Early in the pandemic, it was expected that satellite imagery around the world would show cleaner air as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. But not all pollutants were taken out of circulation. For tiny airborne-particle pollution, known as PM 2.5, researchers using NASA data found that variability from meteorology obscured the lockdown signals when observed from space. "Intuitively you would think if there is a major lockdown situation, that we would see dramatic changes, but we didn't," said Melanie Hammer, a visiting research associate at Washington University in St. Louis who led the study. "It was kind of a surprise ...

Tooth loss is often accepted as a natural part of aging, but what if there was a way to better identify those most susceptible without the need for a dental exam? New research led by investigators at Harvard School of Dental Medicine suggests that machine learning tools can help identify those at greatest risk for tooth loss and refer them for further dental assessment in an effort to ensure early interventions to avert or delay the condition. The study, published June 18 in PLOS ONE, compared five algorithms using a different combination of variables to screen for risk. The results showed those that factored medical characteristics and socioeconomic variables, such as race, education, arthritis, and diabetes, outperformed algorithms that relied on dental clinical indicators alone. "Our ...

A new resource developed at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and The Kinghorn Cancer Centre for oncologists could help make targeted cancer therapies more accessible for Australian patients. The TOPOGRAPH (Therapy-Oriented Precision Oncology Guidelines for Recommending Anti-cancer Pharmaceuticals) database is an online tool that catalogues oncology research to streamline the process of recommending therapeutic treatments in precision cancer medicine. Garvan Senior Research Officer Dr Frank Lin led the development of the platform reported this week in the journal npj Precision Oncology. "TOPOGRAPH is uniquely useful in the Australian context because it combines ...

Wastewater treatment facilities clean the water that goes down our sinks and flushes our toilets, but they do not remove everything. A recent study by Portland State researchers detected low levels of pharmaceuticals and personal care product chemicals in oysters the team deployed at various distances from wastewater effluent pipes along the Oregon and Washington coast. Elise Granek, professor of environmental science and management at Portland State University, and Amy Ehrhart, a recent graduate of PSU's Earth, Environment, and Society doctoral program, conducted the study. To explore how aquatic pollution varies based on proximity to wastewater facilities, Ehrhart and Granek placed one-week-old ...

Researchers at Harvard University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have created a first detailed atlas of a critical region of the developing mouse brain, applying multiple advanced genomic technologies to the part of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for processing sensation from the body. By measuring how gene activity and regulation change over time, researchers now have a better understanding of how the cerebral cortex is built, as well as a brand new set of tools to explore how the cortex is affected in neurodevelopmental disease. The study is published in the journal Nature. "We have had a long-standing interest in understanding the development of the mammalian cerebral cortex, as it is ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Using an unusually well-preserved subfossil jawbone, a team of researchers -- led by Penn State and with a multi-national team of collaborators including scientists from the Université d'Antananarivo in Madagascar -- has sequenced for the first time the nuclear genome of the koala lemur (Megaladapis edwardsi), one of the largest of the 17 or so giant lemur species that went extinct on the island of Madagascar between about 500 and 2,000 years ago. The findings reveal new information about this animal's position on the primate family tree and how it interacted with its environment, which could help in understanding the impacts of past lemur extinctions on Madagascar's ecosystems. "More than 100 species of lemurs live on Madagascar today, ...

To better understand the role of bacteria in health and disease, National Institutes of Health researchers fed fruit flies antibiotics and monitored the lifetime activity of hundreds of genes that scientists have traditionally thought control aging. To their surprise, the antibiotics not only extended the lives of the flies but also dramatically changed the activity of many of these genes. Their results suggested that only about 30% of the genes traditionally associated with aging set an animal's internal clock while the rest reflect the body's response to bacteria. "For ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When the summer sun blazes on a hot city street, our first reaction is to flee to a shady spot protected by a building or tree. A new study is the first to calculate exactly how much these shaded areas help lower the temperature and reduce the "urban heat island" effect. Researchers created an intricate 3D digital model of a section of Columbus and determined what effect the shade of the buildings and trees in the area had on land surface temperatures over the course of one hour on one summer day. "We can use the information from our model to formulate guidelines for community greening and tree planting efforts, and even where to locate buildings to maximize shading on other buildings and roadways," said Jean-Michel Guldmann, co-author of the study and ...

A new tool to help conserve one of the UK's most threatened mammals has been released today, with the publication of the first high-quality reference genome for the European water vole. The genome was generated by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, in collaboration with animal conservation charity the Wildwood Trust, as part of the Darwin Tree of Life Project. The genome, published today (24 June 2021) through Wellcome Open Research, is openly available as a reference for researchers seeking to assess water vole population genetics, better understand how the species has evolved and to manage reintroduction efforts. The European water vole (Arvicola ...

A team from Japan and the United States has identified the design principles for creating large "ideal" proteins from scratch, paving the way for the design of proteins with new biochemical functions. Their results appear June 24, 2021, in Nature Communications. The team had previously developed principles to design small versions of what they call "ideal proteins," which are structures without internal energetic frustration. Such proteins are typically designed with a molecular feature called beta strands, which serve a key structural role for the molecules. In ...

Our planet's strongest ocean current, which circulates around Antarctica, plays a major role in determining the transport of heat, salt and nutrients in the ocean. An international research team led by the Alfred Wegener Institute has now evaluated sediment samples from the Drake Passage. Their findings: during the last interglacial period, the water flowed more rapidly than it does today. This could be a blueprint for the future and have global consequences. For example, the Southern Ocean's capacity to absorb CO2 could decrease, which would in turn intensify climate change. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the world's strongest ocean ...

Indonesia's volcanoes are among the world's most dangerous. Why? Through chemical analyses of tiny minerals in lava from Bali and Java, researchers from Uppsala University and elsewhere have found new clues. They now understand better how the Earth's mantle is composed in that particular region and how the magma changes before an eruption. The study is published in Nature Communications. Frances Deegan, the study's first author and a researcher at Uppsala University's Department of Earth Sciences, summarises the findings. "Magma is formed in the mantle, and the composition of the mantle under Indonesia used to be only partly known. ...

In many situations, heart muscle cells do not respond to external stresses in the same ways that skeletal muscle cells do. But under some conditions, heart and skeletal muscles can both waste away at fatally rapid rates, according to a new study led by experts at Cincinnati Children's. The new findings, based on studies of mouse models, represent an important milestone in a long effort to prevent or even reverse cardiac atrophy, which can lead to fatal heart failure when the body loses large amounts of weight or experiences extended periods of weightlessness in space. Detailed findings were published online June 24, 2021, in Nature Communications. "NASA is very interested in cardiac atrophy," says Jeffery Molkentin, PhD, Co-Director ...

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO TORONTO, ON - A new study from researchers at the University of Toronto found that 63% of Canadians with migraine headaches are able to flourish, despite the painful condition. "This research provides a very hopeful message for individuals struggling with migraines, their families and health professionals," says lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, who spent the last decade publishing on negative mental health outcomes associated with migraines, including suicide attempts, anxiety disorders and depression. "The findings of our study have contributed to a major paradigm shift for me. There are important lessons to be learned from those who are flourishing." A migraine headache, which afflicts ...

A recent study finds states that exhibit higher levels of systemic racism also have pronounced racial disparities regarding access to health care. In short, the more racist a state was, the better access white people had - and the worse access Black people had. "This study highlights the extent to which health care inequities are intertwined with other social inequities, such as employment and education," says Vanessa Volpe, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. "This helps explain why health inequities are so intractable. Tackling health care inequities will require us to address broader social systems that significantly benefit white people ...

"Red flag" gun laws--which allow law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from a person at risk of harming themselves or others--are gaining attention at the state and federal levels, but are under scrutiny by legislators who deem them unconstitutional. A new analysis by legal scholars at NYU School of Global Public Health describes the state-by-state landscape for red flag legislation and how it may be an effective tool to reduce gun violence, while simultaneously protecting individuals' constitutional rights. Gun violence is a significant public health problem in the U.S., with more than 38,000 people killed by firearms each year. Following several mass shootings this spring, President Biden urged ...

WHO Frank A. J. L. Scheer, PhD, MSc, Neuroscientist and Marta Garaulet, PhD, Visiting Scientist, both of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Drs. Scheer and Garaulet are co-corresponding authors of a new paper published in The FASEB Journal. WHAT Eating milk chocolate every day may sound like a recipe for weight gain, but a new study of postmenopausal women has found that eating a concentrated amount of chocolate during a narrow window of time in the morning may help the body burn fat and decrease blood sugar levels. To find out about the effects of eating milk chocolate at different times of day, researchers from the Brigham collaborated ...

Philadelphia, June 24, 2021 - Women with depression and other mood disorders are generally advised to continue taking antidepressant medications during pregnancy. The drugs are widely considered safe, but the effect of these medications on the unborn fetus has remained a topic of some concern. Now, researchers have found that maternal psychiatric conditions - but not the use of serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) - increased the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delay (DD) in offspring. The study appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier. Previous studies had found links between SSRI use and ASD in offspring, and ASD is associated with disrupted serotonergic pathways. But the question of whether ...

With age, a diet lacking in the essential amino acid tryptophan -- which has a key role in our mood, energy level and immune response -- makes the gut microbiome less protective and increases inflammation body-wide, investigators report. In a normally reciprocal relationship that appears to go awry with age, sufficient tryptophan, which we consume in foods like milk, turkey, chicken and oats, helps keep our microbiota healthy. A healthy microbiota in turn helps ensure that tryptophan mainly results in good things for us like producing the neurotransmitter serotonin, which reduces depression risk, and melatonin, which ...

Working in the highly charged environment of COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the mental health of nurses, according to a new survey by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto. The findings, described recently in the Annals of Epidemiology, is the first to compare Canadian nurses' mental health prior to and during the pandemic. "Whether they worked in acute care settings, in community care or in long-term care homes, nurses experienced high rates of depression and anxiety as the pandemic accelerated," says lead researcher Dr. Farinaz Havaei, a professor of nursing at UBC who studies health systems and workplace psychological health and safety. Prior to the pandemic, two out of 10 nurses reported that they ...

TAMPA, Fla. (June 24, 2021) -- A newly published study by the END ...

Researchers are calling for changes to working culture and conditions for junior doctors in the UK after their new research has highlighted a lack of access to clinical and emotional support. The call comes as a University of Birmingham-led team of researchers, including experts from Keele University, University College London, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Universities of Leeds and Manchester, carried out a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 21 NHS junior doctors. All participants, 16 of whom were women ...

**Note this is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2021). Please credit the conference if you use this story** New research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year (9-12 July), suggests that one in 10 veterinary workers in the Netherlands carries strains of extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria compared to around one in 20 of the general Dutch population. This higher prevalence could not be explained by known risk factors such as antibiotic use or recent travel, and it seems highly likely that occupational contact with animals in the animal healthcare setting may result in shedding and transmission ...

**Note this is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2021). Please credit the conference if you use this story* Irish doctors highlight potential complications following buttock augmentation that can result in hospitalisation in a case report being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year (9-12 July). Dr Siobhan Quirke and colleagues from the St James Hospital in Dublin detail the case of a 29-year-old woman who was admitted to hospital with sepsis 14 months after a dermal filler injection.* The exact ingredients of fillers vary by brand, but they all work to enlarge the buttocks, ...

A new study to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) (9-12 July) and published this week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows that, for residents of long-term care homes for adults aged 65 years and over, a single dose of either the Pfizer or Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine offers around 60% protection against infection from SARS-CoV-2. The study is by Dr Madhumita Shrotri and Dr Laura Shallcross, UCL Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, UK, and colleagues. The greatest effects of SARS-CoV-2 have been in residents of long-term care facilities, who represent a small fraction of the general population but account for ...