The development of new urban agriculture technologies, such as vertical and smart farms, has accelerated rapidly in recent years. These technologies are based on hydroponic cultivation in which plants are grown using nutrient-rich solutions rather than soil. Approximately 20-30% of the nutrient solutions used during hydroponic cultivation are discharged without being absorbed by the crops, and because most farmers in South Korea do not treat the discharged solutions, hydroponic farms contribute significantly to environmental pollution. This problem can be reduced if hydroponic farms use a recirculating hydroponic cultivation method that reuses the nutrient solutions after sterilizing them with ...

Niigata, Japan - The loss of muscle tissue - referred to as muscle atrophy in medical terms - can occur as a result of lack of physical activity for an extended period of time; aging; alcohol-associated myopathy - a pain and weakness in muscles due to excessive drinking over long periods of time; burns; injuries; malnutrition; spinal cord or peripheral nerve injuries; stroke; and long-term corticosteroid therapy. While muscle atrophy due to disuse is well known and studied, the underlying cellular mechanisms, particularly the status of mitochondrial degradation by mitophagy during disuse-induced muscle atrophy has been a subject ...

Researchers from University of Texas at Dallas and Emory University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the issue of encroachment in the hotel industry. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Can Encroachment Benefit Hotel Franchisees?" and is authored by TI Tongil Kim and Sandy Jap. For decades, the issue of encroachment, or adding an outlet in proximity to existing outlets, has been contentious. A new outlet increases competition for customers, causing concerns for franchisors and franchisees that the existing outlet's sales will be cannibalized. Franchising is a key means for growth and market expansion for many companies. ...

Researchers have discovered a new and more efficient computing method for pairing the reliability of a classical computer with the strength of a quantum system. This new computing method opens the door to different algorithms and experiments that bring quantum researchers closer to near-term applications and discoveries of the technology. "In the future, quantum computers could be used in a wide variety of applications including helping to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, developing artificial limbs and designing more efficient pharmaceuticals," said Christine Muschik, a principal investigator at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) and a faculty member in physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo. The research team from ...

Reston, VA (Embargoed until 7:30 p.m. EDT, Monday, June 14, 2021)--A protein that is critical in cancer cell metabolism has been imaged for the first time with a newly developed radiopharmaceutical, 18F-DASA-23. Imaging with this novel agent has the potential to improve the assessment of treatment response for patients, specifically those with brain tumors. This study was presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2021 Annual Meeting. Tumor cells go through various changes to survive and prosper in the body. One of the key changes they make is modifying a master switch, known as pyruvate kinase ...

Reston, VA (Embargoed until 7:30 p.m. EDT, Monday, June 14, 2021)--A novel positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracer has been shown to effectively measure increases in brain tau--a distinguishing characteristic of Alzheimer's disease--before any symptoms of the disease are observed. With the potential to measure increases in tau over a long period of time, this tracer offers an important tool to assess the effectiveness of Alzheimer's disease treatments in clinical trials. This research was presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2021 Annual Meeting. Tau is a protein commonly ...

Reston, VA (Embargoed until 7:30 p.m. EDT, Monday, June 14, 2021)--In patients with mild cognitive impairment, taking lipophilic statins more than doubles their risk of developing dementia compared to those who do not take statins. According to research presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2021 Annual Meeting, positron emission tomography (PET) scans of lipophilic statin users revealed a highly significant decline in metabolism in the area of the brain that is first impacted by Alzheimer's disease. Statins are medications used to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke. They are the most commonly used drugs in the developed world, and nearly 50 percent of Americans over age 75 use a statin. Different types ...

The use of 'ice' flavoured e-cigarettes may be common and positively associated with conventional smoking and nicotine dependence among young adults, suggests research published online in the journal Tobacco Control. And it's unclear where these' hybrid' vapes, combining fruit/sweet and cooling flavours, fit into current or future regulatory frameworks, which apply restrictions according to distinct flavour categories, point out the study authors. 'Ice' flavoured e-cigarettes--marketed as a combination of fruity/sweet and cooling flavours, such as 'blueberry ice' or 'melon ice'--recently entered the US market. Previous research ...

Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent. 1. A third dose of COVID-19 vaccine increased antibody levels in organ transplant recipients with a suboptimal response following standard 2-dose vaccination Study is the first to report on response to a third vaccine ...

KINGSTON, R.I. - June 14, 2021 - The rarest frog in Rhode Island may not be as rare as scientists once thought after a study by University of Rhode Island researchers using a seldom-used methodology turned up many more of the endangered animals than they expected. Eastern spadefoots - often called spadefoot toads, though they are actually frogs - have long been considered highly secretive and difficult to find outside of their one- or two-day annual breeding periods on rainy nights. In some years, they don't breed at all. But after scientists reported just 50 sightings of the frogs over the previous 70 years, the Rhode Island researchers observed 42 spadefoots ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a way to dynamically switch the surface of liquid metal between reflective and scattering states. This technology could one day be used to create electrically controllable mirrors or illumination devices. Liquid metals combine the electrical, thermal and optical properties of metals with the fluidity of a liquid. The new approach uses an electrically driven chemical reaction to create switchable reflective surfaces on a liquid metal. No optical coatings nor polishing steps, which are typically required to make reflective optical components, are necessary to make the liquid metal highly ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- While the United States faces a nationwide nursing shortage, a recent study at the University of Missouri found rural Missouri counties experience nursing shortages at a greater rate than the state's metropolitan counties. In addition, the study found rural Missouri counties have a higher percentage of older nurses nearing retirement, which could have a severe impact on the future of the state's nursing workforce. Anne Heyen, an assistant teaching professor in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing, analyzed workforce data of nearly 136,000 licensed Missouri nurses to identify the age and geographical disparities ...

DARIEN, IL - More veterans are receiving important sleep care, especially those living in rural areas where access to sleep medicine specialists can be difficult. The Veterans Health Administration's TeleSleep Program launched telehealth services in 2017 to support the testing, diagnosis, and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. More than one million veterans who received care from VHA in 2020 have sleep apnea. "The implementation of these services has been very successful," said Dr. Kathleen Sarmiento, program lead for the Office of Rural Health TeleSleep ...

Red seaweeds have been prevalent in the diets of Asian communities for thousands of years. In a new study, published in Marine Drugs, researchers have shown how these algae confer health benefits. "In the past, people have wondered why the number of colon cancer patients in Japan is the lowest in the world," said Yong-Su Jin (CABBI/BSD/MME), a professor of food microbiology. "Many assumed that it was due to some aspect of the Japanese diet or lifestyle. We wanted to ask whether their seaweed diet was connected to the lower frequency of colon cancer." Although several studies have shown that Asians who eat seaweed regularly have lower risk of colon, ...

Methane is a strong greenhouse gas that plays a key role in Earth's climate. Anytime we use natural gas, whether we light up our kitchen stove or barbeque, we are using methane. Only three sources on Earth produce methane naturally: volcanoes, subsurface water-rock interactions, and microbes. Between these three sources, most is generated by microbes, which have deposited hundreds of gigatons of methane into the deep seafloor. At seafloor methane seeps, it percolates upwards toward the open ocean, and microbial communities consume the majority of this methane before it reaches the atmosphere. Over the years, researchers are finding more and more methane beneath the seafloor, yet very little ever leaves the oceans and gets into the atmosphere. Where ...

HOUSTON - (June 14, 2021) - In the two decades since the Human Genome Project mapped the entire human genome, improvements in technology have helped in developing updated reference genomes used for sequencing. But while the GRCh38 (hg38) human reference genome was released more than seven years ago, the older GRCh37 (hg19) reference remains widely used by most research and clinical laboratories. In a new study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers at the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine identify ...

HOUSTON - (June 14, 2021) - Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is the most common genetic form of brittle bone disease and results in defects of both bone and connective tissue. OI patients can have significant problems with mobility due to joint dysfunction due in part to tendinopathy. In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine identify a protein signaling mechanism driving this dysfunction and find that inhibiting this signaling pathway can prevent onset of tendinopathy problems in mouse models. The ...

DARIEN, IL - According to a study of data from more than 163,000 Fitbit users, sleep duration increased slightly in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with a similar timeframe in 2019. Results show that mean sleep duration increased in nearly all groups by 5 to 11 minutes, compared with a mean decrease of 5 to 8 minutes seen over the same period in 2019. Sleep timing shifted later for nearly all groups. Sleep duration and bedtime variability decreased, largely due to fewer differences between weekday and weekend sleep. "The most surprising thing we found was that, overall, sleep duration increased slightly, and sleep variability decreased slightly, during the most ...

The World Health Organization describes empowerment as a process in which people can take control and make informed decisions about their life and health. Empowerment is important for people with RA since most care is provided by patients themselves. Andersson and colleagues studied levels of empowerment and associated variables in people with RA, and investigated longitudinal clinical data in those with low and high levels of empowerment. The study involved 2837 people with RA from the BARFOT (Better Anti-Rheumatic PharmacO Therapy) cohort. Everyone was assessed according to a structured protocol at ...

BALTIMORE (June 14, 2021) - Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) analyzed data at the 13-hospital University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) and found public health measures designed to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus may have fostered a substantial side benefit: Hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were reduced by 53 percent, according to a new study published in The American Journal of Medicine. This is likely due to a drop in circulating seasonal respiratory viruses such as influenza. Hospitalizations for COPD, a group of lung diseases that make it hard to breathe and get worse over time, are commonly driven by flare-ups where symptoms are triggered by such factors ...

In many parts of the world, mosquitoes are a common summertime nuisance. But in places on the front lines of climate change, these disease-spreading insects may one day be a year-round problem, according to new research from the University of Florida. "In tropical regions, mosquitoes are active all year, but that isn't the case for the rest of the world. Outside of the tropics, winter temperatures cause mosquitoes to go into a kind of hibernation called diapause. We call these mosquitoes 'cold bounded' because their activity is limited by these lower temperatures," said Brett Scheffers, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the UF/IFAS wildlife ecology and conservation department. "However, ...

June 14, 2021 - Last fall, the Mullen fire west of Laramie raged for the better part of two months, burning more than 176,000 acres and 70 structures in Wyoming's Carbon and Albany counties, and in Jackson County, Colo. Unfortunately, this scenario was typical during the intense 2020 fire season in the Rocky Mountain region, an area of Colorado and southern Wyoming where high-elevation forests are burning more than at any point in the past 2,000 years, according to a study in which a University of Wyoming faculty member was instrumental. "Global warming is causing larger fires in Rocky Mountain forests than have burned for thousands of years," says Bryan Shuman, a professor in the UW Department of Geology and Geophysics. "The last time anything ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Most sensible air travelers dread turbulence. A little atmospheric hiccup can shake airplanes, rattle nerves and spill beverages. A Cornell University-led study found that birds don't mind at all. By combining wind speed data with the measured accelerations of a golden eagle outfitted with GPS tracking instruments, the researchers suggest that, rather than hindering flight, turbulence is a source of energy that birds may use to their advantage. This counterintuitive discovery could revise what we know about avian flight, and help the aerospace industry develop faster, more efficient ways to fly in turbulent environments. The paper, ...

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease in which malignant cells form in the tissues of the pancreas, a long and flat gland located behind the stomach that helps with digestion and blood sugar regulation. Because pancreatic cancer is difficult to detect early, it is associated with a low survival rate, accounting for just over 3% of all new cancer cases in the U.S., but leading to nearly 8% of all cancer deaths, according to the National Cancer Institute. Through a pre-clinical study conducted in his former role at Moffitt Cancer Center and published in Clinical Cancer Research, Said Sebti, Ph.D., associate director for basic research at VCU Massey Cancer Center, identified a novel drug that effectively thwarts pancreatic tumors that are addicted ...

Analyzing how people move about in their daily lives has long been important to urban planners, traffic engineers, and others developing new infrastructure projects. But amid the social restrictions and quarantine policies imposed during the global spread of COVID-19--which is directly linked to the movement of people--human mobility patterns changed dramatically. To understand just how COVID-19 affected human movement on a global scale, Shouraseni Sen Roy, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, and graduate student Christopher Chapin developed COVID-19 vs. Human Mobility, an innovative and interactive web application that, shared in a new ...