During a pandemic, decisions have to be made under time pressure and amid scientific uncertainty, with potential disagreements among experts and models. With COVID-19, especially during the first wave, there was uncertainty about the virus transmissibility, the disease severity, the future evolution of the pandemic and the effectiveness of the proposed policy interventions, such as wearing face masks or closing schools. Together with a group of epidemiologists and economists, including the Nobel Prize winner Lars Peter Hansen, Bocconi professors Massimo Marinacci, AXA-Bocconi Chair in Risk, and Valentina Bosetti investigated how modern decision theory can help policymakers ...

Loneliness in adults aged 50 and over during the COVID-19 lockdown was linked to worsening depressive and other mental health symptoms, according to a large-scale online study. Loneliness emerged as a key factor linked to worsening symptoms of depression and anxiety in a study of more than 3,000 people aged 50 or over led by the University of Exeter and King's College London, and funded by The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) . Researchers had access to data going back to 2015 for participants of the ...

Researchers from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and University of Hong Kong published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines why and how charitable organizations can increase donations by soliciting consumers after retailers' price promotions. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Do Promotions Make Consumers More Generous? The Impact of Price Promotions on Consumers' Donation Behavior" and is authored by Kuangjie Zhang, Fengyan Cai, and Zhengyu Shi. Giving Tuesday, a global generosity movement, takes place each year on the Tuesday after US Thanksgiving (immediately after Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales). Charitable donations generally see a big boost on Giving Tuesday. This year, American consumers ...

The Ganges River - with the combined flows of the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers - could be responsible for up to 3 billion microplastic particles entering the Bay of Bengal every day, according to new research. The study represents the first investigation of microplastic abundance, characteristics and seasonal variation along the river and was conducted using samples collected by an international team of scientists as part of the National Geographic Society's END ...

HAMILTON, ON, Jan. 21, 2020 -- McMaster University researchers have established in lab settings that a novel combination of two forms of immunotherapy can be highly effective for treating lung cancer, which causes more deaths than any other form of cancer. The new treatment, yet to be tested on patients, uses one form of therapy to kill a significant number of lung tumor cells, while triggering changes to the tumor that enable the second therapy to finish the job. The first therapy employs suppressed "natural killer" immune cells by extracting them from patients' tumours ...

A new study exploring the impact of repeated sleep loss during a simulated working week has found that consuming caffeinated coffee during the day helps to minimize reductions in attention and cognitive function, compared to decaffeinated coffee1. While this effect occurred in the first three-to-four days of restricted sleep, by the fifth and final day, no difference was seen between caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee drinkers. This therefore suggests that the beneficial effects of coffee for people with restricted sleep are temporary1. It is estimated that over 30% of adult Western populations sleep less than the recommended seven to eight hours on weekday nights and 15% regularly sleep less than six hours2,3. This can ...

A modelling study suggests that demand for cancer surgery will rise by 52% - equal to 4.7 million procedures - between 2018 and 2040, with the greatest relative increase in low-income countries, which already have substantially lower staffing levels than high-income countries. A separate observational study comparing global cancer surgery outcomes also suggests that patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are four times more likely to die from colorectal or gastric cancer (odds of 4.59 and 3.72, respectively) than those in high-income countries (HICs) currently, and that poor provision of care ...

Since the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, it has quickly become apparent that children are extremely unlikely to suffer severe COVID-19 illness. Nevertheless, children have had to adjust to the new world of medical staff dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) in the same way as all other patients. A new study from one of the UK's leading children's hospitals -Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool - shows that children are not scared by PPE, and can in fact feel reassured by it. The study was conducted by Drs Charlotte Berwick, Jacinth Tan, Ijeoma Okonkwo and their ...

The sight of healthcare workers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect against transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is something the world has become accustomed to. However, a new study analysing the impact of PPE staff shows that the number and variety of issues they experience increases as their time in PPE without a break increases, ranging from tiredness and headaches in the first hour to nausea, vomiting and dizziness as they head towards four hours continuously in PPE. The study is by Dr Tom Hutley, Dr Lynsey Woodward and Mr Joshua Berrington based at the University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Bournemouth, UK, and was presented at the Winter Scientific ...

The results of a randomised clinical trial with the longest follow up to date show that metabolic surgery is more effective than medications and lifestyle interventions in the long-term control of severe type 2 diabetes. The study, published today in The Lancet, also shows that over one-third of surgically-treated patients remained diabetes-free throughout the 10-year period of the trial. This demonstrates, in the context of the most rigorous type of clinical investigation, that a "cure" for type 2 diabetes can be achieved. Researchers from King's College London and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy report the 10-year outcomes of a trial that compared metabolic surgery with conventional medical and lifestyle interventions in patients ...

Food insecurity spiked among residents living in two predominantly African American neighborhoods during the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, far outpacing food insecurity observed among the general U.S. population during the same period, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Following residents of two Pittsburgh low-income African American neighborhoods characterized as food deserts since 2011, the study found that the pandemic increased the number of people facing food insecurity by nearly 80%. Similar to United States national trends, food insecurity among residents had been improving consistently since 2011. ...

When drought caused devastating crop losses in Malawi in 2015-2016, farmers in the southeastern African nation did not initially fear for the worst: the government had purchased insurance for such a calamity. But millions of farmers remained unpaid for months because the insurer's model failed to detect the extent of the losses, and a subsequent model audit moved slowly. Quicker payments would have greatly reduced the shockwaves that rippled across the landlocked country. While the insurers fixed the issues resulting in that error, the incident remains a cautionary tale about the potential failures of agricultural ...

It's cool to be small. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have miniaturized the optical components required to cool atoms down to a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, the first step in employing them on microchips to drive a new generation of super-accurate atomic clocks, enable navigation without GPS, and simulate quantum systems. Cooling atoms is equivalent to slowing them down, which makes them a lot easier to study. At room temperature, atoms whiz through the air at nearly the speed of sound, some 343 meters per second. The rapid, randomly moving atoms have only fleeting interactions ...

Black women have higher recurrence and mortality rates than non-Hispanic white women for certain types of breast cancer, according to a University of Illinois Chicago researcher's study published recently in JAMA Oncology. Dr. Kent Hoskins, associate professor in the UIC College of Medicine's division of hematology/oncology, and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Research group in the University of Illinois Cancer Center, published the study, "Association of race/ethnicity and the 21-gene Recurrence Score with breast cancer-specific mortality among US women" in the Jan. 21 online issue. Hoskins and the research team sought to discover if breast cancer-specific mortality among women with estrogen ...

Simon Fraser University researchers have found evidence that large ambush-predatory worms--some as long as two metres--roamed the ocean floor near Taiwan over 20 million years ago. The finding, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, is the result of reconstructing an unusual trace fossil that they identified as a burrow of these ancient worms. According to the study's lead author, SFU Earth Sciences PhD student, Yu-Yen Pan, the trace fossil was found in a rocky area near coastal Taiwan. Trace fossils are part of a research field known as ichnology. "I was fascinated by this monster burrow at first glance," she says. "Compared to other trace fossils which are usually only a few tens of centimetres ...

A new collaborative study from researchers at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the University of Washington (UW) and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), reveals unexpected insights into how skin exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light can worsen clinical symptoms in autoimmune diseases such as lupus. Lupus, an autoimmune disease that can cause inflammation of the joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart and lungs, is caused when the immune system attacks its own tissue. Previous research has established that in up to 80 percent of lupus patients, sunlight exposure can trigger both local skin inflammation and systemic flares, including kidney disease. But little has been understood about the underlying mechanisms that drive this process. ...

Doctors may be able to predict their patients' risks of fatal coronary heart disease more accurately by taking into account the number of adverse social factors affecting them, according to a new study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. The researchers, whose findings appear Dec. 3 in Circulation, analyzed data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) Study that tracked cardiovascular-related health outcomes in more than 20,000 people for a decade. The new analysis showed that participants who had more adverse social determinants ...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus may enter and replicate in human cells by exploiting newly-identified sequences within cell receptors, according to work from two teams of scientists. The findings from both groups paint a more complete portrait of the various cellular processes that SARS-CoV-2 targets to not only enter cells, but to then multiply and spread. The results also hint that the sequences could potentially serve as targets for new therapies for patients with COVID-19, although validation in cells and animal models is needed. Scientists know that SARS-CoV-2 binds the ACE2 receptor on the surface of human cells, after which it enters the cell through a process known as endocytosis. Research has suggested that the virus may hijack or interfere with other processes such as cellular housekeeping ...

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy--CAR T--has revolutionized leukemia treatment. Unfortunately, the therapy has not been effective for treating solid tumors including childhood cancers such as neuroblastoma. Preclinical studies using certain CAR T against neuroblastoma revealed toxic effects. Now, a group of scientists at Children's Hospital Los Angeles have developed a modified version of CAR T that shows promise in targeting neuroblastoma, spares healthy brain tissue and more effectively kills cancer cells. Their study was published today in END ...

Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have detected the first Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its observable atmosphere. The END ...

Friends are more than just trusted confidantes, say Michigan State University researchers who have examined the cultural and health benefits of close human relationships in a new study. "Friendships are one of the untapped resources people can draw on to pursue a happier and healthier life. They literally cost nothing and have health and well-being benefits," said William Chopik, an assistant professor of psychology at MSU and the study's senior author. Published in Frontiers of Psychology, the study is the largest of its kind and included 323,200 participants from 99 countries. Prior studies compared only a few specific cultures to one another -- but ...

The year 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of a fundamental discovery that's taught in every biochemistry textbook. In 1921, German physician Otto Warburg observed that cancer cells harvest energy from glucose sugar in a strangely inefficient manner: rather than "burn" it using oxygen, cancer cells do what yeast do -- they ferment it. This oxygen-independent process occurs quickly, but leaves much of the energy in glucose untapped. Various hypotheses to explain the Warburg effect have been proposed over the years, including the idea that cancer cells have defective ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Many organizations are looking at effective ways to communicate the importance of wearing a mask, especially as highly transmissible new strains of coronavirus threaten to cause a surge in infections. Experts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggest positive messages are critical to supporting the effort. Their findings, described in a study published in December in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, give public health experts, leaders and communicators critical insight to craft messaging that could potentially increase mask usage during the pandemic. "As science evolved during ...

Abnormally hyperactive areas in the brain may help better predict the onset of Alzheimer's disease, according to findings of a research team led by Université de Montreal psychology professor Sylvie Belleville, scientific Director of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal research centre. Hyperactivation could be an early biomarker of Alzheimer's disease, the researchers say in their study published today in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, co-authored by Belleville and Nick Corriveau-Lecavalier, a doctoral student she supervises. Worried about their memory In their research, ...

A new study of Type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Japanese populations has uncovered a previously uncharacterized genetic variant that puts male carriers at greater risk for the disease, as well as the mechanism by which it does so. The impact of the variant was most pronounced in sedentary men; those with the variant had a 65% greater rate of T2D than sedentary men without it. Researchers from the University of Southern California, along with colleagues in Japan, led by Professor Noriyuki Fuku of Juntendo University, found higher rates of harmful belly fat and T2D among Japanese men with a specific mitochondrial gene variant. This variant, in the site of the mitochondrial peptide ...