By comparing the genetic diversity of butterflies in North America, researchers reporting in the journal iScience on March 23 found that the array of different evolutionary distinct groups of butterflies is particularly high in the deserts of Mexico and the southwestern United States. This may be an outcome of actively changing conditions in the Desert Southwest and more generally in the western portion of the continent. "When you think of desert, you don't automatically jump to butterflies, but our results showed that this area is actually a really important hotspot for butterflies, even if it isn't for plants," says co-first author Chandra Earl, who recently received her PhD from the University of Florida. "Just because butterflies are closely tied to their host plants doesn't ...

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2021 -- 5G, or the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks, is touted as having finally arrived for ultrafast download speeds, an end to dropped calls and buffering, and greater connectivity to advance autonomous vehicle development, remote surgery, and the Internet of Things. In truth, 5G technology adoption is still in its early stages, according to Michael Hill, technical director of Skyworks Solutions, a California-based advanced-semiconductor company. In their paper, published in Applied Physics Letters, by AIP Publishing, Hill and his colleagues provide an overview on nascent 5G ...

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2021 -- Scientists have been working for the past year to find ways to curb the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though it is outside their typical realm of study, physicists have been playing an important role in many aspects of research about the pandemic and its impact on people. Particle physicists' keen understanding of gas handling systems positioned them at the forefront for pioneering low-cost, mass-producible ventilators to help address the worldwide shortage. Led by Cristian Galbiati, professor of physics at Princeton University and the Gran Sasso Science Institute, an international, interdisciplinary team called the Mechanical Ventilator Milano ...

Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that current evidence is insufficient to make a recommendation about screening for hearing loss in asymptomatic adults 50 and older. Nearly 16% of U.S. adults 18 and over report difficulty hearing. Hearing loss has been associated with an increased risk of falls, hospitalizations, social isolation and cognitive decline. The USPSTF routinely makes recommendations about the effectiveness of preventive care services and this recommendation is similar to its 2012 statement. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2021.2566) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including ...

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2021 -- According to the National Institutes of Health, respiratory viruses are the most frequent cause of disease and death in humans, a fact highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the potential to cause severe disease, over 70% of viral infections remain asymptomatic. Animal models have been used widely to understand how these viruses infect the host and how the host responds to prevent infection and onset of diseases. Data based on animal models, however, does not always apply well to humans, given the variability ...

What The Study Did: Employees of a health care system were surveyed on the eve of vaccine distribution to encourage them to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, assess their intentions to do so and understand reasons for hesitancy. Authors: Michelle N. Meyer, Ph.D., J.D., Center for Translational Bioethics and Health Care Policy at the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5344) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including ...

What The Study Did: This study of working-age people enrolled in private health plans from March 2019 through June 2020 documented patterns of care at the onset of COVID-19. Authors: Jonathan P. Weiner, Dr.P.H., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.2618) Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, ...

What The Study Did: Researchers investigated representation of Black Americans in clinical trials of cardiovascular drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 2006 and 2020. Authors: Jiarui Li, M.D., of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.2640) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. INFORMATION: Media ...

CABI-led Plantwise plant clinics can help promote more sustainable ways to fight crop pests and diseases in Rwanda and Zambia - such as the fall armyworm - with the judicial use of pesticides within Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plans. Dr Justice Tambo, lead author of the study published in the journal Food Policy, surveyed 1,474 farm households in Rwanda and Zambia and found that although farmers who visit plant clinics show a higher probability of opting for pesticides for pest control, they do not use them intensively and are more likely to adopt safer and more sustainable alternatives. The scientists, which include researchers ...

Denver--March 26, 2021---A lymph node collection kit can help surgeons attain compete resection and improve long-term survival after curative-intent lung cancer surgery, according to a study published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology Clinical and Research Reports. The journal is published by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Surgical resection is the most important curative treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). With successful implementation of lung cancer screening programs, the proportion of patients with NSCLC who undergo surgery is likely to increase significantly. "However, poor surgical quality reduces the survival benefit of curative-intent surgery and suboptimal ...

The discovery of the material graphene, which consists of only one layer of carbon atoms, was the starting signal for a global race: Today, so-called "2D materials" are produced, made of different types of atoms. Atomically thin layers that often have very special material properties not found in conventional, thicker materials. Now another chapter is being added to this field of research: If two such 2D layers are stacked at the right angle, even more new possibilities arise. The way in which the atoms of the two layers interact creates intricate geometric patterns, and these patterns have a decisive impact on the material properties, as a research team from TU Wien and the University of Texas ...

The possibly oldest cephalopods in the earth's history stem from the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland (Canada). They were discovered by earth scientists from Heidelberg University. The 522 million-year-old fossils could turn out to be the first known form of these highly evolved invertebrate organisms, whose living descendants today include species such as the cuttlefish, octopus and nautilus. In that case, the find would indicate that the cephalopods evolved about 30 million years earlier than has been assumed. "If they should actually be cephalopods, we would have to backdate the origin of cephalopods into the early Cambrian period," says Dr Anne Hildenbrand ...

Russian scientists have proposed a new algorithm for automatic decoding and interpreting the decoder weights, which can be used both in brain-computer interfaces and in fundamental research. The results of the study were published in the Journal of Neural Engineering. Brain-computer interfaces are needed to create robotic prostheses and neuroimplants, rehabilitation simulators, and devices that can be controlled by the power of thought. These devices help people who have suffered a stroke or physical injury to move (in the case of a robotic chair or prostheses), communicate, use a computer, and operate household appliances. In addition, in combination with machine learning methods, neural interfaces ...

In the hours after we die, certain cells in the human brain are still active. Some cells even increase their activity and grow to gargantuan proportions, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago. In a newly published study in the journal Scientific Reports, the UIC researchers analyzed gene expression in fresh brain tissue -- which was collected during routine brain surgery -- at multiple times after removal to simulate the post-mortem interval and death. They found that gene expression in some cells actually increased after death. These 'zombie genes' -- those that increased expression after the post-mortem interval -- were specific to one type of cell: inflammatory cells called ...

Potassium is an essential nutrient for all living things. Plants need it in large quantities, especially for growth and in order to withstand stress better. For this reason, they absorb large quantities of potassium from the soil. In agriculture, this leads to a lack of available potassium in the soil - which is why the mineral is an important component in fertilizers. A team of German and Chinese researchers has now shown, for the first time, where and how plants detect potassium deficiency in their roots, and which signalling pathways coordinate the adaptation of root growth and potassium absorption ...

A number of studies have shown that human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19, appear to attack neurons and the nervous system in vulnerable populations. This neuroinvasion through the nasal cavity leads to the risk of neurological disorders in affected individuals. Research conducted at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has identified ways to prevent the spread of infection within the central nervous system (CNS). The study, led by Professor Pierre Talbot and his research associate Marc Desforges, now at CHU-Sainte-Justine, ...

According to a recent Finnish study, accumulating more brisk and vigorous physical activity can curb adiposity-induced low-grade inflammation. The study also reported that diet quality had no independent association with low-grade inflammation. The findings, based on the ongoing Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children (PANIC) Study conducted at the University of Eastern Finland, were published in the European Journal of Sport Science. The study was made in collaboration among researchers from the University of Jyväskylä, the University of Eastern Finland, the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, and the University of Cambridge. Low-grade inflammation is linked to many chronic diseases, but exercise can ...

Casual sex is on the decline for both young men and women, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick study that found less alcohol consumption among both genders is a major reason while playing video games and living at home with parents are another--but only for men. The study, published in the journal Socius, found that between 2007 and 2017, the percentage of 18-to 23-year-old men who had casual sex in the past month dropped from 38 percent to 24 percent. The percentage dropped from 31 percent to 22 percent for young women of the same age. The most important factor driving the decline among young men is the decrease in drinking, which alone explains more than ...

The vast reservoir of carbon that is stored in soils probably is more sensitive to destabilization from climate change than has previously been assumed, according to a new study by researchers at WHOI and other institutions. The study found that the biospheric carbon turnover within river basins is vulnerable to future temperature and precipitation perturbations from a changing climate. Although many earlier, and fairly localized, studies have hinted at soil organic carbon sensitivity to climate change, the new research sampled 36 rivers from around the ...

As the pandemic's economic effects drive more people to enroll in Medicaid as safety-net health insurance, a new study suggests that the program's dental coverage can improve their oral health in ways that help them seek a new job or do better at the one they have. The study focuses on the impact of dental coverage offered through Michigan's Medicaid expansion, called the Healthy Michigan Plan. The researchers, from the University of Michigan, used a survey and interviews to assess the impact of this coverage on the health and lives of low-income people who enrolled. In all, 60% of the 4,090 enrollees surveyed for the new study had visited a dentist at least once since enrolling ...

Daily national surveys by Carnegie Mellon University show that while COVID-19 vaccine uptake has increased, the proportion of vaccine-hesitant adults has remained unchanged. The concerns about a side effect remain high, especially among females, Black adults and those with an eligible health condition. The Delphi Research Group at CMU in partnership with Facebook released its latest survey findings. The analyses show that vaccine hesitancy persists and point to potential tactics to combat it. "Prior research by the CDC has found that Black and Hispanic adults are the least likely to receive the annual flu vaccine each year," said Alex Reinhart, assistant teaching professor in CMU's Department of Statistics & Data Science and a member of the Delphi ...

It can be hard to resist lapsing into an exaggerated, singsong tone when you talk to a cute baby. And that's with good reason. Babies will pay more attention to baby talk than regular speech, regardless of which languages they're used to hearing, according to a study by UCLA's Language Acquisition Lab and 16 other labs around the globe. The study found that babies who were exposed to two languages had a greater interest in infant-directed speech -- that is, an adult speaking baby talk -- than adult-directed speech. Research has already shown that monolingual babies prefer baby talk. Some parents worry that teaching two languages could mean an infant won't learn to speak on time, but the new study shows bilingual babies are developmentally right ...

In Slovakia, in counties subject to two rounds of rapid antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 where those who tested positive then isolated, the approach helped decrease the prevalence of positive tests by more than 50% in a week - all while primary schools and workplaces remained open. "While it was impossible to disentangle the precise contribution of control measures and mass testing," the authors said, mass testing is likely to have had a substantial effect, their modeling showed. Applying mass testing may provide a valuable tool in future containment of SARS-CoV-2 elsewhere, they say. ...

Rapid 3D microscopic imaging of fluorescent samples has gained increasing importance in numerous applications in physical and biomedical sciences. Given the limited axial range that a single 2D image can provide, 3D fluorescence imaging often requires time-consuming mechanical scanning of samples using a dense sampling grid. In addition to being slow and tedious, this approach also introduces additional light exposure on the sample, which might be toxic and cause unwanted damage, such as photo-bleaching. By devising a new recurrent neural network, UCLA researchers have demonstrated a deep learning-enabled volumetric microscopy framework for 3D imaging of fluorescent samples. This new method only requires a few 2D images of the sample to be ...

NIMS and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have jointly discovered that the chemical compound Ca3SiO is a direct transition semiconductor, making it a potentially promising infrared LED and infrared detector component. This compound--composed of calcium, silicon and oxygen--is cheap to produce and non-toxic. Many of the existing infrared semiconductors contain toxic chemical elements, such as cadmium and tellurium. Ca3SiO may be used to develop less expensive and safer near-infrared semiconductors. Infrared wavelengths have been used for many purposes, including optical fiber communications, photovoltaic power generation and night vision devices. Existing semiconductors ...