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 ...

New study from Warwick Medical School examined the effectiveness of three alternatives to CPR, concluding that none were beneficial First comprehensive systematic review of evidence on precordial thump, percussion pacing and cough CPR - all of which have fallen out of routine practice Precordial thump is often portrayed in television and film, and cough CPR misinformation circulates frequently on social media - but neither are effective Reaffirms CPR as the 'gold standard' technique when assisting someone experiencing a cardiac arrest A technique frequently portrayed in dramatic resuscitation scenes in television ...

Scientists created a framework to test the predictions of biological optimality theories, including evolution. Evolution adapts and optimizes organisms to their ecological niche. This could be used to predict how an organism evolves, but how can such predictions be rigorously tested? The Biophysics and Computational Neuroscience group led by professor Gašper Tkačik at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria has now created a mathematical framework to do exactly that. Evolutionary adaptation often finds clever solutions to challenges posed by different environments, from how to survive in the dark depths of the oceans to creating intricate organs such as an eye or an ear. But can we mathematically predict these outcomes? This is ...

Fossilised remains of a fish that grew as big as a great white shark and the largest of its type ever found have been discovered by accident. The new discovery by scientists from the University of Portsmouth is a species of the so-called 'living fossil' coelacanths which still swim in the seas, surviving the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs. The discovery was purely serendipitous. Professor David Martill, a palaeontologist from the University's School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, had been asked to identify a large ...

In plants, the "meristem" refers to a type of tissue comprising undifferentiated cells from which various other plant organs can develop through cell division and differentiation. These "plant stem cells" give rise to shoots, leaves and roots, but also spikes and flowers. The research team including members of the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences CEPLAS investigated the function of a gene responsible for the different spike forms of wheat and barley. This gene controls the activity of the spike and floret meristems and thus the number of spikelet ...

The research team that developed a biosensor that first recorded that a distinct gradient of the plant growth hormone gibberellin correlated with plant cell size has now revealed how this distribution pattern is created in roots. Starting when a plant embryo forms within a seed and continuing throughout the plant lifecycle, undifferentiated stem cells undergo radical transformations into specialised root, stem, leaf and reproductive organ cells. This transformation relies on a suite of molecules called phytohormones that, much like human hormones, can move between cells and tissues and trigger distinct biological processes across the bodyplan. While it was not known at the time, mutations involving the gibberellin class of ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 15, 2021 - Why do patients who receive antipsychotic medications to manage schizophrenia and bipolar disorder quickly gain weight and develop prediabetes and hyperinsulemia? The question remained a mystery for decades, but in a paper published today in Translational Psychiatry, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine finally cracked the enigma. Antipsychotic drugs, scientists showed, not only block dopamine signaling in the brain but also in the pancreas, leading to uncontrolled production of blood glucose-regulating hormones and, eventually, obesity and diabetes. "There are dopamine theories of schizophrenia, drug addiction, depression and neurodegenerative disorders, and we are presenting a dopamine theory of metabolism," said lead ...

For more than a decade, governments in countries across the world have made significant progress to expand their protected areas network to conserve the planet's biodiversity. According to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology, the locations of these protected areas do not take into account the potential long-term effects of climate change in these protected areas. Creating and managing protected areas, such as national parks, is key for biodiversity conservation. As the climate changes, however, species will disperse in order to maintain their specific habitat needs. Species that were in protected areas ...

Almost half the patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) require invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), a medical procedure that guarantees a sufficient supply of oxygen to their organs and tissues. The therapy involves connecting patients to a machine that substitutes their spontaneous breathing. In recent months it has been in general use in intensive-care patients affected by COVID-19. Although it can often save a patient's life, invasive mechanical ventilation is not risk-free: there can be accidental injury during intubation or extubation or the muscles ...

A NEW study from the University of Chichester has shed light on how people coped psychologically with the sudden and life-changing disruption caused by COVID-19. This new publication, by Chichester's Professor Laura Ritchie and PhD candidate Benjamin Sharpe, in collaboration with Professor Daniel Cervone of the University of Illinois at Chicago, provides a unique snapshot into people's understanding of their goals and self-beliefs amidst a shared, unexpected alteration of the daily landscape during lockdown. Ritchie and colleagues collected their ...

HOUSTON - (Feb. 15, 2021) - Collagen is the king of biological proteins, and now it has a SCEPTTr. That's the handle of an algorithm developed by Rice University scientists who study natural and synthetic versions of collagen, which accounts for about a third of the body's proteins and forms the fibrous glue in skin, bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments. The program -- full name, Scoring function for Collagen-Emulating-Peptides' Temperature of Transition -- accurately predicts the stability of collagen triple helices, the primary structure that forms fibrils. The Rice team led by chemist and bioengineer Jeffrey ...

According to some estimates, chronic pain affects up to 40% of Americans, and treating it frustrates both clinicians and patients--a frustration that's often compounded by a hesitation to prescribe opioids for pain. A new study from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry confirms that a low dose of a drug called naltrexone is a good option for patients with orofacial and chronic pain, without the risk of addiction, said first author Elizabeth Hatfield, a clinical lecturer in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Hospital Dentistry. Naltrexone is a semisynthetic opioid first developed in ...

HOUSTON - (Feb. 15, 2021) - Rice University engineers have suggested a colorful solution to next-generation energy collection: Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) in your windows. Led by Rafael Verduzco and postdoctoral researcher and lead author Yilin Li of Rice's Brown School of Engineering, the team designed and built foot-square "windows" that sandwich a conjugated polymer between two clear acrylic panels. That thin middle layer is the secret sauce. It's designed to absorb light in a specific wavelength and guide it to panel edges lined with solar cells. Conjugated polymers are chemical compounds ...

Researchers from the University of Southampton and Université Laval, Canada, have successfully measured for the first time back-reflection in cutting-edge hollow-core fibres that is around 10,000 times lower than conventional optical fibres. This discovery, published this week in The Optical Society's flagship Optica journal, highlights yet another optical property in which hollow-core fibres are capable of outperforming standard optical fibres. Research into improved optical fibres is key to enable progress in numerous photonic applications. Most notably, these would improve Internet performance ...

Oncotarget recently published "Polymerized human hemoglobin increases the effectiveness of cisplatin-based chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer" which reported that unfortunately, a significant portion of NSCLC patients relapse due to cisplatin chemoresistance. Administration of hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers is a promising strategy to alleviate hypoxia in the tumor, which may make cisplatin more effective. The R-state PolyHb administered in this study is unable to deliver O2 unless under severe hypoxia which significantly limits its oxygenation potential. In vitro sensitivity studies indicate that the administration of PolyHb increases the effectiveness of cisplatin under ...

BOSTON -- While PCR testing has been used widely for COVID-19 diagnosis, it only provides information on who is currently infected. Antibody testing can tell who has been previously exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, a metric that is essential for tracking spread across a population. It may also, as a study recently published in the journal Nature Communications shows, hold the key to understanding the immune response to the virus. Led by Galit Alter, PhD, Core Member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, this study found that while antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 may be a good way to measure exposure to the virus, their presence alone wasn't enough to determine if a person had long-lasting protection. Instead, antibody effector functions associated ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. - Radiomics--the extraction of very detailed quantitative features from medical images--provides a refined understanding of how cocaine use and other risk factors affect the course of coronary artery disease, according to a study published in Radiology. Researchers said the study shows the power of radiomics to improve understanding of not just cardiovascular disease, but cancer and other conditions as well. Coronary artery disease typically develops over time as plaque builds up inside the arteries. This process, known as atherosclerosis, ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. - Researchers using MRI have found significant abnormalities in the eyes of some people with severe COVID-19, according to a study published in the journal Radiology. The study results support the need for eye screening in these patients to provide appropriate treatment and management of potentially severe ophthalmological manifestations of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 100 million people since it began early in 2020. While the virus primarily attacks the lungs, it has been linked with eye abnormalities ...

Launched in 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) stands out as one of the largest, internationally coordinated global public health major projects conducted to date, with cumulative spending of over $16.5 billion for 1988-2018, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). More than 30 years later, stubborn outbreaks of wild poliovirus still occur in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where cases have been increasing since 2018. The global eradication of polio continues to be an elusive goal. A special issue of the journal Risk Analysis, titled "Global Poliovirus Risk Management and Modeling," looks at the current status of polio eradication ...