The introduction of a sugar tax, increasing the price of fizzy drinks and other products high in sugar content, has had only a limited, moderate effect in shifting people's dietary habits and behaviours, according to a new study. Fresh research from an international team of economists published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, focused on the impact of a sugar tax on people's shopping baskets comparing customer spending in Catalonia in Spain (where a tax had been introduced), with the rest of the country (where it had not been) from May 2016 - April 2018. A sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) tax was in introduced in Catalonia in May 2017, but not for the rest of ...

A rare pulmonary disease that is linked to bats has made Alberta home, according to new research led by provincial lab scientists. Infectious disease experts at Alberta Precision Laboratories (APL) and the University of Alberta have confirmed that histoplasmosis - a fungal infection transmitted through bat and bird droppings - is now found in Alberta. Their study extends the known range of the disease much further northwest from its traditional home in the central United States and parts of southern Ontario and Quebec. "We were surprised at how many cases were locally acquired, as histoplasmosis has ...

An international, open-label Phase 3 study, co-led by Susanna McColley, MD, from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, found that a regimen of three drugs (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor) that targets the genetic cause of cystic fibrosis was safe and effective in 6-11-year-olds with at least one copy of F508del mutation in the CFTR gene, which is estimated to represent almost 90 percent of the cystic fibrosis population in the United States. For children in this age group who have only one copy of F508del mutation - or about 40 percent of patients with cystic fibrosis ...

A UCLA-led research team has identified a chemical cocktail that enables the production of large numbers of muscle stem cells, which can self-renew and give rise to all types of skeletal muscle cells. The advance could lead to the development of stem cell-based therapies for muscle loss or damage due to injury, age or disease. The research was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Muscle stem cells are responsible for muscle growth, repair and regeneration following injury throughout a person's life. In fully grown adults, muscle stem cells are quiescent -- they remain inactive until they are called to respond to injury by self-replicating and creating all of the cell types necessary to repair damaged tissue. But that regenerative capacity decreases as people ...

Researchers from Skoltech were part of a research consortium studying a case of vertical COVID-19 transmission from mother to her unborn child that resulted in major complications in the pregnancy, premature birth and death of the child. The consortium used a Skoltech-developed proteomics method to verify the diagnosis. The paper was published in the journal Viruses. The effects of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, on maternal and perinatal outcomes are poorly understood due to limited data and research in pregnant women with COVID-19. There is some evidence suggesting vertical transmission from mother to fetus during pregnancy is possible, as, for instance, in China, immunoglobulin ...

Dogs infected with the Leishmania parasite smell more attractive to female sand flies than males, say researchers. The study published in PLOS Pathogens is led by Professor Gordon Hamilton of Lancaster University. In Brazil, the parasite Leishmania infantum is transmitted by the bite of infected female Lutzomyia longipalpis sand flies. Globally over 350 million people are at risk of leishmaniasis, with up to 300,000 new cases annually. In Brazil alone there are approximately 4,500 deaths each year from the visceral form of the disease and children under 15 years old are more likely to be affected. Leishmania parasites ...

WASHINGTON -- Even as vaccines are becoming more readily available in the U.S., protecting against the asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19 is key to ending the pandemic, say two Georgetown infectious disease experts. In their Perspective, " END ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Much of the carbon in space is believed to exist in the form of large molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since the 1980s, circumstantial evidence has indicated that these molecules are abundant in space, but they have not been directly observed. Now, a team of researchers led by MIT Assistant Professor Brett McGuire has identified two distinctive PAHs in a patch of space called the Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC-1). PAHs were believed to form efficiently only at high temperatures -- on Earth, they occur as byproducts of burning fossil fuels, and they're also found in char marks on grilled ...

One of great mysteries of human biology is how a single cell can give rise to the 37 trillion cells contained in the average body, each with its own specialized role. Researchers at Yale University and the Mayo Clinic have devised a way to recreate the earliest stages of cellular development that gives rise to such an amazing diversity of cell types. Using skin cells harvested from two living humans, researchers in the lab of Yale's Flora Vaccarino were able to track their cellular lineage by identifying tiny variations or mutations contained within the genomes of those cells. These "somatic" or non-inherited mutations are generated at each cell division during a human's development. The percentage of cells bearing the traces of any ...

The small intestine is ground zero for survival of animals. It is responsible for absorbing the nutrients crucial to life and it wards off toxic chemicals and life-threatening bacteria. In a new study published March 18 in the journal Science, Yale researchers report the critical role played by the gut's immune system in these key processes. The immune system, they found, not only defends against pathogens but regulates which nutrients are taken in. The findings may provide insights into origins of metabolic disease and malnutrition that is common in ...

93 million years ago, bizarre, winged sharks swam in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This newly described fossil species, called Aquilolamna milarcae, has allowed its discoverers to erect a new family. Like manta rays, these 'eagle sharks' are characterised by extremely long and thin pectoral fins reminiscent of wings. The specimen studied was 1.65 metres long and had a span of 1.90 metres. Aquilolamna milarcae had a caudal fin with a well-developed superior lobe, typical of most pelagic sharks, such as whale sharks and tiger sharks. Thus, its anatomical features thus ...

It's not just how hot the fires burn - it's also where they burn that matters. During the recent extreme fire season in Australia, which began in 2019 and burned into 2020, millions of tons of smoke particles were released into the atmosphere. Most of those particles followed a typical pattern, settling to the ground after a day or week; yet the ones created in fires burning in one corner of the country managed to blanket the entire Southern hemisphere for months. A pair of Israeli scientists managed to track puzzling January and February 2020 spikes in a measure of particle-laden haze to those fires, and then, in a paper recently published in Science, they ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is keeping millions of Americans from their usual offices, as they find themselves still working at home. Even with the vaccine now being distributed, working from home may still be the future for some, and new research suggests the resulting work loneliness negatively impacts employee well-being. ...

Researchers who simulated early stages of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, China, conclude that the virus was likely circulating earlier than has been described, possibly even in mid-October 2019. The findings do not reveal whether the virus that first emerged was less "fit" than the virus that spread throughout China, say the authors, but the estimates do further distance the first ("index") case from the outbreak at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which has received much attention. A concerted effort has been made to determine when the SARS-CoV-2 virus ...

Have you forgotten where you laid your keys? Ever wondered where you had parked your car? Or having trouble remembering the name of the new neighbor? Unfortunately, these things seem to get worse as one gets older. A big question for researchers is where does benign forgetfulness end and true disease begin? One of the keys to having a healthy brain at any age is having a healthy blood-brain barrier, a complex interface of blood vessels that run through the brain. Researchers reviewed more than 150 articles to look at what happens to the blood-brain barrier as we age. Their findings were published March 15 in Nature ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., March 18, 2021--A new, simpler solution process for fabricating stable perovskite solar cells overcomes the key bottleneck to large-scale production and commercialization of this promising renewable-energy technology, which has remained tantalizingly out of reach for more than a decade. "Our work paves the way for low-cost, high-throughput commercial-scale production of large-scale solar modules in the near future," said Wanyi Nie, a research scientist fellow in the Center of Integrated Nanotechnologies at Los Alamos National Laboratory and corresponding ...

During a pandemic like COVID-19, vulnerable countries are traditionally the focus of global attention and concern. However, new research suggests that we need to rebuild our understanding. A study published in KeAi's Global Health Journal, examined the relationship between state vulnerabilities (measured using the Fragile States Index (FSI) from Fund for Peace) and COVID-19 incidence and death rates in 146 countries. The FSI consists of 12 specific indicators covering cohesion, economy, politics and society. "When using the total FSI score for statistical analysis, we were surprised to find that, overall, the more fragile countries had lower cumulative incidence and fatality rates for COVID-19," explains one of the study's authors, Yangmu ...

In new findings published online March 18, 2021 in the journal Cancer Cell, an international team of researchers, led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, describe how pancreatic cancer cells use an alternative method to find necessary nutrients, defying current therapies, to help them grow and spread. Pancreatic cancer accounts for roughly 3 percent of all cancers in the United States, but it is among the most aggressive and deadly, resulting in 7 percent of all cancer deaths annually. Pancreatic cancer is especially deadly once it metastasizes, with the number of people who are alive five years later declining from 37 percent to just 3 percent. All cancer cells require a constant supply of nutrients. Some types ...

Smart glass can change its color quickly through electricity. A new material developed by chemists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich has now set a speed record for such a change. On the highway at night. It rains, the bright headlights of the car behind you are blinding. How convenient to have an automatically dimming rearview mirror in such a case. Technically, this helpful extra is based on electrochromic materials. When a voltage is applied, their light absorption and color change. Controlled by a light sensor, the rearview mirror can thus filter out strongly dazzling light. Recently, experts discovered that, in addition to established inorganic electrochromic materials, a new generation of highly ordered lattice structures can also be equipped ...

KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (March 18, 2021) - A new study in the journal Conservation Science and Practice finds that restaurants in urban areas in Central Africa play a key role in whether protected wildlife winds up on the menu. The study, by a team of scientists from Michigan State University, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and University of Maryland, used a crime science "hot product" approach, which looks at frequently stolen items coveted by thieves. The approach offered new insights into wildlife targeted by the urban wild meat trade and can inform urban wildlife policies. The study engaged lower, middle, and upper-level tiered restaurants to understand which species were traded. ...

Detailed, new analysis published this week in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open highlights significant concerns about a growing issue of sex selective abortion of girls in Nepal. Drawing on census data from 2011 and follow-on survey data from 2016, the social scientists estimate that roughly one in 50 girl births were 'missing' from records (i.e. had been aborted) between 2006-11 (22,540 girl births in total). In the year before the census (June 2010 - June 2011) this had risen to one in 38. For certain areas of the country, the practice was more widespread. In Arghakhanchi, the most affected district, one in every six girl births were 'missing' in census data. In the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal's main urban centre, around 115 boys are born for ...

Anyone who has watched an infant's eyes follow a dangling trinket dancing in front of them knows that babies are capable of paying attention with laser focus. But with large areas of their young brains still underdeveloped, how do they manage to do so? Using an approach pioneered at Yale that uses fMRI (or functional magnetic resonance imaging) to scan the brains of awake babies, a team of university psychologists show that when focusing their attention infants under a year of age recruit areas of their frontal cortex, a section of the brain involved in more advanced functions that was previously thought to be immature in babies. The findings were ...

At the heart of clouds are ice crystals. And at the heart of ice crystals, often, are aerosol particles - dust in the atmosphere onto which ice can form more easily than in the open air. It's a bit mysterious how this happens, though, because ice crystals are orderly structures of molecules, while aerosols are often disorganized chunks. New research by Valeria Molinero, distinguished professor of chemistry, and Atanu K. Metya, now at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna, shows how crystals of organic molecules, a common component of aerosols, can get the ...

Observations of groups of wild bonobos, reported in Scientific Reports, suggest that two infants may have been adopted by adult females belonging to different social groups. The findings may represent the first report of cross-group adoption in wild bonobos, and potentially also the first cases of cross-group adoption in wild apes. Bonobos form social groups of multiple males and females that sometimes temporarily associate with one another. Nahoko Tokuyama and colleagues observed four groups of wild bonobos between April 2019 and March 2020 in the Luo Scientific Reserve in Wamba, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The authors identified two infants whom ...

Newly excavated skeletal remains of an ankylosaurid -- a large armoured herbivore that lived during the Cretaceous Period -- may indicate that members of this family of dinosaurs were able to dig, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The specimen, known as MPC-D 100/1359, may further our understanding of ankylosaurid behaviour during the Late Cretaceous (84-72 million years ago). Yuong-Nam Lee and colleagues excavated the skeletal elements of MPC-D 100/1359 from a deposit of the Baruungoyot Formation in the southern Gobi Desert, Mongolia, ...