WASHINGTON, February 16, 2021 -- Research into 3D bioprinting has grown rapidly in recent years as scientists seek to re-create the structure and function of complex biological systems from human tissues to entire organs. The most popular 3D printing approach uses a solution of biological material or bioink that is loaded into a syringe pump extruder and deposited in a layer-by-layer fashion to build the 3D object. Gravity, however, can distort the soft and liquid bioinks used in this method. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University provide perspective on the Freefrom Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels ...

What The Study Did: The observational study examined associations between maternal cardiovascular health during pregnancy (as measured by body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol level, glucose level and smoking) with the later cardiovascular health of their offspring at ages 10 to 14 years old (as measured by body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol level and glucose level). Authors: Amanda M. Perak, M.D., M.S., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2021.0247) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support ...

Spending on low-value health care among fee-for-service Medicare recipients dropped only marginally from 2014 to 2018, despite both a national campaign to better educate clinicians and increasing use of payment revisions that discourage wasteful care, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Three items accounted for two-thirds of the low-value care. Among these, prescribing opioids for acute back pain increased despite a growing national awareness of the harms caused by the drugs and the role of such prescribing in fueling the nation's opioid ...

What The Study Did: Researchers examined the association between the presence of an armed guard on scene and the severity of shootings at schools kindergarten through high school. Authors: Jillian Peterson, Ph.D., of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37394) Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media advisory: The full study is linked to this ...

What The Study Did: Researchers examined the strength of the evidence from published meta-analyses of observational studies that looked at the association between diet and the risk of colorectal cancer. Authors: Nathorn Chaiyakunapruk, Pharm.D., Ph.D., of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37341) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media ...

WASHINGTON, February 16, 2021 -- The widespread use of high-speed and high-energy weapons in modern warfare has led to an increasing incidence of explosive injuries. For such wounds as well as those incurred in disasters and accidents, severe hemorrhage is the leading cause of death. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the Southern University of Science and Technology in China examine the advances in hydrogel dressings in recent years, which are good at promoting wound healing and can better meet the demands of different situations. "With the rapid developments of material science, there are numerous highly ...

CHICAGO --- A mother's heart health while she is pregnant may have a significant impact on her child's cardiovascular health in early adolescence (ages 10 to 14), according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. The study will be published Feb. 16 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). It is the first study to examine the implications of a mother's cardiovascular health during pregnancy for offspring health in the longer term. The findings are troubling, as they build upon previous Northwestern Medicine and Lurie Children's Hospital research that found ...

Researchers have discovered that the use of Cytoglobin (CYGB) as an intravenous drug could delay liver fibrosis progression in mice. CYGB, discovered in 2001 by Professor Norifumi Kawada, is present in hepatic stellate cells, the cells that produce fibrotic molecules such as collagens when the liver has acute or chronic inflammation induced by different etiologies. The enhancement of CYGB on these cells or the injection of recombinant CYGB has the effect of suppressing liver damage and cirrhosis. These findings published in the February 2021 issue of the journal Hepatology. Anti-fibrotic therapy remains an unmet medical need in human chronic liver diseases. A research team led by Professor Norifumi Kawada, Osaka City University ...

Dry and cloudless weather was mainly responsible for the unusually high solar irradiance in western Europe during the spring of 2020, not the reduction in aerosol emissions due to the first lockdown. This was the result of an international meteorological study, in which scientists from the University of Cologne participated. The results have been published in the current issue of Nature Communications Earth & Environment. A large part of western Europe experienced exceptionally sunny and dry weather from March 23 to the end of May 2020. New sunshine extremes were reported in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, coupled with exceptionally deep blue skies. At the same time, these countries had gone into lockdown in response ...

Historically, most electric transmission system operators have used heuristics (rules based on experience) to hold sufficient reserves to guard against unforeseen large outages and maintain system reliability. However, the expansion of competitive wholesale electricity markets has led to efforts to translate reserve heuristics into competitively procured services. A common approach constructs an administrative demand curve for valuing and procuring least cost reserve supply offers. The technical term for this is the operating reserve demand curve (ORDC). A new paper quantifies how better accounting for the temperature-dependent probability of large generator contingencies with time-varying dynamic ORDC construction improves reserve procurement. The paper, "Dynamic Operating Reserve Procurement ...

Between January 2012 and March 2018, there were an average of 1,000 failures each year at large North American gas power plants due to unscheduled fuel shortages and fuel conservation interruptions. This is a problem as the power grid depends on reliable natural gas delivery from these power plants in order to function. More than a third of all U.S. electricity is generated from natural gas. New research now indicates that these fuel shortages are not due to failures of pipelines and that in certain areas of the country a change in how gas is purchased ...

DALLAS - Feb. 16, 2021 - A study that identifies how a coronavirus protein called Nsp1 blocks the activity of genes that promote viral replication provides hope for new COVID-19 treatments. Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have worked endlessly to understand SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Even with the arrival of vaccines, the virus is still spreading and there is a need to develop alternative therapies. Scientists hope to achieve this by studying how SARS-CoV-2 infects cells and propagates itself while avoiding the body's natural immune system. Now researchers at UT Southwestern have added another piece to this puzzle with their END ...

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The ongoing pandemic has had a significant and alarming trend of increased alcohol use and abuse - especially among younger adults, males and those who have lost their jobs - according to a new study by University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers. Research led by William "Scott" Killgore, PhD, professor of psychiatry in the UArizona College of Medicine - Tucson and director of the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, found that hazardous alcohol use and likely dependence increased every month for those under lockdowns compared to those not under restrictions. "Being under lockdown during a worldwide pandemic has been hard on everyone, and many people are relying on greater quantities of alcohol to ease their distress," said Dr. ...

Shoe shops sell a variety of shoe sizes to accommodate a variety of foot sizes -- but what if both the shoe and foot size depended on how it was measured? Recent developments in quantum theory suggest that the available values of a physical quantity, such as a foot size, can depend on the type of measurement used to determine them. If feet were governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, foot size would depend on the markings on a foot measure to find the best fit -- at the time of measurement -- and even if the markings were changed, the measurement could still be precise. In quantum mechanics, the "size" of a physical ...

Because cancers in children are rare, many details about their biology remain unknown. In the field of cancer genetics, there's a limited understanding of how inherited genetic changes may contribute to the formation and growth of tumors. Making connections between particular gene mutations and disease requires a lot of data, which until recently has been largely unavailable for pediatric cancers. Now, tests like MSK-IMPACTTM can screen tumors for mutations in more than 500 genes as well as analyze patients' normal (germline) cells. In the largest study of its kind so far, researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering's pediatric program, MSK Kids, are reporting germline genomic sequencing details for 751 pediatric patients treated for solid tumors. The paper, ...

Astronomers have tested a method for reconstructing the state of the early Universe by applying it to 4000 simulated universes using the ATERUI II supercomputer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). They found that together with new observations the method can set better constraints on inflation, one of the most enigmatic events in the history of the Universe. The method can shorten the observation time required to distinguish between various inflation theories. Just after the Universe came into existence 13.8 billion years ago, it suddenly increased more than a trillion, trillion times in size, in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a microsecond; but no one knows how or why. This sudden "inflation," is one of the ...

Human health and ecosystems could be affected by microbes including cyanobacteria and algae that hitch rides in clouds and enter soil, lakes, oceans and other environments when it rains, according to a Rutgers co-authored study. "Some of the organisms we detected in clouds and rain are known to have possible impacts on human health and could also affect microbial populations at rainfall locations," said lead author Kevin Dillon, a doctoral student in the lab of co-author Donna E. Fennell, a professor who chairs the Department of Environmental Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "More work is needed to confirm that and to ...

BETHESDA, Md. -- ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) today announced the publication of two landmark reports that articulate a futuristic vision for pharmacy practice, including expanded roles for the pharmacy enterprise in healthcare organizations. The 2021 ASHP/ASHP Foundation Pharmacy Forecast Report and the Vizient Pharmacy Network High-Value Pharmacy Enterprise (HVPE) framework, published in AJHP, outline opportunities for pharmacy leaders to advance patient-centered care, population health, and the overall well-being of their organizations. "During these unprecedented times, it is more important than ever for pharmacy leaders to demonstrate the value pharmacy services contribute ...

The short message service Twitter has played a prominent role in US politics in recent weeks and months and attracted a lot of attention. Even in business, Twitter users' tweets are being closely followed and used as a basis for decision-making. A new study shows that venture capitalists can also be influenced by Twitter sentiment when valuing start-up companies from the high-tech sector. "However, the sentiment signals on Twitter say nothing about the long-term investment success of such a start-up. Patent applications, for example, are much better suited for this," said Professor Andranik Tumasjan from Johannes Gutenberg ...

Since the 1980s, the physical and mental health of Swedish children and young people has been measured by way of surveys. One of these is the international "Health Behavior in School-aged Children Survey" (HBSC), which is taken by 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds every fourth year during a class in school. Researchers Anette Wickström and Kristin Zeiler at Linköping University wanted to study the survey to see which norms can be conveyed in health surveys, something that has rarely been studied. The results have been published in the journal Children & Society. "The study shows that survey questions on parents' occupation and financial situation create norms about how you should ...

A subtype of asthma in adults may cause higher susceptibility to influenza and could result in dangerous flu mutations. University of Queensland-led animal studies have found that paucigranulocytic asthma (PGA) - a non-allergic form of the condition - allows the flu virus to flourish in greater numbers in sufferers. UQ PhD candidate Ms Katina Hulme said this was due to the asthma's suppression of the immune system. "We were first tipped off about this during the 2009 swine flu pandemic," Ms Hulme said. "Asthma was identified as the most common underlying medical condition in ...

These observations might be useful for the future development of new antibacterial strategies. The team reports in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology on 12 February 2021. Bacterial groups in search of food We commonly know predator-prey relationships from the animal kingdom, but they are also a survival strategy of certain bacteria: bacterial predators actively kill bacteria of other species in order to feed on them. The predatory species include many myxobacteria, which are widespread in the soil and display unique behavioural patterns: many cells assemble into large groups and go in search of food together or, in the event of nutrient ...

Scientists from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden presents evidence that hospital wastewater, containing elevated levels of antibiotics, rapidly kills antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, while multi-resistant bacteria continue to grow. Hospital sewers may therefore provide conditions that promote the evolution of new forms of antibiotic resistance. It is hardly news that hospital wastewater contains antibiotics from patients. It has been assumed that hospital sewers could be a place where multi-resistant bacteria develop and thrive due to continuous low-level antibiotic exposure. However, direct evidence for selection of resistant bacteria from this type of wastewater has been lacking, until now. A research group at ...

A polymer that is custom designed to produce light that penetrates murky environments has shown promise in bioimaging trials, where it can detect nano-sized particles underneath the surface of realistic tissue models. Recent studies have demonstrated that fluorescent probes -- light-emitting materials that attach to tiny targets such as cells -- are particularly useful for bioimaging when they radiate in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) region of the optical spectrum. Because this type of fluorescent light penetrates deeper into biological objects without being absorbed or scattered, SWIR ...

Humans inhabit an incredible range of environments across the globe, from arid deserts to frozen tundra, tropical rainforests, and some of the highest peaks on Earth. Indigenous populations that have lived in these extreme environments for thousands of years have adapted to confront the unique challenges that they present. Approximately 2% of people worldwide live permanently at high altitudes of over 2,500 meters (1.5 miles), where oxygen is sparse, UV radiation is high, and temperatures are low. Native Andeans, Tibetans, Mongolians, and Ethiopians exhibit adaptations that improve their ability to survive such conditions. Andeans, for example, display increased chest circumference, elevated oxygen saturation, and a low hypoxic ventilatory response, enabling them to thrive at exceptionally ...