Japan -- The tooth fairy is a welcome guest for any child who has lost a tooth. Not only will the fairy leave a small gift under the pillow, but the child can be assured of a new tooth in a few months. The same cannot be said of adults who have lost their teeth. A new study by scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Fukui, however, may offer some hope. The team reports that an antibody for one gene -- uterine sensitization associated gene-1 or USAG-1 -- can stimulate tooth growth in mice suffering from tooth agenesis, a congenital condition. The paper was published in Science Advances. Although the normal adult mouth has 32 teeth, about ...

A group of researchers from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland contest the common belief that resource-based economies have higher levels of within-country inequality than resource-scarce economies. The researchers document a direct causal link between natural resources and within-country inequality and conclude that the extraction of oil and gas can reduce inequality or has no significant effect on it. The results were published in the journal Empirical Economics. "When we compare the natural resource rents to GDP 10 years after the discovery of natural ...

Researchers specialised in psychiatry and psychology at the University of Helsinki investigated the effects of depression on visual perception. The study confirmed that the processing of visual information is altered in depressed people, a phenomenon most likely linked with the processing of information in the cerebral cortex. The study was published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. In the study, the processing of visual information by patients with depression was compared to that of a control group by utilising two visual tests. In the perception tests, the study subjects compared the brightness and contrast of simple patterns. "What ...

Pedestrian movements are tricky to track, but now the first large-scale statistical analysis of pedestrian flow using anonymous phone data collected in three European capital cities, London, Amsterdam and Stockholm, has been conducted by researchers from KAUST with Swedish colleagues from Gothenburg. Analyzing the flow of pedestrians through city streets provides insights into how city design influences walking behavior. Studies of pedestrian flow inform new urban developments, enable designers to define quieter areas and "urban buzz" zones and reveal how spaces are used at different times. "In a previous study, we found strong links between the total ...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common in many branches of industry and online retailing. Traditional lines of work, such as transport logistics and driving, are developing in a similar direction although mainly out of public view. Scientists at the University of Göttingen have now investigated how efficient the use of AI can be in the commercial management of trucks. Their answer: the best option is an intelligent combination of human decision-making and AI applications. The study was published in the International Journal of Logistics Management. "As has happened in the private sector, digital applications - as well as machine learning, a kind of AI - are increasingly permeating operations ...

In a new publication from Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications; DOI https://doi.org/10.15212/CVIA.2021.0010, Yidan Wang, Gary Tse and Guoliang Li from The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China and Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China consider how running with face masks or respirators can be detrimental to the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. The use of face masks and respirators is an important public health measure to reduce or prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Here the authors discuss the hypothetical mechanisms by which exercise with face masks or respirators can induce detrimental effects on the cardiovascular system, potentially explaining adverse events such as cardiac arrhythmias ...

In a new publication from Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications; DOI https://doi.org/10.15212/CVIA.2021.0009, Wenxiu Liu, Yutong Guo, Yue Liu, Jiaxing Sun and Xinhua Yin from The First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Heilongjiang, China consider calcium-sensing receptors of immune cells and diseases. The authors review current knowledge of the role of CaSR in immune cells. Calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), which was initially found in the parathyroid gland, is ubiquitously expressed and exerts specific functions in multiple cells, including ...

DALLAS, March 29, 2021 -- As NASA seeks to build a lunar outpost, visit Mars and commercialize spaceflight, the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human heart are of critical importance, according to researchers. By analyzing data from astronaut Scott Kelly's year in space and comparing it to information from extreme long distance, which simulates weightlessness, swimming of Benoît Lecomte, researchers found that low-intensity exercise was not enough to counteract the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the heart, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation. Each time a person sits or stands, gravity draws blood into the legs. The work the heart does to keep blood flowing as it counters Earth's gravity ...

DALLAS, March 29, 2021 -- Adults with periodontitis, a severe gum infection, may be significantly more likely to have higher blood pressure compared to individuals who had healthy gums, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. Previous studies have found an association between hypertension and periodontitis, however, research confirming the details of this association is scarce. Periodontitis is an infection of the gum tissues that hold teeth in place that can lead to progressive inflammation, bone or tooth loss. Prevention and treatment of periodontitis ...

DALLAS, March 29, 2021 -- Six pregnancy-related complications - high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, preterm delivery, small-for-gestational-age delivery, pregnancy loss or placental abruption - increase a woman's risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) later in life, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation. The statement calls for vigorous prevention of these risk factors and primary prevention of CVD for women who experience these complications as they transition out of pregnancy and postpartum care into primary care, with continued follow-up to monitor CVD risk throughout life. About 10% to 15% ...

In a new publication in Nature Communications, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland Yiping Qi continues to innovate genome editing and engineering in plants, with the ultimate goal of improving the efficiency of food production. His recent work contributes six novel variants of CRISPR-Cas12a that have never before been proven in plants, testing them first in rice as a major global crop. In addition to allowing for a much broader scope of possible gene editing targets, these new tools can edit many different sites in the genome at once, or even repress gene expression to tone down undesirable traits. These patent-pending tools greatly expand the scope of what CRISPR-Cas12a can do in plants, which ...

-- Black middle-aged adults had an incidence rate of stroke 4 times higher than that of white middle-aged adults, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published March 29 in Hypertension. The large national prospective study highlights the need to raise awareness among young and middle-aged Black adults about the impact of high blood pressure, called hypertension, on stroke, the research team said. "What we found striking in this study was that the incidence of stroke began to increase rapidly starting at around age 40 for Black adults," said the study's co-author Jamal S. Rana, MD, PhD, an adjunct investigator with the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, and ...

Despite the enormous amount of research over the decades into lasers and their applications, there have been few ways to accurately, efficiently, and directly observe fine details of their interactions with materials. For the first time, researchers have found a way to acquire such data from a production laser using low-cost equipment that could vastly improve the accuracy of items cut or etched with lasers. Given the ubiquity of lasers, this could have wide-ranging implications in laboratory, commercial and industrial applications. Lasers are used in an extraordinarily wide range of applications in the modern world. ...

A team of Australian and German researchers has discovered a novel pathway that plants can use to save water and improve their drought tolerance. The research published today in Nature Communications shows that the molecule GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), most commonly associated with relaxation in animals, can control the size of the pores on plant leaves to minimise water loss. Matthew Gilliham, Director of the Waite Research Institute at the University of Adelaide, who led the research team, said they found: "GABA minimised pore openings in a range of crops such as barley, broad bean and soybean, and in lab plants that produce more GABA than normal. ...

Each human being is made of billions of cells. In order to ensure his survival, cells must coordinate with each other and attach in the right place to perform their tasks. Scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, in collaboration with the University of Tampere in Finland, have highlighted the key role of a protein called paxillin, which enables cells to perceive their environment and anchor at the right place with the help of cellular "crampons". Indeed, without functional paxillin, the cell is unable to attach properly and slips continuously. These results, to be read in the journal Communications Biology, shed new light ...

Noninfluenza respiratory viral infections (NIRV) are associated with illness and death rates similar to influenza in hospitalized adults, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). In a study of 2119 adults admitted to two hospitals over three seasons (2015-2018) in Edmonton, Alberta, and Toronto, Ontario, with confirmed viral acute respiratory infections, more than half (54.6%) were NIRV infections compared with influenza viruses (45.4%). Among patients with NIRV infections, 21.1% needed respiratory support, 18.2% required lengthy hospital stays and 8.4% died within 30 days of diagnosis. About 15% of NIRV infections were acquired in hospital. "These findings show that clinical ...

A new study finds that coffee pulp, a waste product of coffee production, can be used to speed up tropical forest recovery on post agricultural land. The findings are published in the British Ecological Society journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence. In the study, researchers from ETH-Zurich and the University of Hawai`i spread 30 dump truck loads of coffee pulp on a 35 × 40m area of degraded land in Costa Rica and marked out a similar sized area without coffee pulp as a control. "The results were dramatic" said Dr Rebecca Cole, lead author ...

Twenty percent of high school students have easy access to a handgun, according to a new study from the Colorado School of Public Health on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. In the study published today in The Journal of Pediatrics, the researchers examined the prevalence of handgun access among adolescents in Colorado and explored individual and geographic characteristics, as well as related health factors. "Our findings highlight that it is relatively easy to access a handgun in Colorado for high school students. This finding, combined with ...

Growing cities tend to run out of land for waste management and new landfill sites. Artificial Intelligence can help city managers create more powerful long-term forecasts of solid waste volumes and landfill requirements, even with missing or inaccurate data. UJ researchers found that a 10-neuron model produced the best 30-year forecast for municipal solid waste in a growing city. All over the world, large cities are running out of space for municipal solid waste. Existing landfill sites are rapidly filling up and no-one wants a new site anywhere near their homes or businesses. Meanwhile, taxpayers aren't interested in higher costs for quality waste management either. One way of significantly extending ...

Groundbreaking research from the University of South Australia has delivered world-first national-level guidelines to better inform children's physical activity and screen time in Outside School Hours Care (OSHC). Developed with input from the OSHC sector, the guidelines aim to address growing concerns of children's sedentary behaviour marked by an increase in regular screen time. Research shows that 31-79 per cent of OSHC sessions are sedentary. The guidelines specifically encourage energetic play while discouraging screen use: Before School Care should schedule 45 minutes of physical activities and no more ...

Arctic habitats have fascinated biologists for centuries. Their species-poor insect faunas, however, provide little reward for entomologists - scientists who study insects - to justify spending several weeks or even months in the hostile environments of tundra or polar deserts. As a result, data on insects from the High Arctic islands are often based on occasional collecting and remain scarce. Vize Island, located in the northern part of the Kara Sea, is one of the least studied islands of the Russian High Arctic in terms of its biota. Scientists Dr Maria V. Gavrilo of the Arctic ...

WATERLOO, Ontario, March 29, 2021--A newly-published paper represents one of the most comprehensive reviews of advancements to come in contact lenses, catapulting the commonly-used medical device to applications well beyond refractive error correction. Contact Lens Technologies of the Future (Jones L, et al.) is now in press from Contact Lens and Anterior Eye, the peer review journal of the British Contact Lens Association (BCLA). It joins nine other papers being printed in next month's special edition as part of the BCLA-led Contact Lens Evidence-based Academic Reports (CLEAR) series. "There are a range of ...

Bioengineering researchers at Lehigh University have identified a previously unknown interaction between receptors in human cells and the spike, or "S," protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This new information could aid in the development of new strategies to block SARS-CoV-2 entry into human cells. X. Frank Zhang and Wonpil Im knew from recent studies that the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors in human cells is stronger than the interaction between the structurally identical spike protein of SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak, and the same receptors. "Our goal was to characterize SARS-CoV-2 ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Monitoring the progression of multiple sclerosis-related gait issues can be challenging in adults over 50 years old, requiring a clinician to differentiate between problems related to MS and other age-related issues. To address this problem, researchers are integrating gait data and machine learning to advance the tools used to monitor and predict disease progression. A new study of this approach led by University of Illinois Urbana Champaign graduate student Rachneet Kaur, kinesiology and community health professor Manuel Hernandez and industrial ...

United Methodist churches -- whether the congregation is white or not -- have higher attendance when located within white neighborhoods. But racial diversity within a church is associated with higher average attendance over time, according to a new study. "This is a startling contrast to previous research that reported multiracial congregations are less stable," said lead author Kevin D. Dougherty, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Baylor University. The study is published in the journal Social Forces. Previous research has found that it is difficult for congregations to build and sustain racially diverse memberships, ...