Two new studies have cast unprecedented light on disease processes in tuberculosis, identifying key genetic changes that cause damage in the lungs and a drug treatment that could speed up recovery. Tuberculosis (TB) is a lung infection that has killed more humans than any other and until last year was the top infectious killer around the world. Globally, an estimated 10 million people develop the disease each year. The findings are reported in two papers in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In the first study, a team from the University of Southampton used a new 3D culture system they have developed to observe the changes that occur in cells infected with TB. Unlike the laboratory-standard 2D culture system, where cells are placed ...

This past year has been transformational in terms of not only a global pandemic but a sustained focus on racism and systemic injustice. There has been a widespread circulation of images and videos in the news and online. Just like adults, adolescents are exposed to these images with important consequences for their emotional health and coping. However, few studies have sought to understand the influence of racism experienced online. According to a qualitative study published in JAMA Network Open adolescents expressed feelings of helplessness when exposed to secondhand racism online. Specifically, adolescents described helplessness stemming from the pervasiveness of racism in our society. This was illustrated by quotes, such as "[racist events are] just another day in the life" referring ...

WASHINGTON, June 8, 2021 -- Combustion engines can develop high frequency oscillations, leading to structural damage to the engines and unsafe operating conditions. A detailed understanding of the physical mechanism that causes these oscillations is required but has been lacking until now. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, research from the Tokyo University of Science and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency clarifies the feedback processes that give rise to these oscillations in rocket engines. The investigators studied simulated combustion events in a computational model of a rocket combustor. Their analysis involved sophisticated techniques, including symbolic ...

For many, the Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) is little more than a roadside weed, but this plant has a long history with scientists trying to understand how plants grow and develop. Arabidopsis was first scientifically described as early as the 16th century and the first genetic mutant was identified in the 1800s. Since the 1940s, Arabidopsis has increased in popularity within the scientific community, which continues to use it as a model system to explore plant genetics, development and physiology to this day. One might expect that after decades of scientific scrutiny the structure of Arabidopsis had been fully documented, but a new study from scientists from The Pennsylvania State University, USA, has revealed that this humble plant still has some surprises. The researchers describe ...

A team of scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has created what could be a key building block for assembling a synthetic kidney. In a new study in Nature Communications, Zhongwei Li and his colleagues describe how they can generate rudimentary kidney structures, known as organoids, that resemble the collecting duct system that helps maintain the body's fluid and pH balance by concentrating and transporting urine. "Our progress in creating new types of kidney organoids provides powerful tools for not only understanding development and disease, but also finding new treatments and regenerative approaches for patients," said Li, the study's corresponding ...

What The Study Did: In this survey of 1,186 medical, graduate and health professional school faculty, more faculty considered leaving since the COVID-19 pandemic than before. Faculty with children, particularly female faculty with children, were more likely to consider leaving since the pandemic. Authors: Susan A. Matulevicius, M.D., M.S.C.S., of the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, 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.2021.13539) Editor's Note: Please ...

What The Study Did: Researchers examined whether a sweetened beverage tax in Philadelphia was associated with sustained changes in beverage prices and purchases of sweetened beverages and high-sugar foods two years after implementation of the tax. Authors: Christina A. Roberto, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, 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.2021.13527) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest ...

What The Study Did: Focus groups were conducted with teenagers to examine their responses to exposure to online and media-based vicarious racism and to explore coping strategies that may be used to combat negative emotions. Authors: Nia Heard-Garris, M.D., M.Sc., of Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital 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.2021.13522) Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please ...

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2021 -- Optical cloaking allows objects to be hidden in plain sight or to become invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside the cloak. While cloaking has been popularized in fiction, like in the "Harry Potter" books, researchers in recent years have started realizing cloaks that shield objects from view by controlling the flow of electromagnetic radiation around them. In the Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the Toyota Research Institute of North America examined recent progress of developing invisibility ...

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2021 -- Alzheimer's disease is predominant in elderly people, but the way age-related changes to lipid composition affect the regulation of biological processes is still not well understood. Links between lipid imbalance and disease have been established, in which lipid changes increase the formation of amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. This imbalance inspired researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark to explore the role of lipids comprising the cellular membranes of brain cells. In Biointerphases, by AIP Publishing, the researchers report on the significant role lipids may play in regulating C99, a protein within the amyloid pathway, and disease progression. Lipids have been mostly overlooked from a therapeutic standpoint, likely because ...

A tickle in the nose can help trigger a sneeze, expelling irritants and disease-causing pathogens. But the cellular pathways that control the sneeze reflex go far beyond the sinuses and have been poorly understood. Now, a team led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified, in mice, specific cells and proteins that control the sneeze reflex. "Better understanding what causes us to sneeze -- specifically how neurons behave in response to allergens and viruses -- may point to treatments capable of slowing the spread of infectious respiratory diseases via sneezes," said Qin Liu, PhD, an associate professor of anesthesiology and the study's senior investigator. The findings are published June 15 in the journal ...

Research led by the University of Kent and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has resulted in the discovery of a new rare topological superconductor, LaPt3P. This discovery may be of huge importance to the future operations of quantum computers. Superconductors are vital materials able to conduct electricity without any resistance when cooled below a certain temperature, making them highly desirable in a society needing to reduce its energy consumption. Superconductors manifest quantum properties on the scale of everyday objects, making them highly attractive candidates for building computers which use quantum physics to store data ...

In the heart there are two different subtypes of beta-adrenergic receptors - beta1 and beta2 - which are activated by the stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline. They both trigger the strongest stimulation of the heart rate and pumping capacity that we know of. The two subtypes are highly similar biochemically, but differ substantially in terms of their functional and therapeutic relevance. Both receptor types can stimulate the heart in the short term, yet when the beta1 receptor is activated over a prolonged period of time, it has a range ...

DUBLIN, June 15, 2021 - Scientists have identified how and why some Covid-19 patients can develop life-threatening clots, which could lead to targeted therapies that prevent this from happening. The work, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in the END ...

A new antibody testing study examining samples originally collected through the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in five states earlier than had initially been reported. These findings were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The results expand on findings from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that suggested SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was present in the U.S. as far back as December 2019. In the All of Us study, researchers analyzed more than 24,000 stored blood samples contributed ...

Chemotherapy kills tumour cells by causing damage to them. One of the most effective ways of causing damage is to prevent the two DNA strands from separating so that the cellular machinery cannot read the instructions written in the genes. But sometimes, the cell manages to repair the damage and survive, evading the effect of chemotherapy. CNIO researchers have found out how the cell does that and plan to use this knowledge to enhance cancer treatments. The key lies in a peculiar protein called PrimPol, as explained in a publication in The EMBO Journal by the CNIO's DNA Replication Group, led by Juan Méndez. The DNA molecule harbours the genes that direct the life of the cell and, ...

The University of Ottawa has been awarded four new Canada Research Chairs (CRC) that will strengthen its expertise in artificial intelligence, health and law. The University is also proud to announce the renewal of two CRCs that will conduct leading-edge research in quantum communications and photonics. "The Canada Research Chairs Program provides invaluable support to our researchers as they forge their paths of discovery at a world-class level," said Sylvain Charbonneau, vice-president, research. "The results of this most recent competition will ...

A review of more than 9,000 U.S. patients with severe COVID-19 infection showed less than 1% contracted the illness again, with an average reinfection time of 3.5 months after an initial positive test. Those are the findings from a study conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and MU Health Care. The researchers teamed up with the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics and the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation to review data from 62 U.S. health care facilities. They found 63 of the 9,119 patients (0.7%) with severe COVID-19 infection contracted the virus a second time, with a mean reinfection period of 116 days. Of the 63 who were reinfected, two (3.2%) died. Patients categorized as ...

Plants evolve specialised defence chemicals through the combined effects of genes, geography, demography and environmental conditions, a study published today in eLife reports. The findings reveal a pattern in the types of defence chemicals plants produce across Europe, and describe some of the evolutionary processes that create them. As plants are immobile organisms, they rely on producing defence chemicals called specialised metabolites for survival. Specialised metabolites have extensive variation in their structure, such as the number of carbon molecules ...

June 15, 2021 - Canadian researchers have discovered that a bee thought to be one of the rarest in the world, as the only representative of its genus, is no more than an unusual specimen of a widespread species. Scientists with the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN) and York University have reclassified the mystery bee, collected somewhere in Nevada in the 1870s, as Brachymelecta californica. They note that it's an aberrant individual of a species, the California digger-cuckoo bee, that is part of a group that includes five other species. All are cleptoparasitic bees, with females that lay eggs in the nests of digger bees. Brachymelecta californica itself is known to be widespread ...

A recent UCLA clinical trial has shown encouraging results in helping daily smokers who are also heavy drinkers quit smoking and cut down their alcohol intake. The study of 165 people tested two prescription drugs -- varenicline, for smoking addiction, and naltrexone, which is used to treat alcoholism. Studies have shown that varenicline, marketed under the brand name Chantix, may also be effective in reducing alcohol consumption. Participants, who ranged in age from 21 to 65, smoked at least five cigarettes a day, with male participants generally consuming more than 14 drinks a week and women more than seven per week. Over the 12-week study period, each participant received 2 milligrams of varenicline twice a day. Roughly half the group -- 83 participants -- also received a 50-milligram ...

Hippopotamus aren't the first thing that come to mind when considering epidemiology and disease ecology. And yet these amphibious megafauna offered UC Santa Barbara ecologist Keenan Stears(link is external) a window into the progression of an anthrax outbreak that struck Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, in the dry season of 2017. Through surveys and GPS monitoring, Stears and his colleagues, Wendy Turner, Doug McCauley and Melissa Schmitt, revealed that reduced dry-season flows in the Great Ruaha River indirectly spread the disease by affecting hippo movement. The results, which appear in the journal Ecosphere(link is external), present a unique perspective on disease ecology and illustrate how anthropogenic changes can impact wildlife and human health. The ...

A team of scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed millimetre-sized robots that can be controlled using magnetic fields to perform highly manoeuvrable and dexterous manipulations. This could pave the way to possible future applications in biomedicine and manufacturing. The research team created the miniature robots by embedding magnetic microparticles into biocompatible polymers -- non-toxic materials that are harmless to humans. The robots are 'programmed' to execute their desired functionalities when magnetic fields are applied. The made-in-NTU robots improve on many existing small-scale robots by optimizing their ability to move ...

Is artificial intelligence the key to preventing relapse of severe mental illness? New AI software developed by researchers at Flinders University shows promise for enabling timely support ahead of relapse in patients with severe mental illness. The AI2 (Actionable Intime Insights) software, developed by a team of digital health researchers at Flinders University, has undergone an eight-month trial with psychiatric patients from the Inner North Community Health Service, located in Gawler, South Australia. The digital tool is tipped to revolutionise consumer-centric timely mental health treatment provision outside hospital, with researchers labelling it as readily available and scalable. In the trial of 304 ...

Exposure to the rhinovirus, the most frequent cause of the common cold, can protect against infection by the virus which causes COVID-19, Yale researchers have found. In a new study, the researchers found that the common respiratory virus jump-starts the activity of interferon-stimulated genes, early-response molecules in the immune system which can halt replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus within airway tissues infected with the cold. Triggering these defenses early in the course of COVID-19 infection holds promise to prevent or treat the infection, ...