Since 1997 (Reno vs. American Civil Liberties Union), the Supreme Court has used the metaphor of the free market of ideas to define the Internet, thus addressing the regulation of the net as a matter of freedom of speech. In law, metaphors have a constitutive value and, once established, affect the debate and the decisions of the Courts for a long time. In the paper 'Judicial Frames and Fundamental Right in Cyberspace', published in the American Journal of Comparative Law, Oreste Pollicino (Bocconi University) and Alessandro Morelli (Università Magna Graecia, Catanzaro) apply to judicial reasoning reflections on metaphors and go so far as to criticize, on the one hand, the US Supreme Court's orientations on (non-)regulation of the Internet and, on the other, to invoke changes ...

In the first systematic large-scale evaluation of the UK National Early Warning Risk Score (NEWS) 2 as a scoring system for predicting severe COVID-19 outcomes in patients, researchers at King's College London have found poor-to-moderate accuracy for identifying patients at risk of being transferred to intensive care units (ICUs) or dying after 14 days of hospitalisation. Accuracy of predictions in short term (three days) showed moderate success. For people who are hospitalised with severe COVID-19, it is vital to quickly identify which patients may deteriorate and require transfer to an intensive care unit (ICU) for organ support or may die. NEWS2 is an ...

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a fossil of the earliest starfish-like animal, which helps us understand the origins of the nimble-armed creature. The prototype starfish, which has features in common with both sea lilies and modern-day starfish, is a missing link for scientists trying to piece together its early evolutionary history. The exceptionally preserved fossil, named Cantabrigiaster fezouataensis, was discovered in Morroco's Anti-Atlas mountain range. Its intricate design - with feathery arms akin to a lacework - has been frozen in time for roughly 480 million years. The new species is unusual because it doesn't have many of the key features of its contemporary relatives, lacking roughly 60% of ...

Antidepressants are commonly used worldwide to treat pain, however new research from the University of Sydney shows they offer little to no help for people suffering chronic back pain and osteoarthritis and may even cause harm. Back pain and knee osteoarthritis affect millions of people globally and are leading causes of disability. When first-line pain medications such as paracetamol and ibuprofen fail to improve symptoms, many people are prescribed antidepressants for their pain. Most clinical practice guidelines recommend antidepressants for long term (chronic) back pain and hip and knee osteoarthritis, yet evidence supporting their use is uncertain. Published today in the BMJ the ...

Antidepressant drugs are largely ineffective for back and osteoarthritis pain, despite being widely used for these conditions, suggests a review of the evidence published by The BMJ today. The findings, based on moderate certainty evidence, show that for people with back pain the effects were too small to be worthwhile, but for osteoarthritis a small beneficial effect cannot be ruled out. Most clinical practice guidelines recommend antidepressants for long term (chronic) back pain and hip and knee osteoarthritis, yet evidence supporting their use is uncertain. To address this knowledge gap, researchers led by Giovanni Ferreira at the ...

Adding the arthritis drug tocilizumab to standard care for patients in hospital with severe or critical covid-19 is no better than standard care alone in improving clinical outcomes at 15 days, finds a new trial published by The BMJ today. There was an increased number of deaths at 15 days in patients receiving tocilizumab, resulting in the trial being stopped early. Today's results contradict earlier observational studies suggesting a benefit of tocilizumab. However, observational effects are limited by a high risk that they may be due to other unknown (confounding) factors - and some studies have not yet been peer ...

MINNEAPOLIS - A new study has found a brain pressure disorder called idiopathic intracranial hypertension is on the rise, and the increase corresponds with rising obesity rates. The study is published in the January 20, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that for women, socioeconomic factors like income, education and housing may play a role in their risk. Idiopathic intracranial hypertension is when the pressure in the fluid surrounding the brain rises. It can mimic the symptoms of a ...

MINNEAPOLIS - A new study shows that intense immunosuppression followed by a hematopoietic stem cell transplant may prevent disability associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) from getting worse in 71% of people with relapsing-remitting MS for up to 10 years after the treatment. The research is published in the January 20, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that in some people their disability improved over 10 years after treatment. Additionally, more than half of the people with the secondary progressive form of MS experienced no worsening of their symptoms 10 years after a transplant. While most people with MS are first diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS, marked by symptom ...

The new tech elite share distinct views setting them apart from other segments of the world's elite more generally, according to a study published January 20, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Hilke Brockmann from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, and colleagues. The global economic landscape over the last half-century is marked by a shift to a high-tech economy, dominated by the "Big Nine" (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, and Tencent), computer hardware and software manufacturers, and most recently, app companies. In this study, Brockmann and colleagues investigate the worldviews of the 100 richest people in the tech world (as defined by Forbes). Though the authors initially approached all 100 of their subjects for a face-to-face ...

In the Early Bronze Age of Europe, ancient people used bronze objects as an early form of money, even going so far as to standardize the shape and weight of their currency, according to a study published January 20, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Maikel H. G. Kuijpers and C?t?lin N. Popa of Leiden University, Netherlands. Money is an important feature of modern human society. One key feature of money is standardization, but this can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record since ancient people had inexact forms of measurement compared with today. In this study, the authors assessed possible money from the Early Bronze Age of Central Europe, comparing the objects based on their perceived - if not ...

The onset date of the yearly rainy season reliably predicts if seasonal drought will occur in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa that are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity, and could help to mitigate its effects. Shraddhanand Shukla and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Climate Hazards Center, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 20, 2021. Climate-driven seasonal drought can impact crop yields and is among major contributors to food insecurity, which can threaten people's lives and livelihoods. In the last ...

There may be over 34,000 street cattle in the Indian city of Raipur (one for every 54 human residents), with implications for road accidents and human-cattle conflict. INFORMATION: Article Title: A population estimation study reveals a staggeringly high number of cattle on the streets of urban Raipur in India Funding: The author(s) did not receive any specific funding for this work. However, this work is a part of the Doctor of Philosophy thesis of one of the authors, BKS, who is getting a Junior Research Fellowship under the scheme CSIR-UGC NET for JRF [Sr. No. 2121530765. ...

Fixed dose combinations of antibiotics are consumed in huge quantities globally, but 80 percent of combinations are not on the WHO Essential Medicines List, and 92 percent are not FDA-approved, - with inappropriate combinations risking inefficacy, toxicity, and selection for antimicrobial resistance INFORMATION: Article Title: High global consumption of potentially inappropriate fixed dose combination antibiotics: Analysis of data from 75 countries Funding: We received no specific funding for this work. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241899 ...

Daddies' girls? Female Bengalese finches prefer their father's song to that of other birds throughout their lives - while sons lose this preference as they grow up. INFORMATION: Article Title: Sex differences in the development and expression of a preference for familiar vocal signals in songbirds Funding: This work was supported by MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant, Numbers 17H06380 to KO & 17J07023 to TGF. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. (https://www.jsps.go.jp/index.html) Competing Interests: The authors have declared ...

Boston, Mass. -- Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common form of cancer of the kidney. In 2018, there were an estimated 403,000 new cases of RCC and 175,000 deaths due to kidney cancer worldwide. Currently, the 5-year survival rate for patients with metastatic RCC is only about 12 percent. Current treatments include inhibitors of the VEGF and PD-1 pathways. However, resistance to therapy occurs in most patients and new combination treatments are still needed to enhance the efficacy of these current approaches. Now, investigators have demonstrated that ACE2 expression is a good prognostic factor in RCC, that loss ...

Catnip and silver vine have been known as cat attractant plants. Cat lovers use dry leaves of these plants and toys stuffed with the leaves to give joy to their pet cats. But how does this work? What is the biological significance of the responsive behavior? A research group at Iwate University, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, and University of Liverpool found that the behavior had more practical reasons than getting euphoria. "The first appearance of silver vine ("Matatabi" in Japanese) as a cat attractant in literature in Japan dates back to more than 300 years ago. A folklore Ukiyo-e drawn in 1859 shows a group of mice trying to tempt some ...

Scientists at the University of Southampton and University of Edinburgh have developed a flexible underwater robot that can propel itself through water in the same style as nature's most efficient swimmer - the Aurelia aurita jellyfish. The findings, published in Science Robotics, demonstrate that the new underwater robot can swim as quickly and efficiently as the squid and jellyfish which inspired its design, potentially unlocking new possibilities for underwater exploration with its lightweight design and soft exterior. Co-author Dr Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, ...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a new genetic disorder characterized by developmental delays and malformations of the brain, heart and facial features. Named linkage-specific-deubiquitylation-deficiency-induced embryonic defects syndrome (LINKED), it is caused by a mutated version of the OTUD5 gene, which interferes with key molecular steps in embryo development. The findings indicate that the newly identified pathway may be essential for human development and may also underlie other disorders that are present at birth. The information will help scientists better understand such diseases--both common ...

Researchers have developed an automated method that can track the development of harmful clumps of TAU protein related to Alzheimer's disease in the brain, according to work involving 443 individuals. The method revealed that TAU primarily emerged in an area of the brain called the rhinal cortex before spreading elsewhere, suggesting that targeting TAU here could potentially slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The buildup of toxic amyloid-beta and TAU proteins is responsible for many of the symptoms and damage to neurons seen in Alzheimer's disease. However, current therapies have shown reduced efficacy, at least in part because the therapies were administered long ...

A new Northwestern University study reaffirms the importance of getting a good night's sleep. By examining fruit flies' brain activity and behavior, the researchers found that deep sleep has an ancient, restorative power to clear waste from the brain. This waste potentially includes toxic proteins that may lead to neurodegenerative disease. "Waste clearance could be important, in general, for maintaining brain health or for preventing neurogenerative disease," said Dr. Ravi Allada, senior author of the study. "Waste clearance may occur during wake and sleep but is substantially enhanced during deep sleep." The ...

Rubbing against catnip and silver vine transfers plant chemicals that researchers have now shown protect cats from mosquitoes. The results also demonstrate that engaging with nepetalactol, which the study identified as the most potent of many intoxicating iridoid compounds found in silver vine, activates the opioid reward system in both domesticated felines and big jungle cats. While nepetalactol had been previously identified, these studies directly illuminate its extremely potent effect on cats. And by revealing the biological significance of well-known feline behaviors, ...

Methamphetamine overdose deaths surged in an eight-year period in the United States, according to a study published today in JAMA Psychiatry. The analysis revealed rapid rises across all racial and ethnic groups, but American Indians and Alaska Natives had the highest death rates overall. The research was conducted at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Deaths involving methamphetamines more than quadrupled among non-Hispanic American Indians and Alaska Natives from 2011-2018 (from 4.5 to 20.9 per 100,000 people) overall, with ...

BOSTON -- While deaths related to heart disease have declined among older people, studies suggest that death rates among younger patients have remained stagnant or increased slightly. To understand what factors put younger individuals at higher risk of premature coronary heart disease (CHD), researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Mayo Clinic analyzed more than 50 risk factors in 28,024 women who participated in the decades-long Women's Health Study. Notably, women under 55 with type-2 diabetes had a tenfold greater risk of having CHD over the next two decades, with lipoprotein insulin resistance ...

Over the past 20 years, scientists have been developing metamaterials, or materials that don't occur naturally and whose mechanical properties result from their designed structure rather than their chemical composition. They allow researchers to create materials with specific properties and shapes. Metamaterials are still not widely used in everyday objects, but that could soon change. Tian Chen, a post-doc at two EPFL labs - the Flexible Structures Laboratory, headed by Pedro Reis, and the Geometric Computing Laboratory, headed by Mark Pauly - has taken metamaterials one step further, ...

What The Study Did: This observational study examined how COVID-19-related government-mandated closures and restrictions were associated with changes in mobility and the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Author: Daniel O. Erim, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., of Parexel International in Durham, North Carolina, 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.2020.32101) 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. #  ...