CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Agricultural scientists who study climate change often focus on how increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will affect crop yields. But rising temperatures are likely to complicate the picture, researchers report in a new review of the topic. Published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, the review explores how higher temperatures influence plant growth and viability despite the greater availability of atmospheric CO2, a key component of photosynthesis. Excessive heat can reduce the efficiency of enzymes that drive photosynthesis and can hinder plants' ability to regulate CO2 uptake and water loss, the researchers write. Structural features can make plants more - or less - susceptible to heat stress. Ecosystem attributes - such as the size ...

The symptoms of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, can be as varied as they are confounding. There can be fatigue, pain, bleeding disorders and anxiety. Heart palpitations and lightheadedness are common. Some patients experience gastrointestinal issues or brain fog. For the most severely affected, the simple act of standing up can send them crumpling into unconsciousness. Though likely much more common than once thought, POTS remains something of a mystery. Many physicians have never heard of it. There's no lab test to confirm a diagnosis and no treatment to cure the condition. That could all be ...

The hummingbird is named after its pleasant humming sound when it hovers in front of flowers to feed. But only now has it become clear how the wing generates the hummingbird's namesake sound when it is beating rapidly at 40 beats per second. Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology, Sorama, a TU/e spin-off company, and Stanford University meticulously observed hummingbirds using 12 high-speed cameras, 6 pressure plates and 2176 microphones. They discovered that the soft and complex feathered wings of hummingbirds generate sound in a fashion ...

Tsukuba, Japan - Fungi are a vital part of nature's recycling system of decay and decomposition. Filamentous fungi spread over and penetrate surfaces by extending fine threads known as hyphae. Fungi that cause disease within living organisms can penetrate the spaces between tightly connected plant or animal cells, but how their hyphae do this, and why the hyphae of other fungal species do not, has been unclear. Now, a team led by Professor Norio Takeshita at University of Tsukuba, with collaborators at Nagoya University and in Mexico, has discovered a key feature that helps explain the differences among species. They compared seven fungi from different taxonomic groups, including some ...

Washington, D.C. - March 16, 2021 - For the first time, researchers have isolated the fungus Candida auris from a sandy beach and tidal swamp in a remote coastal wetland ecosystem. The discovery, reported this week in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, represents the first evidence that the pathogen thrives in a natural environment and is not limited to mammalian hosts. C. auris can cause infections resistant to major antifungal drugs, and since its identification in clinical patients 10 years ago scientists have sought to understand its origins.     A ...

SLOW walkers are almost four times more likely to die from COVID-19, and have over twice the risk of contracting a severe version of the virus, according to a team of researchers from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre led by Professor Tom Yates at the University of Leicester. The study of 412,596 middle-aged UK Biobank participants examined the relative association of body mass index (BMI) and self-reported walking pace with the risk of contracting severe COVID-19 and COVID-19 mortality. The analysis found slow walkers of a normal weight to be almost 2.5 times more likely to develop severe COVID-19 and 3.75 times more likely to die from the virus ...

Boston, Mass. - Just one year after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic, three COVID-19 vaccines are available in the United States, and more than 2 million Americans are receiving shots each day. Americans are eager to get back to business as usual, but experts caution that opening the economy prematurely could allow a potential resurgence of the virus. How foot traffic patterns in restaurants and bars, schools and universities, nail salons and barbershops affect the risk of transmission has been largely unknown. In an article published ...

LA JOLLA, CALIF. - March 16, 2021 - A Nature study authored by scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of Hong Kong shows that the leprosy drug clofazimine, which is FDA approved and on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, exhibits potent antiviral activities against SARS-CoV-2 and prevents the exaggerated inflammatory response associated with severe COVID-19. Based on these findings, a Phase 2 study evaluating clofazimine as an at-home treatment for COVID-19 could begin immediately. "Clofazimine is an ideal candidate for a COVID-19 treatment. It is safe, affordable, easy to make, taken as a pill and can be made globally available," ...

A study by Queen Mary University of London researchers, funded by Cancer Research UK, confirms the role of the oestrogen receptor biomarker in ductal carcinoma in situ and presents a new and more accurate method to predict long term outcomes for this pre-invasive stage of breast cancer. The study is published in Clinical Cancer Research. Oestrogen receptor (ER), a protein expressed in some breast cancer cells, is routinely tested in invasive breast cancer to predict long-term outcomes select treatment options. Its role in ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) has been previously unclear, and it is not generally evaluated in this pre-invasive stage of breast cancer. The new research confirms the role of ER in predicting ...

A new study in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that the use of high-strength nicotine e-cigarettes can help adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders quit smoking. Some 60-90% of people with schizophrenia smoke cigarettes, compared to 15-24% of the general population. The researchers from the University of Catania, in collaboration with colleagues from City University of New York and Weill Medical College of Cornell University, have assessed here the feasibility of using a high-strength nicotine e-cigarette to modify smoking behavior in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who smoke cigarettes. In this study ...

Finding the best materials for tomorrow's electronics is the goal of Professor Emanuele Orgiu of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). Among the materials in which Professor Orgiu is interested, some are made of molecules that can conduct electricity. He has demonstrated the role played by molecular vibrations on electron conductivity on crystals of such materials. This finding is important for applications of these molecular materials in electronics, energy and information storage. The study, conducted in collaboration with a team from the INRS and the ...

Researchers at the University of Surrey have found that non-invasive skin swab samples may be enough to detect COVID-19. The most widely used approach to testing for COVID-19 requires a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which involves taking a swab of the back of the throat and far inside the nose. In a paper published by Lancet E Clinical Medicine, chemists from Surrey teamed up with Frimley NHS Trust and the Universities of Manchester and Leicester to collect sebum samples from 67 hospitalised patients - 30 who had tested positive for COVID-19 and 37 who had tested negative. The samples were collected by gently swabbing a skin area rich in sebum - an oily, waxy substance produced by the body's sebaceous glands - such as the face, neck or back. The researchers analysed ...

Children who are exposed to abuse before they are eleven years old, and those exposed to abuse both in childhood and adolescence may be more likely to develop conduct problems (such as bullying or stealing) than those exposed to abuse in adolescence only and those who are not exposed to abuse, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry. A team of researchers at the Universities of Bath and Bristol examined data on 13,793 children and adolescents (51.6% boys), who were followed from ages four to 17 years, included in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, ...

Rapid deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning to tackle coronavirus must still go through ethical checks and balances, or we risk harming already disadvantaged communities in the rush to defeat the disease. This is according to researchers at the University of Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) in two articles, published today in the British Medical Journal, cautioning against blinkered use of AI for data-gathering and medical decision-making as we fight to regain some normalcy in 2021. "Relaxing ...

Coordination polymers (CPs) composed of organic radicals have been the focus of much research attention in recent years due to their potential application to a wide variety of next-generation electronics, from more flexible devices to 'spintronics' storage of information. Sadly, they often suffer from their limited stability and poor crystallinity. Researchers from Japan's Institute for Molecular Science (IMS), National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS) have developed a novel recipe that not only produces a stable material, but offers a variety of other useful attributes. Their findings appear in the journal ...

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is creating a viral archive, an archaeological record of history in the making. One aspect of this archive is increased environmental pollution, not least through discarded face-masks and gloves, collectively known as PPE, that characterise the pandemic. These items of plastic waste have become symbolic of the pandemic and have now entered the archaeological record, in particular face-masks. In the UK alone, 748 million items of PPE, amounting to 14 million items a day, were delivered to hospitals in the two or so months from ...

Researchers believe they may have discovered a possible cause of a mystery condition that can leave sufferers suddenly unable to walk, talk or see. It's hoped the study - led by the University of York and Hull York Medical School and supported by Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust - will pave the way for new treatments for Conversion disorder which affects around 800,000 people in the UK alone. The condition, also known as functional neurological disorder (FND), causes physical symptoms that would appear neurological but doctors can't find an injury or physical condition to explain them. Professor Christina van der Feltz-Cornelis from the Department of Health Sciences is leading the Conversion And Neuro-inflammation ...

Two-thirds of 1,120 healthcare workers surveyed worldwide would separate mothers and babies with a positive or unknown COVID-19 status. Implementing Kangaroo Mother Care and keeping mothers and babies together could save more than 125,000 newborn lives, representing 65x decreased risk of newborn death compared to the risk of newborn deaths from COVID-19. New research underscores the need for decision-makers and providers, particularly in LMICs, to protect and strengthen care for small and sick newborns during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the quality of care given to small and sick newborn babies in all regions of the world and threatening implementation of life-saving interventions, ...

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. Switching from TDF- to TAF-containing ART associated with the development of obesity in people living with HIV Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-4853 URL goes live when the embargo lifts Switching from antiretroviral therapy ...

In Switzerland about 17 000 people are living with an HIV infection, worldwide there are about 38 million. Today, the disease can be treated so successfully that a normal life can be ensured to a great extent. However, weight increases are often observed at the beginning of HIV therapy due to adaptations of the metabolism, which are part of a successful therapy. Therefore, body weight control plays an important role in HIV therapy. It is important, for example, to avoid metabolic problems that can lead to heart attacks or diabetes over the long term. Tenofovir is the drug used as part of the standard HIV therapies. The previously, widely used TDF-based therapy (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, TDF) has been associated with renal side effects and ...

An important Maya man buried nearly 1,300 years ago led a privileged yet difficult life. The man, a diplomat named Ajpach' Waal, suffered malnutrition or illness as a child, but as an adult he helped negotiate an alliance between two powerful dynasties that ultimately failed. The ensuing political instability left him in reduced economic circumstances, and he probably died in relative obscurity. During excavations at El Palmar, a small plaza compound in Mexico near the borders of Belize and Guatemala, archaeologists led by Kenichiro Tsukamoto, an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Riverside, discovered a hieroglyph-adorned stairway ...

(Boston)-- Newly published National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Consensus Diagnostic Criteria for Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome (TES) are the first expert consensus criteria developed for the clinical disorder associated with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) brain pathology. CTE is a degenerative brain disease associated with a history of repetitive head impacts, including those sustained in contact and collision sports such as American football and boxing. At this time, CTE can only be diagnosed after death through a neuropathological examination of brain tissue. There has been no accepted approach or agreed upon criteria for the diagnosis of CTE and its clinical manifestations during life until now. "The publication of these criteria ...

Exercise during pregnancy may let mothers significantly reduce their children's chances of developing diabetes and other metabolic diseases later in life, new research suggests. A study in lab mice has found that maternal exercise during pregnancy prevented the transmission of metabolic diseases from an obese parent - either mother or father - to child. If the finding holds true in humans, it will have "huge implications" for helping pregnant women ensure their children live the healthiest lives possible, the researchers report in a new scientific paper. This means that one day soon, a woman's first trip to the doctor after conceiving might include a prescription for an exercise ...

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, a stimulus package introduced by the Biden Administration, recently received Congress' approval. The stimulus package, like its two predecessors aimed at providing relief for individuals and businesses hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, includes another round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The American Rescue Plan includes $7.25 billion for PPP loans as well as a number of changes to make it easier for the smallest of businesses to gain access to the funding. With billions on the table for struggling small businesses, new research from the University of Florida Warrington College of ...

How important is fame? What about self-acceptance? Benevolence? The messages children between the ages of 8 and 12 glean from TV play a significant role in their development, influencing attitudes and behaviors as they grow into their teenage years and beyond, UCLA psychologists say. Now, a new report by UCLA's Center for Scholars and Storytellers assesses the values emphasized by television programs popular with tweens over each decade from 1967 to 2017, charting how 16 values have waxed and waned in importance during that 50-year span. Among the key findings is that fame, after nearly 40 years of ranking near the bottom (it was 15th in 1967, 1987 and 1997), rose to become the No. 1 ...