East Hanover, NJ. July 2, 2021. Among wheelchair users with spinal cord injury 42 percent reported adverse consequences related to needing wheelchair repair, according to a team of experts in spinal cord injury rehabilitation. The research team, comprised of investigators from the Spinal Cord Injury Model System, determined that this ongoing problem requires action such as higher standards of wheelchair performance, access to faster repair service, and enhanced user training on wheelchair maintenance and repair. The article, "Factors Influencing Incidence of Wheelchair Repairs and Consequences Among Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury" (doi: 10.1016/j.apmr.2021.01.094) was published online in ...

BOSTON -- Gaurav Gaiha, MD, DPhil, a member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, studies HIV, one of the fastest-mutating viruses known to humankind. But HIV's ability to mutate isn't unique among RNA viruses -- most viruses develop mutations, or changes in their genetic code, over time. If a virus is disease-causing, the right mutation can allow the virus to escape the immune response by changing the viral pieces the immune system uses to recognize the virus as a threat, pieces scientists call epitopes. To combat HIV's high rate of mutation, Gaiha and Elizabeth Rossin, MD, PhD, a Retina Fellow at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a member of Mass General ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A year after University at Buffalo scientists demonstrated that it was possible to produce millions of mature human cells in a mouse embryo, they have published a detailed description of the method so that other laboratories can do it, too. The ability to produce millions of mature human cells in a living organism, called a chimera, which contains the cells of two species, is critical if the ultimate promise of stem cells to treat or cure human disease is to be realized. But to produce those mature cells, human primed stem cells must be converted back into an earlier, less developed naive state so ...

When environmental physicist Kira Rehfeld, from Heidelberg University, visited Antarctica for her research, she was struck by the intense light there. "It's always light in summer. This solar radiation could actually be used to supply the research infrastructure with energy", she observes. However, generators, engines, and heaters in these remote regions have mostly been powered until now by fossil fuels delivered by ship, such as petroleum or petrol, which cause global warming. Besides the high associated economic costs, pollution from even the smallest spills is also a major problem threatening the especially sensitive ...

July 2, 2021 - For health care organizations looking to improve performance and patient experiences, implementing data-driven solutions can be effective when focusing on addressing health equity and reducing patient length of stay. These topics are explored in selected member-submitted abstracts from the 2020 Vizient® Connections Education Summit that appear in a special supplement to the July/August 2021 issue of the American Journal of Medical Quality, the official journal of the American College of Medical Quality (ACMQ). Interventions for addressing health equity To help health care organizations address ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Archaeologists have unearthed a END ...

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- Research led by Kansas State University's Suprem Das, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, in collaboration with Christopher Sorensen, university distinguished professor of physics, shows potential ways to manufacture graphene-based nano-inks for additive manufacturing of supercapacitors in the form of flexible and printable electronics. As researchers around the world study the potential replacement of batteries by supercapacitors, an energy device that can charge and discharge very fast -- within few tens of seconds -- the team led by Das has an alternate prediction. The team's work could be adapted to integrate them to overcome ...

A huge global network of researchers is working together to take the pulse of our global tropical forests. ForestPlots.net, which is co-ordinated from the University of Leeds, brings together more than 2,500 scientists who have examined millions of trees to explore the effect of climate change on forests and biodiversity. A new research paper published in Biological Conservation explains the origins of the network, and how the power of collaboration is transforming forest research in Africa, South America and Asia. The paper includes 551 researchers and outlines 25 years of discovery in the carbon, biodiversity and dynamics of tropical forests. Professor Oliver Phillips, of Leeds' School of Geography, said "Our new paper shows how we are linking students, botanists, ...

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- A recent study by Kansas State University virologists demonstrates successful postinfection treatment for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. College of Veterinary Medicine researchers Yunjeong Kim and Kyeong-Ok "KC" Chang published the study in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, or PNAS. They found that animal models infected with SARS-CoV-2 and treated with a deuterated protease inhibitor had significantly increased survival and decreased lung viral load. The results suggest that postinfection treatment with inhibitors of proteases that are essential for viral replication may be an effective treatment against SARS-CoV-2. ...

How on Earth? It has puzzled scientists for years whether and how bacteria, that live from dissolved organic matter in marine waters, can carry out N2 fixation. It was assumed that the high levels of oxygen combined with the low amount of dissolved organic matter in the marine water column would prevent the anaerobic and energy consuming N2 fixation. Already in the 1980s it was suggested that aggregates, so-called "marine snow particles", could possibly be suitable sites for N2 fixation, but this was never proven. Until now.. In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen demonstrate, by use of mathematical models, ...

During the large second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in fall 2020, pulmonologist and critical care provider Juan C. Rojas, MD, reflected on how disproportionately members of minority populations were being affected by the disease. After hearing similar thoughts from colleagues in New Orleans and New York City, Rojas began to wonder how, if at all, state governments planned to ensure these disparities would be addressed when COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out to the public. In a new study published July 2 in JAMA Network Open, Rojas and his team were surprised ...

(Boston)--Would you be more willing to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus if you could participate in a lottery for cash and prizes? The answer was surprisingly no, according to Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers who found that Ohio's "Vax-a-Million" lottery-based incentive system, intended to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates, was not associated with an increase in COVD-19 vaccinations. Prior reports in the media had suggested that the Ohio lottery increased COVID-19 vaccinations, leading other states to use COVID-19 vaccine incentive lotteries in an attempt to increase slowing vaccination rates. "However, prior evaluations of ...

Some three quarters of the biomass in hop plants used in beer-making ends up in landfills. But a group of Japanese researchers has developed a technique that 'upcycles' that waste hop into cellulose nanofibers (CNFs). A paper describing the technique was published in the journal ACS Agricultural Science & Technology on June 11. In the past few years, craft beer-making has exploded in popularity around the world, including many beer styles that make use of many more and different types of hops than conventional commercial beers. A traditional preservative in beer, hops also add ...

Berkeley -- Many insects and spiders get their uncanny ability to scurry up walls and walk upside down on ceilings with the help of specialized sticky footpads that allow them to adhere to surfaces in places where no human would dare to go. Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have used the principle behind some of these footpads, called electrostatic adhesion, to create an insect-scale robot that can swerve and pivot with the agility of a cheetah, giving it the ability to traverse complex terrain and quickly avoid unexpected obstacles. The robot is constructed from a thin, layered material that bends and contracts when an electric voltage is applied. In a 2019 paper, the research team demonstrated that this simple ...

Wander around a desert most anywhere in the world, and eventually you'll notice dark-stained rocks, especially where the sun shines most brightly and water trickles down or dew gathers. In some spots, if you're lucky, you might stumble upon ancient art - petroglyphs - carved into the stain. For years, however, researchers have understood more about the petroglyphs than the mysterious dark stain, called rock varnish, in which they were drawn. In particular, science has yet to come to a conclusion about where rock varnish, which is unusually rich in manganese, comes from. Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology, the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator ...

Neuroscientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have demonstrated in new research that dopamine plays a key role in how songbirds learn complex new sounds. Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the finding that dopamine drives plasticity in the auditory pallium of zebra finches lays new groundwork for advancing the understanding of the functions of this neurotransmitter in an area of the brain that encodes complex stimuli. "People associate dopamine with reward and pleasure," says lead author Matheus Macedo-Lima, who performed the research in the lab of senior author Luke Remage-Healey as a Ph.D. student in UMass Amherst's Neuroscience and Behavior graduate program. "It's a very well-known concept that dopamine is involved in learning. ...

In cancer research, it's a common goal to find something about cancer cells -- some sort of molecule -- that drives their ability to survive, and determine if that molecule could be inhibited with a drug, halting tumor growth. Even better: The molecule isn't present in healthy cells, so they remain untouched by the new therapy. Plenty of progress has been made in this approach, known as molecular targeted cancer therapy. Some current cancer therapeutics inhibit enzymes that become overactive, allowing cells to proliferate, spread and survive beyond ...

What The Study Did: Researchers in this study aimed to determine how each state and the District of Columbia planned to ensure equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Authors: Juan C. Rojas, M.D., of the University of Chicago, 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.2021.15653) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial ...

What The Study Did: Changes in the use of women's preventive health services during the COVID-19 pandemic, including screening for sexually transmitted infections, breast and cervical cancer, and obtaining contraceptives from pharmacies are described by researchers in this study. Authors: Nora V. Becker, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, 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/jamahealthforum.2021.1408) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

What The Study Did: Researchers estimated the frequency and magnitude of surprise bills for deliveries and newborn hospitalizations, which are the leading reasons for hospitalization in the United States, to illustrate the  potential benefits of federal legislation that will protect families from most surprise bills. Potential surprise bills were defined as claims from out-of-network clinicians and ancillary service providers, such as an ambulance. Authors: Kao-Ping Chua, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, 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/jamahealthforum.2021.1460) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of ...

What The Study Did: This study investigates whether different risk factors identify the same hospitals caring for a high proportion of disadvantaged patients using seven definitions of social risk. Authors: Susannah M. Bernheim, M.D., M.H.S., of the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, 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/jamahealthforum.2021.1323) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support ...

PHILADELPHIA-- While more women are entering the field of academic medicine than ever before, they are less likely to be recognized as experts and leaders; they are less likely to receive prestigious awards, be promoted to full professorships, hold leadership roles, or author original research or commentaries in major journals. What's more, articles published by women in high-impact medical journals also have fewer citations than those written by men, especially when women are primary and senior authors, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, published today in JAMA Open Network. Researchers found that of the 5,554 articles published in 5 leading academic medical journals ...

The Mutriku wave power plant was built on the Mutriku breakwater, a site with great wave energy potential, and has been in operation since 2011. With 14 oscillating water columns to transform wave energy, it is the only wave farm in the world that supplies electricity to the grid on a continuous basis. In general, technologies that harness the power of the waves to produce electricity are in their infancy, and this is precisely what is being explored by the UPV/EHU's Research Group EOLO, which focusses on Meteorology, Climate and Environment, among many ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - Migraine is one of the largest causes of disability in the world. Existing treatments are often not enough to offer full relief for patients. A new study published in The BMJ demonstrates an additional option patients can use in their effort to experience fewer migraines and headaches - a change in diet. "Our ancestors ate very different amounts and types of fats compared to our modern diets," said co-first author Daisy Zamora, PhD, assistant professor in the UNC Department of Psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine. "Polyunsaturated fatty acids, which our bodies do not produce, have increased substantially in our diet due to the addition of oils such as corn, soybean and cottonseed to many processed foods like chips, crackers and granola." The classes of polyunsaturated ...

According to studies in recent years, air pollution affects the thyroid. Thyroid hormones are essential for regulating foetal growth and metabolism, and play an important role in neurological development. Thyroxine (T4) is the main thyroid hormone that is circulating and the thyroid-stimulating hormone is TSH. At 48 hours newborn babies undergo a heel prick test in which thyroxine and TSH levels in the blood are measured. In fact, if the balance of these thyroid hormones is not right, the risk of developing serious diseases increases. That is why, "this study set out to analyse the relationship between atmospheric pollution during pregnancy and the level ...