Observational studies have suggested that increased vitamin D levels may protect against COVID-19. However, these studies were inconclusive and possibly subject to confounding. A study published in PLOS Medicine by Guillaume Butler-Laporte and Tomoko Nakanishi at McGill University in Quebec, Canada, and colleagues suggests that genetic evidence does not support vitamin D as a protective measure against COVID-19. The ability of vitamin D to protect against severe COVID-19 illness is of great interest to public health experts, but has limited supporting evidence. To assess the relationship between vitamin D levels and COVID-19 susceptibility ...

A nationwide study in Sweden estimates the elevated risk of advanced or fatal prostate cancer among relatives of men with the disease, providing new data that could help refine guidelines for the age at which screening should begin. Mahdi Fallah and Elham Kharazmi of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, and colleagues present these new findings in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. Clinical guidelines for the age to start prostate cancer screening aim to ensure that the benefits of identifying the disease early ...

The malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax may accumulate in the spleen soon after infection to a greater extent than its better-known relative P. falciparum, according to new research published by John Woodford of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and colleagues in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. Managing and treating P. vivax and P. falciparum infections calls for investigation of their different pathways of infection, and our limited understanding of disease pathology has generally relied on indirect and imprecise approaches. Woodford and colleagues studied 7 healthy participants who were infected under controlled conditions with either P. vivax or P. falciparum. They underwent a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) ...

Many organisms in need of conservation are still unknown or lumped in with similar species, which potentially interferes with conservation efforts. In a new study published June 1 in the Open Access journal PLOS Biology, Jane Melville of Museums Victoria, and her colleagues present a new "return-on-investment" approach to best direct efforts to identify new species before they are lost. Humans have had a profoundly destructive impact on global biodiversity. However, this loss of biodiversity may be even greater than scientists have realized, due to the unknown number of undocumented species. Before a species and its habitat can be preserved, though, it must first ...

Stigma and high care needs can present barriers to the provision of high-quality primary care for people with opioid use disorder (OUD) and those prescribed opioids for chronic pain. A study published in PLOS Medicine by Tara Gomes at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada and colleagues suggests that people treated for an opioid use disorder were less likely to find a new primary care provider (PCP) within one year of termination of enrolment with the previous physician. People with substance use disorders often have complex medical needs, requiring ...

A new analysis of adults aged 80 years and older shows that a healthier lifestyle is associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment, and that this link does not depend on whether a person carries a particular form of the gene APOE. Xurui Jin of Duke Kunshan University in Jiangsu, China, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. The APOE gene comes in several different forms, and people with a form known as APOE ε4 have an increased risk of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Previous research has also linked cognitive function to lifestyle factors, such as smoking, ...

Malaria, a disease caused mainly by the parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, (P. vivax) is associated with over 400,000 deaths each year. Previously, the spleen was assumed to mostly play a role in parasite destruction, as it eliminates malaria parasites after antimalarial treatment. A study published in the open access journal PLOS Medicine by Steven Kho and Nicholas Anstey at Menzies School of Health Research, Australia, and international colleagues, suggests that in chronic P. vivax infections, malaria parasites survive and replicate via a previously undetected lifecycle within the spleen. A large biomass of intact asexual-stage ...

A clinical trial examining the efficacy of two devices to monitor and detect atrial fibrillation (AF), or an irregular heartbeat, in ischemic stroke patients--one an implantable device that monitors over 12 months, the other an external device that monitors over a 30-day period--found the implantable device is more than three times more effective in detecting AF, and both are a significant improvement over the current standard of care in Alberta, Canada. The Post-Embolic Rhythm Detection With Implantable Versus External Monitoring (PER DIEM) study, led jointly by University of Alberta ...

The electronic structure of metallic materials determines the behavior of electron transport. Magnetic Weyl semimetals have a unique topological electronic structure - the electron's motion is dynamically linked to its spin. These Weyl semimetals have come to be the most exciting quantum materials that allow for dissipationless transport, low power operation, and exotic topological fields that can accelerate the motion of the electrons in new directions. The compounds Co3Sn2S2 and Co2MnGa [1-4], recently discovered by the Felser group, have shown some of the most prominent effects due to a set of two topological bands. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute ...

Aerosol reductions that would take place as countries meet climate goals could contribute to global cooling and prevent more than one million annual premature deaths over a decade, according to a new study from the University of California San Diego. The landmark Paris Agreement of 2016 does not address emissions of aerosols--fine particulates like soot that cause pollution. Nonetheless, findings from the recent study authored by researchers at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the School of Global Policy and Strategy suggests that aerosol accounting should be explicitly incorporated into international climate policy. It is crucial because as countries implement their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris climate agreement, ...

BOSTON - For patients who have experienced certain common types of stroke, a small chip inserted under the skin may help physicians predict their likelihood of experiencing a second stroke, and therefore their likelihood of benefiting from preventive therapy. The findings come from a recent clinical trial published in the END ...

From the biggest bridges to the smallest medical implants, sensors are everywhere, and for good reason: The ability to sense and monitor changes before they become problems can be both cost-saving and life-saving. To better address these potential threats, the Intelligent Structural Monitoring and Response Testing (iSMaRT) Lab at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering has designed a new class of materials that are both sensing mediums and nanogenerators, and are poised to revolutionize the multifunctional material technology big and small. The research, recently published in Nano Energy, describes a new metamaterial system that ...

Philadelphia, June 1, 2021--Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a proof-of-concept treatment for blood disorders like sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia that could raise hemoglobin levels by activating production of both fetal and adult hemoglobin. Using a viral vector engineered to reactivate fetal hemoglobin production, suppress mutant hemoglobin, and supply functional adult hemoglobin, the researchers developed an approach that could produce more hemoglobin through a single vector. The results were published in Haematologica. "Until now, researchers have been exploring one of two approaches to treating blood disorders ...

The discovery of graphene, a 2D layered form of carbon, once caused a paradigm shift in science and technology like no other. As this wonder material drew attention from material scientists around the world, it spurred research on other materials that were structurally similar, such as "van der Waals materials", which comprise strongly-bonded 2D atomic layers that are held together by weak interlayer interactions called "van der Waals forces". These materials quickly caught on because they were highly conducive to structural modifications, such as stacking, twisting, and insertion of foreign molecules between layers, which gave them interesting physical properties ...

Getting enough sleep can be a real challenge for shift workers affecting their overall health. But what role does being an early bird or night owl play in getting good rest? Researchers from McGill University find a link between chronotype and amount of sleep shift workers can get with their irregular schedules. "Some people seem to be hardwired to sleep early, while others tend to sleep late. This preference, called chronotype, is modulated by our circadian system - each person's unique internal timekeeper," says lead author Diane B. Boivin, a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University. Their study published in Sleep is the first to examine the relationship between ...

Algorism plays a significant role in predicting future states of a system. Particularly, non-Markov chain algorithm has been widely applied in epidemic spreading processes, social and man-made memory networks, the environment-related quantum entangled states, and artificial algorisms such as face pose tracking. Traditionally, a large number of memories and computing cells are integrated to achieve these goals by software algorisms, showing high complexity. In the paper published in Science Bulletin, a group led by Bilu Liu and Hui-Ming Cheng from Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (TBSI) of Tsinghua University has realized a non-Markov chain algorithm in a single resistive random access memory (RRAM) based on 2D mineral material ...

Swedish researchers from institutions including Uppsala University have spent four years gathering data from the areas affected by the major forest fire of 2014. In their study of how the ecosystem as a whole has been altered, they could see that water quality in watercourses quickly returned to normal, while forested areas continued to lose carbon for many years after the fire. The consequences of major forest fires remain poorly studied in Northern Europe. To improve this situation, researchers from Uppsala University, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and the Swedish Meteorological ...

Siberian jays are group living birds within the corvid family that employ a wide repertoire of calls to warn each other of predators. Sporadically, however, birds use one of these calls to trick their neighbouring conspecifics and gain access to their food. Researchers from the universities of Konstanz (Germany), Wageningen (Netherlands), and Zurich (Switzerland) have now examined how Siberian jays avoid being deceived by their neighbours. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that these birds have great trust in the warning calls from members of their own group, but mainly ignore such ...

News media reports about scientific failures that do not recognize the self-correcting nature of science can damage public perceptions of trust and confidence in scientific work, according to findings by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania and the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. News stories about science follow several specific narratives, the researchers write in a new study in the journal Public Understanding of Science. One is that science is "in crisis" or "broken," a narrative driven in recent years by reports of unsuccessful efforts to replicate findings in ...

A new miniature 3D model of human bone marrow has been described today in the open-access eLife journal. The model may help clinicians predict which patients will benefit from a new therapy for blood platelet disorders, such as Inherited Thrombocytopenias - a group of familial disorders that inhibit the production of platelets. It could also enable further study of these disorders and give scientists a new tool to test experimental treatments. Platelets are cells that are necessary for the blood to clot and stop bleeding. Having too few platelets can lead to internal or serious bleeding after surgery or injuries, which is usually treated with therapies that cause clotting. Recent studies have shown that a drug called Eltrombopag increases ...

A college education is estimated to add $1 million to a person's lifetime earning potential, but for some students the path to earning one is riddled with obstacles. That journey is even more difficult for students who have been in the foster care system or experienced homelessness, according to a new study from the University of Georgia. But the more college administrators and faculty know about these students' problems, the more they can do to ease the burden. Getting into universities in the first place can frequently be a challenge for students who've had unstable home lives, said David Meyers, co-author of the study. "Research tells us that every time a student moves from one foster care placement to another, they lose six months of educational ...

In recent months, more than three hundred cases of salmonellosis have occurred in various European countries and Canada, which are linked to each other. In the UK the cases could be partly traced back to frozen breaded poultry meat. The cause was contamination with the bacterium Salmonella Enteritidis, which causes gastrointestinal inflammation. Salmonella is not killed by deep freezing and can remain infectious at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the BfR are monitoring the situation together with the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). In Germany, the number of reported cases has currently ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Scientists have long known that frogs are oddballs when it comes to teeth. Some have tiny teeth on their upper jaws and the roof of their mouths while others sport fanglike structures. Some species are completely toothless. And only one frog, out of the more-than 7,000 species, has true teeth on both upper and lower jaws. Now, the first comprehensive study of tooth evolution in frogs is bringing the group's dental history into focus. Florida Museum of Natural History researchers analyzed CT scans of nearly every living amphibian genus to reveal that frogs have lost teeth over 20 times during their evolution, more than any ...

DANVILLE, Pa. - Among people who have strokes and COVID-19, there is a higher incidence of severe stroke as well as stroke in younger people, according to new data from a multinational study group on COVID-19 and stroke, led by a team of Geisinger researchers. The COVID-19 Stroke Study Group's latest report, published in the journal END ...

LAWRENCE -- In the early days of COVID-19 vaccine development, a new social media platform provided a place for like-minded people to discuss vaccines, share misinformation and speculate about the motivations for its development. A new study from the University of Kansas shows people flocked to Parler to discuss the vaccines in an echo chamber-type environment, and those conversations can shed light about how to communicate about vaccine efficacy during health crises. COVID-19 vaccine vial and syringe photo from the U.S. Census Bureau.In the runup to the 2020 election, then-president Donald Trump claimed a COVID-19 vaccine could be ready before ...