LOS ANGELES -- Some 15% of couples struggle with infertility. When couples fail to conceive, guidelines recommend both the man and woman undergo a tandem fertility evaluation. For men, this includes providing at least one semen sample, which is analyzed to determine if there are factors reducing the sperms' chances of fertilizing an egg. The current gold standard of sperm fertility evaluation requires men to provide a sperm sample in a lab or clinic, which is then examined within an hour. After an hour, the sperm begin to die, and the results are no longer accurate. However, a new END ...

One of the most abundant bats in Europe may be attracted to wind turbines, a new study shows. The activity of common pipistrelle bats was monitored at 23 British wind farms and similar "control" locations close by without turbines. Activity was around a third higher at turbines than at control locations, and two thirds of occasions with high activity were recorded at turbines rather than the controls. The reasons for this are not clear. Possibilities include attraction to the turbines themselves, or the presence of more of the bats' insect prey around turbines. "Either way it means the risk of fatality at wind turbines is increased, and probably explains the high fatalities of common ...

DALLAS - Feb. 11, 2021 - A study led by UT Southwestern has identified a mechanism that controls the activity of proteins known as chaperones, which guide proteins to fold into the right shapes. The findings, published online today in Nature Communications, could shed light on hundreds of degenerative and neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's, potentially leading to new treatments for these devastating conditions. Every protein in the body is originally produced in a linear chain, with amino acid building blocks strung together one after another. But to fulfill their roles in cells, explains study leader Lukasz Joachimiak, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Center ...

DALLAS, February 11, 2021 -- Structural racism is a public health crisis in the U.S. and worldwide. The scientific publishing community can improve our understanding and address the significant health impacts of structural racism in racial and ethnic disparities research, according to a new statement, "The Groundwater of Racial and Ethnic Disparities Research: A Statement from Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes," published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal, from the journal's editors. It is critical to acknowledge the societal structures - the groundwater, as it is called in "The Groundwater Approach: Building ...

HIV self-testing could reduce the time between HIV infection and HIV diagnosis amongst trans people when compared to standard testing services, suggests new research in EClinicalMedicine. The project was a collaboration between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University College London (UCL), and the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit. It involved more than 100 trans men and trans women in England and Wales, and is the largest HIV self-testing trial in this community to be reported. Participants were first randomised into two groups, ...

Variants of nine genes increase the risk of developing Addison's disease, a rare disease in which the immune system attacks the adrenal glands. That is according to the largest genetic study to date on patients with Addison's disease. The findings help increase knowledge about what causes the disease. The study was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Bergen University, Norway, and is published in the journal Nature Communications. "By studying the single largest collection of samples from patients with Addison's disease, we've been able to carry out the first genetic ...

The strange social structure of tiny fish called emerald coral gobies may be explained by family loyalty, new research shows. Coral goby groups contain a single breeding male and female and - as "sequential hermaphrodites" - the subordinate gobies can take over either role if one of the breeders dies. The puzzle for biologists is why breeders tolerate the smaller non-breeders sharing their space and competing for food. One explanation is "kin selection" (favouring related individuals). Reef fish are often assumed to disperse at random after hatching, meaning groups of adults should not be closely related, but the new study finds "positive relatedness" ...

Pigs will probably never be able to fly, but new research is revealing that some species within the genus Sus may possess a remarkable level of behavioral and mental flexibility. A study published in END ...

Peer reviewed / Review and opinion First comprehensive assessment of damage to health inflicted by former President Trump cites decades of policy failures made worse by the Trump administration, resulting in 461,000 unnecessary US deaths annually before the COVID-19 pandemic, and tens of thousands of unnecessary COVID-19 and pollution-related deaths attributable to his actions. Lancet Commission calls for immediate rollback of Trump's health-harming policies and additional sweeping reforms to reverse the deteriorating health of the US population: "The path away from Trump's politics of anger and despair cannot lead through past policies." The first comprehensive assessment of the health effects of Donald Trump's presidency is published today ...

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed biosensors that make it possible to monitor sugar levels in real time deep in the plant tissues - something that has previously been impossible. The information from the sensors may help agriculture to adapt production as the world faces climate change. The results have been published in the scientific journal iScience. The primary source of nutrition for most of the Earth's population is mainly plants, which are also the foundation of the complete ecosystem on which we all depend. Global population ...

A tiny population of neurons known to be important to appetite appear to also have a significant role in depression that results from unpredictable, chronic stress, scientists say. These AgRP neurons reside exclusively in the bottom portion of the hypothalamus called the arcuate nucleus, or ARC, and are known to be important to energy homeostasis in the body as well prompting us to pick up a fork when we are hungry and see food. Now Medical College of Georgia scientists and their colleagues report the first evidence that, not short-term stress, like a series of tough college exams, rather chronic, unpredictable stress like that which erupts in our personal and professional lives, induces changes in the function of AgRP neurons that may contribute to depression, they ...

Researchers from University of Amsterdam and Stanford University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines explores how human-as-machine representations affect consumers--specifically their eating behavior and health. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Portraying Humans as Machines to Promote Health: Unintended Risks, Mechanisms, and Solutions" and is authored by Andrea Weihrauch and Szu-Chi Huang. To combat obesity, governments, marketers, and consumer welfare organizations often encourage consumers ...

Obesity and excess body fat may have contributed to more deaths in England and Scotland than smoking since 2014, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. Between 2003 and 2017 the percentage of deaths attributable to smoking are calculated to have decreased from 23.1% to 19.4% while deaths attributable to obesity and excess body fat are calculated to have increased from 17.9% to 23.1%. The authors estimate that deaths attributable to obesity and excess body fat overtook those attributable to smoking in 2014. Jill Pell, at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom, the corresponding author said: "For several decades smoking has been a major target of public ...

The needs of millions of overlooked, 'left behind' adolescent women must become a more significant priority within international efforts to end poverty by 2030, a UK Government-commissioned report is urging. The University of Cambridge report, which was commissioned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, argues that there is an urgent need to do more to support marginalised, adolescent women in low and middle-income countries; many of whom leave education early and then face an ongoing struggle to build secure livelihoods. Amid extensive evidence which highlights the difficulties these women face, it estimates that almost a third of adolescent ...

One third (35%) of people who took a new drug for treating obesity lost more than one-fifth (greater than or equal to 20%) of their total body weight, according to a major global study involving UCL researchers. The findings from the large-scale international trial, published today in the New England Journal for Medicine, are being hailed as a "gamechanger" for improving the health of people with obesity and could play a major part in helping the UK to reduce the impact of diseases, such as COVID-19. The drug, semaglutide, works by hijacking the body's own appetite regulating system in the brain leading to reduced hunger and calorie intake. Rachel Batterham, Professor of Obesity, Diabetes and Endocrinology ...

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researchers found that a single strain of bacteria may be able to reduce the severity of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), as reported online in February 2021 in JCI Insight. Bone marrow transplant can be a lifesaving procedure for patients with blood cancers. However, GVHD is a potentially fatal side effect of transplantation, and it has limited treatment options. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that better treatment options may be on the horizon for patients with GVHD. Xue-Zhong Yu, M.D., associate director of Basic Science at Hollings Cancer Center, and lead ...

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and their colleagues published a new analysis today in the journal Nature from genetic sequencing data of more than 53,000 individuals, primarily from minority populations. The early analysis, part of a large-scale program funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, examines one of the largest and most diverse data sets of high-quality whole genome sequencing, which makes up a person's DNA. It provides new genetic insights into heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders and how these conditions impact people with diverse racial and ...

A team, including an astronomer from the University of Hawai?i Institute for Astronomy (IfA), have confirmed a planetoid that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system. The planetoid, nicknamed "Farfarout," was first detected in 2018, and the team has now collected enough observations to pin down the orbit. The Minor Planet Center has now given it the official designation of 2018 AG37. Farfarout's name distinguished it from the previous record holder "Farout," found by the same team of astronomers in 2018. The team includes UH Mānoa's David Tholen, Scott S. Sheppard of ...

The United States spends more than $200 billion every year in efforts to treat and manage mental health. The onset of the coronavirus pandemic has only deepened the chasm for those experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety. This breach has also widened, affecting more people. New research from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and University of California, San Diego found that 61% of surveyed university students were at risk of clinical depression, a value twice the rate prior to the pandemic. This rise in depression came alongside dramatic shifts in lifestyle habits. The study documents dramatic changes in physical activity, sleep and time use at the onset ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The descriptions on the fronts of infant and toddler food packages may not accurately reflect the actual ingredient amounts, according to new research. The team found that vegetables in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "dark green" category were very likely to appear in the product name, but their average order in the ingredient list was close to fourth. In contrast, juice and juice concentrates that came earlier on the ingredient list were less likely to appear in product names. "Early experiences with food can mold children's preferences and contribute to building healthful, or unhealthful, eating habits that last a lifetime," said author Alyssa Bakke, staff sensory scientist, Penn State. "Our previous work found combining ...

New Rochelle, NY, February 10, 2021--It may be safe for COVID-infected mothers to maintain contact with their babies. Keeping them apart can cause maternal distress and have a negative effect on exclusive breastfeeding later in infancy, according to The COVID Mothers Study published in the peer-reviewed journal Breastfeeding Medicine. Click here to read the article now. In this worldwide study, infants who did not directly breastfeed, experience skin-to-skin care, or who did not room-in within arms' reach of their mothers were less likely to be exclusively breastfed in the first 3 months of life. Nearly 60% of ...

Oil and water may not mix, but adding the right nanoparticles to the recipe can convert these two immiscible fluids into an exotic gel with uses ranging from batteries to water filters to tint-changing smart windows. A new approach to creating this unusual class of soft materials could carry them out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Delaware have found what appears to be a better way to create these gels, which have been an area of intense research focus for more than a decade. ...

SAN ANTONIO -- Humans possess a formidable multi-layered defense system that protects us against viral infections. Better understanding of these defenses and the tricks that viruses use to evade them could open novel avenues for treating viral infections and possibly other diseases. For example, a human protein called SAMHD1 impedes replication of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other viruses by depleting deoxynucleotides ­­-- building blocks needed for the replication of the viral genome. It has long remained a mystery whether and how this protein is activated in response to infection. Now researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) have discovered that SAMHD1 recognizes a unique molecular ...

Sawfish have disappeared from half of the world's coastal waters and the distinctive shark-like rays face complete extinction due to overfishing, according to END ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - The 1918 influenza pandemic provides a cautionary tale for what the future may hold for COVID-19, says a Michigan State University researcher. After a decade studying a flu virus that killed approximately 15,000 Michigan residents, Siddharth Chandra, a professor in MSU's James Madison College, saw his research come to life as he watched the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. "It was so surreal," said Chandra, who has a courtesy appointment in epidemiology and biostatistics. "All of a sudden, I was living my research." Chandra's research is published in the American Journal of Public Health with co-authors Julia Christensen, a graduate of James Madison College; Madhur Chandra, Senior ...