A single letter difference in a single gene, inherited from both parents, spells a lifetime of anemia and pain for 20 million people, mostly of African ancestry, worldwide. Sickle cell disease (SCD) causes red blood cells to assume a sickle shape and jam in capillaries, cutting off oxygen to lungs, brain, bones and other organs. Despite the single genetic origin of SCD, each person's disease experience and even life expectancy depend upon where they live, and the social, physical and environmental factors they encounter. Now, a new review published by Wiley in the journal Advanced Genetics proposes that it is ...

The rapid loss of variation within species is a hidden biodiversity crisis, according to the authors of a new study looking at how this variation supports essential ecological functions and the benefits nature provides for people. Published March 1 in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the study highlights the need to better understand and conserve variation within species in order to safeguard nature's contributions to people. "Biodiversity means more than the number of species, and when we focus on species-level extinctions we are missing part of the story," said corresponding author Eric Palkovacs, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. "Intraspecific variation is a neglected aspect of biodiversity, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - The expansion of charter schools in the 2000s led to an increase in school segregation and a slight decline in residential segregation, according to new research from Cornell University providing the first national estimates of the diverging trends. According to the study, the average district to expand charter school enrollment between 2000 and 2010 experienced a 12% increase in white-Black school segregation and a 2% decrease in white-Black residential segregation. The patterns moved in opposite directions, the research found, because charter ...

Scientists from the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago found that a region within the DNA of the cancer-promoting GLI1 gene is directly responsible for regulating this gene's expression. These findings, published in the journal Stem Cells, imply that this region within GLI1 could potentially be targeted as cancer treatment, since turning off GLI1 would interrupt excessive cell division characteristic of cancer. "From previous research, we know that GLI1 drives the unrelenting cell proliferation that is responsible for many cancers, and that this gene also stimulates its own expression," says co-senior author Philip Iannaccone, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus at the Manne Research Institute at Lurie Children's and Northwestern ...

Scientists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) together with Russian and German colleagues, continue studying antitumor compounds synthesized based on bioactive molecules isolated from a sea sponge. One of them fights cancer cells resistant to standard chemotherapy, and at the same time has an interesting dual mechanism of action. A related article appears in Marine Drugs. Scientists have tested the biological effect of the marine alkaloid 3,10-dibromofascaplysin on various prostate cancer cells, including those resistant to standard docetaxel-based chemotherapy. ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - In tropical oceans, a combination of sunlight and weak winds drives up surface temperatures in the afternoon, increasing atmospheric turbulence, unprecedented new observational data collected by an Oregon State University researcher shows. The new findings could have important implications for weather forecasting and climate modeling, said Simon de Szoeke, a professor in OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and the lead author of the study. "The ocean warms in the afternoon by just a degree or two, but it is an effect that has largely been ignored," said de Szoeke. ...

HARWELL, UK (1 March 2021) Scientists based at the University of Oxford as part of the Faraday Institution CATMAT project researching next-generation cathode materials have made a significant advance in understanding oxygen-redox processes involved in lithium-rich cathode materials. The paper, published in Nature Energy, proposes strategies that offer potential routes to increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. "In the ever more difficult quest to make incremental improvements to Li-ion battery energy density, being able to harness the potential of oxygen-redox cathodes and the bigger improvements they offer relative to the nickel rich cathodes in commercial use today is potentially significant," Prof Peter Bruce, University ...

Childhood cancer and its treatment can result in cognitive struggles. Scientists atSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital are studying the risk factors. They looked at social and economic issues in children with brain tumors treated with radiation. These patients have the greatest risk of cognitive problems. Scientists followed a group of St. Jude patients for 10 years. The children all had conformal radiation therapy. For each patient, researchers looked at certain factors. These included the parent's job, education level, and whether it was a single parent home. The children were from different backgrounds. The findings show social and economic status is linked to IQ, academics, attention ...

Amsterdam, March 1, 2021 - Comfort is a daily human experience central to the perception of our environment and the continuous processing of sensory input. Environmental factors such as smell, temperature and light can influence comfort, as can our interaction with products, such as the design of a chair or a mattress. Increasingly, researchers investigating the science of comfort and discomfort are focusing on the role of human behavior. A special supplement to the journal WORK presents the latest advances, from optimal seat design in offices and transportation to the influence of smell on comfort and the interaction between time and comfort. "This special supplement adds unique findings to comfort knowledge. ...

A novel targeted immunotherapy approach developed by researchers at the Ludwig Center, the Lustgarten Laboratory, and Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center employs new antibodies against genetically altered proteins to target cancers. The researchers targeted their immunotherapy approach to alterations in the common cancer-related p53 tumor suppressor gene, the RAS tumor-promoting oncogene or T-cell receptor genes. They also tested the therapy on cancer cells in the laboratory and in animal tumor models. Their findings are reported in three related studies published March 1 in Science Immunology, Science and Science Translational Medicine. Two ...

Scientists have identified that the COVID-19 virus could be transmitted through faecal contaminated river water. A team of researchers, including water quality, epidemiology, remote sensing and modelling experts, led by Dr Jamie Shutler at the University of Exeter, have developed a fast and simple way to assess the potential risk of water-borne transmission of the COVID-19 virus, posed by sewage spills into open and closed freshwater networks. The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology - Water, identifies the relative risk of viral transmission by sewerage spills, across 39 different counties. The study used information on the environment, a population's infection rate, and water usage to calculate the potential potency of ...

Plants grow towards the light. This phenomenon, which already fascinated Charles Darwin, has been observed by everyone who owns houseplants. Thus, the plant ensures that it can make the best use of light to photosynthesize and synthesize sugars. Similarly, the roots grow into the soil to ensure that the plant is supplied with water and nutrients. These growth processes are controlled by a hormone called "auxin", which plays a key role in the formation of polarity in plants. To do this, auxin is transported in the plant body polar, from the shoot through the plant body into the roots. In this process, a family of polar transport proteins distributes the auxin throughout the plant. To ...

The cover for issue 49 of Oncotarget features Figure 4, "CART-Tree analysis for overall survival in IMDC intermediate risk group," by Guida, et al.recently published in "Identification of international metastatic renal cell carcinoma database consortium (IMDC) intermediate-risk subgroups in patients with metastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma" which reported that as these patients have different prognosis, the aim of this study is to better characterize IR patients in order to better tailor the treatment. A multivariable Cox model with backward selection procedure and a Classification and Regression Tree analysis were performed to identify which prognostic factors were associated to OS in IR patients. Median OS for patients with ...

Oncotarget recently published "Exploiting the metabolic dependencies of the broad amino acid transporter SLC6A14" which reported that Tumor cells typically enhance their metabolic capacity to sustain their higher rate of growth and proliferation. One way to elevate the nutrient intake into cancer cells is to increase the expression of genes encoding amino acid transporters, which may represent targetable vulnerabilities. The Oncotarget authors analyze the pattern of transcriptional changes in a panel of breast cancer cell lines upon metabolic stress and found that SLC6A14 expression levels are increased in the absence of methionine. Methionine deprivation, which can be achieved via modulation of dietary methionine intake in tumor cells, in turn leads to a heightened ...

Oncotarget recently published "Effect of liver fibrosis on survival in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: a SEER population-based study" which reported that the impact of fibrosis on overall and cancer-specific survival 12, 36, and 60 months following diagnosis, was evaluated in the entire cohort and in subgroups stratified according to treatment approach and the American Joint Committee on Cancer tumor stage using a Cox proportional-hazards model. After adjusting for age, sex, race, year of diagnosis, AJCC stage, and surgical treatment strategy, advanced fibrosis was associated with worse cancer-specific survival across follow-up periods. Similar effects were observed for overall survival. Among patients that underwent surgical resection, ...

CHICAGO --- Public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more "infectious" than the disease itself, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze tweets about the virus. Researchers studied the influence of Twitter on COVID-19 health beliefs as well as the competing influence of scientific evidence versus the speeches of politicians. The study's key findings: People's biases are magnified when they read tweets about COVID-19 from other users, and the more times it has been retweeted, the more they tend to believe it and retweet it themselves. Scientific ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - March 1, 2021 - There is a growing recognition in health care that social factors such as racial bias, access to care and housing and food insecurity, have a significant impact on people's health. Compounding and amplifying those underlying inequalities are the ongoing disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest in our country. Although many health care organizations (National Academy of Medicine, American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics) currently recommend that screening for social determinants of health (SDH) be included in clinical care, medical education has lagged ...

What The Study Did: Researchers assessed the recruitment and results reporting of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to treat or prevent COVID-19 registered within 100 days of the first case reported to the World Health Organization. Authors: Lars G. Hemkens, M.D., M.P.H., of the University Hospital Basel in Basel, Switzerland, 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.2021.0330) Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please ...

Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nanjing Normal University recently reported a strategy for boosting the electrocatalytic performance of palladium (Pd) in ethanol oxidation reaction, the key anodic reaction of direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs), offering a rational concept for finely engineering the surface of electrocatalysts used in high-efficiency energy conversion devices and beyond. The study was published in Cell Reports Physical Science on Mar. 1. DEFCs, with ethanol as fuel, have the advantage of high energy density, low toxicity and easy operation. However, the lack of active and robust electrocatalysts ...

Rising temperatures could reduce the efficiency of food chains and threaten the survival of larger animals, new research shows. Scientists measured the transfer of energy from single-celled algae (phytoplankton) to small animals that eat them (zooplankton). The study - by the University of Exeter and Queen Mary University of London, and published in the journal Nature - found that 4°C of warming reduced energy transfer in the plankton food webs by up to 56%. Warmer conditions increase the metabolic cost of growth, leading to less efficient energy flow through the ...

Researchers in the Muir Lab at Princeton University's Department of Chemistry have completed the first comprehensive analysis of cancer-associated histone mutations in the human genome, featuring both biochemical and cellular characterizations of these substrates. Their study reports that histone mutations that perturb nucleosome remodeling may contribute to the development or progression of a wide range of human cancers. Within the human genome, DNA is wrapped around disc-shaped structures made up of eight histone proteins, each forming nucleosomes. Repeating nucleosome units comprise chromatin, a storehouse of genetic information that is both structured and dynamic. Broadly, the Muir Lab seeks to understand how chromatin controls genetic processes in the cell and how disruption ...

MADISON, Wis. -- Grafting neurons grown from monkeys' own cells into their brains relieved the debilitating movement and depression symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported today. In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, the UW team describes its success with neurons made from induced pluripotent stem cells from the monkeys' own bodies. This approach avoided complications with the primates' immune systems and takes an important step toward a treatment for millions of human Parkinson's patients. "This result in primates is ...

Extreme rainfall associated with climate change is causing harm to babies in some of the most forgotten places on the planet setting in motion a chain of disadvantage down the generations, according to new research in Nature Sustainability. Researchers from Lancaster University and the FIOCRUZ health research institute in Brazil found babies born to mothers exposed to extreme rainfall shocks, were smaller due to restricted foetal growth and premature birth. Low birth-weight has life-long consequences for health and development and researchers say their findings are evidence of climate extremes causing intergenerational disadvantage, especially for socially-marginalized Amazonians in forgotten places. Climate extremes can affect the health of mothers and their unborn babies in ...

BINGHAMTON, NY -- Neandertals -- the closest ancestor to modern humans -- possessed the ability to perceive and produce human speech, according to a new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez. "This is one of the most important studies I have been involved in during my career", says Quam. "The results are solid and clearly show the Neandertals had the capacity to perceive and produce human speech. This is one of the very few current, ongoing research lines relying on fossil evidence to study the evolution of language, a notoriously ...

More than 20 million people 65 years and older present to emergency departments each year in the United States. Roughly one third of those patients are admitted to the hospital often because they cannot be safely discharged to their home. For an older patient, hospitalization comes with the increased risk of infection, falls, delirium, functional decline and death. Hospitalizations also come with increased cost to the patient, provider and payer. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the average cost of an inpatient hospital stay is more than $13,800 per Medicare beneficiary. As the U.S. population ages, more hospitals are implementing geriatric emergency ...