Research Highlights: 58% of adults with Type 2 diabetes covered by Alabama Medicaid did not receive prompt outpatient care after hospitalization for heart failure. African American and Hispanic adults with Type 2 diabetes were less likely to have post-discharge follow-up health visits, or if they did, the visits occurred nearly two to three days later compared to white adults. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, June 7, 2023 DALLAS, June 7, 2023 — More than half of Medicaid-covered adults in Alabama with Type 2 diabetes did not receive follow-up health care within the recommended two-week period following hospitalization for newly-diagnosed heart ...

The first stars illuminated the Universe during the Cosmic Dawn and put an end to the cosmic "dark ages" that followed the Big Bang. However, the distribution of their mass is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the cosmos. Numerical simulations of the formation of the first stars estimate that the mass of the first stars reached up to several hundred solar masses. Among them, the first stars with masses between 140 and 260 solar masses ended up as pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). PISNe are quite different from ordinary supernovae (i.e., Type II ...

TORONTO, CANADA –A new study followed more than 7000 middle aged and older Canadians for approximately three years to understand whether higher rates of social participation were associated with successful aging in later life. They found that those who participated in volunteer work and those participating in recreational activities were more likely to maintain excellent health across the subsequent 3-year study period and less likely to develop physical, cognitive, mental, or emotional problems. The researchers defined successful aging as freedom from any serious physical, cognitive, mental, or emotional conditions ...

Certain crops, like greenhouse tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and blueberries, rely on bumblebees for a style of pollination that only bumblebees can perform. Among growers, the preference can be for bigger-bodied bumblebees because they’re thought to be more efficient pollinators.  Enabled by a $750,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the research team will investigate factors suspected of influencing bumblebee biology and body size, including climate change, wildfires, and the ...

PHILADELPHIA – First-line ibrutinib (Imbruvica) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) led to high response and survival rates in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) whether or not their cancer harbored high-risk genetic features typically associated with poor outcomes, according to results published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Patients with high-risk CLL, defined by deletion of 17p, mutated TP53, and/or unmutated immunoglobulin ...

IOP Publishing (IOPP) is expanding its open access (OA) Environmental Research portfolio to address the urgent need for sustainable food solutions globally. Environmental Research: Food Systems, which supports the United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs), is an interdisciplinary forum for researchers working to achieve sustainable global food security. Scientific innovations are key to transforming the global food system. Efficient and effective food supply enables the world to achieve progress on all 17 of the SDGs, from eliminating poverty ...

A research team led by the Complexity Science Hub Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna has analysed the actual prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in Austria for the first time as part of a study. In addition to identifying clear regional differences, an alarming and previously unknown figure came to light: one in three people suddenly stop treatment and go without medication and/or medical check-ups for at least a year. And, as the study also showed, this group had a higher mortality rate than patients with diabetes who regularly access the care available to them. The results have ...

Cerebral Palsy has been linked to a condition called cryptorchidism in males—when one or both of the testicles are not present in the scrotum. A new study in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology found that spasticity in the lower extremities was linked to a higher likelihood of receiving surgery for cryptorchidism in boys with cerebral palsy. The study included 44,561 male patients with cerebral palsy in the Pediatric Health Information System, a comparative administrative database involving multiple US children’s hospitals. In addition to finding an overall association between lower extremity spasticity and cryptorchidism ...

Speech and voice disorders are common in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. New research published in the International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders found that a tele-rehabilitation program that combines conventional speech therapy and singing may help improve patients’ voice problems. For the study, 33 people with Parkinson’s disease were randomly assigned to receive the combination therapy, conventional speech therapy, or a singing intervention. Each patient participated in 12 tele-rehabilitation sessions over four weeks. Voice-related ...

New research reveals that the level of fat within the body’s muscle—or muscle adiposity—may indicate a person’s likelihood of experiencing cognitive decline as they age. In the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 5-year increase in fat stored in the thigh muscle was a risk factor for cognitive decline. This risk was independent of total weight, other fat deposits, and muscle characteristics (such as muscle strength or mass) and also independent of traditional dementia risk factors. Investigators assessed muscle fat in 1,634 adults 69–79 years of age at years 1 and 6 and evaluated their cognitive function ...

The quality of recovery a person experiences on a given evening after work may impact their mood when they start their job again the next day, according to new research published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. The study, which was based on diary entries by 124 employees on 887 days, found that people who had higher quality recovery during the evening than usual had higher levels of wakefulness, calmness, and pleasantness when they started work the next day. However, people’s wakefulness and calmness tended to decline more strongly during the workday after evenings with higher ...

At least 237,000 people died in organised violence in 2022. A new report from Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University shows that this is a 97 per cent increase compared with the previous year, and the highest number since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. “We see this increase despite considerable de-escalation in the two deadliest conflicts of 2021; Yemen and Afghanistan. Instead, violence in Ethiopia and Ukraine escalated drastically,” says Shawn Davies, Senior Analyst at UCDP. Together, the wars in Ethiopia and Ukraine resulted in at least 180,000 battle-related deaths in 2022. This is a low estimate as information from these ...

The majority of sustainable development researchers believe that in affluent countries, it is necessary to look beyond economic growth to achieve sustainable development, a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland suggests. The study, published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics, investigated the preferred future paths for countries at different income levels among 461 sustainability scholars. The survey results shed light on the strategic choices necessary for achieving global sustainability. The study focused on green growth and post-growth economic strategies. The green growth strategy aims to enhance both societal and environmental ...

Liking certain things or styles is an important aspect of peoples’ identities and social lives. Tastes can influence the ways humans act and judge. How to best describe musical taste reliably is – due to the ever-changing diversification and transformation of music – difficult and open to debate. Using an approach which also considered sub-genres, researchers in Germany surveyed more than 2,000 people on their musical taste and took a closer look at the fans of five genres: European classical music, electronic dance music (EDM), metal, pop, and rock. “Our ...

The first-ever national study to assess the impact of developing artificial snow shows the pressure the process is putting on the climate, with the equivalent of nearly 17,000 homes’ worth of annual energy needed to produce snow for yearly ski operations in just Canada alone. Publishing their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Current Issues in Tourism, experts from the University of Waterloo, in Canada, and the University of Innsbruck, Austria, found 130,095 tonnes CO2e are needed to produce the estimated 42 million cubic meters of machine-made snow in Canada in an average winter.  For context, this is comparable to 155,141 ...

Deadly coral disease is spreading as global temperatures warm, and it’s likely to become endemic to reefs the world over by the next century, according to new research. The study, published today in Ecology Letters, shows the extent coral health will suffer from climate change, which threatens to wipe out entire reef habitats and devastate coastal communities. For the meta-analysis, researchers from UNSW Sydney analysed 108 studies of coral health where coral reefs were surveyed for disease symptoms. They then linked the disease surveys to ocean sea surface temperature records to understand how climate change – specifically ocean warming ...

College students are often urged to ‘find’ their passion, but such advice could discourage them from exploring other disciplines or developing new skills if they feel their passion or interests have already been ‘found’. A new study by Yale-NUS College and Stanford University found that cultivating a growth mindset about interest in undergraduates who initially professed that they were not a “math or science person,” led to increased interest and better final grades in their mandatory math and science courses. This study built on past research showing that people can hold different beliefs about the ...

High entropy oxides (HEOs) have been tentatively and prospectively applied for catalysis and energy storage. However, it is hard to further enhance its performance due to the difficult regulation of HEOs' physical-chemical properties. Although some optimized strategies, such as the introduction of noble metal, have been taken to improve the properties and performance of HEOs by a simple and effective way, the current methods could not well guide its commercial preparation and industrial application. Recently, a research team led by Prof. Zhong-Shuai Wu from State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute ...

The University of Auckland has maintained a top place (12th) in the Global Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2023, with the number of participating universities increasing by some 20 percent from last year and up nearly 400 percent from its inaugural year in 2019. The ranking is perhaps the best-known measure that evaluates universities’ contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It assesses commitment to sustainability across four broad areas: research, stewardship, outreach and teaching covering all 17 of the SDGs. With the top global spot in the first two years of the ranking, the University of Auckland has maintained a strong position given the increased ...

The economic situation of 24,894 people from refugee backgrounds who came to New Zealand between 1997 and 2020 is the focus of the first paper in an ongoing study from the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies (CAPRS) at the University of Auckland. The study asked three broad questions: What are refugee access rates to education and state housing, who remains on benefits, as opposed to in employment over time and what factors contribute to income over time? Findings reveal the importance of the first five years in terms of successful ...

There’s fresh hope for sleep-deprived parents, with a study into whether kūmara boosts babies’ microbiome, potentially helping them sleep soundly and ward off viruses. The Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland trial explores whether kūmara acts as a prebiotic, fostering healthy bacteria in baby’s microbiome, and supporting immune development and sleep. “One of the really critical periods in pregnancy is very early on in the first trimester, and the other is between when a baby's born till about five or six months of age,” says Professor Clare Wall, principle investigator in the SUN study. “What babies first eat and what they're ...

The University of Warwick is excited to announce the launch of "#DocTok," a new initiative that harnesses the expertise of medical doctor Dr James Gill to address and communicate possible medical concerns to the younger generation. #DocTok videos will appear on the official University of Warwick TikTok page @UniOfWarwick the popular social media platform to provide accessible and accurate information on a wide range of health issues, from chlamydia to tonsillitis, anxiety, and depression.   With the rising prevalence of health-related concerns ...

Family and loved ones may be conspiring to sabotage your weight loss journey, according to a new study from the University of Surrey. The study is part of a growing body of evidence which suggests that not all social support results in positive health outcomes.   Reviewing literature in this area, researchers found the negative side of social support in the form of sabotage, feeding behaviour and collusion, which all undermine the attempts of those trying to lose weight. The Surrey team found acts of sabotage, discouraging healthy eating, and putting up barriers to attending support groups, often undermined an individual's ...

-With pictures/video-   Young chimpanzees combine different gestures, vocalisations and facial expressions in a way which echoes the development of communication in human infants, according to new research.  Psychologists at Durham University found that young chimpanzees combine different communication signals, which may help them be better understood by other chimpanzees in different situations such as playing or fighting.   The researchers found that this ability develops throughout infancy and adolescence.  Such ...

Masturbation is common across the animal kingdom but is especially prevalent amongst primates, including humans. Historically, this behaviour was considered to be either pathological or a by-product of sexual arousal, and recorded observations were too fragmented to understand its distribution, evolutionary history, or adaptive significance. New research published in Proceedings of The Royal Society B finds that, perhaps surprisingly, this behaviour seems to serve an evolutionary purpose. The findings indicate that masturbation is an ancient trait in primates, and that – at least in males – it increases reproductive ...