EUGENE, Ore. - March 2, 2021 - High-resolution imaging and 3D computer modeling show that the dendrites of neurons weave through space in a way that balances their need to connect to other neurons with the costs of doing so. The discovery, reported in Nature Scientific Reports Jan. 27, emerged as researchers sought to understand the fractal nature of neurons as part of a University of Oregon project to design fractal-shaped electrodes to connect with retinal neurons to address vision loss due to retinal diseases. "The challenge in our research has been understanding how the neurons we want to target in the retina will connect to our electrodes," said Richard Taylor, a professor and head ...

An analysis of law enforcement seizures of illegal drugs in five key regions of the United States revealed a rise in methamphetamine and marijuana (cannabis) confiscations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seizures of the two drugs were higher at their peak in August 2020 than at any time in the year prior to the pandemic. While investigators found that trends in heroin, cocaine and fentanyl seizures were not affected by the pandemic, provisional overdose death data show that the increased drug mortality seen in 2019 rose further through the first half of 2020. The findings suggest that the pandemic and its related restrictions may ...

Washington, DC-- March 2, 2021 -- Detecting COVID-19 outbreaks before they spread could help contain the virus and curb new cases within a community. This week in mSystems, an open-access Journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers from the University of California San Diego describe a mostly-automated early alert system that uses high-throughput analysis of wastewater samples to identify buildings where new COVID-19 cases have emerged--even before infected people develop symptoms. The approach is fast, cost-effective, and sensitive enough to detect a single ...

Today, we can say without a shadow of doubt that an alternative to fossil fuels is needed. Fossil fuels are not only non-renewable sources of energy but also among the leading causes of global warming and air pollution. Thus, many scientists worldwide have their hopes placed on what they regard as the fuel of tomorrow: hydrogen (H2). Although H2 is a clean fuel with incredibly high energy density, efficiently generating large amounts of it remains a difficult technical challenge. Water splitting--the breaking of water molecules--is among the most explored methods to produce H2. While there are many ways ...

Pesticides used in forestry may threaten species in downstream rivers and estuaries, but little is known about the extent to which this occurs. A new study by researchers at Portland State University found mussels, clams and oysters in watersheds along the Oregon Coast are exposed to pesticides used in managing forests. The results of this study, published in the journal Toxics, have implications for developing better forest management practices that are less likely to negatively affect aquatic life. The study was led by Kaegan Scully-Engelmeyer, PhD student in the Earth, Environment and Society program at Portland ...

The coronavirus pandemic has drawn new attention to the digital divide, as the need for online schooling and working from home has disproportionately hurt those without computer equipment and skills. Research by Paul A. Pavlou, dean of the C. T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, found that people with basic Information Technology (IT) skills - including the ability to use email, copy and paste files and work with an Excel spreadsheet - are more likely to be employed, even in jobs that aren't explicitly tied to those skills. People with more advanced IT skills generally earned higher salaries, the researchers found. The work is described in Information Systems Research. "Unemployment and low wages remain pressing societal challenges in the wake of increased ...

A new study has shown that gentle streams of water carrying sound and microscopic air bubbles can clean bacteria from salad leaves more effectively than current washing methods used by suppliers and consumers. As well as reducing food poisoning, the findings could reduce food waste and have implications for the growing threat of anti-microbial resistance. Salad and leafy green vegetables may be contaminated with harmful bacteria during growing, harvesting, preparation and retail leading to outbreaks of food poisoning which may be fatal in vulnerable groups. Because there is no cooking process to ...

Healthcare sex discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community may be expanded under the Biden Administration, including safeguards against verbal abuse, physical abuse and the denial of bedside care, according to West Virginia University College of Law experts. In a report published in California Law Review, Professor Valarie Blake and students Ashley Stephens and Amy Post examined whether gender identity and sexual orientation should be included in healthcare sex discrimination laws, on the heels of the historic 2020 Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County. In that case, the Court ruled that sex discrimination includes gender identity and sexual orientation when it comes to employment standards. Yet the interpretation of whether ...

Scientists at the University of Bath in the UK have found a way to bind together two photons of different colours, paving the way for important advancements in quantum-electrodynamics - the field of science that describes how light and matter interact. In time, the team's findings are likely to impact developments in optical and quantum communication, and precision measurements of frequency, time and distances. APPLE AND WAVE: THEY BOTH HAVE A MASS An apple falling from a tree has velocity and mass, which together give it momentum. 'Apple energy' derived from motion depends on the fruit's momentum and mass. Most people find ...

Volcanic basalt rocks in the Black Rock Desert, Utah. If you drive south through central Utah on Interstate 15 and look west somewhere around Fillmore, you'll see smooth hills and fields of black rock. The area is, aptly, named the Black Rock Desert. It may not look like much, but you're looking at some of Utah's volcanoes. A pair of earthquake sequences, in September 2018 and April 2019, focused scientists' attention on the Black Rock Desert. The sequences, which included the main quakes and their aftershocks, were very different from the Magna earthquake that shook the Wasatch Front in 2020 and other Utah earthquakes. The Black Rock sequences were captured ...

Since early in the pandemic, COVID-19 has been associated with heart problems, including reduced ability to pump blood and abnormal heart rhythms. But it's been an open question whether these problems are caused by the virus infecting the heart, or an inflammatory response to viral infection elsewhere in the body. Such details have implications for understanding how best to treat coronavirus infections that affect the heart. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provides evidence that COVID-19 patients' heart damage ...

Positive psychological effects associated with taking small doses of psychedelic drugs are likely the result of users' expectations, suggests a study published today in eLife. The study - the largest placebo-controlled trial on psychedelics to date - used an innovative 'self-blinding citizen science' approach, where members of the public who were already microdosing implemented their own placebo control following online instructions. The results from the trial may influence future studies in real-world settings. There has been renewed interest in studying whether psychedelic drugs may be a useful treatment for depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorders and other conditions. Few small studies have previously suggested that microdoses ...

A new paper from associate professor Jiandi Wan's group in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering, published in Science Advances, proposes a potential solution to dendrite growth in rechargeable lithium metal batteries. In the paper, Wan's team prove that flowing ions near the cathode can potentially expand the safety and lifespans of these next-generation rechargeable batteries. Lithium metal batteries use lithium metal as the anode. These batteries have a high charge density and potentially double the energy of conventional lithium ion batteries, but safety is a big concern. When they charge, some ions are reduced to lithium ...

In a new study from Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health, researchers have identified a potential new marker that shows cardiovascular disease may be present in a patient using an optical coherence tomography (OCT) scan -- a non-invasive diagnostic tool commonly used in ophthalmology and optometry clinics to create images of the retina. The finding suggests it may be possible to detect heart disease during an eye examination. In the paper published March 2, 2021 in EClinical Medicine by The Lancet, the research team examined lesions of the retina, the inner-most, light-sensitive layer of the eye, to determine if a cardiovascular disorder may be present. "The eyes are a window into our health, and many diseases can manifest in the eye; cardiovascular ...

NEW YORK, NY--March 2, 2021--In March and April 2020, mental health claim lines for individuals aged 13-18, as a percentage of all medical claim lines, approximately doubled over the same months in the previous year. At the height of the spring wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this rise in mental health claim lines amounted to 97.0 percent in March and 103.5 percent in April. These are among the many findings in FAIR Health's new white paper, the seventh in its COVID-19 studies, The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health: A Study of Private Healthcare Claims. In those same months of March and April 2020, all medical claim lines (including mental health claim lines) decreased by approximately ...

When it comes to the evolution of the mammal spine -- think of animals whose backbone allows them to gallop, hop, swim, run, or walk upright -- a key part of the tale is quite simple. Because nonmammalian synapsids, the extinct forerunners to mammals, had similar traits to living reptiles (like having their limbs splayed out to the side instead of tucked into their body like today's mammals), the strongheld belief was that they must have also moved in similar ways. Primarily, their backbones must have moved side-to-side, bending like those of modern lizards, instead of the up-and-down bending motion mammal spines are known for. It's believed over time, and in response to selective pressures, the mammal spine evolved from that lizard like side-to-side bending ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- By modeling wolves in Yellowstone National Park, researchers have discovered that how a population is organized into social groups affects the spread of infectious diseases within the population. The findings may be applicable to any social species and could be useful in the protection of endangered species that suffer from disease invasion. Like other social carnivores, wolves tend to form territorial social groups that are often aggressive toward each other and may lead to fatalities. During these encounters, infectious diseases -- like mange and canine distemper -- can spread between groups, which can further reduce the number of individuals in a group. "Previous social group-disease models have assumed that groups do not change ...

WESTMINSTER, Colorado - March 02, 2021 - Herbicide-resistant weeds have fueled a growing demand for effective, nonchemical weed controls. Among the techniques used are chaff carts, impact mills and other harvest-time practices that remove or destroy weed seeds instead of leaving them on the field to sprout. A recent article in the journal Weed Science explores whether such harvest-time controls would be effective against downy brome, Italian ryegrass, feral rye and rattail fescue - weeds that compete with winter wheat in the Pacific Northwest. Researchers set out to determine whether ...

New research has found that shrimp like creatures on the South Coast of England have 70 per cent less sperm than less polluted locations elsewhere in the world. The research also discovered that individuals living in the survey area are six times less numerous per square metre than those living in cleaner waters. This discovery, published today in Aquatic Toxicology, mirrors similar findings in other creatures, including humans. The scientist leading research at the University of Portsmouth believes pollutants might be to blame, further highlighted by this ...

Resveratrol is a plant compound found primarily in red grapes and Japanese knotweed. Its synthetic variant has been approved as a food ingredient in the EU since 2016. At least in cell-based test systems, the substance has anti-inflammatory properties. A recent collaborative study by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich and the Institute of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Vienna has now shown that the bitter receptor TAS2R50 is involved in this effect. The team of scientists led by Veronika Somoza ...

CHICAGO, March 2, 2021 -- More than 70 percent of dentists surveyed by the American Dental Association (ADA) Health Policy Institute are seeing an increase of patients experiencing teeth grinding and clenching, conditions often associated with stress. This is an increase from ADA data released in the fall that showed just under 60 percent of dentists had seen an increase among their patients. "Our polling has served as a barometer for pandemic stress affecting patients and communities seen through the eyes of dentists," said Marko Vujicic, Ph.D., chief economist and vice president of the ADA Health Policy Institute. "The increase over time suggests stress-related conditions have become substantially more prevalent since the onset of COVID-19." The ...

BOSTON - Lymph nodes in the armpit area can become swollen after a COVID-19 vaccination, and this is a normal reaction that typically goes away with time. Radiologists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who recently published an approach to managing this situation in women who receive mammograms for breast cancer screening in the American Journal of Roentgenology have now expanded their recommendations to include care for patients who undergo other imaging tests for diverse medical reasons. Their guidance is published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. "Our ...

A new study published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters used NASA's ice-measuring laser satellite to identify atmospheric river storms as a key driver of increased snowfall in West Antarctica during the 2019 austral winter. These findings from scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and colleagues will help improve overall understanding of the processes driving change in Antarctica, and lead to better predictions of sea-level rise. The study was funded by NASA, with additional support from the Rhodium Group's Climate Impact Lab, a consortium ...

CLEVELAND - Researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health have developed a promising new COVID-19 vaccine candidate that utilizes nanotechnology and has shown strong efficacy in preclinical disease models. According to new findings published in mBio, the vaccine produced potent neutralizing antibodies among preclinical models and also prevented infection and disease symptoms in the face of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). An additional reason for the vaccine candidate's early appeal is that it may be thermostable, which would make it easier to transport and store than currently authorized COVID-19 ...

There's more to taste than flavor. Let ice cream melt, and the next time you take it out of the freezer you'll find its texture icy instead of the smooth, creamy confection you're used to. Though its flavor hasn't changed, most people would agree the dessert is less appetizing. UC Santa Barbara Professor Craig Montell and postdoctoral fellow Qiaoran Li have published a study in Current Biology providing the first description of how certain animals sense the texture of their food based on grittiness versus smoothness. They found that, in fruit flies, a mechanosensory channel relays this information about a food's texture. The channel, called TMEM63, is part of ...