An analysis of 145 scholarly journals found that, among various factors that could contribute to gender bias and lesser representation of women in science, the peer review process itself is unlikely to be the primary cause of publishing inequalities. However, Flaminio Squazzoni and colleagues emphasize that the study does not account for many other factors that may affect women's representation in academia, including educational stereotypes and academic choices of priorities and specialties. Even as female representation has improved in fields such as the humanities, psychology, and the social sciences, a publication gap persists, with male authors continuing to publish more manuscripts in more prestigious journals. To better understand whether ...

Step into your new, microscopic time machine. Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that a type of single-celled organism living in modern-day oceans may have a lot in common with life forms that existed billions of years ago--and that fundamentally transformed the planet. The new research, which will appear Jan. 6 in the journal Science Advances, is the latest to probe the lives of what may be nature's hardest working microbes: cyanobacteria. These single-celled, photosynthetic organisms, also known as "blue-green algae," can be found in almost any large body of water today. But more than 2 billion years ago, they took on an extra important role in the history of life on ...

In the UK, men from ethnic minorities and women may have experienced worse mental health declines than White British men, according to a study published January 6, 2021 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Eugenio Proto and Climent Quintana-Domeque of institutions including the University of Glasgow and the University of Exeter, UK. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the measures enacted to restrict the spread of the virus, have had a major impact on the lives of citizens globally. The authors of the present study examined changes in mental health associated with the pandemic across ethnic groups in the UK. The researchers used data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, comparing responses from participants between 2017 and 2019 (i.e.: prior to the pandemic) to responses from ...

CAR T cells are a breakthrough class of effective but often toxic cancer therapies To prevent overactivation, switchable CAR T cells were engineered that can be turned on and off with an approved, widely used cancer drug BOSTON - Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Mass General Cancer Center have created molecular ON-OFF switches to regulate the activity of CAR T cells, a potent form of cell-based immunotherapy that has had dramatic success in treating some advanced cancers, but which pose a significant risk of toxic side effects. CAR T cells are immune cells genetically modified to recognize and attack tumors ...

The distribution and concentration of dissolved oxygen and water temperature in the oceans and freshwaters are usually far more influential in shaping the growth and reproduction of fish than the distribution of their prey. In a new paper in Science Advances, Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, argues that scientists need to avoid attaching human attributes to fish and start looking at their unique biology and constraints through a different lens. This lens is Pauly's own Gill Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT), ...

New York City, January 6, 2021 - CytoDel, Inc. ("CytoDel" or "the Company"), a privately-held corporation, today announces the publication of preclinical data on the Company's lead product, Cyto-111, in the peer-reviewed journal, Science Translational Medicine. The complete text of the article titled, "Neuronal Delivery of Antibodies has Therapeutic Effects in Animal Models of Botulism," can be found here. Cyto-111 was conceived, expressed and purified in the laboratory of Konstantin Ichtchenko, Ph.D., NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, who was a principal investigator in the study, which ...

A large scale study from Bentley University of the biotechnology companies that completed Initial Public Offerings from 1997-2016 estimates that 78% of these companies are associated with products that reach phase 3 trials and 52% are associated with new product approvals. The article, titled "Late-stage product development and approvals by biotechnology companies after IPO, 1997-2016," shows that these emerging, public biotechnology companies continue to have a role in initiating new product development, but are no longer distinctively focused on novel, biological products. The new report from the Center for Integration of Science and Industry at Bentley University, published in Clinical Therapeutics, studied the 319 biotechnology ...

E. coli food poisoning is one of the worst food poisonings, causing bloody diarrhea and kidney damage. But all the carnage might be just an unintended side effect, researchers from UConn Health report in the 27 November issue of Science Immunology. Their findings might lead to more effective treatments for this potentially deadly disease. Escherichia coli are a diverse group of bacteria that often live in animal guts. Many types of E. coli never make us sick; other varieties can cause traveler's diarrhea. But swallowing even a few cells of the type of E. coli that makes Shiga toxin can make us very, very ill. Shiga toxin damages blood vessels in the intestines, causing bloody diarrhea. If ...

Taking advantage of the chemical properties of botulism toxins, two teams of researchers have fashioned non-toxic versions of these compounds that can deliver therapeutic antibodies to treat botulism, a potentially fatal disease with few approved treatments. The research, which was conducted in mice, guinea pigs, and nonhuman primates, suggests that the toxin derivatives could one day offer a platform to quickly treat established cases of botulism and target hard-to-reach molecules within neurons. Botulism manifests due to bacterial toxins called botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), which are the most potent toxins known ...

The pandemic has exacerbated isolation and fears for one very vulnerable group of Americans: the 4.3 million older adults with cognitive impairment who live alone. As the coronavirus continues to claim more lives and upend others, researchers led by UC San Francisco are calling for tailored services and support for older adults living alone with memory issues, who are experiencing extreme isolation, and are exposed to misinformation about the virus and barriers to accessing medical care. In their qualitative study, researchers interviewed 24 San Francisco Bay Area residents whose average age was 82. Of these, 17 were women, and 13 were either monolingual Spanish-speakers ...

LA JOLLA--New data suggest that nearly all COVID-19 survivors have the immune cells necessary to fight re-infection. The findings, based on analyses of blood samples from 188 COVID-19 patients, suggest that responses to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, from all major players in the "adaptive" immune system, which learns to fight specific pathogens, can last for at least eight months after the onset of symptoms from the initial infection. "Our data suggest that the immune response is there--and it stays," LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr. Biol. Sci., who co-led the study with LJI Professor Shane Crotty, ...

Drug-resistant bacteria could lead to more deaths than cancer by 2050, according to a report commissioned by the United Kingdom in 2014 and jointly supported by the U.K. government and the Wellcome Trust. In an effort to reduce the potential infection-caused 10 million deaths worldwide, Penn State researcher Scott Medina has developed a peptide, or small protein, that can target a specific pathogen without damaging the good bacteria that bolsters the immune system. Medina, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, led the team who published its results Jan. 4 in Nature Biomedical Engineering. "One of the best protective mechanisms we have to prevent infection are beneficial bacteria that inhabit our bodies, known as commensals," ...

Ikoma, Japan - Ultrasmall integrated circuits have revolutionized mobile phones, home appliances, cars, and other everyday technologies. To further miniaturize electronics and enable advanced functions, circuits must be reliably fabricated in three dimensions. Achieving ultrafine 3D shape control by etching into silicon is difficult because even atomic-scale damage reduces device performance. Researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) report, in a new study seen in Crystal Growth and Design, silicon etched to adopt the shape of atomically smooth pyramids. Coating these silicon pyramids with a thin layer of iron imparts ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - For more than seven years, a mysterious wasting disease has nearly killed off sea star populations around the world. Some of these species stand at the brink of extinction. New Cornell University-led research suggests that starfish, victims of sea star wasting disease (SSWD), may actually be in respiratory distress - literally "drowning" in their own environment - as elevated microbial activity derived from nearby organic matter and warm ocean temperatures rob the creatures of their ability to breathe. "As humans, we breathe, we ventilate, we bring air into our lungs ...

In the digital age, data traffic is growing at an exponential rate. The demands on computing power for applications in artificial intelligence such as pattern and speech recognition in particular, or for self-driving vehicles, often exceeds the capacities of conventional computer processors. Working together with an international team, researchers at the University of Münster are developing new approaches and process architectures which can cope with these tasks extremely efficient. They have now shown that so-called photonic processors, with which data is processed by means of light, can process information much more rapidly and in parallel - something ...

Young adults ages 18-24 years old in the U.S. say that porn is their most helpful source of information about how to have sex, according to a new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researcher published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. In the nationally representative survey, a quarter of young adults said porn was their most helpful source of information about how to have sex. Slightly less than a quarter said sexual partners were the most helpful source, and fewer pointed to friends, parents, media, or healthcare professionals. However, female respondents were much more likely than male respondents to report that their partners ...

2020 was an eventful year, with science at the front and center of most news cycles. As this seemingly long year wraps up, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, is highlighting the biggest chemistry stories, top research trends and predictions for the coming year. Predictably, research on the novel coronavirus was the biggest chemistry story of the year, beginning in January when the genetic code for SARS-CoV-2 was published. Since then, thousands of papers have been published on the subject, with topics like mask efficacy, disinfectants and virus transmission getting the most attention. Other popular chemistry subjects included new insights about the atmospheres of other planets and how climate change fueled ...

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death associated with smoking cigarettes. But as use of e-cigarettes ("vaping") becomes more popular, including as a way to cut back on cigarettes, little is known about its effect on cardiovascular health. Now, a new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study, published in the journal Circulation, finds that vaping may not cut risk of cardiovascular disease in the way that most adults use them--in combination with cigarettes. "Dual use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes appears to be as harmful to cardiovascular health as exclusive cigarette smoking," says study lead author Dr. Andrew Stokes, assistant professor of global health at BUSPH. Stokes ...

New Rochelle, NY, January 6, 2021--Women physicians feel pressured to spend more time in work-related citizenship tasks, based largely on their age and race. Nearly half of women perceived that they spent more time on citizenship tasks than their male colleagues, according to a study in Journal of Women's Health. Click here to read the article now. "When compared to their younger counterpart, women physicians older than 49 years stated to feel obligated to volunteer for these tasks because of their age," state Priscila Armijo, MD, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and coauthors. "We also found that a higher proportion of women of color physicians perceived race as a factor in feeling obligated to volunteer for work-related citizenship ...

They are as thin as a hair, only a hundred thousand times thinner--so-called two-dimensional materials, consisting of a single layer of atoms, have been booming in research for years. They became known to a wider audience when two Russian-British scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for the discovery of graphene, a building block of graphite. The special feature of such materials is that they possess novel properties that can only be explained with the help of the laws of quantum mechanics and that may be relevant for enhanced ...

Starting as a single cell, organisms undergo millions of generations of divisions to ultimately generate the bones, heart, brain and other components that make up a living being. The mainspring within this intricate process is the transfer of DNA through each subsequent cell split within discrete packets called chromosomes. It's critical that all chromosomes are duplicated and precisely distributed through every generation of cell division. If the inherited chromosome components are altered, even slightly, birth defects and certain cancers can result. A new study published in the journal Science by postdoctoral scholar Pablo Lara-Gonzalez, Division of Biological Sciences Professor Arshad Desai and their colleagues addresses ...

Irvine, Calif., Jan. 6, 2021-- In the United States, Black, Latino and low-income communities have historically lacked nearby access to pharmacy services. To provide the first record of these "pharmacy deserts" in Los Angeles County, a University of California, Irvine study identified communities where the nearest pharmacy was at least one mile away. Unlike previous studies, this one describes pharmacy deserts in terms of social determinants of health - such as owning a vehicle, crime rates and poverty - to determine which communities have the greatest need for pharmacy access. Published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, ...

The small GTPases of the ADP-ribosylation factor (Arf) family are key initiators of various physiological processes including secretion, endocytosis, phagocytosis and signal transduction. Arf family proteins function to mediate recruitment of cytosolic effectors to specific subcellular compartments. This process facilitates Arf effectors to perform cargo recognition, lipid modification or other cellular functions. Blocking the activities of Arf family proteins inhibits secretion of important molecules from the cell and also inhibits cellular uptake of nutrients. Defects in Arfs or their regulatory proteins are related to various inherited diseases, including X-linked intellectual disability (XLID), Joubert syndrome, Bardet-Biedl syndrome and cilia dysfunction. Thus, studying molecular ...

When ridesourcing companies Uber and Lyft show up in urban areas, vehicle registrations per capita increase by 0.7% on average, increasing even more in car-dependent cities. Researchers reporting in the journal iScience on January 6 made this discovery by analyzing data from major US cities between 2011 to 2017, comparing trends in cities where Uber and Lyft entered with those where they didn't. They also found that Uber and Lyft displace transit more in cities with higher income and fewer children. "I would have expected people to own fewer vehicles once they gain access to this alternative transportation mode," says Jeremy Michalek, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author ...

Researchers have successfully used a DNA-editing technique to extend the lifespan of mice with the genetic variation associated with progeria, a rare genetic disease that causes extreme premature aging in children and can significantly shorten their life expectancy. The study was published in the journal Nature, and was a collaboration between the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Boston; and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.? DNA is made up of four chemical bases -- A, C, G and T. Progeria, which is also known as Hutchinson-Gilford ...