Florida has experienced a relatively mild winter, which typically translates to more mosquitoes in the summer and more birds on which they can feast. If history repeats itself, it's likely there will be an uptick in West Nile virus cases this year, especially in the outer fringes of the suburbs where much of the nighttime illumination emanates from the skyglow of nearby cities. A new study from the University of South Florida (USF) is the first to provide direct evidence that light pollution is driving infectious disease patterns in nature. The research team previously determined mosquitoes and birds are attracted to light, greatly enhancing the likelihood ...

The first personalised advice on the most effective exercise to lower blood pressure is published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The ESC consensus document recommends specific activities according to an individual's current blood pressure level. One in four heart attacks are caused by high blood pressure. It is estimated that by 2025, around 60% of the world's population will have hypertension. While it is widely accepted that exercise lowers blood pressure, until now recommendations have focused on the amount of exercise per week, without considering an individual's starting blood ...

New research led by the University of Bristol has revealed that crocodiles once flourished on land and in the oceans as a result of fast evolution. Modern crocodiles are predators living in rivers, lakes and wetlands, grabbing fish, reptiles, birds and mammals with their conspicuous snouts and powerful jaws. However, new research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that ancient crocodiles were once much more varied because of rapid evolution. In the time of the dinosaurs, some crocodiles experimented with dolphin-like adaptations to living in the oceans, and others lived on land as fast-moving plant-eaters. The researchers studied over 200 skulls and jaws, including ...

SINGAPORE, 23 March 2021 - Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School, the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Infectious Diseases Labs found that antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 wane at different rates, lasting for mere days in some individuals, while remaining present in others for decades. The study, published in The Lancet Microbe, shows that the severity of the infection could be a deciding factor in having longer-lasting antibodies. Individuals with low levels of neutralising ...

A University of Birmingham-led study of top-flight UK rugby players - carried out in collaboration with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Premiership Rugby, and Marker Diagnostics - has identified a method of accurately diagnosing concussion using saliva, paving the way for the first non-invasive clinical test for concussion for use in sport and other settings. Following the team's previous research, which identified that the concentration of specific molecules in saliva changes rapidly after a traumatic brain injury, the researchers embarked on a three-year study in elite rugby to establish if these 'biomarkers' could be used as a diagnostic test ...

Potentially paves way for non-invasive diagnostic test at all levels of participation On a par with the assessment currently provided in professional sports Could work alongside 'gold standard' head injury protocol used in elite sports Distinct chemical 'signatures' for concussion have been identified in the spit of elite male rugby players, reveals research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. This potentially paves the way for a non-invasive and rapid diagnostic test for the condition that could be used pitch side and after the game at all levels of participation, suggest the researchers. This is especially important because ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have observed novel helical magnetic ordering in the topological compound EuIn2As2 which supports exotic electrical conduction tunable by a magnetic field. The discovery has significant implications for basic research into functional topological properties and may one day find use in a number of advanced technology applications. Topological materials burst onto the scene in the physical sciences about fifteen years ago, decades after their existence had been theorized. Called 'topological' because their bulk electronic bands are "knotted" together, the surfaces of topological insulators "untie the knot" and become metallic. Researchers ...

People who received a flu shot last flu season were significantly less likely to test positive for a COVID-19 infection when the pandemic hit, according to a new study. And those who did test positive for COVID-19 had fewer complications if they received their flu shot. These new findings mean senior author Marion Hofmann Bowman, M.D., is continuing to recommend the flu shot to her patients even as the flu season may be winding down. "It's particularly relevant for vaccine hesitance, and maybe taking the flu shot this year can ease some angst about the new COVID-19 vaccine," says Hofmann, an associate professor of internal medicine and a cardiologist at the Michigan ...

While COVID-19 cases may be on the decline, the virus is still prevalent nationwide, and higher education institutions need to prepare for a successful 2021 academic year. New research from Clemson University in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, one of the world's premier peer-reviewed general medical journals, indicates how surveillance-based informative testing (SBIT) mitigates the spread of COVID-19 on campus, paving the way for other institutions, even those without the infrastructure or funding for mass-scale testing. SBIT was implemented during the first two weeks of the Fall semester at Clemson. According to the study, ...

Another step towards understanding Alzheimer's disease has been taken at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre. Molecular biologist Gilbert Bernier, and professor of neurosciences at Université de Montréal, has discovered a new function for the BMI1 gene, which is known to inhibit brain aging. The results of his work have just been published in Nature Communications. In his laboratory, Bernier was able to establish that BMI1 was required to prevent the DNA of neurons from disorganizing in a particular way called G4 structures. This phenomenon occurs in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, but not in healthy elderly ...

Scientists have found new, unexpected behaviors when SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - encounters drugs known as inhibitors, which bind to certain components of the virus and block its ability to reproduce. Published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, the research provides key insights for advancing drug design and drug repurposing efforts to treat COVID-19. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron scattering to investigate interactions between telaprevir, a drug used to treat hepatitis C viral infection, and the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, the enzyme responsible for enabling the virus to reproduce. They ...

When the human immunodeficiency virus infects cells, it can either exploit the cells to start making more copies of itself or remain dormant--a phenomenon called latency. Keeping these reservoirs latent is a challenge. A new paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found a way to look for chemicals that can keep the virus suppressed into its dormant state. "The current drug treatments block healthy cells from becoming infected by the virus," said Yiyang Lu, a PhD student in the Dar lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "The latent reservoir poses a bigger problem because it can start producing the virus at any time. Consequently, patients have to remain on antiretroviral therapy all their lives to prevent ...

Boston - Wearing masks and physical distancing - two key infection prevention strategies implemented to stop the spread of COVID-19 - may have led to the dramatic decrease in rates of common respiratory viral infections, such as influenza. A study led by researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) showed an approximately 80 percent reduction in cases of influenza and other common viral respiratory infections when compared to similar time periods in previous years, before wearing masks, physical distancing, and school closures were implemented to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Published online in Open Forum Infectious ...

SAN ANTONIO (March 23, 2021) -- More than half of all health care workers worldwide are experiencing burnout that, if not addressed, could cause many to leave their fields in favor of less-stressful occupations or choose early retirement. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only made it worse. That's the warning of a surgeon from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in a letter and a call for global action published March 22 in the Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine. "A recent survey done in Medscape of nearly 7,500 physicians globally showed that burnout has reached a very high rate," said END ...

By targeting an enzyme that plays a key role in head and neck cancer cells, researchers from the UCLA School of Dentistry were able to significantly slow the growth and spread of tumors in mice and enhance the effectiveness of an immunotherapy to which these types of cancers often become resistant. Their findings, END ...

Researchers have succeeded in revealing the arsenal used by protozoans of the genus Leishmania in human cells to make leishmaniasis more severe, especially in cases of the mucocutaneous variety of the disease, which can cause deformations in patients. The discovery points the way to a search for novel treatments for the disease as well as casting light on a key mechanism involved in other diseases. The mechanism involves Leishmania, macrophages and a virus that lives endosymbiotically in the parasite and is known as the Leishmania RNA virus (LRV). According to a study published in the journal iScience, the parasite inhibits activation of caspase-11 via LRV-induced autophagy. Caspases are a family of enzymes that ...

A pilot study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found evidence of Bartonella infection in the blood of people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. "Researchers have been looking at the connection between bacterial infection and neuropsychiatric disease for some time," says Dr. Erin Lashnits, a former veterinary internist at NC State, current faculty member at the University of Wisconsin and first author of the study. "Specifically, there has been research suggesting that cat ownership is associated with schizophrenia ...

Concern over attractiveness to the opposite sex affects the masculine image of physics and mathematics only in England, while having a negative view of intellectual women is correlated with a masculine image of mathematics as a field only in Japan, according to a survey conducted in the two countries by a Japanese research group. This comparative study shows that programs to increase women's representation in these fields must take into account each country's social context surrounding gender roles. Why do so few women choose to study and work in STEM (science, technology, ...

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) among those who have recently given birth is more common than previously thought, and much of this can be attributed to thoughts of harm related to the baby, new UBC research has found. The researchers also learned that OCD can go undetected when new parents aren't asked specifically about infant-related harm. OCD is an anxiety-related condition characterized by the recurrence of unwanted, intrusive and distressing thoughts. If left untreated, it can interfere with parenting, relationships and daily living. The study estimates that eight per cent of postpartum women report symptoms ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich., (March 23, 2021) Researchers are urging consumers to avoid using weight loss or sports supplements that list deterenol as an ingredient. Scientists at NSF International (NSF), Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance recently tested 17 brands of supplements listing deterenol as an ingredient and found nine potentially harmful, experimental stimulants in the products. Researchers at the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and Belgium's Sciensano also participated in the study. Supplements containing deterenol have not been approved for use in humans in the United States and have been linked to reports of adverse events, including nausea, vomiting, sweating, agitation, ...

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) President and CEO Bruce Stillman has been dissecting DNA replication, a critical step in cell division, since the 1980s. His lab studies how Origin Recognition Complexes--ORCs--coordinate DNA duplication. They discovered how our cells assemble and disassemble ORCs during the cell division cycle. One ORC protein is sequestered into small liquid droplets, keeping it apart until the right time to recruit other proteins and initiate DNA replication. The ORC recognizes where to initiate replication at numerous locations along the long, linear stretches of DNA ...

Philadelphia, March 23, 2021 - During the COVID-19 pandemic, Joseph S. Alpert, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Medicine, published by Elsevier, has observed that although non-COVID inpatients suffered from the usual mix of conditions such as heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations, the Internal Medicine inpatient population was distinctly different from what he had seen over the past decades. They were considerably sicker and closer to dying than in the past. Dr. Alpert has been working on the Internal Medicine, Cardiac Care Unit, and Cardiology consult services. "At ...

Have you ever wondered why you are able to hear a sentence and understand its meaning - given that the same words in a different order would have an entirely different meaning? New research involving neuroimaging and A.I., describes the complex network within the brain that comprehends the meaning of a spoken sentence. "It has been unclear whether the integration of this meaning is represented in a particular site in the brain, such as the anterior temporal lobes, or reflects a more network level operation that engages multiple brain regions," ...

Domestication has a consistent effect on the gut microbiota of animals and is similar to the effects of industrialisation in human populations, with ecological differences such as diet having a strong influence. These findings, published today in eLife, highlight how the flexibility of the gut microbiota can help animals respond to ecological change and could help identify ways of manipulating gut microbial communities in the service of health. Animals typically have complex communities of microbes living in their gut that can strongly influence functions such as immunity and metabolism. These communities ...

A new study co-authored by a Tulane University geoscientist shows that human efforts to tame the Mississippi River may have had an unintended positive effect: more rapid transport of carbon to the ocean. The paper, published in AGU Advances, describes the work of a team of researchers who set out to learn more about the fate of organic carbon that is transported in large quantities by the Mississippi River. Organic carbon is mainly derived from plant remains, soils, and rocks, throughout the drainage basin of the Mississippi River that covers about 40% of the United States. "We estimate that over the past century, the amount of organic carbon lost to the atmosphere during Mississippi River transport to the Gulf of Mexico ...