Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the crucial role played by biodiversity collections in enabling rapid responses to crises and in facilitating ongoing research across numerous fields. Despite the recognized value of this infrastructure, the community nevertheless has further opportunities to maximize its value to the scientific enterprise. Writing in BioScience, Barbara Thiers of the New York Botanical Garden and colleagues describe (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab036) the necessary steps for the biodiversity collections community to vouchsafe its position as an important catalyst of research. The authors draw on recommendations ...

A new scientific review has found there are significant gaps in our knowledge of how mammal populations are responding to climate change, particularly in regions most sensitive to climate change. The findings are published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology. Nearly 25% of mammal species are threatened with extinction, with this risk exacerbated by climate change. But the ways climate change is impacting animals now, and projected to in the future, is known to be complex. Different environmental changes have multiple and potentially contrasting, ...

Philadelphia, April 7, 2021 - Building family child care home providers' (FCCH) self-efficacy--an individual's belief in their ability to manage their situation--for healthy eating is an important component of health promotion and can buffer the impact of stress on their diet quality, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier. "The FCCH provider is an important source of child care in this country. A lot of families from lower-income environments use the FCCH because of its affordability and location," said Dianne Ward, EdD, of the Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. FCCH providers can experience multiple stressors ...

A generation of talented but disadvantaged children are being denied access to higher education because academic success in lower and middle-income countries is continually 'protected by wealth', a study has found. The research, which used data from around 3,500 young people in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam, shows that promising but poorer students 'fall away' during their school years, as challenges associated with their socio-economic circumstances gradually erode their potential. Among children who showed similar levels of ability aged 8, for example, the wealthiest were often over 30 percentage points more likely than the least-wealthy to enter all forms of tertiary education: including university, technical colleges, and teacher training. Even ...

Symptoms of cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to move and maintain balance and posture, appear early during childhood. A new analysis examines the effectiveness of therapies initiated from birth until 3 years of age for children with or at risk for cerebral palsy. The analysis, which is published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, included all systematic reviews from 2009-2020 that assessed the results of relevant published studies. Investigators concluded that research has generated limited supportive data and cannot yet confirm a greater benefit from early versus later interventions; however, earlier, ...

Smoking increases symptoms and health risks for patients with rheumatic diseases, but interventions to help patients quit are rarely available at rheumatology clinics. A study published in Arthritis Care & Research has found that Quit Connect--a protocol involving electronic health record prompts for nurses and medical assistants in rheumatology clinics--can increase electronic referrals to free, state-run tobacco quite lines. Implementing Quit Connect led to electronic referrals for 71% of patients who were identified as ready to quit, with referrals taking less than 90 seconds for medical staff to complete. "There's a huge opportunity to address smoking as a modifiable risk factor in rheumatology patients, and Quit Connect was 26-times more effective than usual care for ...

School-based interventions that target students with, or at risk of, academic difficulties in kindergarten to grade 6 have positive effects on reading and mathematics, according to an article published in END ...

In a study of 558 college students, those who reported more symptoms associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also reported higher levels of stress. Students reporting higher levels of ADHD symptoms also reported lower levels of resilience, according to the study published in the END ...

In addition to causing blood sugar imbalances, type 1 diabetes can contribute to nerve damage and sensory abnormalities--a condition call neuropathy--and has been linked to a higher risk of bone fractures. A new study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research has examined the effects of type 1 diabetes and diabetic neuropathy on the skeleton. Investigators found that type 1 diabetes and diabetic neuropathy have various impacts on bone structure, but these effects do not fully explain the higher fracture risk in patients with type 1 diabetes. The results suggest that the increase in the risk of fractures in type 1 diabetes ...

Steroids are essential for treating children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow, but they can cause severe side effects such as psychological reactions and sleep problems. An analysis of all relevant studies published to date indicates that there's insufficient high-quality research investigating the risk factors for these side effects. The analysis, which is published in Psycho-Oncology, included 24 studies. The authors of the analysis noted that overall, there is little evidence regarding risk factors for steroid-induced psychological reactions and sleep problems in children with acute lymphoblastic ...

In a survey-based study of 105 graduate-level counseling students who identified as Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC), investigators found that experiences of discrimination can negatively affect student overall wellbeing and lead to burnout. The authors of the study, which is published in the END ...

Foodborne disease outbreaks linked to the consumption of fresh produce have caused farmers to re-evaluate their practices. A recent analysis of a 27-year experiment comparing organic and conventional soil management indicates that animal-based composts do not promote pathogen survival and may even promote bacterial communities that suppress pathogens. The study, which is published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, comes following other research documenting a higher prevalence of foodborne pathogens in fields fertilized with raw animal manure compared with conventional ...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to it have changed many of the interactions that humans have with nature, in both positive and negative ways. A perspective article published in People and Nature considers these changes, discusses the potential long-term consequences, and provides recommendations for further research. The authors of the article note that the pandemic constitutes a 'global natural experiment' in human-nature interactions that, without seeking to downplay or ignore its tragic consequences, provides a rare opportunity ...

On the first day of the UK campaign for COVID-19 vaccination, there were reports of two cases of anaphylaxis--a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction--within minutes of administration of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine. Subsequently further cases of suspected anaphylaxis to the Pfizer vaccine were reported. A new report published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy reveals that an allergy to the ingredient polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a cause of anaphylaxis to the vaccine. However, this is in the context of millions of doses safely administered. The authors note that very few people are allergic to PEG, and they provide a guide to identifying those who are ...

Studies on electrochemical CO2 conversion systems which can be used to obtain useful chemicals through conventional petrochemical processes while eliminating CO2, without polluting the environment, are essential for creating a carbon-neutral society. While significant progress has been made through a number of relevant studies, thus far, they have only been laboratory-scale in size. In fact, there are still many roadblocks to industrial application, such as the scaling up and development of suitable catalysts and electrodes. The END ...

Ordinary pure water has no distinct taste, but how about heavy water - does it taste sweet, as anecdotal evidence going back to 1930s may have indicated? And if yes - why, when D2O is chemically practically identical to H2O, of which it is a stable naturally-occurring isotope? These questions arose shortly after heavy water was isolated almost 100 years ago, but they had not been satisfactorily answered until now. Now, researchers Pavel Jungwirth and Phil Mason with students Carmelo Tempra and Victor Cruces Chamorro at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague), together with the group of Masha Niv at the Hebrew University and Maik Behrens at the Technical University of Munich, found answers to these questions using molecular dynamics ...

CLEVELAND--A team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University has discovered a formulation of existing medicines that can significantly reduce the presence of the fungus Candida auris (C. auris) on skin, controlling its spread and potentially keeping it from forming infections that have a high mortality rate. By using a proprietary formulation of topical medications terbinafine or clotrimazole, researchers prevented the growth and spread of the fungus on the skin of a host; the findings appear in the most recent issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. "It's a very ...

Though the U.S. and South Korea recorded their first official COVID-19 case on the same day, January 20, 2020, there were notable differences in how each country would ultimately address what has become the world's most severe pandemic since 1918. Yoonjung Lee, Pharm.D., Ph.D., a pharmacy preceptor and pharmaceutical sciences researcher at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy, said she was surprised at how South Korea effectively managed the pandemic without the business shutdowns and lockdowns that occurred in China, the U.S. and many European countries. "I am amazed at how the Korean government had prompt and effective public health interventions to not only address COVID-19, but also to address COVID-19-vulnerable ...

Imagine there are arrows that are lethal when fired on your enemies yet harmless if they fall on your friends. It's easy to see how these would be an amazing advantage in warfare, if they were real. However, something just like these arrows does indeed exist, and they are used in warfare ... just on a different scale. These weapons are called tailocins, and the reality is almost stranger than fiction. "Tailocins are extremely strong protein nanomachines made by bacteria," explained Vivek Mutalik, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who studies tailocins and phages, the bacteria-infecting viruses that tailocins appear to be remnants of. "They ...

AI-powered symptom checkers can potentially reduce the number of people going to in-person clinics during the pandemic, but first, researchers say, people need to know they exist. COVID symptom checkers are digital self-assessment tools that use AI to help users identify their level of COVID-19 risk and assess whether they need to seek urgent care based on their reported symptoms. These tools also aim to provide reassurance to people who are experiencing symptoms that are not COVID-19 related. Most platforms, like Babylon and Isabel, are public-facing tools, but the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has one of the first COVID-19 symptom checkers that is fully integrated with the users' medical ...

Study using electronic health records of 236,379 COVID-19 patients mostly from the USA estimates that one in three COVID-19 survivors (34%) were diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of infection. Anxiety (17%) and mood disorders (14%) were the most common. Neurological diagnoses such as stroke and dementia were rarer, but not uncommon in those who had been seriously ill during COVID-19 infection. For example, of those who had been admitted to intensive care, 7% had a stroke and almost 2% were diagnosed with dementia. These diagnoses were more common in COVID-19 patients than in flu or respiratory tract infection patients ...

Highlight Most patients with kidney failure who were undergoing hemodialysis developed a positive antibody response after being vaccinated for COVID-19, but their response was lower than that of individuals without kidney disease. Washington, DC (April 6, 2021) -- In a recent study, most patients with kidney failure who were undergoing hemodialysis developed a substantial antibody response following the vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, but it was significantly lower than that of individuals without kidney disease. The findings will appear in an upcoming ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - A team led by scientists at the UNC School of Medicine identified a molecule called microRNA-29 as a powerful controller of brain maturation in mammals. Deleting microRNA-29 in mice caused problems very similar to those seen in autism, epilepsy, and other neurodevelopmental conditions. The results, published in Cell Reports, illuminate an important process in the normal maturation of the brain and point to the possibility that disrupting this process could contribute to multiple human brain diseases. "We think abnormalities in microRNA-29 activity are likely to be a common theme in neurodevelopmental ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (4/6/2021) -- Compact logos can encourage favorable brand evaluations by signaling product safety, according to a new study by researchers at Boston College's Carroll School of Management and Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, who reviewed the opinions of 17,000 consumers and conducted additional experiments with a variety of logos. The findings reveal that typography -- specifically tracking, or the spacing between letters in a word -- can influence consumers' interpretations of brand logos. Further, the interpretation is influenced by cultural factors, the researchers reported ...

Fossil discoveries often help answer long-standing questions about how our modern world came to be. However, sometimes they only deepen the mystery--as a recent discovery of four new species of ancient insects in British Columbia and Washington state is proving. The fossil species, recently discovered by paleontologists Bruce Archibald of Simon Fraser University and Vladimir Makarkin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, are from a group of insects known as snakeflies, now shown to have lived in the region some 50 million years ago. The findings, published in Zootaxa, raise more questions about the evolutionary history of the distinctly elongated insects and why they live where they do today. Snakeflies are slender, predatory insects that are native to the Northern Hemisphere ...