Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed a stable high-conductivity polymer ink. The advance paves the way for innovative printed electronics with high energy efficiency. The results have been published in Nature Communications. Electrically conducting polymers have made possible the development of flexible and lightweight electronic components such as organic biosensors, solar cells, light-emitting diodes, transistors, and batteries. The electrical properties of the conducting polymers can be tuned using a method known as "doping". In this method, various dopant molecules are added to the polymer ...

Despite virtual reality (VR) technology being more affordable than ever, developers have yet to achieve a sense of full immersion in a digital world. Among the greatest challenges is making the user feel as if they are walking. Now, researchers from the Toyohashi University of Technology and The University of Tokyo in Japan have published a paper to the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality describing a custom-built platform that aims to replicate the sensation of walking in VR, all while sitting motionlessly in a chair. "Walking is a fundamental and fun activity for human in everyday life. Therefore, it is very worthwhile to provide a high-quality walking experience in a VR space," says Yusuke Matsuda. Matsuda is a project ...

Details: Walking is a fundamental physical activity in humans. A research team at Toyohashi University of Technology, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Tokyo, has developed a virtual walking system for seated observers which allows them to experience walking without moving their limbs. A walking-avatar, in first-person and mirrored perspectives, enhanced illusory walking sensations by combining rhythmic foot vibrations to simulate footsteps. The "invisible" avatar, made of only hands and feet, also improved the illusion of walking. This system may provide virtual walking experience for people with walking disabilities. This study will be published in Frontiers in Virtual ...

Severe cases of COVID-19 can involve extensive inflammation in the body, and clinicians have wondered if this state is similar to what are called cytokine storm syndromes, in which the immune system produces too many inflammatory signals that can sometimes lead to organ failure and death. A new study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology indicates that different markers in the blood clearly differentiate excessive inflammation in critical COVID-19 from cytokine storm syndromes. The research, which was led by investigators at University Children's Hospital Muenster ...

A new study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica found that taking a particular probiotic strain improves iron levels in healthy pregnant women and may therefore help to prevent iron deficiency. A total of 326 healthy women were randomized to receive a placebo or the probiotic strain Lactiplantibacillus plantarum 299v (Lp299v) administered with a low dose of iron, folic acid, and ascorbic acid. They took the placebo or the combination product twice daily during pregnancy. Compared with taking placebo, taking the probiotic product reduced the prevalence of iron deficiency (78% versus 59%) and iron deficiency anemia (21% versus 7.4%) ...

After undergoing treatment for cancer, patients may worry that the disease will recur. An analysis of published studies indicates that fear of cancer recurrence may lead to an increased use of healthcare resources--such as more visits to see physicians and greater use of medications--by cancer survivors. The analysis, which is published in Psycho-Oncology, also found evidence that some interventions to address fear of cancer recurrence are likely to be cost?effective for reducing fear and improving quality of life. "The possibility of cancer returning causes a great mental health cost for cancer survivors, but there is also a hidden cost to the healthcare system. Globally, millions ...

An analysis of published studies indicates that pharmacist-led efforts can reduce medication-related harms--such as cognitive impairment, falls, drug-drug interactions, and bacterial infections--in older adults in residential aged care facilities. The findings are published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. In the analysis of 23 studies, investigators found several pharmacist-led interventions that reduce various medication-related harms in older people permanently living in residential aged care facilities. The most frequent single-component pharmacist-led intervention involved performing medication ...

Following a school shooting, the risk for additional school shootings in the same and neighboring states increases in the next year, according to an analysis published in Contemporary Economic Policy. The analysis included information on U.S. school shootings between 1990 and 2017. The copycat effect revealed by the analysis indicates that the media should find a way to cover these events while minimizing the risk of provoking additional shootings. "Studying copycat effects in state-level school shootings data helps us to better understand to what extent school shooters are influenced by prior shootings," said corresponding author Karsten Schweikert, PhD, of the ...

An article published in Geographical Research examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted international higher education and the mobility of students around the globe, noting that universities face the urgent task of reimagining alternative futures for themselves. While much hope is invested in vaccines, travel restrictions and health concerns may continue to hamper student mobility and encourage more remote learning. New study destinations, different modes of study, and partnerships with technology providers can be anticipated. With these changes, regulatory and ethical oversight will be required. "Policymakers and university leaders must look beyond goals of revenue generation and education exports. ...

Microplastics--small plastic pieces less than 5 millimeters in length--are ubiquitous in the environment, and they can have significant effects on wildlife. A new study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry reveals that there are multiple impacts of different microplastics--with varying sizes, shapes, and chemical makeup--to the survival, growth, and development of larval fathead minnows, an important prey species in lakes and rivers in North America. By demonstrating that microplastics are both physical and chemical stressors, the study supports the need ...

Kiwi are iconic birds that have been severely impacted by deforestation and predation from invasive mammals since the arrival of humans in New Zealand. The remaining kiwi can be split into 14 clusters that are now treated as separate conservation management units. A review published in Ibis examines the latest information on kiwi genetics to investigate the legitimacy for maintaining these differences. Although studies indicate that kiwi differ genetically between areas, there is little understanding of the extent of local adaptations and breeding changes on populations. The work highlights the need for a more detailed understanding of the genetics of different species for wildlife conservation. "Using kiwi as an example, we hope to convey that results ...

A Wireless Sensor Network--a set of sensor nodes placed in different locations that sense their surroundings and transmit sensed data--can have a range of applications related to the environment, healthcare, transportation, security, and other areas. An analysis of published research provides an overview of the ability of "mobile elements" to improve terrestrial and underwater Wireless Sensor Networks. As described in the analysis published in the International Journal of Communication Systems, mobile elements improve communication between sensor nodes by visiting static sensor nodes and collecting their data. This leads to a decrease in energy ...

Marine ecosystems are in the midst of a conservation crisis, with coral reefs in particular facing numerous challenges as a result of climate change. In an effort to better understand these environments and the threats they face, researchers collect huge image libraries of these underwater environments, using 3D imagery collected from divers and snorkelers, as well as 2D images collected from satellites. These approaches provide researchers with huge amounts of data, but to extract value from these libraries requires a method to quickly analyze for patterns or 'classifications'. In a new study in Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center's Laboratory ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (April 21, 2021)--The importance of getting a good night's sleep cannot be overstated. Lack of sleep can lead to a number of health problems and affect a woman's overall quality of life. A new study suggests that insufficient quality sleep also may lead to problems in the bedroom in the form of female sexual dysfunction. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Both sleep and sexual function problems are common in women during midlife. More than 26% of midlife women experience significant sleep symptoms that meet the criteria for insomnia, ...

Humans and animals have a preferred walking speed. This is, in part, influenced by the amount of energy required: they prefer to walk at the speed at which they use the lowest possible amount of energy. One of the ways to achieve this is using something called resonance. You already know how it works: when you are on a swing, you can't just swing at any speed. If you want to do it properly, you have to get the timing right, and swing in the rhythm of the swing. In other words: you have to resonate with it. And when you're on a nice relaxing walk, the parts of your body resonate, too. Walking slightly slower doesn't require less energy: you ...

Listening to music before going to be can improve sleep quality among older adults, according to an analysis of all relevant published clinical trials. In the analysis, which is published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, five randomized trials met the investigators' criteria. Older adults who listened to music experienced significantly better sleep quality than those who did not listen to music. Also, older adults who listened to sedative music experienced a greater improvement in sleep quality than those who listened to more rhythmic music. Furthermore, listening to music for longer than four weeks was especially effective at improving sleep quality. "Music intervention is an effective strategy and is easy to administer by a caregiver or healthcare worker," ...

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that superimposes virtual objects onto a live view of physical environments, helping users visualize how these objects fit into their physical world. Researchers from City University of Hong Kong and Singapore Management University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that identifies four broad uses of AR in retail settings and examines the impact of AR on retail sales. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Augmented Reality in Retail and Its Impact on Sales" and is authored by Yong-Chin Tan, Sandeep Chandukala, and Srinivas Reddy. The researchers discuss the following uses of AR in retail settings: ...

Shift-work and irregular work schedules can cause several health-related issues and affect our defence against infection, according to new research from the University of Waterloo. These health-related issues occur because the body's natural clock, called the circadian clock, can be disrupted by inconsistent changes in the sleep-wake schedule and feeding patterns often caused by shift work. To study this, researchers at Waterloo developed a mathematical model to look at how a disruption in the circadian clock affects the immune system in fighting off illness. "Because our immune system is affected by the circadian clock, our ability to mount ...

Carleton University's Marie Curie Global Fellow Dominique Roche has co-authored a paper on the barriers researchers face to publicly sharing their data, an issue that has gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article, Reported Individual Costs and Benefits of Sharing Open Data among Canadian Academic Faculty in Ecology and Evolution, was published in the journal BioScience. "The COVID-19 pandemic has made people from all over the world grasp the importance of sharing research data to speed up scientific discoveries," said Roche. "Clearly, open data have been key in fighting the pandemic, but they're also really important to tackle other urgent problems, like climate change and biodiversity loss." Roche and co-author Sandrine ...

Real-world disease and parasite monitoring is often hampered by the inability of traditional approaches to easily sample broad geographical areas and large numbers of individuals. This can result in patchy data that fall short of what researchers need to anticipate and address outbreaks. Writing in BioScience, Jessica Farrell (University of Florida), Liam Whitmore (University of Limerick), and David Duffy (University of Florida) describe the promise of novel molecular techniques to overcome these shortcomings. By sampling environmental DNA and RNA (eDNA and eRNA), the authors say, researchers will be better able to ...

A new study in laboratory rats has discovered a direct link between low oxygen in the womb and impaired memory function in the adult offspring. It also finds that anti-oxidant supplements during pregnancy may protect against this. Low oxygen in the womb - known as chronic fetal hypoxia - is one of the most common complications in human pregnancy. It can be diagnosed when a routine ultrasound scan shows that the baby is not growing properly and is caused by a number of conditions including pre-eclampsia, infection of the placenta, gestational diabetes or maternal obesity. The new results show that chronic fetal hypoxia leads to a reduced density of blood vessels, and a reduced number of nerve cells and their connections in parts of the ...

Handwashing is shaping communities of bacteria that live and grow in the plumbing of domestic sinks, scientists have found. In the largest study of sink bacteria conducted outside of hospitals, scientists at the University of Reading discovered communities of similar bacteria that largely remain down our drains after hand washing. The researchers found that there are significant differences between families of dominant bacteria depending on the location in the sink drains, and that plumbing systems such as P-trap or U-bend provides ideal environments for bacteria to grow. Dr Hyun Soon Gweon, Lecturer in Bioinformatics for Genomics at the University of Reading, said: "The mantra to 'wash your hands' to fight coronavirus transmission has highlighted the importance of ...

COVID-19 could pass into people's lungs from saliva with the virus moving directly from mouth to bloodstream - particularly if individuals are suffering from gum disease, according to new research. Evidence shows that blood vessels of the lungs, rather than airways, are affected initially in COVID-19 lung disease with high concentrations of the virus in saliva and periodontitis associated with increased risk of death. The researchers propose that dental plaque accumulation and periodontal inflammation further intensify the likelihood of the SARS-CoV-2 virus reaching the lungs and causing more severe cases of the infection. Experts say this discovery could make effective oral healthcare ...

General anaesthesia is widely used for surgery and diagnostic interventions, to ensure the patient is completely unconscious during these procedures. However, in a paper published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) ethics and anaesthesia experts from the University of Oxford say that general anaesthesia should be more widely available for patients at the end of their lives. Painkilling medications (analgesia) are commonly given to dying patients. But they may not be enough, leading to the use of continuous deep sedation (also known as "palliative" or "terminal" sedation). "However, for some patients these common interventions are not enough. Other patients may express a clear desire to be completely unconscious as they die," explains ...

In 2003 in Haiti, a 20-year-old in treatment for HIV could have expected to live to 34. But as of 2017, life expectancy for a 20-year-old in treatment for HIV in Haiti is now 61, compared to 70 for Haiti's general population. A research team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and institutions across Latin America today reports what looks to be far the largest study to date of life expectancy for people living with HIV infection in low-income or middle-income countries. With a focus on 30,688 people treated for HIV between 2003 and 2017 in seven Latin American countries, the study, published ...