MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants with moderate to large patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) may benefit from transcatheter PDA closure (TCPC) in the first four weeks of life, according to research published by Le Bonheur Cardiologist Ranjit Philip, MD, and Medical Director of Interventional Cardiac Imaging and Interventional Catheterization Laboratory Shyam Sathanandam, MD. Early PDA closure may prevent early onset pulmonary vascular disease, promote growth and facilitate faster weaning off supplemental oxygen and ventilator support. "The primary objective of this study was to describe changes in hemodynamics, ...

The National Cancer Institute's Genomic Data Commons (GDC), launched in 2016 by then-Vice President Joseph Biden and hosted at the University of Chicago, has become one of the largest and most widely used resources in cancer genomics, with more than 3.3 petabytes of data from more than 65 projects and over 84,000 anonymized patient cases, serving more than 50,000 unique users each month. In new papers published Feb. 22 in Nature Communications and Nature Genetics, the UChicago-based research team shares new details about the GDC, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), via subcontract with the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, currently operated by ...

Climate alone is not a driver for human behavior. The choices that people make in the face of changing conditions take place in a larger human context. And studies that combine insights from archaeologists and environmental scientists can offer more nuanced lessons about how people have responded -- sometimes successfully -- to long-term environmental changes. One such study, from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shows that aridification in the central plains of China during the early Bronze Age did not cause population collapse, a result that highlights the importance of social ...

URBANA, Ill. - Economists and urban planners generally agree that local pollution sources disproportionally impact racial minorities in the U.S. The reasons for this are largely unclear, but a University of Illinois study provides new insights into the issue. "Our work finds experimental evidence that racial discrimination in the home-renting process actively sorts minority renters into neighborhoods with higher levels of pollution," says Peter Christensen, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) and an affiliate in Center for the Economics of Sustainability at University of Illinois. Christensen and co-authors Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri, U of I, and Christopher Timmins of Duke University conducted an empirical ...

Challenging the idea that older people with shorter life expectancies should rank lower in coronavirus immunization efforts, new UC Berkeley research shows that giving vaccine priority to those most at risk of dying from COVID-19 will save the maximum number of lives, and their potential or future years of life. The findings, published Feb. 25 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, address the ethical dilemma of who should be first in line for a limited supply of vaccine shots amid a contagion that so far has killed 500,000 in the United States and 2.4 million globally. "Since older age is accompanied by falling life expectancy, it is widely assumed that means we're saving fewer years of life," said study lead author Joshua Goldstein, a UC Berkeley ...

Scientists at UCL and the IIT -Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) have created a temporary tattoo with light-emitting technology used in TV and smartphone screens, paving the way for a new type of "smart tattoo" with a range of potential uses. The technology, which uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), is applied in the same way as water transfer tattoos. That is, the OLEDs are fabricated on to temporary tattoo paper and transferred to a new surface by being pressed on to it and dabbed with water. The researchers, who ...

The investigation of Electron-Positron-Ion (EPI) plasma?--?a fully ionised gas of electrons and positrons that includes astrophysical plasmas like solar winds?--?has attracted a great deal of attention over the last twenty years. A new study published in EPJ D by Garston Tiofack, Faculty of Sciences, University of Marousa, Cameroon, and colleagues, assesses the dynamics of positron acoustic waves (PAWS) in EPI plasmas whilst under the influence of magnetic fields, or magnetoplasmas. The authors studied the changes in PAWs using a framework of Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) and modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equations finding a former led to compressive positron acoustic solitary waves (PASWs), whilst the latter resulted in the same and additional rarefactive ...

The total amount of data generated worldwide is expected to reach 175 ZB (Zettabytes; 1 ZB equals 1 billion Terabytes) by 2025. If 175 ZB were stored on Blu-ray disks, the disk stack would be 23 times the distance to the Moon. We face the urgent need to develop storage technologies that can accommodate this enormous amount of data. The demand to store ever-increasing volumes of information has resulted in the widespread implementation of data centers for Big Data. These centers consume massive amounts of energy (about 3% of global electricity supply) and rely on magnetization-based ...

IRS refers to the application of insecticide onto the interior walls of houses. The study, by the Wits Research Institute for Malaria (WRIM) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), was published in The Lancet on 25 February 2021. Targeted vs blanket Indoor Residual Spraying Malaria still represents one of the world's largest health crises, particularly on the African continent where 94% of cases and deaths occur (World Health Organization, 2020). Most countries in southern Africa have set the elimination of malaria within their borders as a policy target. In ...

Prior to the emergence of new mutants of the coronavirus, such as the British variant B.1.1.7, the SARS-CoV-2 variant named D614G had already mutated from the original SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that triggered the pandemic. D614G has rapidly spread to become the most abundant variant worldwide and this D614G mutation remains in all the new emerging variants. An international team including researchers from Bern has now been able to demonstrate in both the laboratory and in animal models why the D614G variant was able to gain the upper hand over the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. "Our approach ...

A study, led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and carried out with OSIRIS, an instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), has found the most densely populated galaxy cluster in formation in the primitive universe. The researchers predict that this structure, which is at a distance of 12.5 billion light years from us, will have evolved becoming a cluster similar to that of Virgo, a neighbour of the Local Group of galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs. The study is published in the specialized journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). Clusters of galaxies are groups of galaxies which remain together because of the action of gravity. To understand the evolution of these "cities of galaxies" scientists look ...

Researchers from the Andalusian Centre for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER), in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) have studied the mechanisms behind the higher tendency of people with Mulibrey syndrome to develop tumours. Their results point to the important role of the TRIM37 protein, whose absence explains the appearance of tumour cells. Mulibrey syndrome is a so-called rare disease as it occurs in less than 5 out of every 10,000 inhabitants. Some of these diseases usually have a very definite genetic basis. ...

If light is strongly concentrated in time and space, resulting in extreme photon densities, it can enable interaction with all conceivable materials. By using these ultrashort laser foci, even transparent materials can be modified, even though they ordinarily would not interact. Short, focused laser pulses can overcome this transparency and allow energy to be deposited completely contact-free. The exact response of the material to the radiation can be very diverse, ranging from marginal refractive index changes to destructive microscale explosions that evacuate entire areas. Using the laser pulses for optical machining allows for equally diverse material modification, such as separating or joining using the same laser system. Due to the extremely short exposure time and low degree ...

Based on a manual recently discovered in a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus, University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt has been able to help reconstruct the embalming process used to prepare ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. It is the oldest surviving manual on mummification yet discovered. In ancient Egypt, embalming was considered a sacred art, and knowledge of the process was the preserve of very few individuals. Most secrets of the art were probably passed on orally from one embalmer to the other, Egyptologists believe, so written evidence is scarce; until recently, only two texts on mummification had been identified. Egyptologists were therefore surprised to find a short manual on embalming in a medical text that is primarily concerned with ...

"Everyone's unique" is a popular maxim. All people are equal, but there are of course individual differences. This was no different with dinosaurs. A study by researchers at the University of Bonn and the Dinosaur Museum Frick in Switzerland has now revealed that the variability of Plateosaurus trossingensis was much greater than previously assumed. The paleontologists examined a total of 14 complete skulls of this species, eight of which they described for the first time. The results have now been published in the scientific journal "Acta Palaeontologica Polonica". Plateosaurus lived during the Late Triassic, about 217 to 201 million years ago. "With well over 100 skeletons, some of them completely preserved, ...

The latest developments in fluorescence microscopy make it possible to image individual molecules in cells or molecular complexes with a spatial resolution of up to 20 nanometres. However, under certain circumstances, an effect occurs that falsifies the results: the laser light used can cause very reactive oxygen molecules to form in the sample. These can then damage the fluorescent dyes used to such an extent that they no longer fluoresce. Among microscopy experts, this effect is known as photobleaching. However, various fluorescent dyes can also be transformed by photobleaching so that they absorb light of shorter wavelengths. "A previously red fluorescent dye then glows green. Its fluorescence ...

A study by researchers at William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science suggests that continued warming of Atlantic coastal waters may enhance the spread of invasive blue catfish within the Chesapeake Bay and other estuaries along the U.S. East Coast. The research, by Drs. Vaskar Nepal and Mary Fabrizio of VIMS, appeared in a recent issue of PLOS ONE. It builds on an earlier study by the two authors showing that blue catfish can better tolerate salinity spikes than most freshwater fishes, and thus may be able to expand their range downstream into mainstem Chesapeake waters, and from there into new Bay tributaries and even Delaware Bay. "Blue cats" were introduced to tidal freshwater stretches of the James, York, and Rappahannock rivers during the 1970s and 1980s ...

Researchers at the Lady Davis Institute (LDI) at the Jewish General Hospital have discovered that increased levels of the protein OAS1 are associated with reduced mortality and less severe disease requiring ventilation among patients with COVID-19. Using drugs that boost OAS1 levels could be explored to try to improve these outcomes. The findings are published today in Nature Medicine. "Our analysis shows evidence that OAS1 has a protective effect against COVID-19 susceptibility and severity," explains Dr. Brent Richards, a senior investigator at the LDI's Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Professor of Medicine, Human Genetics, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University. "This is a very ...

A new study using leading edge technology has shed surprising light on the ancient habitat where some of the first dinosaurs roamed in the UK around 200 million years ago. The research, led by the University of Bristol, examined hundreds of pieces of old and new data including historic literature vividly describing the landscape as a "landscape of limestone islands like the Florida Everglades" swept by storms powerful enough to "scatter pebbles, roll fragments of marl, break bones and teeth." The evidence was carefully compiled and digitised so it could be used to generate for the first time ...

NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 26, 2021)--People who took statins to lower cholesterol were approximately 50% less likely to die if hospitalized for COVID-19, a study by physicians at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and NewYork-Presbyterian has found. "Our study is one of the larger studies confirming this hypothesis and the data lay the groundwork for future randomized clinical trials that are needed to confirm the benefit of statins in COVID-19," says Aakriti Gupta, MD, a cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and one of the co-lead authors of the study. "If their beneficial effect bears out in randomized clinical trials, statins could potentially prove to be a low-cost and effective therapeutic ...

Ithaca, NY--Famous for their uncanny ability to imitate other birds and even mechanical devices, researchers find that Australia's Superb Lyrebird also uses that skill in a totally unexpected way. Lyrebirds imitate the panicked alarm calls of a mixed-species flock of birds while males are courting and even while mating with a female. These findings are published in the journal Current Biology. "The male Superb Lyrebird creates a remarkable acoustic illusion," says Anastasia Dalziell, currently a Cornell Lab of Ornithology Associate and recent Cornell Lab Rose Postdoctoral Fellow, now at the University of Wollongong, Australia. "Birds gather in mobbing flocks and the ruckus they make is a potent cue of a predator nearby. The ...

A common barnacle could be used to help trace missing persons lost at sea, according to research by UNSW Science. Researchers from the Centre for Marine Science and Innovation have developed an equation that can estimate the minimum time an object has spent drifting at sea by counting the number of Lepas anserifera attached to the object. They also developed an equation which can help plot possible drift paths of a missing boat. "We saw this opportunity that Lepas could possibly fill in this gap in that marine forensic process and possibly contribute (to finding missing people)," study lead author Thomas ...

February 26, 2021 - Kawasaki, Japan: The Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (Director General: Prof. Kazunori Kataoka, Location: Kawasaki in Japan, Abbreviation: iCONM) reported in ACS Nano (Impact Factor: 14.588 in 2019) together with the group of Prof. Yu Matsumoto of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery (Prof. Tatsuya Yamasoba) and the group of Prof. Horacio Cabral of the Department of Bioengineering (Prof. Ryo Miyake) in the University of Tokyo that the efficacy of polymeric nano-micelles with different drug activation profile depends on the expression level of c-Myc, one of the major proto-oncogene, has been developed. See: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.1c00364 It ...

Preterm labor comprises 12.7% of all pregnancies. Although the overall rate of pregnancy is decreasing, the occurrence of premature birth due to preterm labor in south korea has been increasing over the past 7 years. Not only is preterm birth accountable for about a half of all neonatal mortality cases, the neurological deficits in surviving premature infants often lead to problems later in life, such as developmental disorders and respiratory complications. Currently, preterm labor is detected only when expecting mothers experience abnormal symptoms, or when they undergo a routine test like abdominal ultrasound or a laboratory test for ...

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have demonstrated a new method of quickly mapping the genome of single cells, while also clarifying the spatial position of the cells within the body. The discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, builds upon previous advances by OHSU scientists in single-cell genome sequencing. The study represents another milestone in the field of precision medicine. "It gives us a lot more precision," said senior author Andrew Adey, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and medical genetics in the OHSU School of Medicine. "The single-cell aspect gives us the ability to track the molecular changes within each cell type. Our new study also allows the capture of where those ...