A new analysis shows that, compared to similarly high-income European countries, the US continues to have substantially higher death rates at all but the oldest ages, resulting in more “excess deaths,” and this gap widened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Patrick Heuveline, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 29, 2023. Calculating excess death rates can be useful for comparing mortality between different countries or sub-populations, as well as before and after the onset of a health crisis. Prior research has documented a substantial widening of ...

Ancient 2m-long amphibians swam like crocodiles long before true crocodiles existed, according to a study published March 29, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David P. Groenewald of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and colleagues. During the Late Permian Period, just over 250 million years ago, South Africa was home to rhinesuchid temnospondyls, large predatory amphibians with bodies similar to crocodiles or big salamanders. These extinct animals are known mainly from skeletal remains, but in this study, researchers ...

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0283089 Article Title: The impact of BMI on psychological health in oldest old individuals–Are there differences between women and men? Author Countries: Germany Funding: This study was funded by the @ktivPLUS study (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, grant number 01GY2108) awarded to M. Löbner. Publication was funded by the Open Access Publishing Fund of Leipzig University, which is supported by the German Research ...

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282024 Article Title: Pedestrian street behavior mapping using unmanned aerial vehicles. A case study in Santiago de Chile Author Countries: Spain Funding: OM has received funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain (RyC RYC2020-029441-I). This research was also funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain [grant number PID2019-104344RB-I00]. END ...

### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281752 Article Title: Mortality postponement and compression at older ages in human cohorts Author Countries: USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Unproductive, inflexible, and less motivated... these are some of the most common stereotypes about senior employees. Even though the stereotypes are usually unfounded, they nevertheless influence how senior employees perceive themselves and their status in the workplace. And they thus become a key factor in many senior employees’ retirement decisions, conclude University of Copenhagen researchers in a new study published in PLOS ONE. “In our study, we refer to the uncertainty that senior employees feel about their status as ‘the worn-out syndrome’, which ...

Life comes in all shapes in sizes, but some sizes are more popular than others, new research from the University of British Columbia has found.  In the first study of its kind published today in PLOS ONE, Dr. Eden Tekwa, who conducted the study as a postdoctoral fellow at UBC’s department of zoology, surveyed the body sizes of all Earth’s living organisms, and uncovered an unexpected pattern. Contrary to what current theories can explain, our planet’s biomass—the material that makes up all living organisms—is ...

Life may come in all shapes and sizes, but in nature the most extreme size ranges predominate, according to Rutgers researchers. A survey of body sizes of Earth organisms, published Wednesday, March 29, in the science journal PLoS ONE, shows that the planet’s biomass – the material that makes up all living organisms – is concentrated in organisms at either end of the size spectrum. “This conclusion – that life on earth comes packaged predominantly in the largest and smallest sizes – was a discovery that surprised us,” said Malin Pinsky, an associate professor ...

Study Title: Aberrant cell state plasticity mediated by developmental reprogramming precedes colorectal cancer initiation Publication: Science Advances: March 29, 2023, 2:00pm ET 10.1126/sciadv.adf0927 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute author: Pratyusha Bala, PhD, Jonathan P. Rennhack, PhD, Daulet Aitymbayev, MS, Matthew B. Yurgelun, MD, William C. Hahn, MD, PhD, Nilay S. Sethi, MD, PhD Summary: Normally the lining of the colon forms a series of steep hills and valleys. At the surface, where the hills peak, are functional colon cells that do the organ’s work of absorption and secretion. Deep in the valleys are stem cells that constantly ...

Traces of ancient empires that stretched across Africa remain in the DNA of people living on the continent, reveals a new genetics study led by UCL researchers. Published in Science Advances, the collaboration between UCL geneticists working alongside anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and linguists in Africa and beyond found evidence for when different peoples intermixed across the continent. Their findings indicate migration linked to vast empires such as the Kanem-Bornu and the kingdoms of Aksum and Makuria, ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – March 29, 2023) Improving the seasonal influenza vaccine and public health specialists’ ability to predict pandemic potential in new flu strains may be possible due to new findings from scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The key is the stability of a viral protein that gains entry into human cells. The findings were published today in Science Advances.   “We found that the protein flu viruses use to enter cells, hemagglutinin, needs to be relatively stable and resistant to acid in an effective H3N2 flu vaccine,” said senior and co-corresponding ...

The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented challenges to public health worldwide. Tracking the dynamics of the coronavirus permits governments, organizations, and individuals to make projections in an effort to curb the spread of the pandemic. But while a large amount of data about COVID is collected and publicly available, the information can be unreliable and subject to bias. In a new study, researchers analyzed data from Cali, Colombia, to develop a model that provides a template for tracking data, predicting transmission, and informing health surveillance systems. The study was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon ...

A National Eye Institute-led team has identified a compound already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that keeps light-sensitive photoreceptors alive in three models of Leber congenital amaurosis type 10 (LCA 10), an inherited retinal ciliopathy disease that often results in severe visual impairment or blindness in early childhood.  LCA 10 is caused by mutations of the cilia-centrosomal gene (CEP290). Such mutations account for 20% to 25% of all LCA – more than any other gene.   Using a mouse model of LCA10 and two types of lab-created tissues from stem ...

A team of researchers from Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine recently discovered a novel role of human-CIDEC gene in improving metabolic dysfunction and cardiovascular health. The study, “Endothelial-Specific Expression of CIDEC Improves High-Fat Diet–Induced Vascular and Metabolic Dysfunction,” published in Diabetes focuses on vascular function and its association with metabolic diseases like insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. “This is a very impactful study, and we have moved in the right direction to find a way to reduce cardiovascular ...

Research by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, UK, along with colleagues at Universities of Oxford and Aberdeen, finds that trust in scientists has hugely increased overall since the COVID-19 pandemic, but that attitudes have also become more polarized. The study also found that people were more likely to take the COVID-19 vaccine if their trust in the science had increased. Whether it be climate change, vaccines or GM foods, trust in science and scientists has rarely been more important. ...

Thanks to the work of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a new project led by Northern Arizona University, with various collaborators throughout the nation, will help the United States better protect the critical supply chain infrastructure and the supply chains that keeps the country and its economy running. Benjamin Ruddell, professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and founder of the FEWSION project, is the NAU lead. Funded at $8 million for year one, the project aims to work with technology known as Fused Global Data Analytics and Visualization. The team’s leadership, ...

Cohesin is a ring-shaped protein that surrounds and moves around the DNA molecule, forming the loops. It is a crucial process for the cell. Understanding how cohesin works has been one of the challenges of molecular biology in recent decades. The work now published by Ana Losada's group at CNIO will serve to deepen our understanding of the disease known as Cornelia de Lange syndrome. At the end of the 1990s, Ana Losada, a researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), then at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (New York, USA), discovered a protein in frogs of the Xenopus genus that is fundamental to ...

Being able to withstand hurricane-force winds is the key to a long life for many buildings on the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast of the U.S. Determining the right level of winds to design for is tricky business, but support from artificial intelligence may offer a simple solution. Equipped with 100 years of hurricane data and modern AI techniques, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have devised a new method of digitally simulating hurricanes. The results of a study published today in Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems demonstrate that the simulations can accurately ...

More than 30% of women who give birth by caesarean section suffer from long-term symptoms, such as abdominal pain, blood loss or fertility problems. These symptoms are caused by an abnormal uterine scar. This condition is defined now for the first time, thanks to an international study led by Amsterdam UMC, as Caesarean Scar Disorder (CSDi). This gives women recognition for these problems after a caesarean section. In addition, international studies on CSDi can now be better compared with each other, providing more insight into treatment options. The research is published today in JAMA Network Open.   In ...

People living on the ‘Swahili coast’ - the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Africa - have African and Asian ancestry according to new research on ancient DNA. Archaeologists believe that the results, based on finds from excavations, including those directed by  Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones from the University of York and Professor Jeffrey Fleisher at Rice University, confirm that relationships between Asian merchants and African traders were formed between the years 900 and 1100 in ...

Brain development consists of a sequence of coordinated steps, which are mainly instructed by our genes. During these steps, the proper positioning and functionality of nerve cells in the brain (neurons) are critical—nonfunctional or incorrectly positioned neurons can lead to severe neuropathological consequences. Mutations in genes coordinating this program are often linked to neurodevelopmental disorders; however, environmental stressors such as nutrient scarcity or malnutrition can also influence the development of the brain. Still, very little is known about the importance of specific nutrients ...

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which ESO is a partner, astronomers have discovered a large reservoir of hot gas in the still-forming galaxy cluster around the Spiderweb galaxy — the most distant detection of such hot gas yet. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest objects known in the Universe and this result, published today in Nature, further reveals just how early these structures begin to form. Galaxy clusters, as the name suggests, host a large number of galaxies — sometimes even thousands. They also contain a vast “intracluster medium” (ICM) of ...

At a glance: Who were the people of the medieval Swahili civilization? Ancient DNA reveals African founders intermingled with migrants from southwest Asia around 1000 CE Findings complicate scientific views as well as colonial-era beliefs For the first time, analyses determine that some present-day Kenyans who identify as Swahili are genetically very different from medieval residents of the same region, while others have retained substantial medieval ancestry   While serfs toiled and knights jousted in Europe and samurai and shoguns rose to power in Japan, the ...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Nuclear physicists may have finally pinpointed where in the proton a large fraction of its mass resides. A recent experiment carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has revealed the radius of the proton’s mass that is generated by the strong force as it glues together the proton’s building block quarks. The result was recently published in Nature. One of the biggest mysteries of the proton is the origin of its mass. It turns out that the proton’s measured mass doesn’t just come from its physical building blocks, its three so-called valence quarks. “If you add up the ...

About The Study: Researchers found in this study that among Medicare beneficiaries initiating opioid use disorder-related care during the COVID-19 pandemic, receipt of opioid use disorder-related telehealth services was associated with reduced risk for fatal drug overdose, as was receipt of medications for opioid use disorder from opioid treatment programs and receipt of buprenorphine in office-based settings. Authors: Christopher M. Jones, Pharm.D., Dr.P.H., M.P.H., of the Centers for Disease Control and ...