Researchers from the HSE International Laboratory for Supercomputer Atomistic Modelling and Multi-scale Analysis, JIHT RAS and MIPT have compared the performance of popular molecular modelling programs on GPU accelerators produced by AMD and Nvidia. In a paper published by the International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, the scholars ported LAMMPS on the new open-source GPU technology, AMD HIP, for the first time. The scholars thoroughly analysed the performance of three molecular modelling programs - LAMMPS, Gromacs and OpenMM - on GPU ...

A new study led by University of Minnesota astrophysicists shows that high-energy light from small galaxies may have played a key role in the early evolution of the Universe. The research gives insight into how the Universe became reionized, a problem that astronomers have been trying to solve for years. The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy. After the Big Bang, when the Universe was formed billions of years ago, it was in an ionized state. This means that the electrons and protons floated freely throughout space. As the Universe ...

In August 2016 a massive storm on par with a Category 2 hurricane churned in the Arctic Ocean. The cyclone led to the third-lowest sea ice extent ever recorded. But what made the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2016 particularly appealing to scientists was the proximity of the Korean icebreaker Araon. For the first time ever, scientists were able to see exactly what happens to the ocean and sea ice when a cyclone hits. University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers and their international colleagues recently published a new study showing that sea ice declined ...

Older adults were significantly affected by isolation and stress during Oregon's initial COVID-19 lockdown last spring, but they were also able to find connection and meaning in community, new hobbies and time for themselves, a recent Oregon State University study found. If resilience is understood as the ability to see positives in the midst of a negative situation, then many of the study's participants demonstrated resilience during that time, the researchers said. "A lot of times we think about resilience as a personality trait, and it's true that there are some qualities that may help people experience that. But in the end, resilience is something that is shared," said Heidi Igarashi, ...

DALLAS, April 29, 2021 – Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) lifted the pause in administration of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. The temporary pause was due to reports of a serious condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), which refers to blood clots in the brain’s veins - not in the arteries, as is the case for most strokes - in combination with thrombocytopenia (low blood platelet count). CVST and thrombocytopenia together is called thrombosis-thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS). When TTS is linked to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, it is called vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia ...

Tomorrow's cutting-edge technology will need electronics that can tolerate extreme conditions. That's why a group of researchers led by Michigan State University's Jason Nicholas is building stronger circuits today. Nicholas and his team have developed more heat resilient silver circuitry with an assist from nickel. The team described the work, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Program, on April 15 in the journal Scripta Materialia. The types of devices that the MSU team is working to benefit -- next-generation fuel cells, high-temperature semiconductors and solid oxide electrolysis cells -- could have ...

New research indicates that the computer-based models currently used to simulate how Earth's climate will change in the future underestimate the impact that forest fires and drying climate are having on the world's northernmost forests, which make up the largest forest biome on the planet. It's an important understanding because these northern forests absorb a significant amount of Earth's carbon dioxide. The finding, reached by studying 30 years of the world's forests using NASA satellite imaging data, suggests that forests won't be able to sequester as much carbon ...

In a novel effort to combat COVID-19 misinformation, a group of women researchers, including nurse scientists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing), launched the Dear Pandemic social media campaign in March 2020. It delivers curated, comprehensive, and timely information about the COVID-19 pandemic in a question-and-answer format. Complex topics such as COVID-19 aerosol transmission, risk reduction strategies to avoid infection, and excess mortality are explained in common language and shared widely. Now with more than 100,000 followers and accounts on Facebook, ...

FINDINGS A UCLA-led study shows that physicians frequently order preventive medical services for adult Medicare beneficiaries that are considered unnecessary and of "low value" by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force -- at a cost of $478 million per year. The researchers analyzed national survey data over a 10-year period, looking specifically at seven preventive services given a "D" rating by the task force, and discovered that these services were ordered more than 31 million times annually. BACKGROUND The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services, makes recommendations on the value of clinical preventive ...

The field of soft robotics has exploded in the past decade, as ever more researchers seek to make real the potential of these pliant, flexible automata in a variety of realms, including search and rescue, exploration and medicine. For all the excitement surrounding these new machines, however, UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Elliot Hawkes wants to ensure that soft robotics research is more than just a flash in the pan. "Some new, rapidly growing fields never take root, while others become thriving disciplines," Hawkes said. To help guarantee the longevity of soft robotics ...

New York, NY--Research-practice partnerships (RPPs), long-term collaborations between researchers, policy makers and practitioners, represent an especially promising strategy for making sure that all children benefit from early childhood education, according to END ...

People living with a child who attends school in-person have an increased risk of reporting evidence of COVID-19, but teacher masking, symptom screening, and other mitigation measures in schools may be able to minimize that excess risk, suggests a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For their study, the researchers analyzed nearly 600,000 responses from an ongoing Facebook-based COVID-19 symptom survey in the United States over two periods between November 2020 and February 2021 before vaccines were widely available in the U.S. The researchers found that those living with a child engaged in full-time, ...

April 29, 2021 -An increasing number of digital mental health interventions are designed for adolescents and young people with a range of mental health issues, but the evidence on their effectiveness is mixed, according to research by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Spark Street Advisors. Computerized cognitive behavioral therapy was found effective for anxiety and depression in adolescents and young people holding promise for increasing access to mental health treatment for these conditions. However, the effectiveness of other digital interventions, including therapeutic video games, mobile apps, or social networking sites, and addressing a range of other mental health outcomes remain ...

Archeologists have learned a lot about our ancestors by rummaging through their garbage piles, which contain evidence of their diet and population levels as the local flora and fauna changed over time. One common kitchen scrap in Africa -- shells of ostrich eggs -- is now helping unscramble the mystery of when these changes took place, providing a timeline for some of the earliest Homo sapiens who settled down to utilize marine food resources along the South African coast more than 100,000 years ago. Geochronologists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley ...

The European house mouse has invaded nearly every corner of the Americas since it was introduced by colonizers a few hundred years ago, and now lives practically everywhere humans store their food. Yet in that relatively short time span -- 400 to 600 mouse generations -- populations on the East and West Coasts have changed their body size and nest building behavior in nearly identical ways to adapt to similar environmental conditions, according to a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. To make these adaptations -- at least in the case of body size -- mice in the Western United States ...

Research has shed new light on the impact of humans on Earth's biodiversity. The findings suggest that the rate of change in an ecosystem's plant-life increases significantly during the years following human settlement, with the most dramatic changes occurring in locations settled in the last 1500 years. An international research team studied fossilised pollen dating back 5000 years, extracted from sediments on 27 islands. By analysing the fossils they were able to build up an understanding of the composition of each island's vegetation and how it changed from the oldest to the most recent pollen samples. The study was led by Dr Sandra Nogué, Lecturer in Palaeoenvironmental ...

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered a mechanism through which meningitis-causing bacteria can evade our immune system. In laboratory tests, they found that Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae respond to increasing temperatures by producing safeguards that keep them from getting killed. This may prime their defenses against our immune system and increase their chances of survival, the researchers say. The findings are published in the journal PLoS Pathogens. "This discovery helps to increase our understanding of the mechanisms these bacteria use to evade our normal immune defenses," ...

Scientists have been able to track how a multi-drug resistant organism is able to evolve and spread widely among cystic fibrosis patients - showing that it can evolve rapidly within an individual during chronic infection. The researchers say their findings highlight the need to treat patients with Mycobacterium abscessus infection immediately, counter to current medical practice. Around one in 2,500 children in the UK is born with cystic fibrosis, a hereditary condition that causes the lungs to become clogged up with thick, sticky mucus. The condition tends to decrease life expectancy among patients. In recent years, M. abscessus, a species of multi-drug resistant bacteria, has emerged as a significant global threat to individuals with cystic fibrosis and other lung diseases. ...

Considerable gap in evidence around whether portable air filters reduce the incidence of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections There is an important absence of evidence regarding the effectiveness of a potentially cost-efficient intervention to prevent indoor transmission of respiratory infections, including COVID-19, warns a study by researchers at the University of Bristol. Respiratory infections such as coughs, colds, and influenza, are common in all age groups, and can be either viral or bacterial. Bacteria and viruses can become airborne via talking, coughing or sneezing. The current global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is also spread primarily by airborne droplets, and to date has led to over three million deaths ...

Lightning bolts break apart nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and create reactive chemicals that affect greenhouse gases. Now, a team of atmospheric chemists and lightning scientists have found that lightning bolts and, surprisingly, subvisible discharges that cannot be seen by cameras or the naked eye produce extreme amounts of the hydroxyl radical -- OH -- and hydroperoxyl radical -- HO2. The hydroxyl radical is important in the atmosphere because it initiates chemical reactions and breaks down molecules like the greenhouse gas methane. OH is the main driver of many compositional changes in the atmosphere. "Initially, we looked at these huge OH and HO2 signals found in the clouds and asked, what is wrong with our instrument?" said William ...

Researchers in the materials department in UC Santa Barbara's College of Engineering have uncovered a major cause of limitations to efficiency in a new generation of solar cells. Various possible defects in the lattice of what are known as hybrid perovskites had previously been considered as the potential cause of such limitations, but it was assumed that the organic molecules (the components responsible for the "hybrid" moniker) would remain intact. Cutting-edge computations have now revealed that missing hydrogen atoms in these molecules can cause massive efficiency losses. The findings are published in ...

An international team led by Xiangming Xiao, George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, published a paper in the April issue of the journal Nature Climate Change that has major implications on forest policies, conservation and management practices in the Brazilian Amazon. Xiao also is director of OU's Center for Earth Observation and Modeling. Yuanwei Qin, a research scientist at the Center for Earth Observation and Modeling, is the lead author of the study. For the study described in the paper, "Carbon loss ...

As part of a laboratory experiment, Rebecca Holmes examined water bottles that had been acquired from abroad expecting to find bisphenol A (BPA), a human-made component commonly found in polycarbonate plastics used to make consumer products. What she found, however, was that those water bottles were just fine, yet some control bottles purchased in the United States and supposedly BPA-free actually contained traces of the chemical now thought to negatively impact heart health. Holmes, a researcher formerly in the laboratory of Hong-Sheng Wang, PhD, professor in the University of Cincinnati Department of Pharmacology and Systems Physiology, was working on her master's degree in molecular, cellular and biochemical ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (APRIL 29, 2021) - Results from a new study find a broad range of patients who typically undergo revascularization for stable ischemic heart disease (SIHD) in the U.S. did not meet enrollment criteria for the ISCHEMIA trial. The data, which was presented today as late-breaking clinical science at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2021 Scientific Sessions, demonstrates a minority of SIHD patients referred for coronary intervention in contemporary practice clearly resemble those enrolled in the ISCHEMIA trial. Ischemic heart disease impacts more than 13 million people in the United States and is the leading cause ...

WASHINGTON, D.C, (April 29, 2021) - An analysis of growth patterns in transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) programs across United States hospitals is being presented as late-breaking clinical science at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography& Interventions (SCAI) 2021 Scientific Sessions. The findings indicate that TAVR hospital programs are predominately located in metropolitan areas serving patients with higher socioeconomic status, potentially contributing to the disparities in cardiac care. TAVR is a minimally invasive procedure for patients in need of a valve repair or replacement and is an alternative to surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR), a treatment ...