: Climate change and assortative mating Author Countries: USA Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Interest in local bird feeding appears to have ramped up in countries all over the world during the pandemic lockdowns, even in countries not historically noted for bird feeding practices, according to a study published August 2, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jacqueline Doremus from California Polytechnic State University and Liqing Li from Texas A&M University College Station, US, and Darryl Jones from Griffith University, Australia. Feeding wild birds is a popular nature-based pastime because of its simplicity, low cost, and accessibility in even urban environments. ...