The recent extreme heat in the Western United States and Canada may seem remarkable now, but events like these are made more likely, and more severe, under climate change. The consequences are likely to be far-reaching, with overwhelmingly negative impacts on land and ocean ecosystems, biodiversity, food production and the built environment. "The main lever we have to slow global warming is the rate at which CO2 is added to the atmosphere," said Marcus Thomson, a postdoctoral scholar at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis at UC Santa Barbara. Thomson is a co-author of a research article just published in Nature ...

When people see a toothbrush, a car, a tree -- any individual object -- their brain automatically associates it with other things it naturally occurs with, allowing humans to build context for their surroundings and set expectations for the world. By using machine-learning and brain imaging, researchers measured the extent of the "co-occurrence" phenomenon and identified the brain region involved. The findings appear in Nature Communications. "When we see a refrigerator, we think we're just looking at a refrigerator, but in our mind, we're also calling up all the other things in a kitchen that we associate with a refrigerator," said corresponding author Mick Bonner, a Johns Hopkins University cognitive scientist. "This is the first time anyone has quantified this and identified ...

A team of the University of Barcelona has analysed for the first time what the dry and hot periods could be like in the area of the Pyrenees depending on different greenhouse emission scenarios. The results, published in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, show that under an intermediate scenario, where these emissions that accelerate the climate change could be limited, there would not be a rise in long-lasting dry episodes, but temperatures would rise during these periods. On the other hand, if those emissions were not reduced during the 21st century, the summer no-rain periods would last an average ...

In a new study assessing the potential of a single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine, a team from the University of Iowa and the University of Georgia found that the vaccine fully protects mice against lethal COVID-19 infection. The vaccine also blocks animal-to-animal transmission of the virus. The findings were published July 2 in the journal Science Advances. "The currently available vaccines against COVID-19 are very successful, but the majority of the world's population is still unvaccinated and there is a critical need for more vaccines that are easy to use and effective at stopping disease and transmission," says Paul McCray, MD, professor of pediatrics-pulmonary medicine, and microbiology and immunology ...

Philadelphia, July 8, 2021 - Fifty-five percent of Midwest university students had tried a plant-based meat alternative and attributed this choice to the enjoyment of new food, curiosity about the products, and environmental concern, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier. For several decades, there has been a steady growth in consumer concerns about the environmental sustainability of the global food supply, animal welfare ethics, and human health consequences of red meat intakes. To assess the prevalence of plant-based alternatives to meat consumption in students; describe associations between demographics, environmental concern attitudes, and consumption; ...

A new study has linked a July 2015 ceasefire of conflict violence in Colombia with better pregnancy outcomes for women who conceived after the ceasefire began. Giancarlo Buitrago of Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia, and Rodrigo Moreno-Serra of the University of York, U.K., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. Previous research has suggested the possibility that women living in areas with armed violence experience adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, methodological problems or inappropriate data have hampered prior investigations into these associations. To better understand these associations, Buitrago and Moreno-Serra examined pregnancy outcome data for women who conceived before and after a ceasefire of conflict violence was declared ...

Scientists at the University of Groningen have trained an Artificial Intelligence system to recognize a specific pattern in skin biopsies of patients with the blistering disease epidermolysis bullosa acquisita. The pattern is characteristic of a specific variant of the disease which can cause scarring of the skin and mucous membranes and may lead to blindness. The new system is easy to use and is better than most doctors in making the diagnosis. A description of this AI system is published in the American Journal of Pathology. In patients with epidermolysis bullosa, layers of the skin get detached, causing large blisters. There are different forms of blistering diseases affecting different layers ...

Thyroid hormones are amino acid-based molecules produced by the thyroid gland. Involved in direct or indirect regulation of key metabolic pathways, these molecules play critical roles in the development and normal functioning of the body. The mechanism of how thyroid hormones exert their effect on each other as well as on other metabolic pathways is complex, but a two-way feedback loop is central to their biological activity. Dysregulation of the feedback loop that controls their production affects other biochemical pathways, causing various ailments including those related to the cardiovascular system, liver function, or bone development. Several clinical studies have shown the effect of thyroid hormones on lipid levels: that treating the patients with thyroid hormone analogs helps ...

As luck would have it, the air quality sensors that University of Utah researcher Daniel Mendoza and his colleagues installed in Park City, Utah in September 2019, hoping to observe how pollution rose and fell through the ski season and the Sundance Film Festival, captured a far more impactful natural experiment: the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, the air sensors watched during lockdowns as air pollution fell in residential and commercial areas, and then as pollution rose again with reopenings. The changing levels, the researchers found, which behaved differently in residential and commercial parts of the city, show where pollution is coming from and how it might change in the future under different policies. "The lockdown period demonstrated ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- When it comes to what users share on Twitter, women and users who never attended college voluntarily disclose more personal information than users from other socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds -- potentially making these populations more susceptible to online privacy threats, according to a recent study led by the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. Additionally, the researchers unexpectedly found that neither socioeconomic status nor demographics is a significant predictor of the use of account security features such as two-factor login authentication, and that users from all backgrounds actually ...

URBANA, Ill. - If you've ever been to an eye doctor, there's a good chance you've felt the sudden puff of air to the eye that constitutes a traditional test for glaucoma. It's no one's favorite experience, but the puff is non-invasive and harmless. Scientists use a similar method to test learning and memory in animals and humans. Like Pavlov's classic experiments linking a neutral stimulus with a physiological response, the eyeblink test pairs a light or sound with a quick puff of air to the eye. With repetition, the animal learns to close its eye, or blink, in response ...

Researchers from the University of Sussex have determined the structure of a tiny multi-protein biological machine, furthering our understanding of human cells and helping to enhance research into cancer, neurodegeneration and other illnesses. A biological nanomachine is a macromolecular machine commonly found within the cell, often in the form of multi-protein complexes, which frequently perform tasks essential for life. The nanomachine R2TP-TTT acts as a molecular chaperone to assemble others in the human cell. It is especially important for constructing mTORC1 - a complicated nanomachine that regulates the cell's energy metabolism, and which often becomes misregulated in human diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Scientists from the School ...

Researchers, including academics from the University of York, analysed systematic reviews of 1,200 Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) to assess whether reporting had improved over time. However, the information the researchers needed to assess what adverse effects were reported (and how they were reported) was only included in less than half of the RCTs they analysed. Co-author Dr Su Golder from the Department of Health Sciences, said: "Drug trials are conducted to give clinicians information on the benefits and adverse effects of treatments. Our study shows that, ...

Rude behavior is a common form of insensitive and disrespectful conduct that harms employees' performance in the workplace. In a new study, researchers examined the impact of rude behavior on how individuals make critical decisions. The study found that in certain situations, these behaviors can have deadly consequences. The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the University of Florida (UF), the University of Maryland, Envision Physician Services, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. The researchers looked at the effect of rudeness on workers' tendency to engage in a judgment bias called anchoring, which is the tendency to rely too ...

ORLANDO, July 8, 2021 - A new University of Central Florida study indicates that smaller loggerhead and green sea turtles are nesting on Florida beaches than in the past; however, researchers aren't sure why. The findings, published this month in the journal Ecosphere, give clues to the status of the turtles, which is important to researchers who are monitoring the population health of the threatened species. Central Florida's Atlantic coastline hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state and is one of the most important nesting areas in the world for loggerheads. Sea turtles are important as iconic symbols of conservation in Florida and for the role they play in maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem. The reason for the appearance of smaller ...

People who get type 2 diabetes need to gain control of their blood-sugar levels -- fast. The years immediately after diagnosis are strikingly critical in terms of their future risk for heart attacks and death. This is shown by a joint study from the Universities of Gothenburg and Oxford. In a collaboration between the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the University of Oxford in the UK, the significance of blood sugar levels from the time type 2 diabetes is diagnosed for the risk of heart attacks and death has been studied. The project was led jointly by Professor Marcus Lind in Gothenburg and Professor Rury Holman in Oxford. The research was based on a key trial in type 2 diabetes, the UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS). This new analysis examined ...

LONDON, ON - Hospital researchers from Lawson Health Research Institute have published a recent study that assessed the use of a specialized treatment for chronic pain and its impact on health care use and opioid prescribing. Paravertebral blocks (PVBs) belong to a broader group of procedures called "nerve blocks." A recent Toronto Star report noted that OHIP has been billed $420 million for nerve block procedures since 2011. PVBs involve injecting medication around the nerves where they exit the bones of the spine, at different locations depending on the patient and the chronic pain they are experiencing. ...

A new study shows that individuals with bipolar disorder who are exposed to significant trauma may be at greater risk for suicide death, suggesting that clinical diagnosis of or genetic predisposition to trauma-related conditions could be important factors to consider in suicide prevention. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for over 40,000 deaths each year, and suicide death rates are 10 to 30 times higher for people with bipolar disorder than for the general population. The research, spearheaded by Eric Monson, MD, PhD, and Hilary Coon, PhD, from the University of Utah, in collaboration with Virginia Willour, PhD, from the University of Iowa, set out to identify unique risk factors for suicide attempt and death ...

Researchers have made significant advancements in correlating aberrations in specific brain circuits with neuropsychiatric conditions like depression. However, it remains difficult to prove that damage to these circuits causes the symptoms themselves and that targeting them with therapeutics could help patients. By integrating brain lesion datasets with data on how two treatments -- deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) -- influence neuropsychiatric disorders, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and collaborators developed a new brain mapping approach that may help clarify the cause of a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions and identify promising stimulation sites to target therapeutically. Findings are published ...

As the world continues to warm, many arid regions that already have marginal conditions for agriculture will be increasingly under stress, potentially leading to severe food shortages. Now, researchers at MIT have come up with a promising process for protecting seeds from the stress of water shortage during their crucial germination phase, and even providing the plants with extra nutrition at the same time. The process, undergoing continued tests in collaboration with researchers in Morocco, is simple and inexpensive, and could be widely deployed in arid regions, the researchers say. ...

As atmospheric concentrations of CO2 continue to rise, we are putting future generations at risk of having to deal with a massive carbon debt. IIASA researchers and international colleagues are calling for immediate action to establish responsibility for carbon debt by implementing carbon removal obligations, for example, during the upcoming revision of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Over the last several decades, governments have collectively pledged to slow global warming through accords such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Despite the ratification of these agreements by a large number of countries, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 continues to rise. At the rate we are going, we are well on our way to using up the remaining quantity of CO2 emissions to limit temperature ...

Doha, Qatar, July 8, 2021: In March 2020, thousands of scientists around the world united to answer a pressing and complex question: which genetic factors influence the wide variation in COVID-19 severity? Why are some patients severely affected while others escape with mild or no symptoms at all? A comprehensive summary of their findings to date, published in Nature - the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal - revealed 13 loci, or locations in the human genome, that are strongly associated with infection or severe COVID-19. The researchers also identified causal factors such ...

In March of 2020, thousands of scientists around the world united to answer a pressing and complex question: what genetic factors influence why some COVID-19 patients develop severe, life-threatening disease requiring hospitalization, while others escape with mild symptoms or none at all? A comprehensive summary of their findings to date, published in Nature, reveals 13 loci, or locations in the human genome, that are strongly associated with infection or severe COVID-19. The researchers also identified causal factors such as smoking and high body mass index. These results come from one of the largest ...

What The Study Did: The SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine appeared to be safe and achieve satisfactory serologic status in patients with cancer. While there was a lag in antibody production compared with the rate in the noncancer control group, seroconversion occurred in most patients after the second dose. Authors: Irit Ben-Aharon, M.D., Ph.D., of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, 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/jamaoncol.2021.2675) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please ...

Tumor fragments in the lab are able to predict whether the corresponding real-life patients will benefit from immunotherapy. "We've solved a major problem many scientists had been facing: preserving a tumors original composition and structure outside of the patient in the lab", says cancer researcher Daniela Thommen from the Netherlands Cancer Institute. On 8 July, the results of her study are published in Nature Medicine. While some cancer patients experience incredible results from immunotherapy, many others do not benefit from this treatment, which puts patients' ...