A study of media coverage of 623 scientific papers on Alzheimer disease research conducted in mice reveals that the news media are more likely to write a story about alleged breakthroughs or medical research findings if research authors omit mice from their studies' titles. On the other hand, papers that acknowledge mice in their titles result in limited media coverage. In addition, the study titled "What's not in the news headlines or titles of Alzheimer disease articles? #In mice" conducted by Dr Marcia Triunfol of Humane Society International and Dr Fabio Gouveia of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, and published in PLoS ...

Discussions of a broken value system are ubiquitous in science, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic served to expose inequality globally. However, according to the authors of an article publishing 15th June 2021 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, science itself is not "broken," but it was built on deeply-entrenched, systemic sexist and racist values, which perpetuate biases through the continued focus on citation rates and impact factors. The author maintain that while equity within science has advanced thanks to the tireless efforts of generations of systemically marginalized groups, the system remains outdated, colonialist, and patriarchal. ...

Financial toxicity, the financial strain experienced by patients accessing health care, impacts a large population of cancer patients according to prior research. A new study, published in JACC: CardioOncology, finds financial toxicity is often greater among heart disease patients compared to cancer patients, and those with both conditions suffer the highest burden. "Heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in the United States, yet most research on financial toxicity has focused on cancer patients. It is important to consider that cancer patients may have short bursts of high expenditures for treatments, while heart disease patients are often incurring ...

The number of people dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Asia is increasing rapidly, with over half of all CVD deaths globally in 2019 occurring in Asian countries, according to a state-of-the-art review paper published in the inaugural issue of JACC: Asia. The data demonstrates an urgent need to understand the burdens and epidemiological features of CVD in Asian countries to develop localized CVD prevention strategies to combat the epidemic. From 1990 to 2019, the number of CVD deaths in Asia rose from 5.6 million to 10.8 million. Nearly 39% of these CVD deaths were premature, meaning they occurred in a person less than 70 years old, which was significantly higher than premature CVD deaths in the U.S. (23%). Most ...

There is increasing scrutiny around how science is communicated to the public, but what is the relationship between how scientists report their findings and how media reports it to the public? A study published in PLOS Biology by Marcia Triunfol at Humane Society International, in Washington, DC and Fabio Gouveia at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil suggests that when authors of scientific papers omit the basic fact that a study was conducted in mice (and not in humans) from the article title, journalists reporting on the paper tend to do the same. Alzheimer's Disease is an exclusively ...

What will the Earth be like for our children and grandchildren, as temperatures continue to rise? We can be fairly certain of some things: Some regions will become inhospitable, as heat drives their inhabitants away or causes massive declines and changes in their ecosystems. Many other physical, chemical and biological processes will also be affected by rising temperatures that threaten critical ecosystem services such as food production, biodiversity and energy security. But what these changes will be and exactly how they impact the Earth -- and ultimately us humans -- are still difficult to predict. Many of them are so gradual and happen over such a long timescale that they wouldn't be noticeable ...

Federal agencies that regulate drug pricing and healthcare insurance are concerned that an industry practice of using rebates to lower drug costs for insurers has led to increases in list prices and out-of-pockets costs for patients. To investigate whether patients with or without insurance were paying more because of rebates to insurers, researchers led by the University of Washington examined cost and price data on more than 400 branded drugs. The study found that rebates were associated with increases in out-of-pocket costs for patients by an average of $6 for those with commercial insurance, $13 for Medicare ...

In 1943, two scientists named Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria conducted an experiment to show that bacteria can mutate randomly, independent of external stimulus, such as an antibiotic that threatens a bacterial cells' survival. Today the Luria-Delbrück experiment is widely used in laboratories for a different purpose--scientists use this classic experiment to determine microbial mutation rates. When performing the Luria-Delbrück experiment, scientists need efficient computer algorithms to extract reliable estimates of mutation rates from data, and they also need well-designed software tools to access these sophisticated algorithms. Through the years, several web tools that allow researchers to more easily input and analyze data on a computer were developed to increase ...

Photoemission is a property of metals and other materials that emit electrons when struck by light. Electron emission after light absorption was already explained by Albert Einstein. But since this effect is a highly complex process, scientists have still not been able to fully elucidate its details. Prof. Dr. Bernd von Issendorff and his team at the University of Freiburg's Institute of Physics have now succeeded in detecting a previously unknown quantum effect in the angular distributions of photoelectrons from cryogenic mass-selected metal clusters. ...

Washington, D.C. - June 15, 2021 - Viral genome sequencing of wastewater can provide an early warning system of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants that is independent of investigations of identified clinical cases, according to a new study published in mSystems, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. In the study, researchers describe the detection and quantification of variant B.1.1.7, first identified in southeast England, in sewage samples from London, United Kingdom before widespread transmission of this variant was obvious from clinical cases. "Wastewater sampling and environmental surveillance ...

Humans can do lots of things that plants can't do. We can walk around, we can talk, we can hear and see and touch. But plants have one major advantage over humans: They can make energy directly from the sun. That process of turning sunlight directly into usable energy - called photosynthesis - may soon be a feat humans are able to mimic to harness the sun's energy for clean, storable, efficient fuel. If so, it could open a whole new frontier of clean energy. Enough energy hits the earth in the form of sunlight in one hour to meet all human civilization's energy needs for an entire year. Yulia Puskhar, a biophysicist and professor of physics in Purdue's College of Science, may have a way to harness that energy by mimicking plants. Wind ...

Proper chromosome segregation into two future daughter cells requires the mitotic spindle to elongate in anaphase. However, although some candidate proteins are implicated in this process, the molecular mechanism that drives spindle elongation in human cells has been unknown, until now! Researchers at the Croatian Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) have discovered the exact molecular mechanism of bridging microtubules sliding and its role in proper distribution of genetic material during cell division. These latest results were published in the scientific journal Developmental Cell (IF: 10.092). Cell division is a fundamental process required for stable transmission ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have fabricated a magnetically driven rotary microfilter that can be used to filter particles inside a microfluidic device. They made the tiny turning filter by creating a magnetic material that could be used with a very precise 3D printing technique known as two-photon polymerization. Microfluidic devices, also known as lab-on-a-chip devices, can be used to perform multiple laboratory functions inside a chip that usually measures a few square centimeters or less. These devices contain intricate networks of microfluidic channels and are becoming more and more complex. They may be useful for a variety of applications such as screening molecules ...

Antidepressants can help humans emerge from the darkness of depression. Expose crayfish to antidepressants, and they too become more outgoing -- but that might not be such a positive thing for these freshwater crustaceans, according to a new study led by scientists with the University of Florida. "Low levels of antidepressants are found in many water bodies," said A.J. Reisinger, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the UF/IFAS soil and water sciences department. "Because they live in the water, animals like crayfish are regularly exposed to trace amounts of these ...

Pharmaceutical pollution is found in streams and rivers globally, but little is known about its effects on animals and ecosystems. A new study, published in the journal Ecosphere, investigated the effects of antidepressant pollution on crayfish. Just two weeks of citalopram exposure caused changes in crayfish behavior, with the potential to disrupt stream ecosystem processes like nutrient cycling, oxygen levels, and algal growth. Coauthor Emma Rosi, a freshwater ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, says, "Animals living in streams and rivers are exposed to a chronic mix of pharmaceutical pollution as a result of wastewater contamination. Our study explored how antidepressant levels ...

New Haven, Conn. --In a new study led by Yale Cancer Center, researchers show the nucleoside transporter ENT2 may offer an unexpected path to circumventing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enabling targeted treatment of brain tumors with a cell-penetrating anti-DNA autoantibody. The study was published today online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight. "These findings are very encouraging as the BBB prevents most antibodies from penetrating the central nervous system and limits conventional antibody-based approaches to brain tumors," said James E. Hansen, MD, associate professor of therapeutic radiology, radiation oncology chief of the Yale Gamma Knife Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital, and corresponding author of the study. Deoxymab-1 (DX1) ...

Ethiopia, Nigeria, Colombia, Myanmar and Syria are just a handful of the places around the world currently engaged in ongoing civil wars. Even when peace agreements can be negotiated to end civil wars, maintaining stability is incredibly challenging. In these fragile post-conflict areas, a small communal dispute can easily escalate and unravel peace deals. Peacekeepers can help contain the spread of violence and promote peaceful interactions between groups, but how? And in what situations can peacekeepers be most effective? New research from Washington University ...

Changing your eating habits or altering your circadian clock can impact healthy fat tissue throughout your lifespan, according to a preclinical study published today in Nature by researchers with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Healthy fat tissue helps provide energy, supports cell growth, protects organs, and keeps the body warm. A good quality diet and one that is consumed in a rhythmic manner (i.e., during our active cycle) is important in maintaining healthy fat, the researchers found. Adipocyte progenitor cells mature into adipocytes - the healthy fat cells that make up our adipose tissue, which stores energy as fat. Researchers discovered that adipocyte progenitors undergo rhythmic daily proliferation throughout the ...

A new model that applies artificial intelligence to carbohydrates improves the understanding of the infection process and could help predict which viruses are likely to spread from animals to humans. This is reported in a recent study led by researchers at the University of Gothenburg. Carbohydrates participate in nearly all biological processes - yet they are still not well understood. Referred to as glycans, these carbohydrates are crucial to making our body work the way it is supposed to. However, with a frightening frequency, they are also ...

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have developed two rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19 that are nearly as accurate as the gold-standard test currently used in laboratories. Unlike the gold standard test, which extracts RNA and uses it to amplify the DNA of the virus, these new tests can detect the presence of the virus in as little as five minutes using different methods. One test is a COVID-19 molecular diagnostic test, called Antisense, that uses electrochemical sensing to detect the presence of the virus. The other uses a simple assay of gold nanoparticles to detect a color change when the virus is present. Both tests were developed by Dipanjan Pan, PhD, Professor of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine ...

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 ...