An international team of researchers produced islands of amorphous, non-crystalline material inside a class of new metal alloys known as high-entropy alloys. This discovery opens the door to applications in everything from landing gears, to pipelines, to automobiles. The new materials could make these lighter, safer, and more energy efficient. The team, which includes researchers from the University of California San Diego and Berkeley, as well as Carnegie Mellon University and University of Oxford, details their findings in the Jan. 29 issue of Science Advances. "These present ...

In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to three scientists who uncovered the molecular mechanisms that control the circadian rhythm, otherwise known as the "wake-sleep" cycle. To carry out their work, the scientists used the common fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, making this the sixth Nobel to be awarded to research involving it. Fruitful fruit flies Life scientists have been using Drosophila for over a century now. First proposed by entomologist Charles W. Woodworth as a model organism, its use in research was pioneered by geneticist Thomas H. Morgan who ran his famous ...

As any cook knows, some liquids mix well with each other, but others do not. For example, when a tablespoon of vinegar is poured into water, a brief stir suffices to thoroughly combine the two liquids. However, a tablespoon of oil poured into water will coalesce into droplets that no amount of stirring can dissolve. The physics that governs the mixing of liquids is not limited to mixing bowls; it also affects the behavior of things inside cells. It's been known for several years that some proteins behave like liquids, and that some liquid-like proteins don't mix together. However, very little is known about how these liquid-like proteins behave on cellular surfaces. "The separation between two liquids that won't mix, like oil and water, is known as ...

January 29, 2021 -- A study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center has found that Medicaid expansion in 2014 in New York State was associated with a statistically significant reduction in severe maternal morbidity in low-income women during delivery hospitalizations compared with high-income women. The decrease was even more pronounced in racial and ethnic minority women than in White women. Until now there was little research on the link between ACA Medicaid expansion and maternal health outcomes. The findings are published online in the journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society, Anesthesia & Analgesia. "Our findings indicate that the 2014 ...

LA JOLLA--(January 29, 2021) As scientists learn more about the microorganisms that colonize the body--collectively called the microbiota--one area of intense interest is the effect that these microbes can have on the brain. A new study led by Salk Institute scientists has identified a strain of E. coli bacteria that, when living in the guts of female mice, causes them to neglect their offspring. The findings, published January 29, 2021, in the journal Science Advances, show a direct link between a particular microbe and maternal behavior. Although the research was done in mice, it adds to the growing body of science demonstrating that microbes in the gut are important for brain health and can affect development and behavior. "To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration ...

Boulder, Colo., USA: Sixteen articles were published online ahead of print for GSA Bulletin in January. Topics include insights from the Sawtooth metamorphic complex in Idaho, fingerprinting sand from ancient rivers, eroding Cascadia, and the Troodos ophiolite. Three-dimensional geometry and growth of a basement-involved fault network developed during multiphase extension, Enderby Terrace, North West Shelf of Australia Hongdan Deng; Ken McClay Abstract: Basement fault reactivation, and the growth, interaction, and linkage with new fault segments are fundamentally three-dimensional and critical for understanding the evolution of fault network development in sedimentary basins. This paper analyzes the evolution of a complex, basement-involved ...

CHICAGO (January 29, 2021) -- Structural racism thwarts a large proportion of black patients from receiving appropriate lung cancer care, resulting in worse outcomes and shorter lifespans than white patients with the disease, according to research presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. "Many studies have shown that there are disparities between the outcomes of black and white patients, but have done little to elucidate why these disparities are occurring," said Chandler Annesi, a medical student from Boston University ...

Languages differ in the sounds they use. The Japanese language, for example, does not distinguish between "r" and "l" sounds as in "rock" versus "lock." Remarkably, infants become attuned to the sounds of their native language before they learn to speak. One-year-old babies, for example, less readily distinguish between "rock" and "lock" when living in an environment where Japanese, rather than English, is spoken. Influential scientific accounts of this early phonetic learning phenomenon initially proposed that infants group sounds into native vowel- and consonant-like phonetic categories ...

Scientists have given a fascinating new insight into the next steps to develop fast, energy-efficient, future computing systems that use light instead of electrons to process and store information - incorporating hardware inspired directly by the functioning of the human brain. A team of scientists, including Professor C. David Wright from the University of Exeter, has explored the future potential for computer systems by using photonics in place of conventional electronics. The article is published today (January 29th 2021) in the prestigious journal Nature Photonics. The ...

East Hanover, NJ. January 29, 2021. A team of New Jersey researchers has demonstrated that high-dose therapy gait training using robotic exoskeletons may aid early rehabilitation for acute stroke. The article, "Robotic exoskeleton gait training during acute stroke inpatient rehabilitation" (doi: 10.339/fnbot.2020.581815), was published October 30, 2020 in Frontiers in Neurorobotics is available open access at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2020.581815/full The authors are Karen Nolan, PhD, Kiran Karunakaran, PhD, and Kathleen Chervin, of Kessler Foundation, Michael Monfett, MD, of Children's Specialized Hospital, Radhika Bapineedu, MD, and Neil N. Jasey Jr, MD, of Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, and Mooyeon Oh-Park, MD, ...

Coronary artery calcification -- the buildup of calcified plaque in the walls of the heart's arteries -- is an important predictor of adverse cardiovascular events like heart attacks. Coronary calcium can be detected by computed tomography (CT) scans, but quantifying the amount of plaque requires radiological expertise, time and specialized equipment. In practice, even though chest CT scans are fairly common, calcium score CTs are not. Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital's Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) Program and the Massachusetts General Hospital's Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC) teamed up to develop and evaluate a deep learning system ...

In the treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, antiviral drug remdesivir has emerged as a promising candidate. Remdesivir works by disrupting the virus's ability to replicate, but its exact mechanism has remained a mystery. Using advanced computational simulations, researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago have revealed just how the drug works at the molecular level. They also found that two drugs that work in a similar manner, ribavirin and favilavir, do not bind as effectively to the virus. "It's important to understand ...

Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have made strides in automated legal document analytics (ALDA) by creating a way to machine-process the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The CFR is a complex document containing policies related to doing business with the federal government. All business affiliates of the federal government must comply with the CFR. For government contracts to be equitably open to a broad range of businesses, policies within the CFR must be accessible. This document automation is just one part of a broader project to help contractors and other entities manage and monitor ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say they enjoy sports at least a little, but heterosexual men more commonly identify as passionate sports fans, a new study suggests. A survey of nearly 4,000 American adults found that only 11% said they did not identify as sports fans at all. Over 40% were passionate fans, identifying themselves as being "quite a bit" or "very much so" sports fans. About 60% of heterosexual men in the survey identified as passionate sports fans, compared to about 40% of both heterosexual women and lesbians. About 30% of gay men reported being passionate sports fans. "We found that U.S. adults respond overwhelmingly that they are sports fans," said Chris Knoester, co-author of the ...

Trees are often heralded as the heroes of environmental mitigation. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which slows the pace of climate change, and sequester nutrients such as nitrogen, which improves water and air quality. Not all tree species, however, perform these services similarly, and some of the strongest impacts that trees have on ecosystems occur below the surface, away from the eyes of observers. This complicates efforts to predict what will happen as tree species shift owing to pests, pathogens, and climate change as well as to predict which species are most beneficial in reforestation ...

Parents know the scenario all too well: their child misbehaves and it comes time for discipline. Research conducted globally shows that spanking is not the best option. But verbal reasoning, which explains why the behavior is wrong, may not always have the intended positive effect if the parent is loud and abrupt, according to a new University of Michigan study. The findings indicate both positive and negative outcomes that could have lasting consequences on children's emotional development. Verbal reasoning was associated with higher levels of getting along with others, but also with increased aggression and higher levels of distraction. "Positive discipline doesn't always seem to have all that many positive benefits," ...

Another wave of COVID-19 is putting millions out of work, while tens of millions more remain unemployed, and Congress debates aid. Now, a new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study shows that unemployment help directly translates to people being able to put food on the table. The CARES Act--passed in March of 2020-- expanded unemployment insurance coverage, amount, and duration. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study finds that receiving unemployment insurance cuts a person's risk of food insecurity by a third, and halves the likelihood of needing to eat less because of financial constraints. And receiving more coverage, such as the weekly $600 supplement included in CARES until last July, means an even bigger reduction in the risk of going hungry. "There ...

RICHLAND, Wash.?Unless radon gas is discovered in a home inspection, most people remain blissfully unaware that rocks like granite, metal ores, and some soils contain naturally occurring sources of radiation. In most cases, low levels of radiation are not a health concern. But some scientists and engineers are concerned about even trace levels of radiation, which can wreak havoc on sensitive equipment. The semiconductor industry, for instance, spends billions each year to source and "scrub" ultra-trace levels of radioactive materials from microchips, transistors and sensitive sensors. Now chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed ...

What if scientists knew exactly what impact the SARS-CoV-2 virus had inside our lung cells, within the first few hours of being infected? Could they use that information to find drugs that would disrupt the virus' replication process before it ever gets fully underway? The discovery that several existing FDA-approved drugs--including some originally designed to fight cancer--can stop coronavirus in its tracks indicates the answer is a resounding yes. A team of Boston University researchers--hailing from BU's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories ...

Philadelphia, January 29, 2021--Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a gene therapy vector for blood disorders like sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia that is potentially safer and more effective than those currently used in gene therapy trials for those conditions. The vector, an engineered vehicle for delivering functional copies of the hemoglobin gene to correct a genetic abnormality, leads to the production of more hemoglobin with a lower dose, minimizing the risk of toxic side effects. The findings were published today in Molecular Therapy. "These results have many potential benefits for the successful treatment of patients ...

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 29, 2021 - A study led by UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine shows that Black children are 18% less likely to get imaging tests as part of their emergency department visit compared to White children. Hispanic children are 13% less likely to have imaging done than Whites. The researchers suggest that this disparity results from overuse in White children, though underuse in minority children probably plays a part as well. The root cause likely stems from both patient preferences and implicit bias among providers. "Something else is going on here that's beyond the clinical, that's beyond the diagnoses," said study lead author Jennifer Marin, M.D., M.Sc., associate ...

In just one year, COVID-19 has killed more than 400,000 Americans, and infected more than 24 million others. But a new study shows just how unevenly those deaths and cases have played out across the country. It finds that the more disadvantaged a county's population was before the pandemic, the higher the toll of coronavirus last spring and summer. That level of disadvantage, measured on a standard scale called the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), tracked closely with the number of cases and deaths per 100,000 residents in each county, according to the new University of Michigan study. The ten-point SVI score combines many measures of the social disadvantage of a county's population, with higher scores meaning greater disadvantage. For every ...

What The Study Did: Maternally derived antibodies are a key element of neonatal immunity. This study examined the association between maternal and neonatal SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody concentrations because understanding the dynamics of maternal antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and subsequent transplacental antibody transfer can inform neonatal management as well as maternal vaccination strategies. Authors: Scott E. Hensley, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Karen M. Puopolo, M.D., Ph.D., of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, are the corresponding authors. To ...

What The Study Did: Researchers investigated the association between county-level social risk factors and COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as weekly changes in cumulative cases and mortality, using publicly available data sets as of July 29, 2020. Authors: Renuka Tipirneni, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is th corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.36462) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article ...

What The Study Did: This study investigated how unemployment insurance and a $600 per week federal supplement to unemployment insurance were associated with food insecurity among people in low- and middle-income households who lost jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Authors: Julia Raifman, Sc.D., of the Boston University School of Public Health, 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.2020.35884) 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 ...