Many athletes, from football players to equestrians, rely on helmets to protect their heads from impacts or falls. However, a loose or improperly fitted helmet could leave them vulnerable to traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), a leading cause of death or disability in the U.S. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a highly sensitive pressure sensor cap that, when worn under a helmet, could help reveal whether the headgear is a perfect fit. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.6 to 3.8 million sports- and recreation-related TBIs occur each year in the U.S. Field data suggest that loose or improperly fitted helmets can contribute ...

March 17, 2021-- A new study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society reveals how socioeconomic factors partially explain the increased odds that Black and Hispanic Americans have of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In "Association of Race and Ethnicity With COVID-19 Test Positivity and Hospitalization Is Mediated by Socioeconomic Factors," Hayley B. Gershengorn, MD, associate professor, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and co-authors ...

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute demonstrated for the first time that blocking "cell drinking," or macropinocytosis, in the thick tissue surrounding a pancreatic tumor slowed tumor growth--providing more evidence that macropinocytosis is a driver of pancreatic cancer growth and is an important therapeutic target. The study was published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Now that we know that macropinocytosis is 'revved up' in both pancreatic cancer cells and the surrounding fibrotic tissue, blocking the process might provide a 'double whammy' to pancreatic tumors," ...

Researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed software to improve the accuracy of 3D-printed parts, seeking to reduce costs and waste for companies using additive manufacturing to mass produce parts in factories. "Additive manufacturing is incredibly exciting and offers tremendous benefits, but consistency and accuracy on mass-produced 3D-printed parts can be an issue. As with any production technology, parts built should be as close to identical as possible, whether it is 10 parts or 10 million," said Professor Bill King, Andersen Chair in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering and leader of the project. The team's ...

- The increasing complexity of treatments for lung cancer and language differences can make it difficult for patients to communicate with their medical teams - Risks of jeopardising the treatment and care journey as well as recent progress in patient empowerment. Lugano, Switzerland; Denver, CO, USA, 17 March 2021 - More than one in 10 patients with lung cancer do not know what type of tumour they have, according to data from a 17-country study carried out by the Global Lung Cancer Coalition (GLCC) to be presented at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) ...

What would a volcano - and its lava flows - look like on a planetary body made primarily of metal? A pilot study from North Carolina State University offers insights into ferrovolcanism that could help scientists interpret landscape features on other worlds. Volcanoes form when magma, which consists of the partially molten solids beneath a planet's surface, erupts. On Earth, that magma is mostly molten rock, composed largely of silica. But not every planetary body is made of rock - some can be primarily icy or even metallic. "Cryovolcanism is volcanic activity on icy worlds, and we've seen it happen on Saturn's moon Enceladus," says Arianna Soldati, assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the ...

TORONTO, ON - American adults 65 years old and older have better vision than that age group did nearly a decade ago, according to a recent study published in the journal Ophthalmic Epidemiology. In 2008, 8.3% of those aged 65 and older in the US reported serious vision impairment. In 2017 that number decreased to 6.6% for the 65-plus cohort. Put another way: if vision impairment rates had remained at 2008 levels, an additional 848,000 older Americans would have suffered serious vision impairment in 2017. "The implications of a reduction in vision impairment are significant," ...

Cancer develops when changes occur with one or more genes in our cells. A change in a gene is called a fault or a mutation. The inherited gene mutations found in this study, are passed from parent to child and are common in the population. However, each one individually does not significantly raise cancer risk. Instead, these mutations collectively act to raise the risk of cancer developing. They do not directly cause cancer, instead they most likely interact with many other risk factors or random mutations that accumulate over a person's lifetime. Cancers caused by inherited faulty genes were previously thought to be very rare, compared with mutations that happen by chance as we ...

Fields and farms with more variety of insect pollinator species provide more stable pollination services to nearby crops year on year, according to the first study of its kind. An international team of scientists led by the University of Reading carried out the first ever study of pollinator species stability over multiple years across locations all around the world, to investigate how to reduce fluctuations in crop pollination over time. They found areas with diverse communities of pollinators, and areas with stable populations of dominant species, suffered fewer year-to-year fluctuations ...

Living for nearly 2 months in simulated weightlessness has a modest but widespread negative effect on cognitive performance that may not be counteracted by short periods of artificial gravity, finds a new study published in END ...

Scleritis is a vision-threatening inflammatory condition of the white portion of the eye, or the sclera, that is thought to be the result of an over-reaction of the body's immune system. A new study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology provides estimates of the incidence and prevalence of scleritis between 1997 and 2018 in the U.K. Investigators found that the U.K. incidence of new cases appears to have fallen by about one-third over the past 22 years, to 2.8 new cases per 100,000 people per year. This trend is likely due to improvements in the management of immune-related diseases. Individuals who developed scleritis often ...

Fractures in the vertebrae of the spine and calcification in a blood vessel called the abdominal aorta can both be visualized through the same spinal imaging test. A new study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research that included 5,365 older men indicates that each of these measures are linked with a higher risk of developing hip and other fractures. Investigators found that including both measures compared with including only abdominal aortic calcification or only vertebral fractures improved the ability to predict which men were most likely to experience a hip or other fracture in the future. "Both abdominal aortic calcification ...

While play and playfulness have been studied well in children, their structure and consequences are understudied in adults. A new article published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass highlights available research on this topic and also examines why playfulness is important in romantic relationships. The authors note that playfulness encourages the experience of positive emotions and might relate to potential biological processes--such as the activation of hormones and certain brain circuits. It also influences how people communicate and interact with each other, for example by helping to deal with stress, and solving interpersonal tension. These can all impact relationship ...

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which involves passing electricity through the brain, remains a controversial psychiatric treatment for depression and other conditions because it can cause side effects such as memory loss and is ineffective for many patients. A recent study published in Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice has examined how ECT is currently administered and monitored throughout England. The study was based on data provided by 37 National Health Service Trusts' responses to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The audit found that the dwindling use of ECT in England has levelled off at about 2,500 people per year. Most recipients are women and over 60 years old. Only one Trust could report ...

Scientists at UC San Francisco have detected 109 chemicals in a study of pregnant women, including 55 chemicals never before reported in people and 42 "mystery chemicals," whose sources and uses are unknown. The chemicals most likely come from consumer products or other industrial sources. They were found both in the blood of pregnant women, as well as their newborn children, suggesting they are traveling through the mother's placenta. The study will be published March 17, 2021, in Environmental Science & Technology. "These chemicals have probably been in people for quite some time, but our technology is ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (March 17, 2021)--As women age, they are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night to pass urine. The loss of estrogen during the menopause transition accelerates this problem, which is known as nocturia. A new study evaluated the effectiveness of different hormone therapies in managing the frequency of nocturia. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). The loss of estrogen during menopause has been shown to create bladder dysfunction, sleep disorders, hot flashes, and alterations ...

According to a study conducted at the University of Helsinki, a raw diet from the late stages of suckling to roughly two months of age may reduce the prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in dogs later in life. In addition, a raw diet administered subsequently up to six months was found to have a positive effect. At the same time, the study indicates that feeding dry food to puppies early on in their lives can increase the incidence of IBD later in life. In addition to the diet, the maternal history of IBD as well as the dog's gender and age were associated ...

A recent study, affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a novel system, capable of producing hydrogen and electricity quickly and effectively while eliminating carbon dioxide (CO?) emissions significantly. Published in the January 2021 issue of Nano Energy, this breakthrough has been carried out by Professor GunTae Kim and his research team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST. In this study, the research team succeeded in developing a membrane-free aqueous metal-CO? battery. Unlike the existing aqueous metal-CO? systems, the new battery is not only easier to manufacture, but also allows continuous operation with one type of electrolyte. The research team designed ...

Philadelphia, March 17, 2021 - As high school athletes return to practice and games for a variety of sports, the threat of concussions remains. A new study from researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) used head impact sensors in four different sports and studied male and female athletes to determine which of these sports put students at the highest risk for head impacts that could lead to concussions. The findings were published online by the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. "Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to concussion because they frequently participate in sporting and recreational activities and have slower recovery periods compared to adults," said Kristy Arbogast, PhD, senior ...

It's a fact - humans love sugar. For those of us who also like to watch our calories, sugar substitutes can help. Some zero-calorie or low-calorie sweeteners have attracted bad reputations for containing unnatural ingredients. But there are also natural sweeteners derived from plants, like stevia. Stevia is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, and it has no calories. The global stevia market is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The sweetener is derived from the leaves of the plant Stevia rebaudiana, a native of Paraguay and Brazil. The leaves make chemicals similar enough to sugar to trick the tongue. ...

SPOKANE, Wash. - COVID-19 has created new problems for pregnant women in the United States, a group that already faced the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world even before the pandemic. One of their biggest concerns is their baby contracting the disease, according to a Washington State University study published recently in the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. Some women expressed fears that simply going to the hospital to deliver would cause them to get the virus and then be forced to isolate from their newborn. "Pregnant women are really stressed about contracting COVID-19," ...

Subsidising low carbon emission meals could encourage more people to choose them, according to new research. The study, led by Queen Mary University of London, investigated the impact of different interventions on encouraging people to select low carbon emission menu options in a simulated lunchtime canteen environment. This included the use of carbon taxes and subsidies, traffic light labelling (TLL) and social norms, where more sustainable options were highlighted as the most popular menu items. Carbon taxes and either behavioral intervention - TLL or social norms - had a limited effect on shifting behaviours towards meal choices with lower carbon footprints. However, when all these interventions were combined with subsidies, where the ...

The critically endangered regent honeyeater is losing its "song culture" due to the bird's rapidly declining population, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU). Just like humans learning to speak, many birds learn to sing by associating with older birds of the same species. They risk losing this skill if adults become too rare. And if they don't learn to sing a sexy enough song, their chances of mating are reduced. "If endangered birds are unable to learn how to sing correctly, it seriously impacts their ability to communicate," lead author Dr Ross Crates said. "It ...

Machine learning can be used to comb through online reviews of substance use treatment facilities to home in on qualities that are important to patients but remain hard to capture via formal means, such as surveys, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania show. The researchers found that professionalism and staff dedication to patients were two of the top qualities that could be attributed to either a negative or positive review of the facility. Findings from this study were published today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. "Searching ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- In a genetic surprise, ancient DNA shows the closest family members of an extinct bird known as the Haitian cave-rail are not in the Americas, but Africa and the South Pacific, uncovering an unexpected link between Caribbean bird life and the Old World. Like many animals unique to the Caribbean, cave-rails became extinct soon after people settled the islands. The last of three known West Indian species of cave-rails - flightless, chicken-sized birds - vanished within the past 1,000 years. Florida Museum of Natural History researchers sought to resolve the group's long-debated ancestry by analyzing DNA from a fossil toe bone ...