What The Study Did: The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that enhanced personal protective equipment is associated with low rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission during tracheostomy. Authors: Phillip Staibano, M.Sc., M.D., of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, 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/jamaoto.2021.0930) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial ...

What The Study Did: This survey study of adults living Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic examines associations between race/ethnicity, medical mistrust within racial/ethnic groups and willingness to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials or to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Authors: Hayley S. Thompson, Ph.D., of the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, 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.2021.11629) 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, ...

What The Study Did: In this study of 1,597 Big Ten athletes who had comprehensive cardiac screening, including cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging, after COVID-19 infection, 37 athletes (2.3%) were diagnosed with clinical and subclinical myocarditis. Researchers report CMR screening increased detection of myocarditis, a leading cause of sudden death in competitive athletes. Authors: Curt J.Daniels, M.D., and Saurabh Rajpal, M.B.B.S., M.D., of Ohio State University in Columbus, are the corresponding authors. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2021.2065) Editor's ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Nitrogen, an element that is essential for all living cells, makes up about 78 percent of Earth's atmosphere. However, most organisms cannot make use of this nitrogen until it is converted into ammonia. Until humans invented industrial processes for ammonia synthesis, almost all ammonia on the planet was generated by microbes using nitrogenases, the only enzymes that can break the nitrogen-nitrogen bond found in gaseous dinitrogen, or N2. These enzymes contain clusters of metal and sulfur atoms that help perform this critical reaction, but the mechanism of how they do so is not well-understood. For the first time, MIT chemists have now determined the structure of a complex that forms when N2 binds to these clusters, and they discovered that the clusters are able to weaken ...

A massive genome-wide association study (GWAS) of genetic and health records of 1.2 million people from four separate data banks has identified 178 gene variants linked to major depression, a disorder that will affect one of every five people during their lifetimes. The results of the study, led by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and University of California-San Diego (UCSD), may one day help identify people most at risk of depression and related psychiatric disorders and help doctors prescribe drugs best suited to treat the disorder. The study was published May 27 in the journal Nature Neuroscience. For the ...

The research - by the University of York - gives scientists a new tool that will support the development of new varieties. The research led to scientists being able to develop an adaptable framework for describing gene content and order across all Brassica species. Lead author, Professor Ian Bancroft, Chair of Plant Genomics at the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP), at the Department of Biology said: "The research has helped us understand the trajectory of how genomes evolve in brassicas. We can use this new knowledge, for example, to accelerate the exchange of beneficial genes between Brassica species." Brassica vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, kale, pak choi and swede, along with brassica oil crops such as ...

Swiftness is essential when treating lung cancer, the second most common type of cancer in the U.S. and the country's leading cause of cancer deaths. For patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer, surgical removal of a tumor-infested lung or of a smaller lung section may be the only treatment needed. However, some patients postpone surgery while seeking second opinions, because of economic or social factors, or for personal reasons such as waiting until after a child's wedding or a planned vacation. Worries about contracting COVID-19 in a clinical setting also have led to delays. But a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine ...

With the COP Climate conference in Glasgow only a few months away, the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the importance of taking action at the national level to reach global climate goals is returning to the spotlight. IIASA researchers and colleagues have proposed a novel systematic and independent scenario framework that could help policymakers assess and compare climate policies and long-term strategies across countries to support coordinated global climate action. The Paris Agreement defines a long-term temperature goal for international climate policy: "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C". Its achievement critically ...

A study led by research groups of Prof. FU Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. ZHANG Hucai from Yunnan University covers the largest temporal transect of population dynamics in East Asia so far and offers a clearer picture of the deep population history of northern East Asia. The study was published in Cell on May 27. Northern East Asia falls within a similar latitude range as central and southern Europe, where human population movements and size were influenced by Ice Age climatic fluctuations. Did these climatic fluctuations have an impact on the population history of northern East Asia? Stories uncovered by ancient DNA in East Asia remain relatively underexplored. The population ...

BOSTON - Although everyone can benefit from exercise, the mechanistic links between physical fitness and overall health are not fully understood, nor are the reasons why the same exercise can have different effects in different people. Now a study published in Nature Metabolism led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) provides insights related to these unanswered questions. The results could be helpful for determining the specific types of exercise most likely to benefit a particular individual and for identifying new therapeutic targets for diseases related to metabolism. "While groups as a whole benefit from exercise, the variability in responses between any two individuals undergoing the very ...

Geneva, 27 May 2021 - A total investment in nature of USD 8.1 trillion is required between now and 2050 - while annual investment should reach USD 536 billion annually by 2050 - in order to successfully tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises, according to the State of Finance for Nature report released today. The report finds that annual investments in nature-based solutions will have to triple by 2030 and increase four-fold by 2050 from the current investments into nature-based solutions of USD 133 billion (using 2020 as base year). The authors of the report - produced by ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A Penn State scientist studying crystal structures has developed a new mathematical formula that may solve a decades-old problem in understanding spacetime, the fabric of the universe proposed in Einstein's theories of relativity. "Relativity tells us space and time can mix to form a single entity called spacetime, which is four-dimensional: three space-axes and one time-axis," said Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering and physics at Penn State. "However, something about the time-axis sticks out like sore thumb." For ...

The way the human brain works remains, to a great extent, a topic of controversy. One reason is our limited ability to study neuronal processes at the level of single cells and capillaries across the entire living brain without employing highly invasive surgical methods. This limitation is now on the brink of change. Researchers led by Daniel Razansky, Professor of Biomedical Imaging at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, have developed a fluorescence microscopy technique that facilitates high-resolution images of microcirculation without the ...

Bethesda, MD (May 27, 2021) -- Crohn's disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes inflammation (pain and swelling) in the gastrointestinal tract, can cause daily health problems, frequent hospitalizations and surgery when not adequately controlled. While there is no cure for Crohn's disease, there are treatments that can help patients live a symptom-free life. After a detailed review of available literature, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) has released new clinical guidelines outlining the benefits and risks of each drug currently available to Crohn's patients. Based on this research, AGA recommends the early introduction of biologics for patients experiencing luminal and fistulizing Crohn's disease rather than waiting ...

Signals can be amplified by an optimum amount of noise, but this so-called stochastic resonance is a rather fragile phenomenon. Researchers at AMOLF were the first to investigate the role of memory for this phenomenon in an oil-filled optical microcavity. The effects of slow non-linearity (i.e. memory) on stochastic resonance were never considered before, but these experiments suggest that stochastic resonance becomes robust to variations in the signal frequency when systems have memory. This has implications in many fields of physics and energy technology. In particular, the scientists numerically show that introducing slow non-linearity in a mechanical oscillator harvesting energy from noise can increase its efficiency by tenfold. They publish their findings in ...

Ant workers that are infected with a tapeworm live much longer than their uninfected nest-mates. Parasitic infections are usually harmful to their hosts, but there are some exceptions. According to the results of a multi-year scientific study, ants of the species Temnothorax nylanderi show exceptionally high survival rates when infected with a tapeworm. "The lifespan of the infected ants is significantly prolonged. According to our observations, such workers have a survival rate similar to that of queens," said Professor Susanne Foitzik of Johannes Gutenberg University ...

A new discovery by University of Guelph researchers may ultimately help in devising new therapies and improving quality of life for people with Parkinson's disease. By showing how entangled proteins in brain cells enable the neurodegenerative disease to spread, the researchers hope their findings will lead to drugs that halt its progression, said PhD candidate Morgan Stykel, first author of a paper published this month in Cell Reports. Parkinson's disease is the world's fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease and Canada has some of the world's highest rates, according to Parkinson Canada. Its exact cause is unknown. Current therapies only treat symptoms rather than halting the disease, said Dr. Scott Ryan, a professor ...

In the largest genetic analysis of depression to date, Veterans Affairs researchers identified many new gene variants that increase the risk for depression. The groundbreaking study helps researchers better understand the biological basis of depression and could lead to better drug treatments. The study involved genetic data on more than 300,000 participants of VA's Million Veteran Program (MVP), along with more than a million subjects from other biobanks, including 23andMe. With such a large participant pool, the researchers were able to spot trends in genetic risk of depression not previously known. Co-primary investigator Dr. Joel Gelernter, a researcher with the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and Yale University School of Medicine, explained ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago are a step closer to discovering why it is so difficult for people to withdraw from some antidepressant medications. The paper "Antidepressants produce persistent Gαs associated signaling changes in lipid rafts following drug withdrawal," published in the journal Molecular Pharmacology, addresses the molecular and cellular mechanisms that cause antidepressant withdrawal syndrome. The study's authors, Mark Rasenick, distinguished professor of physiology and biophysics and psychiatry at UIC and research career scientist at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and Nicholas ...

Higher percentage of patients treated with nivolumab and ipilimumab in clinical trial reach the six-and-a-half-year survival mark than those treated with either drug alone. BOSTON - In the longest follow-up results from a clinical trial of combination immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma, investigators report that nearly half the patients who received the drugs nivolumab and ipilimumab were alive a median of six and a half years after treatment. The results, stemming from the CheckMate 067 clinical trial, represent a new landmark in survival rates for patients with melanoma treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs. F. ...

URBANA, Ill. - As the owner of a human body, you're carrying trillions of microbes with you everywhere you go. These microscopic organisms aren't just hitching a ride; many of them perform essential chemical reactions that regulate everything from our digestion to our immune system to our moods. One important set of reactions relates to fat absorption via bile acids. Our livers make these acids to help digest fats and fat-soluble vitamins as they travel through the small intestine. Near the end of the small intestine, microbes convert the acids into new forms, which can either be beneficial or ...

Over the past 20 years, first-principles simulations have become powerful, widely used tools in many, diverse fields of science and engineering. From nanotechnology to planetary science, from metallurgy to quantum materials, they have accelerated the identification, characterization, and optimization of materials enormously. They have led to astonishing predictions--from ultrafast thermal transport to electron-phonon mediated superconductivity in hydrides to the emergence of flat bands in twisted-bilayer graphene-- that have gone on to inspire remarkable experiments. The current push to complement ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a new technique that allows microscopic fluorescence imaging at four times the depth limit imposed by light diffusion. Fluorescence microscopy is often used to image molecular and cellular details of the brain in animal models of various diseases but, until now, has been limited to small volumes and highly invasive procedures due to intense light scattering by the skin and skull. "Visualization of biological dynamics in an unperturbed environment, deep in a living organism, is essential for understanding the complex biology of living organisms ...

Five years on from the first discovery of gravitational waves, an international team of scientists, including from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), are continuing the hunt for new discoveries and insights into the Universe. Using the super-sensitive, kilometre-sized LIGO detectors in the United States, and the Virgo detector in Europe, the team have witnessed the explosive collisions of black holes and neutron stars. Recent studies, however, have been looking for something quite different: the elusive signal from a solitary, rapidly-spinning neutron star. Take a star similar in size to the Sun, squash it down to a ball about ...

The hunt for the never before heard "hum" of gravitational waves caused by mysterious neutron stars has just got a lot easier, thanks to an international team of researchers. Gravitational waves have only been detected from black holes and neutron stars colliding, major cosmic events that cause huge bursts that ripple through space and time. The research team, involving scientists from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), Virgo Collaboration and the Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics (CGA) at The Australian National University (ANU), are now turning their eagle eye to spinning neutron stars to detect the waves. Unlike the massive bursts caused by black holes or neutron stars colliding, the researchers ...