Polymetallic nodules and crusts cover many thousands of square kilometres of the world's deep-sea floor. They contain valuable metals and rare earth elements and are therefore of great economic interest. To date, there is no market-ready technology for deep-seabed mining. But it is already clear that interventions in the seabed have a massive and lasting impact on the areas affected. This is also confirmed by a study now published by Tanja Stratmann from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, and researchers from the Senckenberg am Meer Institute in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and the Dutch research institute NIOZ. In their study, Stratmann and her colleagues used data from ...

When nature vanishes, people of color and low-income Americans disproportionally lose critical environmental and health benefits--including air quality, crop productivity and natural disease control--a new study in Nature Communications finds. The University of Vermont research is the first national study to explore the unequal impacts on American society--by race, income and other demographics--of projected declines in nature, and its many benefits, across the United States. Focusing on three vital ecosystem services--air quality, crop pollination, and control of insect-borne disease (West Nile virus), researchers project that these benefits of nature will decrease for non-white people by an average of 224%, ...

Can you imagine one day using a telescope as thin as a sheet of paper, or a much smaller and lighter high-performance camera? Or no longer having that camera bump behind your smartphone? In a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Ottawa have proposed a new optical element that could turn these ideas into reality by dramatically miniaturizing optical devices, potentially impacting many of the applications in our lives. To learn more about this project, we talked to lead author Dr. Orad Reshef, a senior postdoctoral fellow in the Robert Boyd Group, and research lead Dr. Jeff Lundeen, who is the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Photonics, Associate Professor in the ...

A class of drug called monoamine oxidase inhibitors is commonly prescribed to treat depression; the medications work by boosting levels of serotonin, the brain's "happiness hormone." A new study by UCLA researchers suggests that those drugs, commonly known as MAOIs, might have another health benefit: helping the immune system attack cancer. Their findings are reported in two papers, which are published in the journals Science Immunology and Nature Communications. "MAOIs had not been linked to the immune system's response to cancer before," said Lili Yang, senior author of the study and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. "What's especially exciting is that this is a very well-studied and ...

The largest study of its kind has unveiled new insights into how genes are regulated in dementia, including discovering 84 new genes linked to the disease. Led by the University of Exeter, the international collaboration combined and analysed data from more than 1,400 people across six different studies, in a meta-analysis published in Nature Communications. These studies had used brain samples from people who had died with Alzheimer's disease. The project, funded by Alzheimer's Society and supported by the Medical Research Council and the National Institutes for ...

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO & CARLETON UNIVERSITY New research published online in the journal Substance Use & Misuse is good news for those struggling with alcohol dependence: the possibility of ending this dependency gets easier with age. Moreover, more than half of individuals who have been dependent on alcohol are free of any addictions or mental illness, and nearly 40% are in excellent mental health. Using data drawn from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health, researchers examined a nationally representative sample of 820 adult Canadians with a history of alcohol dependence to 19,945 who had never been addicted to alcohol. They found that in the past year, 71% of ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ - Underage youth consumed $17.5 billion worth, or 8.6 percent, of the alcoholic drinks sold in 2016. Products from three alcohol companies--AB Inbev, MillerCoors and Diageo--accounted for nearly half of youth consumption, according to a new study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Data collected in a landmark study of youth alcohol consumption by brand enabled the authors to calculate the first estimate in nearly 20 years of the monetary value of youth alcohol consumption. And for the first time, they were able to attribute those revenues to specific companies. "The alcohol industry has said they don't want minors to drink, ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Treating transplant patients with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 with monoclonal antibodies is safe and helps prevent serious illness, according to a Mayo Clinic study recently published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. These results are especially important because transplant patients who are infected with COVID-19 have a higher risk of severe illness and death. "Monoclonal antibody therapy is really important for the transplant population because they are less likely to develop their own immunity. Providing them with these antibodies helps them recover from COVID-19," says Raymund Razonable, M.D., a Mayo Clinic infectious diseases specialist and the study's senior ...

When herring are filleted, more than half their weight becomes a low-value 'side stream' that never reaches our plates - despite being rich in protein and healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Now, scientists from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a special dipping solution, with ingredients including rosemary extract and citric acid, which can significantly extend the side streams' shelf life, and increase the opportunities to use them as food. Techniques for upgrading these side-streams to food products such as minces, protein isolates, hydrolysates and oils are already available today, and offer the chance to reduce the current practices of using them for animal feed, ...

For over a century, researchers have known about "the bends", a serious condition affecting scuba divers. However, we still know relatively little about its physiological basis. Doctors do not yet have a definitive test for the bends, instead relying on symptoms to diagnose it. A new study in Frontiers in Physiology is the first to investigate genetic changes in divers with this condition, finding that genes involved in inflammation and white blood cell activity are upregulated. The findings cast light on the processes underlying the bends, and may lead to biomarkers that will help doctors to diagnose the condition more precisely. The bends, more formally known as decompression sickness, is a potentially lethal condition that can affect divers. Symptoms ...

BOSTON -- Obesity increases one's risk for many diseases and often prevents patients from receiving other necessary medical procedures. One of the most effective ways for patients with severe obesity to lose weight is through bariatric surgery, but it's not clear how often this option is raised. In a new study published in Obesity, investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital find that eligible patients who discuss bariatric surgery options with their primary care providers or specialists from disciplines ranging from cardiology to urology are more likely to undergo surgery and lose more weight than ...

Previous studies have shown that children with attention difficulties and/or ADHD solve cognitive tasks better when they are exposed to auditory white noise. However, this is the first time that such a link has been demonstrated between visual white noise and cognitive abilities such as memory, reading and non-word decoding in children with reading and writing difficulties. "The white noise to which we exposed the children, also called visual pixel noise, can be compared with giving children glasses. The effect on reading and memory was immediate," explains Göran Söderlund, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Gothenburg and Professor of Special Education at the Western Norway University ...

People who are more prone to boredom and who are socially conservative are more likely to break public-health rules, according to new psychology research. While previous research demonstrated a connection between being highly prone to boredom and breaking social-distancing rules, this study demonstrated the association was more prominent as participants' social conservatism increased. "Many public-health measures such as wearing a mask or getting a vaccine have become highly politicized," said James Danckert, professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo. "People who find these ...

PITTSBURGH, June 10, 2021 - Americans are consuming more craft beer with higher alcohol content but are drinking less beer by volume, according to a new analysis led by epidemiologists at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. The study, published online and in a coming issue of the journal Substance Use & Misuse, looked at beer purchased in stores between 2004 and 2014. This is the first study to examine trends not only in the volume of beer purchased, but also the "beer specific" alcohol content. "With the rise in popularity of craft breweries and the acquisition of such breweries by large-scale ...

India's national government has inappropriately prioritised people for covid-19 vaccination Current approach is causing huge numbers of avertable deaths, warn experts India's national government has inappropriately prioritised people for covid-19 vaccination, argue doctors and researchers in The BMJ today. Peter Lloyd-Sherlock and colleagues warn that the government's current approach to vaccination - focusing on younger age groups - "is causing huge numbers of avertable deaths and is deeply inequitable." From 3 May to 5 June 2021, more first doses were administered to people under 45 than over 60, even though at ...

HOUSTON -- Results from the multi-cohort Phase I/II ARROW clinical trial, conducted by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers, showed that a once-daily dose of pralsetinib, a highly selective RET inhibitor, was safe and effective in treating patients with advanced RET fusion-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and RET-altered thyroid cancer. The findings for each cohort were published today in The Lancet Oncology and The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, respectively. "Targeted therapies have dramatically improved care for patients with NSCLC and thyroid cancer driven by oncogenes, and the rapid clinical translation of selective RET inhibitor ...

The moons of planets that have no parent star can possess an atmosphere and retain liquid water. Astrophysicists at LMU have calculated that such systems could harbor sufficient water to make life possible - and sustain it. Water - in liquid form - is the elixir of life. It made life possible on Earth and is indispensable for the continuing existence of living systems on the planet. This explains why scientists are constantly on the lookout for evidence of water on other solid bodies in the Universe. Up to now, however, the existence of liquid water on planets other than Earth has not been directly proven. However, ...

The increased use of ridesharing apps was linked to a decrease in motor vehicle collisions and impaired driving convictions in Houston, according to published research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The findings were published today in JAMA Surgery. Christopher Conner, MD, PhD, neurosurgery resident in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth and the study's lead author, said the research is timely as more individuals are utilizing ridesharing apps. "Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death and disability among young people, so anything we can do to reduce those incidents ...

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men, according to the American Cancer Society. It's also one of the trickiest cancers to diagnose and treat. But new research from the University of Georgia has identified a protein that appears to prevent the cancer from spreading to and colonizing the bone, providing a new target for future therapeutics. "Unfortunately, prostate cancer that has spread to the bone is very aggressive, often lethal and very difficult to treat," said Brian Cummings, corresponding author of the study and head of the College of Pharmacy's pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences department. "Even in cases of successful treatment, the patient's quality of life is severely lessened due to bone loss." Prostate cancer that hasn't spread beyond nearby ...

There are still many unsolved mysteries about the human brain and its development. Now, a novel study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry sheds new light on the neurobiological origins of our individual traits. Functional connectivity is the coordinated activity - activation or deactivation - through time between separate brain regions, regardless of their physical closeness or the type of neural connections between them. Changes in functional connectivity can be a sign of mental health disorders such as depression, eating disorders, and schizophrenia, and are thought to have developmental origins. We know that mental health is characterized by three functional brain networks. The first is hypoconnectivity ...

People who have a high sensation-seeking personality trait may be more likely to develop an addiction to cocaine, according to a Rutgers study. "Although many people try illicit drugs like cocaine or heroin, only a small proportion develop an addiction," said lead author Morgan James, a member of the Rutgers Brain Health Institute and an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "The interaction found between sensation-seeking traits and the drug-taking experience show that predisposition to addiction has a genetic basis, and that this interacts with environmental factors such as patterns of drug use. The sensation-seeking trait was predictive of rats' likelihood to exhibit stronger ...

For older adults, participating in social activities can protect against physical and mental signs of aging, but it may also pose risks, especially for women. A new analysis of national data led by UC San Francisco found that older women who were broadly engaged in social activities before the COVID pandemic had 76 percent higher odds of experiencing emotional abuse or mistreatment than women who were less engaged. The paper is published June 9, 2021 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. "Given widespread discussion about the negative effects of social isolation of ...

Research from the University of Washington shows that endangered blue whales are present and singing off the southwest coast of India. The results suggest that conservation measures should include this region, which is considering expanding tourism. Analysis of recordings from late 2018 to early 2020 in Lakshadweep, an archipelago of 36 low-lying islands west of the Indian state of Kerala, detected whales with a peak activity in April and May. The study was published in May in the journal Marine Mammal Science. "The presence of blue whales in Indian waters is well known from several strandings and some live sightings of blue whales," said lead author Divya Panicker, a ...

A new study conducted by the researchers at the University of Liverpool reveals how the ancient photosynthetic organisms - cyanobacteria - evolve their photosynthetic machinery and organise their photosynthetic membrane architecture for the efficient capture of solar light and energy transduction. Oxygenic photosynthesis, carried out by plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, produces energy and oxygen for life on Earth and is arguably the most important biological process. Cyanobacteria are among the earliest phototrophs that can perform oxygenic photosynthesis and make significant contributions to the Earth's atmosphere and primary production. Light-dependent photosynthetic reactions are performed by a set of photosynthetic ...

Laser-produced high energy density plasmas, akin to those found in stars, nuclear explosions, and the core of giant planets, may be the most extreme state of matter created on Earth. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), building on nearly a decade of collaboration with the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), have designed a novel X-ray crystal spectrometer to provide high-resolution measurements of a challenging feature of NIF-produced HED plasmas. Most powerful lasers The ...