They may be tiny weapons, but Brigham Young University's holography research group has figured out how to create lightsabers -- green for Yoda and red for Darth Vader, naturally -- with actual luminous beams rising from them. Inspired by the displays of science fiction, the researchers have also engineered battles between equally small versions of the Starship Enterprise and a Klingon Battle Cruiser that incorporate photon torpedoes launching and striking the enemy vessel that you can see with the naked eye. "What you're seeing in the scenes we create is real; there is nothing computer generated about them," said lead researcher Dan Smalley, a professor of electrical engineering at BYU. "This is not like the movies, where the lightsabers ...

May 7, 2021 - Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems scrambled to modify patient care processes - particularly when it came to strategies aimed at reducing the risk of hospital-related complications. A look at how one hospital applied its learning health system (LHS) framework to respond to a COVID-19-related increase in hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) is presented in the May/June Journal for Healthcare Quality (JHQ), the peer-reviewed journal of the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Given the significant challenges ...

Today, deliveries via cesarean sections, or c-sections, have become quite common globally. Sometimes, c-sections are a medical necessity when normal deliveries become risky either for the mother or the baby. At other times, it can be a choice. C-sections today have become a considerably safer procedure than it was a few decades ago, but there is need to refine it further. In a END ...

Children ages two to five who have the most common form of cystic fibrosis (CF), caused by two copies of the F508 gene mutation, have not had any modulator treatments available to them until recently. A new study authored by researchers at Children's Hospital Colorado and published May 6, 2021, in Lancet Respiratory Medicine shows that the CFTR modulator - lumacaftor/ivacaftor - can be safe and well-tolerated for this age range for up to 120 weeks, allowing younger children to begin proactive treatment of CF earlier in their lives. CF affects more than 70,000 people worldwide and is a chronic, progressive, life-shortening genetic disease caused by an absent or defective protein called the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein, resulting from mutations in both copies ...

Despite their extremely small size, submicron atmospheric aerosols are critical pollutants with climate change, air quality, and human health implications. Of these particles, secondary organic aerosols (SOA) form when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) oxidize to lower volatility products that bond with and increase aerosol particle size, or in some cases, they may simply exist by themselves. SOA constitutes a significant fraction of the global aerosol mass. Scientists are attempting to improve future aerosol modeling, but several discrepancies still exist between model-simulated and field-observed SOA budgets. ''Large uncertainties in model assessments of SOA budgets and correspondingly, its climate effects, ...

Nanofabrication of electronic devices has reached a single nanometer scale (10-9 m). The rapid advancement of nanoscience and nanotechnology now requires atomic-scale optical spectroscopy in order to characterize atomistic structures that will affect the properties and functions of the electronic devices. The international team headed by Takashi Kumagai at Institute for Molecular Science discovered a huge enhancement of Raman scattering mediated by a formation of an atomic point contact between a plasmonic silver tip and a Si(111)-7×7 reconstructed surface. This was achieved by means of state-of-the-art low-temperature tip-enhanced ...

Anesthestic drugs act on the brain but most anesthesiologists rely on heart rate, respiratory rate, and movement to infer whether surgery patients remain unconscious to the desired degree. In a new study, a research team based at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital shows that a straightforward artificial intelligence approach, attuned to the kind of anesthetic being used, can yield algorithms that assess unconsciousness in patients based on brain activity with high accuracy and reliability. "One of the things that is foremost in the minds of anesthesiologists is 'Do I have somebody who is lying in front of me who may be conscious and I don't realize it?' Being ...

Even the humble fruit fly craves a dose of the happy hormone, according to a new study from the University of Sussex which shows how they may use dopamine to learn in a similar manner to humans. Informatics experts at the University of Sussex have developed a new computational model that demonstrates a long sought after link between insect and mammalian learning, as detailed in a new paper published today in Nature Communications. Incorporating anatomical and functional data from recent experiments, Dr James Bennett and colleagues modelled how the anatomy and physiology of the fruit fly's brain can support learning according to the reward prediction error (RPE) hypothesis. The computational model indicates how dopamine neurons in an area of ...

PITTSBURGH, May 7, 2021 - In a paper published today in Nature Communications, an international group of collaborators led by researchers at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh have identified a genetic cause of a rare neurological disorder marked by developmental delay and loss of coordination, or ataxia. The disorder, scientists found, is caused by mutations in a protein called GEMIN5--one of the key building blocks of a protein complex that controls RNA metabolism in neurons. No mutations in GEMIN5 were previously linked to any genetic disease. ...

Luxembourg, 7 May 2021 - In a new position statement, Alzheimer Europe has issued a call for prioritisation of people with dementia and their carers in national COVID-19 vaccination strategies, urging governments to recognise the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on these groups. Alzheimer Europe has today issued a call for people with dementia and their carers to be given priority in the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaigns across Europe. In its position statement, Alzheimer Europe notes that people with dementia have almost twice the risk for developing COVID-19 compared to their ...

Systemic inequalities mean that low-income households in London are more likely to be exposed to higher levels of indoor air pollution, according to a report by UCL researchers. The biggest factors are the quality of housing and the characteristics of the surrounding environment, taking location and levels of outdoor air pollution into account - factors beyond occupants' control. Air pollution exposure is the greatest environmental health threat in the UK, with long-term exposures estimated to cause 28,000-36,000 premature deaths a year. In the paper, published in Buildings and Cities, researchers used available data and models, assembling evidence to examine five factors explaining why lower socio-economic groups may be exposed to higher levels of indoor air pollution ...

LUGANO, 7 May, 2021- Findings presented at today's EADV 2021 Spring Symposium suggest that an imbalance in gut microbiota (dysbiosis), could play a significant role in the progression of inflammatory skin disease, Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS). HS is a painful, long-term skin condition, with a chronic and relapsing nature that significantly impacts patients' quality of life. Researchers at Hacettepe University collected faecal samples from 15 patients with HS and 15 age and sex matched healthy individuals and analysed regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene to investigate ...

LUGANO, 6 May, 2021- The dermatological impact of COVID-19 is a burning topic at EADV's 2021 Spring Symposium. New research presented today highlights the effect that stringent hand hygiene during the pandemic has had on hand skin health.1 Researchers at Father Muller Medical College, India, analysed transepidermal water loss (TEWL - an essential parameter for measuring skin barrier function) from 582 people (291 healthcare professionals (HCPs) and 291 healthy individuals from the general population). Results indicated that hand dermatitis was now present among 92.6% of HCPs and 68.7% of the general population, despite only ~3% of HCPs and 2.4% of the general public in the study having reported a prior history of hand dermatitis (obtained through medical history ...

Are penalty shots a soccer player's dream or nightmare? What should be an easy shot can become a mammoth task when the hopes and fears of an entire nation rest on a player's shoulders, leading them to choke under pressure. Understanding the brain activity behind choking is the driving force behind a new study in open-access journal Frontiers in Computer Science. The study is the first to measure brain activity during penalty shots in a soccer pitch environment. It finds that people who choked activated areas of the brain involved in long-term thinking, suggesting that they were overthinking the consequences of missing the shot. ...

Researchers from University of Southern California, Bocconi University, and Vrije Universitei Amsterdam published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explains the six types of judgements consumers make when determining a product's authenticity and how marketers can use this insight to deliver more authentic offerings. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "The Concept of Authenticity: What it Means to Consumers" and is authored by Joseph Nunes, Andrea Ordanini, and Gaia Giambastiani. Consumers crave authenticity. Yet marketing itself is typically considered inherently inauthentic. Hence, firms must learn to understand, manage, and excel at rendering authenticity. The critical question is: how? Marketers who wish to deliver authentic consumption experiences ...

INDIANAPOLIS - As electronic medical records (EMRs) are increasingly used across the United States, the next generation of physicians, nurses, social workers, pharmacists and other clinicians need to acquire new knowledge and competencies related to use of EMRs early in their clinical education. But training is not routinely provided. A new study presents the functions and application of the novel, scalable Regenstrief teaching electronic medical record (tEMR) platform which contains a unique, large, anonymized patient database enabling health professions students to learn how to use health information technology (HIT) to best manage the ...

The way that many of us live has created the "perfect storm" for the evolution and transmission of infectious diseases like Covid-19 according to a researcher at the University of East Anglia. A new editorial published today describes how the world's vast population of people, pets and livestock has created an ideal breeding ground for infectious diseases which are passed between humans and animals. It shows how we urgently need to control the transmission of pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 by using vaccination passports, maximising genetic variation in livestock, and reducing how much meat we eat. Prof Cock Van Oosterhout, from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "We humans have been living in a non-sustainable way over the past few centuries. We now have a vast population size ...

LSE-Lancet Commission critically considers the UK's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and sets out a long-term vision for the NHS which re-lays the foundations for a better, fairer health and care service. The expert authors make seven recommendations spanning workforce, disease prevention and diagnosis, digital health, and better integration of public health and social care, as well as calling for yearly increases in funding for the NHS, social care, and public health of at least 4% in real terms over the next decade. Failure to take action risks a continued deterioration in service provision, worsening health outcomes ...

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, health officials seized on contact tracing as the most effective way to anticipate the virus's migration from the initial, densely populated hot spots and try to curb its spread. Months later, infections were nonetheless recorded in similar patterns in nearly every region of the country, both urban and rural. A team of environmental engineers, alerted by the unusual wealth of data published regularly by county health agencies throughout the pandemic, began researching new methods to describe what was happening on the ground in a way that does not require obtaining information on individuals' movements or contacts. ...

As state and federal authorities decide whether to continue reimbursing for telehealth services that were suddenly adopted last spring in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a new study out of UC San Francisco has found that clinicians in the San Francisco Health Network (SFHN) overwhelmingly support using these services for outpatient primary care and specialty care visits. The results surprised the research team, which includes a number of clinicians at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG), since they witnessed firsthand the difficulties that many of their colleagues and patients experienced ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--May 6, 2021--In the brain of a person with Alzheimer's disease, neurons degenerate and die, slowly eliminating memories and cognitive skills. However, not all neurons are impacted equally. Some types of neurons in certain brain regions are more susceptible, and even among those subtypes--mysteriously--some perish and some do not. Researchers at Gladstone Institutes have uncovered molecular clues that help explain what makes some neurons more susceptible than others in Alzheimer's disease. In a study published in the journal Nature ...

A new study from McGill University suggests that some Icelandic killer whales have very high concentrations of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in their blubber. But it seems that other orcas from the same population have levels of PCBs that are much lower. It mainly depends on what they eat. PCBs were industrial chemicals banned decades ago, after they were found to affect the health of both humans and wildlife. But because they degrade very slowly after being released in the environment and they still accumulate in the bodies of marine mammals. After collecting skin and blubber biopsies ...

WASHINGTON -- People who feel younger have a greater sense of well-being, better cognitive functioning, less inflammation, lower risk of hospitalization and even live longer than their older-feeling peers. A study published by the American Psychological Association suggests one potential reason for the link between subjective age and health: Feeling younger could help buffer middle-aged and older adults against the damaging effects of stress. In the study, published in Psychology and Aging, researchers from the German Centre of Gerontology analyzed three years of data from 5,039 participants in the German Ageing Survey, a longitudinal survey of residents of Germany age ...

LA JOLLA--(May 6, 2021) Plants are unparalleled in their ability to capture CO2 from the air, but this benefit is temporary, as leftover crops release carbon back into the atmosphere, mostly through decomposition. Researchers have proposed a more permanent, and even useful, fate for this captured carbon by turning plants into a valuable industrial material called silicon carbide (SiC)--offering a strategy to turn an atmospheric greenhouse gas into an economically and industrially valuable material. In a new study, published in the journal RSC Advances on April 27, 2021, scientists at the Salk Institute transformed tobacco and corn husks into SiC ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - By swiping surfaces in commercial food processing plants with specially designed rapid-testing adenosine triphospate (ATP) swabs - which produce a light similar to the glow of fireflies in the presence of microorganisms - spoilage and foodborne illness could diminish, according to a new study from Cornell University food scientists. During food production, routine cleaning and surface sanitation are keys to help prevent microbial contamination in the end food products. Without such a sanitation regime, food from processing plants can become more vulnerable ...