Durable, high-performing perovskite solar cells also require durable, high-performing charge-transporting layers. Scientists have developed the first organic hole transporter that does not need a dopant to attain high charge mobility and stability. According to the study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, this novel hole-transporting layer outperforms reference materials and protects the perovskite organic cell from air humidity. In perovskite solar cells, the perovskite light absorption layer is sandwiched between two charge-transporting layers, which collect the generated holes and electrons and transport them to the electrodes. These charge transportation ...

ATLANTA - JANUARY 19, 2021 - Despite increases in overall suicide rates in the United States during the past two decades, cancer-related suicides declined by 2.8% per year, according to a new study by the American Cancer Society. The study, appearing in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that the largest declines in cancer-related suicide rates were among high-risk populations, suggesting an evolving role of psycho-oncology and palliative and hospice care for cancer patients and survivors during this period. To examine the trends in cancer-related suicides compared to overall suicides in the U.S., investigators led by Xuesong Han, PhD, calculated average annual percentage change of suicide rates stratified by risk factors including ...

Just like on Earth, water on other planets, satellites, and even comets comes in a variety of forms depending on multiple factors such as pressure and temperature. Aside from the gaseous, liquid, and solid states we are accustomed to, water can form a different type of crystalline solid called clathrate hydrate. Although they look similar to ice, clathrate hydrates have actually small water-based cages in which smaller molecules are trapped. These trapped "guest" molecules are essential for preserving the crystalline structure of clathrate hydrates, which would otherwise "collapse" into regular ice or water. Clathrate hydrates play a crucial role in the evolution of a planet or satellite's ...

Washington, DC - January 19, 2021 - Viral genome sequencing of wastewater can detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants before they are detected by local clinical sequencing, according to a new study reported in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The ability to track SARS-CoV-2 mutations in wastewater could be particularly useful for tracking new variants, like the B.1.17 strain that is now widespread in the U.K. and has already been introduced in the U.S. "SARS CoV-2 virus is excreted by individuals that are infected by COVID -19and the fecal waste ends up in the wastewater systems. By sampling wastewater, we can get information on infections for a whole population. Some wastewater systems serve several thousand people. ...

A small pilot study suggests that early administration of ivermectin can reduce viral loads and symptom duration in patients with mild COVID-19, which in turn could help reduce viral transmission. The study, which is part of the SAINT project and has been led by the University of Navarra Clinic and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, warrants further exploration in larger clinical trials. The findings of the pilot study have been published in EClinicalMedicine, a clinical journal published by The Lancet. We ...

A new study from North Carolina State University shows that the inflammation caused by Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection gives the pathogen a two-fold advantage: by both creating an inhospitable environment for competing bacteria and providing nutrients that enable C. diff to thrive. C. diff is a bacterium that causes diarrhea, often with severe or even fatal consequences. As part of its growth cycle, C. diff produces two toxins which cause inflammation and damage the lining of the gut. "C. diff thrives when other microbes in the gut are absent - which is why it is more prevalent following antibiotic ...

As the air continues to dry and temperatures drop, the yearly battle against dry hands and skin has officially begun. New research from Northwestern University has found new evidence deep within the skin about the mechanisms controlling skin repair and renewal. Skin's barrier function gives it the unique ability to fight winter woes and retain water for our bodies. The outer layer of the skin, the epidermis, is constantly turning over to replace dead or damaged cells, creating new cells to reinforce the barrier function and heal damage. The gene regulatory mechanisms that control epidermis turnover remain incompletely understood. "Every month we're covered with a new layer of epidermis," said Northwestern's Xiaomin Bao, who led the study. "The next question is what does that process ...

The United States incarcerates more residents than any other country, however there is limited research that examines how people view such punishment, and whether views about punishment change with development. Previous research on this topic raises two very different possibilities: 1) children are typically more optimistic than adults, making them more likely to report that people's moral character improves following punishment, and 2) children are more likely than adults to report that others' characteristics - including moral traits - are unchangeable, making them less likely than adults to report that punishment affects moral growth. Researchers probed these contrasting possibilities further in two studies exploring children's and adults' views about the impact of ...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have been faced with challenging circumstances to balance work, household, care of children and support of distance learning for school-age children without help from their regular support systems such as schools, childcare, and often other family members as well. A new longitudinal study in Germany examined day-to-day parenting behavior during the restrictions and closures caused by the pandemic from the end of March until the end of April 2020. Research showed that autonomy-supportive parenting (offering meaningful choices when possible) contributed to positive well-being for both children and parents. The findings were published in a Child Development article ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. (Jan. 19, 2021) - A look at RNA tells us what our genes are telling our cells to do, and scientists say looking directly at the RNA of brain tumor cells appears to provide objective, efficient evidence to better classify a tumor and the most effective treatments. Gliomas are the most common brain tumor type in adults, they have a wide range of possible outcomes and three subtypes, from the generally more treatable astrocytomas and oligodendrogliomas to the typically more lethal glioblastomas. Medical College of Georgia scientists report in the journal Scientific Reports that their method, which produces what is ...

Philadelphia, January 19, 2021 - Early life experiences can have an outsized effect on brain development and neurobiological health. New research is showing that those effects can be passed down to subsequent generations, reporting that the infant children of mothers who had experienced childhood emotional neglect displayed altered brain circuitry involved in fear responses and anxiety. The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. "These results show that our brain development is not only shaped by what happens in our own life, ...

LA JOLLA, CALIF. - Jan 20, 2020 - Scientists have identified two drugs that are potent against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) when combined, but only weakly effective when used alone. The researchers were able to significantly enhance cancer cell death by jointly administering the drugs that are only partially effective when used as single-agent therapies. The study, a collaboration between Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of Glasgow, was recently published in the journal Nature Communications. "Our study shows that two types of drugs, MDM2 inhibitors and BET inhibitors, work synergistically to promote significant anti-leukemia activity," says Peter Adams, Ph.D., a professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys and senior author of the study. "The results ...

New research has demonstrated that a simple, cheap test can help identify who is at risk of developing colorectal cancer, aiding early diagnosis and potentially saving lives. Led by the University of Exeter, and supported by the Peninsula and the Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon, and Gloucestershire Cancer Alliances, and by the Cancer Research UK CanTest Collaborative, a new study published today in the British Journal of Cancer examined data from nearly 4,000 patients aged 50 and over. The study involved all healthcare providers in the South West of England taking a new approach. ...

Successive governments' approach to obesity policies has destined them to fail, say researchers. Government obesity policies in England over the past three decades have largely failed because of problems with implementation, lack of learning from past successes or failures, and a reliance on trying to persuade individuals to change their behaviour rather than tackling unhealthy environments. This is the conclusion of new research by a team at the University of Cambridge funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research. The researchers say their findings may help to explain why, after nearly thirty years of government obesity policies, obesity prevalence in England has not fallen and substantial inequalities persist. According to a report by NHS Digital in May 2020, ...

Young Seychelles warblers fare better if their elderly parents have help raising them, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the University of Groningen. Seychelles warblers, a cooperatively breeding species of songbird that lives in small family groups, share the care of young between parents and helpers. This collaboration can compensate for a decline in the ability of elderly parents to provide sufficient care, the researchers found. It may also promote more social behaviour in family groups with older parents. The findings help explain why social species, such as humans, often do better if they live in groups and cooperate to raise offspring. The ...

Fried-food intake is linked to a heightened risk of major heart disease and stroke, finds a pooled analysis of the available research data, published online in the journal Heart. And the risk rises with each additional 114 g weekly serving, the analysis indicates. It's clear that the Western diet doesn't promote good cardiovascular health, but it's not clear exactly what contribution fried food might make to the risks of serious heart disease and stroke, say the researchers. To shed some light on this, they trawled research databases, looking for relevant studies published up to April 2020, and found 19. They pooled the data from 17, involving 562,445 participants ...

We should err on the side of caution and stop the global roll out of 5G (fifth generation) telecoms networks until we are certain this technology is completely safe, urges an expert in an opinion piece published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. There are no health concerns about 5G and COVID-19, despite what conspiracy theorists have suggested. But the transmitter density required for 5G means that more people will be exposed to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), and at levels that emerging evidence suggests, are potentially harmful to health, argues Professor John William Frank, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh. The ...

Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent. 1. Primary care physicians account for a minority of spending on low-value care Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6257 URL goes live ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel...January 18, 2021 - A green Mediterranean (MED) diet reduces intrahepatic fat more than other healthy diets and cuts non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in half, according to a long-term clinical intervention trial led by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researchers and a team of international colleagues. The findings were published in Gut, a leading international journal focused on gastroenterology and hepatology. "Our research team and other groups over the past 20 years have proven through rigorous randomized long-term trials that the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest," says lead researcher Prof. Iris Shai, an epidemiologist in the BGU ...

More people could be protected from life-threatening rabies thanks to an agile approach to dog vaccination using smart phone technology to spot areas of low vaccination coverage in real time. Vets used a smart phone app to help them halve the time it takes to complete dog vaccination programmes in the Malawian city of Blantyre. The custom-made app lets them quickly spot areas with low inoculation rates in real time, allowing them to jab more dogs more quickly, and with fewer staff. Rabies is a potentially fatal disease passed on to humans primarily through dog bites. It is responsible for some 60,000 deaths worldwide each year, 40 per cent of which are children. It places a huge financial burden on some of the world's poorest countries. Researchers predict that more than one million ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Click beetles can propel themselves more than 20 body lengths into the air, and they do so without using their legs. While the jump's motion has been studied in depth, the physical mechanisms that enable the beetles' signature clicking maneuver have not. A new study examines the forces behind this super-fast energy release and provides guidelines for studying extreme motion, energy storage and energy release in other small animals like trap-jaw ants and mantis shrimps. The multidisciplinary study, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign mechanical science and ...

Scientists in Australia have developed a method for the rapid synthesis of safe vaccines, an approach that can be used to test vaccine strategies against novel pandemic pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Led by Professor Richard Payne at the University of Sydney and Professor Warwick Britton at the Centenary Institute, the team has demonstrated application of the method with a new vaccine for use against tuberculosis (TB), which has generated a powerful protective immune response in mice. Researchers are keen to develop the vaccine strategy further to assist in the rapid pre-clinical testing of new vaccines, particularly for respiratory illnesses. "Tuberculosis infects 10 million and kills more than 1.4 million people every year," ...

Cell velocity, or how fast a cell moves, is known to depend on how sticky the surface is beneath it, but the precise mechanisms of this relationship have remained elusive for decades. Now, researchers from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) and Ludwig Maximilians Universität München (LMU) have figured out the precise mechanics and developed a mathematical model capturing the forces involved in cell movement. The findings, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide new insight for developmental biology and potential cancer treatment. Cell ...

Imagine going to a surgeon to have a diseased or injured organ switched out for a fully functional, laboratory-grown replacement. This remains science fiction and not reality because researchers today struggle to organize cells into the complex 3D arrangements that our bodies can master on their own. There are two major hurdles to overcome on the road to laboratory-grown organs and tissues. The first is to use a biologically compatible 3D scaffold in which cells can grow. The second is to decorate that scaffold with biochemical messages in the correct configuration to trigger the formation of the desired organ or tissue. In a major step toward transforming this hope into reality, researchers at the University of Washington have developed a technique to ...

A brain region involved in processing information about ourselves biases our ability to remember, according to new research published in JNeurosci. People are good at noticing information about themselves, like when your eye jumps to your name in a long list or you manage to hear someone address you in a noisy crowd. This self-bias extends to working memory, the ability to actively think about and manipulate bits of information: people are also better at remembering things about themselves. To pinpoint the source of this bias, Yin et al. measured participants' brain activity in an fMRI scanner while they tried to remember the location of different colored dots representing themselves, a friend, or a stranger. The participants' fastest response ...