GALVESTON, TEXAS -- A new research study leveraging a database from the largest equal access health system in the US, the Department of Veteran Affairs, offers insight into the outcome of specific treatment patterns for advanced bladder cancer patients. Lead author Dr. Stephen Williams of the University of Texas Medical Branch says it is one of the first comprehensive studies looking at both the outcomes and the costs of treating a potentially lethal and devastating type of bladder cancer. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open, a ...

Leesburg, VA, April 1, 2021--A Scientific E-Poster to be presented at the 2021 ARRS Virtual Annual Meeting reveals increased rates of emphysema in marijuana smokers, compared to both non-smokers and tobacco-only smokers, as well as greater rates of paraseptal emphysema. "Marijuana smoking is also associated with airways disease, including bronchial wall thickening, bronchiectasis, and bronchiolar mucoid impaction, in comparison to both the control group and tobacco-only group," wrote first author Luke Murtha of Ottawa Hospital in Canada. Querying imaging reports on Ottawa Hospital's PACS, Murtha and colleagues identified three ...

Leesburg, VA, April 1, 2021--A Scientific E-Poster to be presented at the 2021 ARRS Virtual Annual Meeting found the COVID-19 "Safer at Home" order resulted in a significant decline in radiology ordering utilization, outpatient consultations, and emergency department (ED) visits. "There was a disproportionate impact in the outpatient setting, especially on screening and other nonessential imaging," wrote Evan Raff of Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, which "mirrors the impact that the order has had on clinical services, as reflected in outpatient consult volumes, ...

Osaka, Japan - As the worldwide demand for electronic devices continues to grow, so too does the strain on the finite resources used in their production, such as metals and fossil fuels. In an effort to provide renewable alternatives, researchers from Osaka University have developed a nanocarbon material for electronics applications made from chitin derived from crab shells. Their findings are published in Journal of Materials Chemistry C. Nanocarbon materials show significant promise for use in electronic devices. In particular, those with porous ...

A team of researchers has sought to mitigate the mental health impacts of COVID-19 on adolescents by harnessing previous research on youth physical and mental health. Their review also drew on the psychological stressors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami on children. The results were published in the Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine on March 26, 2021. "We combined past research on the psychological stress on children with present studies on the effects of COVID-19," said Junko Okuyama of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Tohoku University Hospital and lead author of the study. "We found ...

WASHINGTON--Endocrine-disrupting chemicals may influence hormonal shifts during pregnancy as well as contribute to postpartum depression, according to a small study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Postpartum depression is a serious and common psychiatric disorder that affects up to 1 in 5 childbearing women. The cause of postpartum depression is not well understood, but hormonal changes during pregnancy have been found to be an important factor. Harmful chemicals such as bisphenols and phthalates that are found in plastics and personal care products are known to affect sex hormones. "We found that phthalate ...

Children and young adults who receive CAR T-cell therapy for the most common childhood cancer - acute lymphoblastic leukemia - suffer remarkably fewer relapses and are far more likely to survive when the treatment is paired with a subsequent stem cell transplant, a new study finds. The research, with an average follow up of nearly five years, suggests that stem cell transplants offer long-term benefits for young patients who receive the cutting-edge immunotherapy. CAR T-cell therapy results in complete remission in 60%-100% of patients initially, but the relapse rate is high. However, among those who received a stem cell transplant after CARs, the relapse rate was less than 10% two years later. "More than 50% of kids in other ...

Osaka, Japan - Most electronic devices aren't waterproof, much to your irritation if a sprinkler suddenly sprays you while you're talking outside on your cellphone. Some electronics can be made at least water-resistant by, for example, using special glues to fuse outer components together. Flexible electronics are another story. Their sealant materials must be able to bend, yet with current technology it's inevitable that eventually such a sealant will crack or separate from the device--and there goes your water-resistant coating. Researchers are determined to come up ...

Nanographene is flexible, yet stronger than steel. With unique physical and electronic properties, the material consists of carbon molecules only one atom thick arranged in a honeycomb shape. Still early in technological development, current fabrication methods require the addition of substituents to obtain a uniform material. Additive-free methods result in flimsy, breakable fibers--until now. An international team of researchers has developed self-assembling, stable and strong nanographene wires. The results were published on March 24 in Journal of the American Chemical Society. The team, led by Yasutomo Segawa, associate professor at the Institute for Molecular Science, part of the National Institutes of Natural Science in Japan, ...

A series of studies led by researchers from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have revealed that hyocholic acid and its derivatives (collectively known as HCAs), a component of bile acids that facilitate fat digestion, are a promising risk indicator of type 2 diabetes. The strong efficacy of HCAs in regulating blood glucose levels and protecting against diabetes has also been uncovered. The findings open a window for the development of HCA-based predictive markers as well as anti-diabetic drugs. The research results have been published in the international scientific journals ...

Autistic adults can be wrongly perceived as deceptive and lacking credibility, Flinders University researchers say, with this working against many caught in the legal system. Ahead of World Autism Awareness Day (2 April 2021), a new paper in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders asked 1,410 civilians to respond to video recordings with 30 adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 29 non-ASD individuals to examine whether stereotypical behaviors associated with autism influenced people's perceptions of the individual. Common behaviors include gaze aversion, repetitive body movements, literal interpretations of figurative language ...

Multilingual people have trained their brains to learn languages, making it easier to acquire more new languages after mastering a second or third. In addition to demystifying the seemingly herculean genius of multilinguals, researchers say these results provide some of the first neuroscientific evidence that language skills are additive, a theory known as the cumulative?enhancement model of language acquisition. "The traditional idea is, if you understand bilinguals, you can use those same details to understand multilinguals. We rigorously checked that possibility with this research and saw multilinguals' language ...

Glassy materials play an integral role in the modern world, but inherent brittleness has long been the Achilles' heel that severely limits their usefulness. Due to the disordered amorphous structure of glassy materials, many mysteries remain. These include the fracture mechanisms of traditional glasses, such as silicate glasses, as well as the origin of the intriguing patterned fracture morphologies of metallic glasses. Cavitation has been widely assumed to be the underlying mechanism governing the fracture of metallic glasses, as well as other glassy systems. Up until now, however, scientists have been unable to directly observe the cavitation behavior of fractures, despite their intensive ...

The findings published in eLife show that men with this unstable subtype of the Y chromosome have a significantly increased risk of genomic rearrangements. These rearrangements affect the sperm production process (spermatogenesis) and consequently, these men can be up to nine times more likely to have fertility issues. Molecular diagnostics of this genetic variant could help identify those at higher risk in their early adulthood, giving them the chance to make decisions about future family planning early on. Currently, the exact cause of infertility ...

Infants born by cesarean section have a relatively meager array of bacteria in the gut. But by the age of three to five years they are broadly in line with their peers. This is shown by a study that also shows that it takes a remarkably long time for the mature intestinal microbiota to get established. Fredrik Bäckhed, Professor of Molecular Medicine at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, has been heading this research. The study, conducted in collaboration with Halland County Hospital in Halmstad, is now published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. Professor Bäckhed and his group have previously demonstrated that the composition of children's intestinal microbiota is affected by their mode of delivery and ...

The current method of manufacturing carbon nanotubes--in essence rolled up sheets of graphene--is unable to allow complete control over their diameter, length and type. This problem has recently been solved for two of the three different types of nanotubes, but the third type, known as 'zigzag' nanotubes, had remained out of reach. Researchers with Japan's National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) have now figured out how to synthesize the zigzag variety. Their method is described in the journal Nature Chemistry, published on January 25. Thanks to carbon's unique capacity to combine ...

Although beef is one of the most consumed foods around the world, eating it when it's past its prime is not only unsavory, but also poses some serious health risks. Unfortunately, available methods to check for beef freshness have various disadvantages that keep them from being useful to the public. For example, chemical analysis or microbial population evaluations take too much time and require the skills of a professional. On the other hand, non-destructive approaches based on near-infrared spectroscopy require expensive and sophisticated equipment. Could artificial intelligence be the key to a more cost-effective way to assess the freshness of beef? At Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea, a team of scientists led by Associate Processors Kyoobin Lee and ...

A study by KAIST researchers revealed that an ionized gas jet blowing onto water, also known as a 'plasma jet', produces a more stable interaction with the water's surface compared to a neutral gas jet. This finding reported in the April 1 issue of Nature will help improve the scientific understanding of plasma-liquid interactions and their practical applications in a wide range of industrial fields in which fluid control technology is used, including biomedical engineering, chemical production, and agriculture and food engineering. Gas jets can create dimple-like depressions in liquid surfaces, and this phenomenon is familiar to anyone who has seen the cavity produced by blowing air through a straw ...

How do our facial expressions in response to seeing others in pain influence how we see and feel their pain? There are many situations where it may be helpful to suppress our emotional responses to the pain of others. For example, doctors are trained to regulate their emotional responses to the pain of their patients, which may help them to avoid exhausting their own cognitive and emotional resources. Understanding whether suppressing our own facial expressions in response to other's pain reduces our ability to empathize with them has important implications for a variety ...

Mount Sinai Researchers Find "Removal of AKAP11 Protein by Autophagy as a key to Fuel Mitochondrial Metabolism and Tumor Cell Growth through activating protein kinase A (PKA) (Patent pending)" Corresponding Author: Zhenyu Yue, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Aidekman Family Professorship, Director of Basic and Translational Research in Movement Disorders, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Bottom Line: We uncovered a mechanism that tumor cells exploit selective autophagy for metabolic reprogramming that benefits tumor cell growth and offers resistance to glucose deprivation. Our study suggests that AKAP220-mediated autophagy as a novel therapeutic target for specific cancer treatment. Results: Autophagy is a lysosome degradation pathway that is cytoprotective ...

How plants will fare as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise is a tricky problem and, researchers say, especially vexing in the tropics. Some aspects of plants' survival may get easier, some parts will get harder, and there will be species winners and losers. The resulting shifts in vegetation will help determine the future direction of climate change. To explore the question, a study led by the University of Washington looked at how tropical forests, which absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, might adjust as CO2 continues to climb. Their results show ...

Chestnut Hill, MA (4/1/2021) - A gender gap in negotiation emerges as early as age eight, a finding that sheds new light on the wage gap women face in the workforce, according to new research from Boston College's Cooperation Lab, lead by Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Katherine McAuliffe. The study of 240 boys and girls between ages four and nine, published recently in the journal Psychological Science, found the gap appears when girls who participated in the study were asked to negotiate with a male evaluator, a finding that mirrors the dynamics of the negotiation gap that persists between ...

Statement Highlights: Two-thirds of people with heart disease are ages 60 and older. People who have had a heart attack or stroke are 20 times more likely to have additional cardiac events compared to people without heart disease. Lifestyle modifications and medication adherence are key strategies to address heart disease. Mobile health technology, which incorporates apps, devices, texting and phone calls, can inform and monitor older adults to support lifestyle modifications. DALLAS, April 1, 2021 -- Mobile health technology can be beneficial in encouraging lifestyle behavior changes and medication adherence among adults ages 60 and older with existing heart disease, yet more research is needed to determine what methods are the most effective, according to a new scientific statement ...

New research, led by scientists at the University of Nottingham, suggests that the environment in which men live may affect their reproductive health. The research, published in Scientific Reports, looked at the effects of geographical location on polluting chemicals found in dog testes, some of which are known to affect reproductive health. The unique research focused on dogs because, as a popular pet, they share the same environment as people and are effectively exposed to the same household chemicals as their owners. The team also looked for signs of abnormalities ...

It is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. New research has found that previous ice loss events could have caused sea-level rise at rates of around 3.6 metres per century, offering vital clues as to what lies ahead should climate change continue unabated. A team of scientists, led by researchers from Durham University, used geological records of past sea levels to shed light on the ice sheets responsible for a rapid pulse of sea-level rise in Earth's recent past. Geological records tell us that, at the end of the last ice age around 14,600 years ago, sea levels rose at ten times the current rate due to Meltwater Pulse 1A (MWP-1A); a 500 year, ~18 metre sea-level rise event. Until now, the scientific community has not ...