The physical interactions between coral and algal cells as they combine to form a symbiotic relationship have been observed for the first time. Within minutes of being introduced, coral cells had started to engulf the algae, where they were either digested or moved to a protective 'bubble' within the cell. This new study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, will form the basis of further research to understand what drives their symbiosis at a cellular and molecular level, including the eviction of algae, which is the cause of coral bleaching. "We watched coral cells develop pseudopodia ...

Depression is the most frequently diagnosed psychiatric disorder among older adults, with 8% to 16% of older patients presenting with clinically significant depressive symptoms. Researchers in Spain conducted a randomized clinical trial of 347 older adults with mild to moderate depression, comparing the effectiveness of physical exercise and antidepressants as treatment methods. Study participants were assigned to either a group engaged in supervised physical exercise or a group that received antidepressant treatment by their general practitioners. Depressive symptoms were not significantly different after one month between the two groups. However, after three and six months, the number of people who showed improvement was significantly higher in the ...

WASHINGTON--People with diabetes and depression who take antidepressants may have a lower risk of death and of serious diabetes complications, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. People with diabetes face a higher risk of depression, which makes them more likely to die or develop diabetes complications including heart and kidney disease, stroke, eye, and foot problems. Depression makes diabetes complications worse due to stress, body weight changes, and lack of exercise. "People with depression and diabetes have poorer health outcomes than those with diabetes alone, and regular antidepressant treatment could lower their risk of complications," said study author Shi-Heng Wang, Ph.D., of the China Medical ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have shown in a brain organoid study that exposure to a common pesticide synergizes with a frequent autism-linked gene mutation. The results represent one of the clearest pieces of evidence yet that genetic and environmental factors may be able to combine to disturb neurodevelopment. Researchers suspect that genetic and environmental factors might contribute to the increased prevalence of autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disorder characterized by cognitive function, social, and communication impairments. The study's use of brain organoids also points the way towards quicker, less expensive, and more human-relevant ...

Forest fires are already a global threat. "But considering how climate change is progressing, we are probably only at the beginning of a future that will see more and bigger forest fires," explains Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at TUM. In many places, fire is part of the natural environment, and many tree species have become naturally adapted to recurrent fires. These adaptations range from particularly thick bark, which protects the sensitive cambium in the trunk from the fire, to the cones of certain types of pine, which open only due to the heat of fire, allowing a quick regeneration and recovery of affected woodland . AI is accelerating ecosystem models "The interaction ...

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from the U.S. and Singapore have created a neural network that can help tweak semiconductor crystals in a controlled fashion to achieve superior properties for electronics. This enables a new direction of development of next-generation chips and solar cells by exploiting a controllable deformation that may change the properties of a material on the fly. The paper was published in the journal npj Computational Materials. Materials at the nanoscale can withstand major deformation. In what's called the strained state, they can exhibit remarkable optical, thermal, electronic, and other properties due to a change in interatomic distances. The intrinsic properties of a strained ...

Researchers examined the role of primary care physicians and other clinicians in delivering vaccinations in the United States. They used two main datasets to create an in-depth analysis of services delivered to Medicare patients, followed by analysis of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's 2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to determine where patients are getting vaccinated and by whom. In the 2017 Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service, primary care physicians provided the largest share of services for vaccinations (46%), followed by mass immunizers (45%), then nurse practitioners/physician assistants (5%). The MEPS showed that primary care physicians provided a majority of clinical visits ...

Primary Care Poised to Provide Clinical Guidance, Answers About COVID-19 Testing, Vaccine Administration Researchers examined the role of primary care physicians and other clinicians in delivering vaccinations in the United States. They used two main datasets to create an in-depth analysis of services delivered to Medicare patients, followed by analysis of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's 2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to determine where patients are getting vaccinated and by whom. In the 2017 Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service, primary care physicians provided the largest share of services for vaccinations (46%), followed by mass immunizers (45%), then nurse practitioners/physician ...

Humans are no stranger to coronavirus (CoV) pandemics. Just like SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), another member of the coronavirus family--SARS-CoV--caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic across parts of Asia in 2003. But, its spread was contained way faster than COVID-19. So, what makes SARS-CoV-2 so contagious? Both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses bear "spike proteins" which get inside our cells by binding to a protein called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) that is found in our cells. However, the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein has been found to have a higher binding affinity (10 to 20 times that of SARS-CoV) to ACE2, thus establishing ...

An international research team, including physics from Russia, has created new glasses for protection against X-ray and gamma radiation. Scientists could select new components that improved the characteristics of the samples and allowed to reduce the amount of lead in the glass composition. Physicists engineered several samples of glasses. One of the latest results - glasses based on barium fluoride - was described by the team in the Optic magazine. But the best results have bismuth borate glasses. Its radiation protection characteristics (mean-free-path, half-value layer) are better than commercial ...

HERSHEY, Pa. -- Electroconvulsive therapy, which may be effective at lowering long-term risks of suicide and death among patients with certain mood disorders, may result in longer hospital stays and increased health care costs, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. They said delivering the therapy in outpatient settings may make the treatment more cost-effective. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) -- which involves passing small electric currents through the brain to trigger brief seizures while a patient is under anesthesia -- is seldom utilized in the U.S. due ...

Community Health Workers Can Play a Role in Identifying Health-Related Social Needs in Patients Addressing patients' health-related social needs, like housing and food security, is integral to patient care. Federally Qualified Health Centers are leaders in screening for and addressing patients' health-related social needs. However, screening practices vary. This variation is relatively unexplored, particularly with regards to organizational and state policy influences. Study authors conducted in-person, qualitative interviews at Michigan FQHCs to examine how screening approaches vary ...

While several biology techniques have undergone significant technical advances that have allowed their high-throughput implementation, assessing the resistance levels of plant varieties to microbial pathogens remains an arduous and time-consuming task. In response to this, Pujara and collaborators took advantage of the naturally occurring luminescence of a deep-sea shrimp to engineer a light-producing bacterial reporter that allows the quantification of plant resistance levels through imaging. The Nanoluc luciferase (NL) from Oplophorus gracilirostris is a small protein characterized by its high stability and strong brightness. The researchers exploited these features to produce a light emitting bacterial strain from the Pseudomonas syringae species, ...

The Earth contains about one trillion species of microbes -- only about one-tenth of which have been identified. A single human can house 100 trillion microbes, creating a single microbiome that serves an ecosystem of microbes. Microbes connect and transform in myriad ways, creating and combining and separating microbiomes anew. How can we begin to parse out how microbiomes differ, how they are similar, how they evolved and how they may change in the future? An international team of researchers may have the answer. They published a scale-free, fully connected search-based network to explore the connectedness ...

Kumara Raja Sundar, MD, a family physician at Kaiser Permanente of Washington, uses two media synchronicity theory principles - conveyance and convergence - as a framework for choosing the right medium of care for his patients. In this essay, Sundar discusses how operating within this framework changed his own practice and decision making during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with the use of telemedicine versus in-person clinic visits. The theory of conveyance focuses on transmitting and processing diverse information to understand a situation. It requires time to analyze data, create patterns and make conclusions. Convergence focuses on discussing pre-processed information to achieve a mutual understanding of it. ...

HOUSTON - A phase II study led by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found that treatment with atezolizumab and bevacizumab was well-tolerated and resulted in a 40% objective response rate in patients with advanced malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, a rare cancer in the lining of the abdomen. Responses occurred in patients regardless of PD-L1 expression status and tumor mutation burden. Trial results indicated that the combination was safe and effective in patients with disease progression or intolerance to previous chemotherapy ...

A consortium of modern slavery experts, led by the University of Nottingham, have assisted the Greek government to tackle a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the strawberry fields of southern Greece. Using satellite technology to identify migrant settlements - a technique pioneered by the university's Rights Lab - and working with the Greek authorities, the experts then developed a decision model for which they could prioritise victims that were at highest risk. Leading the study, the Rights Lab combined different data sources and methods to build a set of criteria measuring the extent of labour exploitation in a settlement. The academics then validated these criteria with a government agency and a Non-Governmental ...

The sun provides a daunting source of electromagnetic disarray - chaotic, random energy emitted by the massive ball of gas arrives to Earth in a wide spectrum of radio frequencies. But in that randomness, Stanford researchers have discovered the makings of a powerful tool for monitoring ice and polar changes on Earth and across the solar system. In a new study, a team of glaciologists and electrical engineers show how radio signals naturally emitted by the sun can be turned into a passive radar system for measuring the depth of ice sheets and successfully tested it on a glacier in Greenland. The technique, ...

The treatment of many medical issues like abnormal gait and muscular disorders require an accurate sensing of applied pressure. In this regard, flexible pressure sensors that are simple, lightweight, and low-cost, have garnered considerable attention. These sensors are designed and manufactured through "additive manufacturing," or what is more commonly called "3D printing," using conductive polymer composites as their building blocks. However, all 3D-printed pressure sensors developed so far are limited to sensing applied forces along a single direction only. This is hardly enough for real ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Sharing ideas in an online learning environment has a distinct advantage over sharing personal details in driving learner engagement in massive open online courses, more commonly known as MOOCs, says new research co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert who studies the intersection of marketing and digital environments. Online learning engagement can be increased by nearly one-third by simply prompting students to share course ideas in a discussion forum rather than having them share information about their identity or personal motivations for enrolling, said Unnati Narang, a professor of business administration at the Gies College ...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- Army-funded research identified a new chemistry approach that could remove micropollutants from the environment. Micropollutants are biological or chemical contaminants that make their way into ground and surface waters in trace quantities. Using a pioneering imaging technique, Cornell University researchers obtained a high-resolution snapshot of how ligands, molecules that bind to other molecules or metals, interact with the surface of nanoparticles. In doing so, they made an unexpected breakthrough discovery. They determined that by varying the concentration of an individual ligand they could control the shape of the particle it attached too. This approach could ...

When there is a gas leak in a large building or at an industrial site, human firefighters currently need to go in with gas sensing instruments. Finding the gas leak may take considerable time, while they are risking their lives. Researchers from TU Delft (the Netherlands), University of Barcelona, and Harvard University have now developed the first swarm of tiny - and hence very safe - drones that can autonomously detect and localize gas sources in cluttered indoor environments. The main challenge the researchers needed to solve was to design the Artificial Intelligence for this complex task that would fit in the tight computational and memory constraints of the tiny drones. They solved this challenge by means of bio-inspired navigation and search strategies. The scientific ...

A new study finds forensics researchers use terms related to ancestry and race in inconsistent ways, and calls for the discipline to adopt a new approach to better account for both the fluidity of populations and how historical events have shaped our skeletal characteristics. "Forensic anthropology is a science, and we need to use terms consistently," says Ann Ross, corresponding author of the study and a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University. "Our study both highlights our discipline's challenges in discussing issues ...

Super-thin carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes may not be best for separating industrially important chemical mixtures. However, ensuring the CMS film thickness is just right could enable more energy-efficient purification of chemical products, KAUST researchers have shown. CMS membranes, as their name suggests, can purify mixtures of liquids or gases by permitting only certain molecules to pass through their subnanometer-sized pores. Currently, the chemical industry mainly uses heat-based processes such as distillation to separate product mixtures, but these processes consume about 10 percent of global energy output. "This situation is highly unsustainable," says Wojciech Ogieglo, a research scientist at KAUST. "We believe that a good ...

The premise of heated tobacco (HT) is simple: tobacco leaf is heated, never burnt, so avoiding many harmful by-products of combustion for the user. The exhaled 'mist' is correctly termed an aerosol, which is almost invisible and far less dense and pungent than the exhaled smoke from combustible cigarettes. Another advantage of HT is that there are no 'side-stream' emissions to impact air quality (or disturb bystanders - these emissions form part of the ambient smoke that's often known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or 'second-hand' smoke), because unlike a combustible cigarette there is no constantly burning tip. Our previous research suggests that, unlike cigarettes, using our Pulze heated tobacco device causes no negative impact on indoor air quality ...