"I think you're on mute." This was the most-used phrase of 2020, according to Human Resources Online. Emblazoned on T-shirts and embossed on coffee-mugs, we used the meme to make fun of ourselves while learning video-conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft's Teams. But for the more than 7 million Americans who suffer from vocal disorders, not being heard is a serious matter. Many people who have normal speaking skills have great difficulty communicating when their voice box, the larynx, fails. This can occur if the vocal cords, the two bands of smooth muscle tissue in the larynx, suffer damage from an accident, surgical procedure, viral infection or cancer. There is no replacement for the ...

SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to acquire mutations on the spike protein--the part of the virus that protrudes from its surface and latches onto cells to infect them--that enhance the coronavirus' ability to bind to human cells or evade antibodies. A new study from the Centers for Genomics and Systems Biology at New York University and NYU Abu Dhabi uses computational modeling to assess the biological significance of spike protein mutations, uncovering versions of the virus that bind more tightly or resist antibodies and offering a promising public health surveillance tool. The study, which appears in the Journal of Molecular Biology, also suggests that these mutations on the spike protein are a key ...

Press release - ESE statement: COVID-19 and endocrine and metabolic diseases. An updated statement from the European Society of Endocrinology New expert statement confirms strong links between our hormones and COVID-19 The endocrine system is strongly involved in SARS-Cov-2 infection - so much so that evidence of an "endocrine phenotype" of COVID-19 has emerged, according to a statement by the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) published in the journal Endocrine in April 2021. Leading endocrinology researchers looked into the evidence that has accumulated over the past year since the pandemic emerged, and consistently found evidence ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- The field of mathematical topology is often described in terms of donuts and pretzels. To most of us, the two differ in the way they taste or in their compatibility with morning coffee. But to a topologist, the only difference between the two is that one has a single hole and the other has three. There's no way to stretch or contort a donut to make it look like a pretzel -- at least not without ripping it or pasting different parts together, both of which are verboten in topology. The different number of holes make two shapes that are fundamentally, inexorably different. In recent years, researchers have drawn on mathematical topology to help explain a range of phenomena like phase transitions in matter, aspects of Earth's climate and even how zebrafish ...

One-quarter to one-third of young, active patients who undergo anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction experience a second ACL injury after they return to sport (RTS). New research indicates that young athletes who feel confident about their knee health at the time of medical clearance for sports participation after ACL surgery have a higher likelihood of meeting all RTS criteria related to physical function but also have a higher likelihood of experiencing a second ACL injury within 2 years after RTS. The study, which included 159 participants with an average age of 17 years, is published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research. "These data suggest that as health care providers, we may need to re-evaluate the tools we currently use to determine readiness to return ...

The rhythmic motions of hair-like cilia move liquids around cells or propel the cells themselves. In nature, cilia flap independently, and mimicking these movements with artificial materials requires complex mechanisms. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have made artificial cilia that move in a wave-like fashion when a rotating magnetic field is applied, making them suitable for versatile, climbing soft robots and microfluidic devices. Watch a video of the artificial cilia here. Replicating movements found in nature -- for example, the small, whip-like movements of cilia -- could ...

While the APP protein is well-known for its key role in Alzheimer's disease, its contribution to healthy brain function, by contrast, has remained largely unknown until now. Recently, an international research team, led by molecular biologist Prof. Dr Ulrike Müller from Heidelberg University, gained new insights on the physiological functions of the APP protein family by using a mouse model lacking APP. The absence of APP during brain development was shown to result in the malformation of important brain regions implicated in learning and memory. Consequently, these mice were severely impaired in their learning abilities and exhibited autistic-like ...

In an article published in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, experts stress that the COVID-19 pandemic presents the "perfect storm" for family violence, where a set of rare circumstances have combined to aggravate intimate partner violence, domestic abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. Factors during the pandemic that have come together to contribute to family violence may include increased stress and trauma, economic hardship, imposed isolation, and decreased access to community and faith-based support. The authors note that public health officials and mental health professionals need to be aware of the impact of disasters on family violence, and they should strive to identify those at risk and provide ...

Individuals are often prescribed increasing numbers of medications as they age, and while many of these prescriptions are justifiable, some may be inappropriate. A recent analysis published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology examined the results of all studies investigating associations between potentially inappropriate prescribing--which includes prescribing medications that may not produce benefits relative to harm and not prescribing medications that are recommended--and outcomes of older adults. Potentially inappropriate prescribing was significantly associated with a range of health-related and system-related outcomes, including functional decline, falls, ...

By the end of the first year of the pandemic in metropolitan Stockholm, investigators estimate that one-fifth of adults in the region previously had COVID-19. The findings, which are published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, come from analyses of anti-viral antibody responses in healthy blood donors and pregnant women. For the study, researchers examined blood from 2,600 blood donors and 2,500 pregnant women taken between March 14th 2020 and February 28th 2021. Blood donors and pregnant women had a similar rate of past infection, approaching 19% of the study group by the end of February 2021, shortly ...

Monash University researchers have engineered new antimicrobial surfaces that can significantly reduce the formation of bacteria on medical instruments, such as urinary catheters, and reduce the risk of patient infection while in hospital. This world-first study demonstrates the potential for 3D engineered surfaces in preventing the initial formation of microcolonies of Escherichiacoli (E.coli), Klebsiellapneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa - the three most common urinary tract bacterial infections (UTIs) associated with catheters. The study team, led by Dr Victor Cadarso, from Monash University's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the ...

SALT LAKE CITY - A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology reports findings on Huntsman at Home™, a cancer hospital-at-home model operated by Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U). The study analyzed aspects of Huntsman at Home acute care--meaning a level of care that is generally provided in an inpatient hospital setting. In the 30 days after study entry, Huntsman at Home participants had 55% fewer hospitalizations, 45% fewer emergency department visits, and shorter hospital stays by one day. They also had 47% lower health care costs during the same 30-day period ...

A key driver of energy research is the ever-growing demand for energy. Traditional fossil-fuel-based energy sources currently meet these demands and do it well, but they're non-renewable and cause major environmental pollution. In a world with looming climate and resource crises threats, researchers have turned to renewable sources of energy as sustainable alternatives. Among renewables, wind energy, in particular, has gained considerable attention due to its low cost. As Dr. Afef Fekih, Computer Engineer at the University of Louisiana, USA, with a specialization in wind turbine design, notes, "Wind energy has been described as 'the world's fastest-growing renewable energy source', seeing a 30% annual growth on ...

A new survey study suggests that, for adolescents who received unplanned distance education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, experiencing one's own competence was linked to positive emotion, self-motivation to learn, and pro-learning behaviors. Feeling connected to others was also linked to positive emotion. Julia Holzer of the University of Vienna, Austria, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. The new research draws on a psychological theory known as self-determination theory, which outlines three basic psychological needs for well-being: autonomy, connection to others, and experiencing one's own competence. Previous research has provided much ...

Americans who get their news from traditional sources (e.g.: TV, newspapers) are more likely to accept the COVID-19 vaccine than those who rely on social media. INFORMATION: Article Title: Examining the effect of information channel on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance Funding: This research was with funding support from Jigsaw, Google. RPL, ES, JK, BH, and CMI received funding from Jigsaw to conduct this research. BG and TV are employed by Jigsaw/Google. Google, Inc. provided support in the form of salaries for authors, BG TV, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the 'author contribution'. The data ...

Almost 1 in 4 COVID-19 patients have another bacterial, viral or fungal infection simultaneously or subsequently, with such patients experiencing worse disease outcomes. INFORMATION: Article Title: Prevalence and outcomes of co-infection and superinfection with SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens: A systematic review and meta-analysis Funding: NS received research support for this work from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number DP2AI144244. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily ...

Tsukuba, Japan - Autoimmune diseases occur when an individual's immune system fights their own body as if it was a foreign invader. However, in healthy people, these responses are prevented by a process known as immune tolerance. Many complex biological mechanisms maintain the necessary balance between immune activation and suppression to ensure immune tolerance does not prevent the body from effectively fighting pathogens. In a new study published in PNAS, a group of researchers from the University of Tsukuba uncovered how the relationship between two receptors called DNAM-1 and TIGIT helps preserve the balance for optimal immune function. Both of these molecules have previously been studied ...

Recently published in the scientific journal Brain Communications, a new study distinguished structural patterns between individuals with corpus callosum dysgenesis (CCD), a congenital condition that consists of the absence or incomplete development in the connecting structure between the two brain hemispheres. The research was carried out by the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), the University of Pittsburgh, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Investigating CCD is an arduous task for doctors and neuroscientists. There aren't many patients available for research, and the anatomical variability of brains with CCD creates a broad ...

Philadelphia, May 18, 2021 - Many socioeconomically disadvantaged children face poor cognitive and mental health outcomes, and researchers are working to determine the specific factors that link childhood conditions to those poor outcomes, including how they might shape brain circuitry. In a new study, researchers have examined how "neighborhood disadvantage" can affect the developing brain, including the brain's connectivity between regions. The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. Sarah Whittle, PhD, and Divyangana Rakesh, lead authors of the study, studied existing brain scans from 7,618 children aged 9-10 collected as part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- May 19, 2021 -- High-resolution imaging of fruit flies at the University of Oregon has captured mechanical motions that stem cells use to make neurons, the cells that make up the brain. These motions coordinate cell division with differentiation, where newly born cells become neurons. Differentiation is essential for building the brain circuitry in complex organisms that underlies human cognition and emotions, said Ken Prehoda, a professor in the UO's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Prehoda was principal investigator of a project published online May 18 in the journal ...

Researchers at UVA Cancer Center have unveiled important new insights into how hormones known as androgens act on our cells - and the discovery could boost efforts to develop better treatments for prostate, ovarian and breast cancers. The findings shed light on how androgens interact with their receptors inside cells to affect gene activity. This process is important in both healthy cells and certain cancers. Hormone therapy for prostate cancer, for example, aims to reduce the amount of androgen in the body, or to stop it from fueling the cancer cells. However, ...

Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Tohoku University have demonstrated that an array of electrically connected spintronic devices can harvest a 2.4 GHz wireless signal, which can be used to power and charge small electronic devices and sensors. The researchers from NUS and Tohoku University have successfully synchronized the four electrically connected magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), for the signal transmission at 2.4 GHz. Furthermore, the eight MTJs array was integrated with the conventional battery-free electronics to harvest a wireless signal of 2.4 GHz to a DC signal, which is used to power light emitting ...

In a world hungry for cheaper, more efficient renewable energy, Australian researchers have served up a treat. Work led by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science has shown that the two-dimensional (2D) thin films used in some perovskite solar cells closely resemble a sandwich. Perovskite is an exciting material at the forefront of solar energy research and design. Previously, scientists thought these 2D perovskite films had a 'gradient' structure, in which certain components were found deep in the material, with other complementary elements only located nearer to the surface, like topping on a cracker. However, in a paper published ...

Nearly a quarter of pregnant women say they've been around secondhand smoke - in their homes, at work, around a friend or relative - which, according to new research, is linked to epigenetic changes - meaning changes to how genes are regulated rather than changes to the genetic code itself - in babies that could raise the risk of developmental disorders and cancer. The study, published today in Environmental Health Perspectives by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center, is the first to connect secondhand smoke during pregnancy with epigenetic modifications to disease-related genes, measured at birth, which supports the idea that many adult ...

While a pint-sized snorer may seem adorable tucked up in bed, studies shows that children with sleep disordered breathing are likely to show aggressive and hyperactive behaviours during the day. The recommended treatment is an adenotonsillectomy - the removal of adenoid and tonsils - not only to fix the snore, but also the behaviour. Yet according to new research from the University of South Australia, while the surgery can cure a child's snoring it doesn't change their behaviour, despite common misconceptions by parents and doctors alike. Conducted in partnership with the University ...