Wearing a protective face mask has only a modest effect on the ability of healthy people to do vigorous exercise, according to a study published today (Monday) in the European Respiratory Journal [1]. Researchers carried out detailed testing on breathing, heart activity and exercise performance in a group of 12 people while they were using an exercise bike with and without a mask. Although they found differences in some measurements between wearing a mask and not wearing a mask, they say that none of their results indicate any risk to health. This suggests that masks could be worn safely during intense exercise, for example to reduce COVID-19 transmission between ...

The initial insights from the study, aptly named DESIRE (Developing and Evaluating Short-acting Innovations for Rectal Use), are being reported on March 6 in a Science Spotlight session at the virtual meeting of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), March 6-10. The presentation will be available for registered participants and media to view throughout the meeting. Conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), DESIRE focused on potential delivery methods for rectal microbicides - topical products being developed and tested to reduce ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have studied the properties of mixtures of silicone-coated "magic sand", a popular kid's toy, and normal sand. Silicone-coated sand particles were found to interact with each other only, and not with other sand particles. The team discovered that adding silicone-coated sand beyond a certain threshold leads to an abrupt change in clustering and rigidity, a simple, useful way to potentially tune the flow of granular materials for industry. Sand is a fascinating material. It can flow and be poured like a liquid, ...

Scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in a collaboration with Duke University, have confirmed that monoclonal antibodies can be an effective tool in the global fight against malaria. The study, led by Dr. Sheetij Dutta, chief of the Structural Vaccinology Laboratory at WRAIR, showed that mAbs such as CIS43 were most effective in a culture-based assay that measured malaria parasites' ability to infect a human liver cell, while another mAb 317 showed the best activity in a mouse infection model. Dutta added "difference in assay outcomes for mAbs could reflect distinct sites on the circumsporozoite protein that can be exploited for developing improved vaccines." The ...

HOUSTON - (March 5, 2021) - Even a small effort up front can boost the abilities and confidence of girls as they anticipate taking challenging science courses. A long-running summer program at Rice University and elsewhere that trains high school girls in basic physics concepts has proven successful in helping them thrive when they take on full courses the next year. When leaders of Rice's two-week day camp looked at similar programs beyond Houston, they found participants scored 3% better in high school physics than their counterparts who did not have the equivalent summer experience. "That doesn't seem like a lot, but it's really hard to move the needle on student outcomes, so 3% is significant," said Carolyn Nichol, an assistant ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - New research using a nationally representative sample of more than 12,000 participants shows the collateral consequences victims are likely to confront following unfair treatment by police. Michael Brown, George Floyd and Tamir Rice are just some of those who have died recently at the hands of police. Their names are now tragically familiar, but thousands of other people who are unjustly stopped, searched or questioned by law enforcement will likely experience a range of detrimental outcomes associated with unfair police treatment, including depression, suicidal thoughts, drug use, and a loss of self-efficacy, according to Christopher ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Public grants to build rural broadband networks may not be sufficient to close the digital divide, new Cornell University research finds. High operations and maintenance costs and low population density in some rural areas result in prohibitively high service fees - even for a subscriber-owned cooperative structured to prioritize member needs over profits, the analysis found. Decades ago, cooperatives were key to the expansion of electric and telephone service to underserved rural areas, spurred by New Deal legislation providing low-interest government grants and loans. Public funding for rural ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It looks like science fiction: A machine dips into a shallow vat of translucent yellow goo and pulls out what becomes a life-sized hand. But the seven-second video, which is sped-up from 19 minutes, is real. The hand, which would take six hours to create using conventional 3D printing methods, demonstrates what University at Buffalo engineers say is progress toward 3D-printed human tissue and organs -- biotechnology that could eventually save countless lives lost due to the shortage of donor organs. "The technology we've developed is 10-50 times faster than the industry standard, and it works with large ...

According to the Pew Research Center, 1 in 10 American adults have landed a long-term relationship from an online dating app, such as Tinder, OKCupid and Match.com. But what compels people to "swipe right" on certain profiles and reject others? New research from William Chopik, an associate professor in the Michigan State University Department of Psychology, and Dr. David Johnson from the University of Maryland, finds that people's reason for swiping right is based primarily on attractiveness and the race of a potential partner, and that decisions are often made in less than a second. "Despite online dating becoming an increasingly popular way for people to meet one another, ...

Powerful new genetic engineering methods have given scientists the potential to revolutionize several sectors of global urgency. So-called gene drives, which leverage CRISPR technology to influence genetic inheritance, carry the promise of rapidly spreading specific genetic traits throughout populations of a given species. Gene-drive technologies applied in insects, for example, are being designed to halt the spread of devastating diseases such as malaria and dengue by preventing mosquito hosts from becoming infected. In agricultural fields, gene-drives are being developed to help control or eliminate economically ...

Strong, collaborative relationships with principal investigators are a key factor of longevity in clinical research coordinator positions -- an essential, but increasingly transient job in executing treatment-advancing clinical trials, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers found. Danielle Buchanan, BS, clinical translational research coordinator III in the Department of Neurology, and Daniel Claassen, MD, MS, chief of the Division of Cognitive Disorders and associate professor of Neurology, found the top factor for retention is a close working relationship between clinical research coordinators (CRCs) and the study's principal investigator that emphasizes respect and collaboration. Salary followed as the next factor for retention among 85 former or current CRCs who responded to ...

Egg cells are by far the largest cells produced by most organisms. In humans, they are several times larger than a typical body cell and about 10,000 times larger than sperm cells. There's a reason why egg cells, or oocytes, are so big: They need to accumulate enough nutrients to support a growing embryo after fertilization, plus mitochondria to power all of that growth. However, biologists don't yet understand the full picture of how egg cells become so large. A new study in fruit flies, by a team of MIT biologists and mathematicians, reveals that the process through which the oocyte ...

The global population is aging, and so are their eyes. In fact, the number of people with vision impairment and blindness is expected to more than double over the next 30 years. ...

Scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in a collaboration the Duke University, have confirmed that monoclonal antibodies can be an effective tool in the global fight against malaria. The study, led by Dr. Sheetij Dutta, chief of the Structural Vaccinology Laboratory at WRAIR, showed that mAbs such as CIS43 were most effective in a culture-based assay that measured a malaria parasite's ability to infect a human liver cell, while another mAb 317 showed the best activity in a mouse infection model. Dutta added, "difference in assay outcomes for mAbs could reflect distinct sites on the circumsporozoite protein, that can be exploited for developing improved vaccines." The study results were published today in in Nature Scientific Reports. Despite decades ...

If you are going to buy a face mask to protect yourself and others from COVID-19, make sure it's a three-layered mask. You might have already heard this recommendation, but researchers have now found an additional reason why three-layered masks are safer than single or double-layered alternatives. While this advice was originally based on studies that showed three layers prevented small particles from passing through the mask pores, researchers have now shown that three-layered surgical masks are also most effective at stopping large droplets from a cough or sneeze from getting atomized into smaller droplets. These large cough droplets can penetrate through the single- and double-layer masks and atomize to much smaller droplets, ...

Mount Sinai Researchers find a new way to prevent attention deficits associated with Fragile X, a leading genetic cause of autism, in an animal model Corresponding Author: Hirofumi Morishita, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute, Mindich Child Health and Development Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. Bottom Line: The adolescent maturation of the frontal cortex is important for establishing cognitive function, and disruption of this process is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. This study uncovered a new molecular driver of frontal circuit maturation that is essential ...

ORLANDO, March 5, 2021 - Nuisance flooding has increased on U.S. coasts in recent decades due to sea level rise, and new research co-authored by the University of Central Florida uncovered an additional reason for its added frequency. In a study appearing today in the journal Science Advances, researchers show that higher local tide ranges, most likely from human alterations to coastal areas and estuaries, has increased the number of nuisance flooding days in many coastal locations in the U.S. Coastal nuisance flooding is considered to be minor flooding from the seas that causes problems such as flooded roads and ...

Could cactus pear become a major crop like soybeans and corn in the near future, and help provide a biofuel source, as well as a sustainable food and forage crop? According to a recently published study, researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno believe the plant, with its high heat tolerance and low water use, may be able to provide fuel and food in places that previously haven't been able to grow much in the way of sustainable crops. Global climate change models predict that long-term drought events will increase in duration and intensity, resulting in both higher temperatures and lower levels of available water. Many crops, such as rice, corn and soybeans, have an upper temperature limit, and ...

In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina before it slingshotted past the Sun to disappear forevermore out of the solar system. Among the many observatories that captured a view of this comet, which appeared near the Big Dipper, was the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), NASA's telescope on an airplane. Using one of its unique infrared instruments, SOFIA was able to pick out a familiar fingerprint within the dusty glow of the comet's tail--carbon. Now this one-time visitor to our inner solar system is helping explain ...

When stay-at-home orders were announced as one of the greatest tools in our arsenal against the COVID-19 pandemic, anyone who's vintage enough to have watched forward-looking shows and movies-- from "The Jetsons" to "Star Trek" to "Back to the Future" -- might have thought America was ready to embrace a world where video calling and other tech-heavy communication options reigned supreme. But one year, dozens of Zoom meetings, hundreds of phone calls and text messages, thousands of online gaming hours, and millions of social media posts later, new research led by UNLV has ...

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) found large quantities of previously undetectable compounds from the family of chemicals known as PFAS in six watersheds on Cape Cod using a new method to quantify and identify PFAS compounds. Exposures to some PFAS, widely used for their ability to repel heat, water, and oil, are linked to a range of health risks including cancer, immune suppression, diabetes, and low infant birth weight. The new testing method revealed large quantities of previously undetected PFAS from fire-retardant foams and other unknown sources. Total concentrations of PFAS present in these watersheds were above state maximum contaminant ...

Researchers from Japan and Indonesia have pioneered a new method for more accurately estimating the source of weak ground vibrations in areas where one tectonic plate is sliding under another in the sea. Applying the approach to Japan's Nankai Trough, the researchers were able to estimate previously unknown properties in the region, demonstrating the method's promise to help probe properties needed for better monitoring and understanding larger earthquakes along this and other plate interfaces. Episodes of small, often imperceptible seismic events ...

African American breast cancer survivors are four times more likely to die from breast cancer than women of all other races and ethnicities, and they have a disproportionately high rate of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD). New research led by George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services faculty Dr. Michelle Williams assessed African American breast cancer survivors' risk factors and knowledge about CVD in the Deep South, where health disparities between African American women and women of other races is even larger. They found that although African American breast cancer survivors have a higher prevalence of CVD risk factors, their knowledge about CVD is low. The study was published in the Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice in February. ...

UPTON, NY—Physicists studying collisions of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, are embarking on a journey through the phases of nuclear matter—the stuff that makes up the nuclei of all the visible matter in our universe. A new analysis of collisions conducted at different energies shows tantalizing signs of a critical point—a change in the way that quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, transform from one phase to another. The findings, just published by RHIC’s STAR Collaboration in the journal Physical ...

Patients can spend up to six years waiting for a kidney transplant. Even when they do receive a transplant, up to 20 percent of patients will experience rejection. Transplant rejection occurs when a recipient's immune cells recognize the newly received kidney as a foreign organ and refuse to accept the donor's antigens. Current methods for testing for kidney rejection include invasive biopsy procedures, causing patients to stay in the hospital for multiple days. A study by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Exosome Diagnostics proposes a new, noninvasive ...