A team of international researchers, led by the University of Bologna, has discovered the fossilised remains of methane-cycling microbes that lived in a hydrothermal system beneath the seafloor 3.42 billion years ago. The microfossils are the oldest evidence for this type of life and expand the frontiers of potentially habitable environments on the early Earth, as well as other planets such as Mars. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, analysed microfossil specimens in two thin layers within a rock collected from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. This region, near the border with Eswatini and Mozambique, contains some of the oldest and best-preserved sedimentary rocks ...

GALVESTON, TEXAS - A new study published in Science Translational Medicine reports on the Ebola vaccine-mediated protection of five mucosal vaccine vectors based on the human and avian paramyxoviruses. The study comprehensively characterized the antibody response to each vaccine, identifying features and functions that were elevated in survivors and that could serve as vaccine correlates of protection. The multi-year study, led by Alexander Bukreyev, PhD, of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Galveston National Laboratory looked at whether all the vaccines conferred protection and produced ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Write down the benefits of obtaining a college degree and, more than likely, all the items on the completed list will relate to graduates: higher salaries, autonomous jobs and better access to health care, for instance. All of those factors, supported by extensive research, help draw a direct line connecting higher education and health. Similar research suggests how the education of parents affects their children. Now, two University at Buffalo sociologists have used a new wave of data from a survey launched in 1994 to further extend the geometry linking educational attainment and health that demonstrates another dimension of the intergenerational effects ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A new study from the University of Missouri found the unanticipated transitions to virtual schooling due to COVID-19 exposed the lack of digital resources among Black families in the United States, including access to Wi-Fi and technological savviness. As two-thirds of the country's Black children are born into single-parent households, the findings help explain the extensive stress virtual schooling caused for many Black families trying to keep their children learning and engaged online while at home during the pandemic. "What we found was parents and caregivers often felt disempowered in the rapidly changing environment, as they did not necessarily feel equipped with the tools or technological savviness to effectively engage in their children's ...

T lymphocytes, or T cells, are immune cells with diverse roles in building the body's immunity. How does one particular cell type fight against a host of different pathogens? The key to this adaptability is in alternative splicing, wherein the cell produces multiple forms of proteins for identifying different types of invading viruses and microbes, as well as destroying cancer cells. So, it is not surprising that finding ways to improve the production of T cells with enhanced pathogen recognition capacity is an actively researched area of modern science. In 2011, scientists from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea discovered a protein called NSrp70, which ...

Urea is a critical element found in everything from fertilizers to skin care products. Large-scale production of urea, which is naturally a product of human urine, is a massive undertaking, making up about 2% of global energy use and emissions today. For decades, scientists and engineers have sought to make this process more energy efficient as demand for fertilizer grows with increased population. An international research team that includes scientists and engineers from The University of Texas at Austin has devised a new method for making urea that is more environmentally friendly than today's process ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Roadless national forests in the American West burn more often and at a slightly higher severity than national forests with roads, but the end result for the roadless forests is greater fire resilience, Oregon State University researchers say. The findings, published today in Environmental Research Letters, provide a key piece of the puzzle for a region trying to develop better approaches to living with fire in the wake of a 2020 fire season that brought historically disastrous blazes. Limiting smoke exposure and reducing risk to water supplies, habitat and human infrastructure from huge, uncontrolled fires are important goals of policymakers, said James Johnston, a researcher in the OSU College of Forestry and the ...

Hundreds of millions of people live on river deltas around the world, making them central to rich diversity in culture and thriving economies. As deltas face environmental degradation and ongoing climate change, governments have sought ever more drastic measures to prevent flooding and protect society and its infrastructure. But, these policies can harm the natural environment and lead to loss of precious land. Striking a balance between limiting deltaic land loss and maximizing cultural and economic benefit to society is a top priority in sustainability policy. Researchers ...

With its breathtaking views and striking stature, the Golden Gate bridge certainly deserves its title as one of the modern wonders of the world. Its elegant art deco style and iconic towers offer visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for astounding photographs. Stretching for almost 2 miles, the Golden Gate serves as a critical gateway, facilitating the exchange of ideas, commodities, and people. Though not to the same grandiose scale, our brains have similar gateways to connect neurons. These tiny compartments, called synapses, enable the dynamic exchange of information and the formation of neural circuits. To build these circuits, developing ...

Firefighters battling wildfires in the western United States use a variety of suppression tactics to get the flames under control. Prescribed burns, or controlled fires intentionally set to clear shrubs and forest litter before a wildfire ever ignites, can make fire suppression operations almost three times as effective in limiting wildfire severity, according to a new study by researchers from Penn State, the U.S. National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. "A lot happens once a fire starts burning," said Lucas Harris, a postdoctoral scholar in geography at Penn State. "Crews on the ground remove vegetation ...

A survey conducted in March 2020 reports that early concern for COVID-19 outmatched concern for influenza, but respondents may have been less focused on their perceived likelihood of contracting COVID-19 and more concerned with its severe impact on their health. Additionally, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began advising social distancing recommendations in the early months of the pandemic, a majority of adults surveyed believed in the effectiveness of social distancing and intended to follow CDC guidelines. Health agency websites like the CDC were the most frequently identified as "trusted sources" for COVID-19 information, as opposed to substantial ...

More and more companies are using chatbots in customer services. Due to advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, chatbots are often indistinguishable from humans when it comes to communication. But should companies let their customers know that they are communicating with machines and not with humans? Researchers at the University of Göttingen investigated. Their research found that consumers tend to react negatively when they learn that the person they are talking to is, in fact, a chatbot. However, if the chatbot makes mistakes and cannot solve a customer's problem, the disclosure triggers a positive reaction. The results of the study were published ...

HOUSTON - The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center's Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recently published studies in basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include a promising combination therapy for acute myeloid leukemia, understanding mechanisms driving resistance to PARP inhibitors, a therapeutic neoantigen vaccine to treat lung cancer, a novel treatment for triple-negative breast cancer and a new understanding of how telomeres may drive inflammatory bowel disease. Combination therapy shows promise in mouse models of acute myeloid leukemia Acute ...

When a hurricane threatens to make landfall, forecasters offer a barrage of informational tools to communicate the risk of it coming through coastal and inland communities, so residents can prepare for its impact. Chief among these tools is the "cone of uncertainty" - a visual depiction of the storm's potential path. But is the cone doing its job? Studies show that people often misinterpret this popular weather graphic. They don't understand the information it's conveying: the likely path of a storm, and its likelihood to deviate from that path based on historical data. The graphic ...

Americans tend to be far more consumed with national politics than with local politics. As places like Utah, Arizona, Michigan and Maryland gear up to hold local elections this summer and fall, history predicts that they will see an average of 29-37% fewer voters than they would were their elections held "on cycle," in tandem with state and federal elections. This apparent indifference to local policies can have serious consequences, according to BYU research recently published in the American Political Science Review. The study found that local governments formed in "off-cycle" years (like 2021) are less responsive to the majority's preferences and more responsive instead to organized interest groups, particularly when the interest groups' desires oppose those of ...

Lessons from Primary Care and Behavioral Health Integration Should Inform Health Care Practices to Identify and Address Patients' Social, Economic Needs Although interest is accelerating around addressing patients' social and economic needs, effective and sustainable strategies for integrating social care practices into health care delivery have not yet been identified. This paper synthesizes learnings from primary care and behavioral health care integration and translates them into organizing principles with the goal of advancing social care integration practices ...

Heart attack, or myocardial infarction, is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Although modern surgical techniques, diagnostics and medications have greatly improved early survival from these events, many patients struggle with the long-term effects of permanently damaged tissue, and the 5-year mortality rate remains high. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a minimally invasive exosome spray that helped repair rat hearts after myocardial infarction. Scientists have explored using stem cell therapy as a way to regrow tissue after a heart attack. But introducing stem cells directly to the heart can be risky because they could trigger an immune response or grow uncontrollably, resulting in a tumor. Therefore, researchers have tried ...

Approximately 642 million people are expected to be diagnosed with diabetes by 2040, with Asians representing more than 55% of cases. Researchers conducted the first large-scale study since the implementation of medical insurance in China to evaluate the complexity and cost of drug therapy for Asian people with diabetes. They used available treatment records from Beijing's medical insurance bureau from 2016 to 2018 and looked at five outcomes, including: 1) quantity of outpatient medications, 2) number of co-morbidities diagnosed, 3) estimated annual cost of the outpatient drug regimen, 4) drug therapy strategies for diabetic patients and 5) the most commonly ...

Summertime is here, and that often means long, lazy days at the beach, water skiing and swimming. Life jackets and swimsuits are essential gear for these activities, but if not dried thoroughly, they can develop a gross, musty smell. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a one-step method to create a buoyant cotton fabric for these applications that is also oil- and water-repellant. Watch a video of the fabric here. Waterproof and oil-proof fabrics are in high demand for recreational water activities because of their low drag and self-cleaning properties. And while cotton is a popular fabric, it's hydrophilic, so most liquids and dirt can easily mess it ...

Given the aging world population, there is international interest in helping older people live longer and healthier lives. Avoiding unplanned hospital admissions is an important aspect of care for older people. Palapar et al focused on the way primary care practice characteristics influence outcomes such as unplanned hospitalizations, function and well-being. They investigated the variability in older people's outcomes by primary care physician and practice characteristics in New Zealand and the Netherlands. Findings revealed that none of the physician or practice characteristics ...

More than 40% of physicians in the United States reported at least one symptom of burnout, which is particularly high among family physicians. This study examined a nationally-representative sample of family physicians to determine whether physician race-ethnicity was associated with burnout among a nationally-representative sample of family physicians. Of the 3,0916 physicians studied, 450 (15%) were from racial-ethnic groups underrepresented in medicine (UIM), which include Blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, American Indians and Pacific Islanders who together comprise 30-35% of the general population yet account for only 12.4% of family physicians. The study findings support the researchers' hypothesis ...

Drs. Alicia Cohen and Emilia De Marchis provide commentary on three articles in this issue of Annals of Family Medicine, specifically Greenwood-Ericksen et al's research on Michigan's Federally Qualified Health Centers; Hoeft et al's special report about translating lessons learned from behavioral health integration into the social care realm; and Fessler et al's narrative about how they as medical students stepped away from their medical clerkships to act as community volunteers for people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. All three articles serve as a timely call to action, reminding those in health care that work remains to meet the needs of patients, particularly in screening for and intervening on identified social risks. The urgency of this work has only been ...

From domoic acid poisoning in seabirds to canine distemper in raccoons, wildlife face a variety of threats and illnesses. Some of those same diseases make their way to humans and domestic animals in our increasingly shared environment. A new early detection surveillance system for wildlife helps identify unusual patterns of illness and death in near real-time by tapping into data from wildlife rehabilitation organizations across California. This system has the potential to expand nationally and globally. It was created by scientists at the University of California Davis' School of Veterinary Medicine with partners at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife ...

ITHACA - Ligands are much like nanosized barnacles, binding to many kinds of surfaces. This form of adsorption is crucial for a range of chemical processes, from purification and catalysis to the design of nanomaterials. However, understanding how ligands interact with the surface of nanoparticles has been a challenge to study. Adsorbed ligands are difficult to identify because there are other molecules in the mix, and nanoparticle surfaces are uneven and multifaceted, which means they require incredibly high spatial resolution to be scrutinized. Cornell researchers led by Peng Chen, the Peter J.W. Debye Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, have used a breakthrough imaging technique they ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- For decades, scientists have tried to make reliable lithium-metal batteries. These high-performance storage cells hold 50% more energy than their prolific, lithium-ion cousins, but higher failure rates and safety problems like fires and explosions have crippled commercialization efforts. Researchers have hypothesized why the devices fail, but direct evidence has been sparse. Now, the first nanoscale images ever taken inside intact, lithium-metal coin batteries (also called button cells or watch batteries) challenge prevailing theories and could help make future high-performance batteries, such as for electric vehicles, safer, more powerful and longer lasting. "We're learning that we should be using separator materials tuned for ...