The mitochondrial ribosome is an intricate machine that translates the organellar genome into functional proteins. The formation of the mitochondrial ribosome is a hierarchical process involving dozens of different components. The newly published cryo-EM study by Tobiasson et al in the EMBO Journal characterized a key step in this process. A complex of 2.2 MegaDalton representing a rare state of assembly of the large subunit was isolated from a model organism Trypanosoma brucei. Since the state was identified in only 3.5 % of the complexes, five cryo-EM datasets had to be collected at the SciLifeLab facility and ESRF in Grenoble and combined together. The resulting structure revealed ...

A new study published in Nature Communications suggests that the extinction of North America's largest mammals was not driven by overhunting by rapidly expanding human populations following their entrance into the Americas. Instead, the findings, based on a new statistical modelling approach, suggest that populations of large mammals fluctuated in response to climate change, with drastic decreases of temperatures around 13,000 years ago initiating the decline and extinction of these massive creatures. Still, humans may have been involved in more complex and indirect ways than simple models of overhunting suggest. Before around 10,000 years ago, North America was ...

Effective governance and investment decisions need to be informed by reliable data, not only about where groundwater exists, but also the rate at which groundwater is replenished. For the first time using ground measurements, a recent study has quantified groundwater recharge rates across the whole of Africa - averaged over a fifty-year period - which will help to identify the sustainability of water resources for African nations. The study, led by the British Geological Survey and involving an international team from the UK, South Africa, France, Nigeria, and America, developed a dataset of 134 existing recharge studies ...

Gender equity and racial diversity in medicine can promote creative solutions to complex health problems and improve the delivery of high-quality care, argue authors in an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "[T]here is no excuse for not working to change the climate and environment of the medical profession so that it is welcoming of diversity," writes lead author Dr. Andrea Tricco, Knowledge Translation Program, Unity Health, and the University of Toronto, with coauthors. "The medical profession should be professional, be collegial, show mutual respect, and facilitate the full potential and contribution of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions and nationalities for the benefit of patient ...

NASA, in collaboration with other leading space agencies, aims to send its first human missions to Mars in the early 2030s, while companies like SpaceX may do so even earlier. Astronauts on Mars will need oxygen, water, food, and other consumables. These will need to be sourced from Mars, because importing them from Earth would be impractical in the long term. In Frontiers in Microbiology, scientists show for the first time that Anabaena cyanobacteria can be grown with only local gases, water, and other nutrients and at low pressure. This makes it much easier to develop sustainable biological life support systems. "Here we show that cyanobacteria can use gases available in the Martian atmosphere, at a low total pressure, as their source of carbon and nitrogen. Under these conditions, ...

Hydrogen peroxide is used as a disinfectant, after dilution in water, to treat wounds. It is widely used across the industry as an eco-friendly oxidizing agent for impurity removal from semiconductors, waste treatment, etc. Currently, it is mainly produced by the sequential hydrogenation and oxidation of anthraquinone (AQ). However, this process is not only energy intensive and requires large-scale facilities, but AQ is also toxic. As an alternative to the AQ process, hydrogen peroxide direct synthesis from hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) using a palladium (Pd) catalyst was proposed. However, the commercialization of the technology ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Researchers from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine have developed and validated a short questionnaire to help patients report symptoms and assist healthcare providers in assessing the severity of symptoms, and in monitoring and adjusting treatment accordingly. The tool, called SymTrak-8, is a shorter version of the SymTrak-23. The questionnaire tracks symptoms such as pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, memory problems, anxiety and depression in older adults, enabling clinicians to provide better care for the diseases causing the symptoms. "These symptoms are commonly reported in primary care, but they can be a sign of a variety of different diseases, so tracking them is important," said Kurt ...

Teens may be more likely to use marijuana after legalization for adult recreational use PISCATAWAY, NJ - Adolescents who live in California may be more likely to use marijuana since adult recreational marijuana use was legalized in 2016, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. "The apparent increase in marijuana use among California adolescents after recreational marijuana legalization for adult use in 2016 is surprising given the steady downward trend in marijuana use during years before legalization," says lead researcher Mallie J. ...

A new first-of-its-kind study has questioned whether pub operators can effectively and consistently prevent COVID-19 transmission - after researchers observed risks arising in licensed premises last summer. Led by the University of Stirling, the research was conducted in May to August last year in a wide range of licensed premises which re-opened after a nationwide lockdown, and were operating under detailed guidance from government intended to reduce transmission risks. While observed venues had made physical and operational modifications on re-opening, ...

A technology that is widely used by commercial genetic testing companies is "extremely unreliable" in detecting very rare variants, meaning results suggesting individuals carry rare disease-causing genetic variants are usually wrong, according to new research published in the BMJ. After hearing of cases where women had surgery scheduled after wrongly being told they had very rare genetic variations in the gene BRCA1 that could significantly increase risk of breast cancer, a team at the University of Exeter conducted a large-scale analysis of the technology using data from nearly 50,000 people. They found that the technology wrongly identified ...

Recreational drinking, smoking, and drug use is linked to premature heart disease in young people, particularly younger women, finds research published online in the journal Heart. Those who regularly use 4 or more substances are 9 times as likely to be affected, the findings indicate. The numbers of new cases of heart disease (atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease) have been increasing in young adults, but the potential role of recreational substance use isn't entirely clear. To probe this further, the researchers explored whether the recreational use of tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, and illicit drugs, such as amphetamine and cocaine, might be linked to prematurely and extremely prematurely furred up arteries. They drew on information supplied ...

Ageism, sexism, and Western ideals of the nuclear family have excluded grandmothers from national and international policy initiatives to save newborn lives in the Global South, suggests an analysis published in the online journal BMJ Global Health. This is despite published research indicating that they are a valuable and influential resource for children's health and survival in many cultures, the study author points out. Around three out of 4 newborn deaths in the Global South occur in the first week of life--40% of them on the first day, and most of them at home. But ...

Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent. 1. Zika vaccine candidate shows promise in phase I trial Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5306 Editorial: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-0397 URL goes live when the embargo lifts The Zika virus candidate, Ad26.ZIKV.001, a replication-incompetent human adenovirus serotype 26 (ad26) vector showed ...

A new paper refines estimates of when herbivorous dinosaurs must have traversed North America on a northerly trek to reach Greenland, and points out an intriguing climatic phenomenon that may have helped them along the journey. The study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is authored by Dennis Kent, adjunct research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Lars Clemmensen from the University of Copenhagen. Previous estimates suggested that sauropodomorphs -- a group of long-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs that eventually included Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus ...

Experts have devised a novel approach to selecting photos for police lineups that helps witnesses identify culprits more reliably. In a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers - from the University of California San Diego and Duke University in the United States and the University of Birmingham in the U.K. - show for the first time that selecting fillers who match a basic description of the suspect but whose faces are less similar, rather than more, leads to better outcomes than traditional approaches in the field. The counterintuitive technique improves eyewitness performance by about 10 percent. "In ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT researchers have invented a new type of amputation surgery that can help amputees to better control their residual muscles and sense where their "phantom limb" is in space. This restored sense of proprioception should translate to better control of prosthetic limbs, as well as a reduction of limb pain, the researchers say. In most amputations, muscle pairs that control the affected joints, such as elbows or ankles, are severed. However, the MIT team has found that reconnecting these muscle pairs, allowing them to retain their normal push-pull ...

The threat of landslides is again in the news as torrential winter storms in California threaten to undermine fire-scarred hillsides and bring deadly debris flows crashing into homes and inundating roads. But it doesn't take wildfires to reveal the landslide danger, University of California, Berkeley, researchers say. Aerial surveys using airborne laser mapping -- LiDAR (light detection and ranging) -- can provide very detailed information on the topography and vegetation that allow scientists to identify which landslide-prone areas could give way during an expected rainstorm. This is especially ...

More than one-third of the Corn Belt in the Midwest - nearly 100 million acres - has completely lost its carbon-rich topsoil, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research that indicates the U.S. Department of Agricultural has significantly underestimated the true magnitude of farmland erosion. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by UMass Amherst graduate student Evan Thaler, along with professors Isaac Larsen and Qian Yu in the department of geosciences, developed a method using satellite ...

The links between cardiovascular disease and cognitive impairment begin years before the appearance of the first clinical symptoms of either condition. In a study carried out at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) in partnership with Santander Bank and neuroimaging experts at the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC, the research center of the Fundación Pasqual Maragall), the investigators have identified a link between brain metabolism, cardiovascular risk, and atherosclerosis during middle age, years before the first appearance of symptoms. The report, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), ...

Employing cardiovascular disease prevention strategies in mid-life may delay or stop the brain alterations that can lead to dementia later in life, according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Atherosclerosis, or buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on artery walls, is the underlying cause of most cardiovascular diseases, which is the leading cause of death around the world. Dementia is also among the top causes of death and disability around the world, with 50 million people currently living with dementia. ...

In a new study out of University of California San Diego School of Medicine, researchers found a drug used for heart failure improves symptoms associated with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, otherwise known as POTS. This complex, debilitating disorder affects the body's autonomic nervous system, causing a high heart rate, usually when standing. Writing in the February 15, 2021 online issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, study authors investigated the drug ivabradine and its effects on heart rate, quality of life and plasma norepinephrine levels in persons living with POTS. Norepinephrine is a stress hormone and neurotransmitter. In blood plasma, it is used as a measure of sympathetic nervous system activity. Trial participants experienced a reduction in ...

Young men with lower testosterone levels throughout puberty become more sensitive to how the hormone influences the brain's responses to faces in adulthood, according to new research published in JNeurosci. During prenatal brain development, sex hormones like testosterone organize the brain in permanent ways. But research suggests that testosterone levels during another developmental period -- puberty -- may have long-lasting effects on brain function, too. Liao et al. examined the relationship between puberty testosterone levels and the brain's response to faces. Liao's team recruited 500 men around age 19 who had been participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 15, 2021 - By capitalizing on a convergence of chemical, biological and artificial intelligence advances, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists have developed an unusually fast and efficient method for discovering tiny antibody fragments with big potential for development into therapeutics against deadly diseases. The technique, published today in the journal Cell Systems, is the same process the Pitt team used to extract tiny SARS-CoV-2 antibody fragments from llamas, which could become an inhalable COVID-19 treatment for humans. This approach has the potential to quickly identify multiple potent nanobodies that target different parts of a pathogen--thwarting ...

What The Study Did: Data from four studies of children and adolescents exposed to major U.S. hurricanes were pooled to examine posttraumatic stress symptoms after those events and the factors associated with them. Authors: Betty S. Lai, Ph.D., of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.36682) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article ...

Scientists say they have discovered a potential new target for immunotherapy of malignant brain tumors, which so far have resisted the ground-breaking cancer treatment based on harnessing the body's immune system. The discovery, reported in the journal END ...