Children with documented child protection concerns are four times as likely to die before they reach their 16th birthday, according to confronting new research from the University of South Australia. The world first study identifies the extreme seriousness of familial child abuse and neglect, measuring for the first time the excess risk of death that children with documented child protection concerns face. Child abuse and neglect are prominent worldwide public health concerns affecting 20-50 per cent of children worldwide. In Australia, 20-25 per cent of children endure child maltreatment. Published in JAMA Network Open today, the study analysed deidentified data ...

A combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax was found to provide lasting disease remission in patients with newly diagnosed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Findings from the single-institution Phase II study were published today in JAMA Oncology and provide the longest follow-up data on patients treated with this drug regimen. Lead researchers included Nitin Jain, M.D., associate professor of Leukemia, William Wierda, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Leukemia; and Varsha Gandhi, Ph.D., department chair ad interim of Experimental Therapeutics. MD Anderson researchers previously reported results from this study showing that ibrutinib ...

The 30,000 or so genes making up the human genome contain the instructions vital to life. Yet each of our cells expresses only a subset of these genes in their daily functioning. The difference between a heart cell and a liver cell, for example, is determined by which genes are expressed--and the correct expression of genes can mean the difference between health and disease. Until recently, researchers investigating the genes underlying disease have been limited because traditional imaging techniques only allow for the study of a handful of genes at a time. A new technique developed by Jun Hee Lee, Ph.D., and his team at the University of Michigan Medical School, part of Michigan Medicine, uses high-throughput ...

A study published in the June 10, 2021 issue of Cell describes a remarkable new mechanism by which the body's own immune system can eliminate cancer cells without damaging host cells. The findings have the potential to develop first-in-class medicines that are designed to be selective for cancer cells and non-toxic to normal cells and tissues. If successful, this discovery may improve the practice of precision medicine by ensuring the right drug is delivered at the right dose at the right time. Our immune system plays a critical role in our ability to fight off diseases ...

Organic semiconductors have earned a reputation as energy efficient materials in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) that are employed in large area displays. In these and in other applications, such as solar cells, a key parameter is the energy gap between electronic states. It determines the wavelength of the light that is emitted or absorbed. The continuous adjustability of this energy gap is desirable. Indeed, for inorganic materials an appropriate method already exists - the so-called blending. It is based on engineering the band gap by substituting atoms in the material. This allows for a continuous tunability as, for example in aluminum gallium arsenide semiconductors. Unfortunately, this is not transferable to organic semiconductors ...

Leipzig. Soot particles from oil and wood heating systems as well as road traffic can pollute the air in Europe on a much larger scale than previously assumed. This is what researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) conclude from a measurement campaign in the Thuringian Forest in Germany. The evaluation of the sources showed that about half of the soot particles came from the surrounding area and the other half from long distances. From the researchers' point of view, this underlines the need to further reduce emissions of soot that ...

It is generally agreed that sperms "swim" by beating or rotating their soft tails. However, a research team led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has discovered that ray sperms move by rotating both the tail and the head. The team further investigated the motion pattern and demonstrated it with a robot. Their study has expanded the knowledge on the microorganisms' motion and provided inspiration for robot engineering design. The research is co-led by Dr Shen Yajing, Associate Professor from CityU's Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), and Dr Shi Jiahai, Assistant Professor of the Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMS). Their findings have been published in ...

An electrode coating just one molecule thick can significantly enhance the performance of an organic photovoltaic cell, KAUST researchers have found. The coating outperforms the leading material currently used for this task and may pave the way for improvements in other devices that rely on organic molecules, such as light-emitting diodes and photodetectors. Unlike the most common photovoltaic cells that use crystalline silicon to harvest light, organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs) rely on a light-absorbing layer of carbon-based molecules. Although OPVs cannot yet rival the performance of silicon cells, they could be easier and cheaper to manufacture at a very large scale using ...

The type of material present under glaciers has a big impact on how fast they slide towards the ocean. Scientists face a challenging task to acquire data of this under-ice landscape, let alone how to represent it accurately in models of future sea-level rise. "Choosing the wrong equations for the under-ice landscape can have the same effect on the predicted contribution to sea-level rise as a warming of several degrees", says Henning Åkesson, who led a new published study on Petermann Glacier in Greenland. Glaciers and ice sheets around the world currently lose more than 700,000 Olympic swimming pools of water every day. Glaciers form by the transformation of snow into ice, which is later melted by ...

With the start of the United Nations' Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which runs through 2030, a tremendous amount of money and effort will be put into re-growing forests, making over-exploited farmland productive, and reviving damaged marine environments. This is a good, and vital, initiative. Without quick action to clean up the fallout of humanity's scorched-earth economic systems, goals on hunger, biodiversity and climate will be unattainable. But in examining restoration projects already underway across the globe, a group of scientists has found that restoration action is at risk of failure if it doesn't make ...

Palaeoclimatologists study climate of the geological past. Using an innovative technique, new research by an international research team led by Niels de Winter (VUB-AMGC & Utrecht University) shows for the first time that dinosaurs had to deal with greater seasonal differences than previously thought. De Winter: "We used to think that when the climate warmed like it did in the Cretaceous period, the time of the dinosaurs, the difference between the seasons would decrease, much like the present-day tropics experience less temperature difference between ...

Inaccessible workplaces, normative departmental cultures and 'ableist' academic systems have all contributed to the continued underrepresentation and exclusion of disabled researchers in the Geosciences, according to an article published today (Thursday 8 June) in Nature Geosciences. The article argues that changes to both working spaces and attitudes are urgently needed if institutions are to attract, safeguard and retain people with disabilities. Anya Lawrence, a disabled early career researcher in the University of Birmingham's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science and author of the piece says: "Disabled geoscientists like myself face barrier after barrier on a daily ...

People who smoke, suffer from high blood pressure, obesity, or diabetes are not only at greater risk of suffering a stroke, heart attack, or dementia. For them, the risk of being affected by depressive mood or depression also increases. The more risk factors a person has, the more likely this is. Until now, however, it was unclear whether this probability also depends on their age. Earlier studies had already shown for other diseases such as dementia or stroke that a combination of several risk factors leads to a more frequent onset of the disease between the ages of 40 and 65 than in old age. Until now, however, it was unclear whether this also applies to depression. Researchers ...

MORGANTOWN, W. Va.-- Joining a club that sparks a new interest, playing a new intramural sport or finding a new group of friends may be just as indicative of a college freshman's loss of self-control as drinking or drug use, according to new research at West Virginia University. Self-control--the ability to exercise personal restraint, inhibit impulsivity and make purposeful decisions--in that first year partly depends on a student's willingness to try new things, including things adults would call "good." That's a new finding, according to Kristin Moilanen, associate professor of child development and family studies. The study, "Predictors of initial status and change in self-control during the college transition," observed 569 first year ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated that a class of interwoven composite materials called semi-interpenetrating polymer networks (sIPNs) can be produced by living cells. The approach could make these versatile materials more biologically compatible for biomedical applications such as time-delayed drug delivery systems. The research appears online on June 8 in the journal Nature Communications. The concept of sIPNs has been around for more than 100 years and has been used in automotive parts, medical devices, molding compounds and engineering plastics. The general idea is for one or more polymers to assemble around another polymer scaffold in such a way that they become interlocked. Even though ...

Humans expect that AI is Benevolent and trustworthy. A new study reveals that at the same time humans are unwilling to cooperate and compromise with machines. They even exploit them. Picture yourself driving on a narrow road in the near future when suddenly another car emerges from a bend ahead. It is a self-driving car with no passengers inside. Will you push forth and assert your right of way, or give way to let it pass? At present, most of us behave kindly in such situations involving oth-er humans. Will we show that same kindness towards autonomous vehicles? Using methods ...

As COVID-19 restrictions ease nationwide and more people host indoor gatherings, investing in a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifier might not be a bad idea, says a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researcher. Several published studies evaluating aerosols and submicron particles similar in size to the SARS-CoV-2 virion have shown that portable HEPA purifiers are able to significantly reduce airborne COVID-19 particles, says Ahmad Sedaghat, MD, PhD, director of the UC Division of Rhinology, Allergy and Anterior Skull Base Surgery. Sedaghat identified the medical literature showing published studies on the effectiveness ...

Acoustic waves in gases, liquids, and solids usually travel at an almost constant speed of sound. So-called rotons are an exception: their speed of sound changes significantly with the wavelength, and it is also possible that the waves travel backwards. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are studying the possibilities of using rotons in artificial materials. These computer-designed metamaterials, produced by ultra-precise 3D laser printing, might be used in the future to manipulate or direct sound in ways that have never been possible before. A report on the researchers' work has been published in Nature Communications. (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23574-2) Rotons are quasiparticles, which means that they behave ...

New Orleans, LA - Research conducted at LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence reports that Elovanoids, bioactive chemical messengers made from omega-3 very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids discovered by the Bazan lab in 2017, may block the virus that causes COVID-19 from entering cells and protect the air cells (alveoli) of the lung. Their findings are published online in Scientific Reports, available here. "Because the compounds are protective against damage in the brain and retina of the eye and the COVID-19 virus clearly damages the lung, ...

Fraud is going uninvestigated by police who are "hiding behind the veil" of the Action Fraud national crime reporting agency. In his paper published this week in Policing, Professor Mark Button, director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth argues that, Action Fraud, which has been widely derided, has become a useful veil from which the police can hide their inadequate response. Figures from Action Fraud, the arm of the police responsible for recording scams and fraud, show that between 2019 and 2020, over 800,000 people reported being a victim of fraud, with £2.3bn finding its way into criminal hands. However, Professor Button calculated just 0.6 per cent of police officers ...

For two decades, the number of Americans who die each year from drug overdoses has steadily risen, from less than 20,000 in 1999 to more than 80,000 in 2020. By studying patterns of these drug-related fatalities, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego State University (SDSU), and international collaborators have designed and validated a prediction model to signal counties at risk of future overdose death outbreaks. The goal of the open-source tool is to predict and prevent deaths through early deployment of public health resources. Findings were published June 9, 2021 by Lancet Public Health. "A big challenge for public health experts is figuring out which parts of the country are at greatest risk of ...

WASHINGTON -- In a new study, researchers show that the fiber optic cables that carry data across the world's oceans can also be used to sense geophysical events and monitor ocean and seafloor conditions. Although buoys and cabled observatories can be used to monitor parts of the ocean, the information they provide is limited to their immediate surroundings. The new approach could offer a way to use the global network of subsea fiber optic cables to study otherwise inaccessible parts of the ocean. "Once perfected, this new technique will allow geophysical sensing in the ocean depths, which are largely unexplored because of a lack of instrumentation that works in this environment," said Zhongwen Zhan, assistant professor of geophysics at Caltech. ...

A CABI-led study has revealed that the success of Classical Biological Control (CBC) in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East is only rarely dependent on the released biological control agent, but more often on other factors, such as the target pest, its host plant, or the circumstances of the releases. The research - published in the journal NeoBiota - suggests that the overall success of biological control introductions of insect predators and parasitoids against herbivorous insects in the Western Paleartic ecozone is comparable to the success of CBC worldwide. However, over 100 years of CBC in this region, has resulted in no overall rise in success in the fight against insect pests - including those of crops such as citrus, olive, potato, ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of understanding precisely how diseases spread throughout networks of transportation. However, rigorously determining the connection between disease risk and changing networks--which either humans or the environment may alter--is challenging due to the complexity of these systems. In a paper publishing on Thursday in the END ...

Quantum coherence is a key ingredient in many fundamental tests and applications of quantum technology including quantum communication, imaging, computing, sensing and metrology. However, the transfer of quantum coherence in free-space has so far been limited to direct line-of-sight channels as atmospheric turbulence and scattering degrade the quality of coherence severely. In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, researchers from the University of Waterloo have successfully demonstrated the transfer and recovery of quantum coherence using photons scattered in free-space ...