Conditions are ripe for transforming the U.S. mental health care system, with scientific advances, the growth of Medicaid and political consensus on the importance of improving mental health creating the possibility that goals once thought out of reach may be possible, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Broad changes will be needed to improve how Americans receive mental health care, such as integrating behavioral health care into general health care settings, providing supportive housing to the homeless and promoting comprehensive mental health education. Federal mental health parity legislation is one recent promising development that aims to put ...

Human papillomavirus (HPV) can infect the mouth and throat to cause cancers of the oropharynx. A new study published early online in END ...

Canada must dismantle anti-Black racism in health care to address its harmful effects on people's health, argue authors of a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.201579 Racism has significant negative effects on the physical and mental health of Black people and people of nondominant racial groups. For example, there have been significantly higher death rates from COVID-19 among Black people in North America and the United Kingdom. Anti-Black racism also exists in the medical system, with stereotyping and bias by health care providers and an underrepresentation of Black physicians. "First, we who work in health care must acknowledge the existence of anti-Black racism in ...

An analysis of a large nationally representative longitudinal study by University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science report that starting tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, before the age of 18 is a major risk factor for people becoming daily cigarette smokers. Reporting in the January 11, 2021 online edition of Pediatrics, researchers found that in 2014 people age 12 to 24 who used e-cigarettes were three times as likely to become daily cigarette smokers in the future. Among those who reported using a tobacco product, daily use increased with age through age 28. Daily cigarette smoking nearly doubled between 18 to 21 year olds (12 percent) and 25 to 28 year ...

Marijuana use increases throughout the calendar year, with use up 13 percent on average at the end of each year (2015-2019) compared to the beginning, according to a new study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. "We found that marijuana use is consistently higher among those surveyed later in the year, peaking during late fall or early winter before dropping at the beginning of the following year. We think this may be due, in part, to a 'Dry January' in which some people stop drinking alcohol or even stop using marijuana as part of a New Year's ...

The gut plays a central role in the regulation of the body's metabolism and its dysfunction is associated with a variety of diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, colitis and colorectal cancer that affect millions of people worldwide. Targeting endocrine dysfunction at an early stage by stimulating the formation of specific enteroendocrine cells from intestinal stem cells could be a promising regenerative approach for diabetes therapy. For this, however, a detailed understanding of the intestinal stem cell lineage hierarchy and the signals regulating the recruitment of the different intestinal cell types is critical. Heiko Lickert ...

How the larvae of colorful clownfish that live among coral reefs in the Philippines are dispersed varies widely, depending on the year and seasons - a Rutgers-led finding that could help scientists improve conservation of species. Right after most coral reef fish hatch, they join a swirling sea of plankton as tiny, transparent larvae. Then currents, winds and waves disperse them, frequently to different reefs. During seven years of surveys of coral reef-dwelling clownfish, scientists measured how the dispersal of larvae varied over the years and seasonally, including during monsoons, according Rutgers-led research in the journal Molecular Ecology. They found that larvae dispersal varied a lot on both timescales. Their research suggests that when scientists ...

A new study shows that the gigantic Megalodon or megatooth shark, which lived nearly worldwide roughly 15-3.6 million years ago and reached at least 50 feet (15 meters) in length, gave birth to babies larger than most adult humans. This latest research shedding light on the reproductive biology, growth and life expectancy of Megalodon (formally called Otodus megalodon) appears in the international journal Historical Biology. Although Otodus megalodon is typically portrayed as a super-sized, monstrous shark in novels and films such as the 2018 sci-fi film "The Meg," scientific data support a more modest but still impressive estimate of about 50 feet (15 meters) for the presently known largest individuals. The ...

Positive "tipping points" could spark cascading changes that accelerate action on climate change, experts say. A tipping point is a moment when a small change triggers a large, often irreversible, response. Professor Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute (GSI) at the University of Exeter, has previously warned the world is "dangerously close" to several tipping points that could accelerate climate change. But in a new paper in the journal Climate Policy, Professor Lenton and Simon Sharpe, a Deputy Director in the UK Cabinet Office COP 26 unit, identify tipping points in human societies that could rapidly ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University mixed and designed a new, high entropy alloy (HEA) superconductor, using extensive data on simple superconducting substances with a specific crystal structure. HEAs are known to preserve superconducting characteristics up to extremely high pressures. The new superconductor, Co0.2Ni0.1Cu0.1Rh0.3Ir0.3Zr2, has a superconducting transition at 8K, a relatively high temperature for an HEA. The team's approach may be applied to discovering new superconducting materials with specific desirable properties. It's been over a hundred years since the discovery of superconductivity, where certain materials were found to suddenly show minimal resistance to electrical currents below a transition temperature. As we explore ...

A new risk-stratification tool which can accurately predict the likelihood of deterioration in adults hospitalised with COVID-19 has been developed by researchers from the UK Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium (known as ISARIC4C). Researchers say the online tool, made freely available to NHS doctors from today (Friday 8 January 2021), could support clinicians' decision making - helping to improve patient outcomes and ultimately save lives. The tool assesses 11 measurements* routinely collected from patients, including age, gender, and physical measurements (such as oxygen levels) along with some standard laboratory tests and calculates a percentage risk ...

Study of 1,733 patients first diagnosed in Wuhan (China) between January and May followed to June and September. 76% of COVID-19 patients have at least one symptom six months after symptom onset. Fatigue or muscle weakness is the most common symptom, with sleep difficulties and anxiety or depression also frequently reported. Lower antibodies against COVID-19 in patients six months after becoming ill compared with during acute infection raises concerns about the possibility of re-infection. More than three quarters of COVID-19 patients have at least one ongoing symptom six months after initially becoming unwell, according to research published in The Lancet. The cohort study, looking at long-term effects of COVID-19 infection on people hospitalised ...

COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care in the early months of the pandemic were subject to a significantly higher burden of delirium and coma than is typically found in patients with acute respiratory failure. Choice of sedative medications and curbs on family visitation played a role in increasing acute brain dysfunction for these patients. That's according to an international study published Jan. 8 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, led by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in coordination with researchers in Spain. The study, which is far the largest of its kind to date, tracks the incidence of delirium and coma in 2,088 COVID-19 patients admitted before April 28, 2020, to 69 adult intensive care units across 14 countries. ICU delirium is ...

Hundreds of cancer patients have benefitted from using computer algorithms to manage their symptoms and improve their wellbeing in a unique UK trial. The early stage colorectal, breast or gynecological cancer patients took part in the trial of the eRAPID system, developed by the University of Leeds, which allowed them to report online symptoms from home and receive instant advice on whether to self-manage or seek medical attention. Patients reported better symptom control and physical wellbeing in the early weeks of treatment, with the system preventing symptom deterioration in about 9% of patients after 12 weeks. Patients reported more confidence in managing ...

A year ago, trying to find patients who would agree to see their University of Michigan mental health provider through a video screen felt like pulling teeth. Only 26 video visits with a few early-adopters had happened in nearly six months, compared with more than 30,000 in-person visits. But Jennifer Severe, M.D., one of the three psychiatrists who helped launch a test of telehealth initiatives in the U-M's outpatient psychiatry clinic, wasn't about to give up. She prepared to give a talk at the beginning of April of 2020, hoping to convince more of her colleagues to give telepsychiatry a try, now that a major insurance ...

Eating a healthy diet, such as the Mediterranean diet, has a positive impact on health, but little is known about the effects of including unhealthy foods in an otherwise healthy diet. Now researchers at Rush University Medical Center have reported diminished benefits of a Mediterranean diet among those with high frequency of eating unhealthy foods. The results of their study were published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association on Jan. 7. "Eating a diet that emphasizes vegetables, fruit, fish and whole grains may positively affects a person's health," said Puja Agarwal, PhD, a nutritional epidemiologist and assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Rush Medical College. "But when it is combined with fried food, ...

In a technique known as DNA origami, researchers fold long strands of DNA over and over again to construct a variety of tiny 3D structures, including miniature biosensors and drug-delivery containers. Pioneered at the California Institute of Technology in 2006, DNA origami has attracted hundreds of new researchers over the past decade, eager to build receptacles and sensors that could detect and treat disease in the human body, assess the environmental impact of pollutants, and assist in a host of other biological applications. Although the principles of DNA origami are straightforward, the technique's tools and methods for designing new structures are not always easy to grasp and have not been well documented. In addition, scientists new to the method have had no single reference they ...

Canada is at the forefront of global efforts to end child marriage abroad. Yet this practice remains legal and persists across the country. In Canada, more than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to children, usually girls, under the age of 18 between 2000 and 2018, according to a new study from researchers at McGill University. In recent years, an increasing number of child marriages have been common-law unions. Child marriage, defined as formal or informal (common-law) marriage before the age of 18, is a globally-recognized indicator of gender inequality because the negative consequences for ...

BOSTON - Patients with tuberous sclerosis complex, a genetic disorder characterized by the growth of noncancerous tumors in multiple organs of the body, have limited treatment options. A team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has now shown that gene therapy can effectively treat mice that express one of the mutated genes that cause the disease. The research is published in Science Advances. The gene, called TSC2, codes for tuberin, a protein that acts to inhibit cell growth and proliferation. When mutations occur in TSC2, resulting in a lack of tuberin in cells, the cells enlarge ...

ORLANDO, Jan. 8, 2021 - Florida's threatened coral reefs have a more than $4 billion annual economic impact on the state's economy, and University of Central Florida researchers are zeroing in on one factor that could be limiting their survival - coral skeleton strength. In a new study published in the journal Coral Reefs, UCF engineering researchers tested how well staghorn coral skeletons withstand the forces of nature and humans, such as impacts from hurricanes and divers. The researchers subjected coral skeletons to higher stresses than those caused by ocean waves, says Mahmoud Omer, a doctoral student in UCF's Department ...

A research team at the University of Basel has discovered immune cells resident in the lungs that persist long after a bout of flu. Experiments with mice have shown that these helper cells improve the immune response to reinfection by a different strain of the flu virus. The discovery could yield approaches to developing longer-lasting vaccinations against quickly-mutating viruses. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, some already began to raise the question of how long immunity lasts after weathering SARS-CoV-2. The same question has now arisen regarding the COVID-19 vaccination. A key role is played by immunological memory - a complex interplay of immune cells, antibodies and signaling ...

Humans have them, so do other animals and plants. Now research reveals that bacteria too have internal clocks that align with the 24-hour cycle of life on Earth. The research answers a long-standing biological question and could have implications for the timing of drug delivery, biotechnology, and how we develop timely solutions for crop protection. Biological clocks or circadian rhythms are exquisite internal timing mechanisms that are widespread across nature enabling living organisms to cope with the major changes that occur from day to night, even across seasons. Existing inside cells, these molecular rhythms use external cues such as daylight and temperature to synchronise ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Efficiently mass-producing hydrogen from water is closer to becoming a reality thanks to Oregon State University College of Engineering researchers and collaborators at Cornell University and the Argonne National Laboratory. The scientists used advanced experimental tools to forge a clearer understanding of an electrochemical catalytic process that's cleaner and more sustainable than deriving hydrogen from natural gas. Findings were published today in Science Advances. Hydrogen is found in a wide range of compounds on Earth, most commonly combining with oxygen to make water, and it has many scientific, industrial and energy-related roles. It also occurs in the form of hydrocarbons, compounds consisting of hydrogen and carbon such ...

Researchers have for the first time identified the way viruses like the poliovirus and the common cold virus 'package up' their genetic code, allowing them to infect cells. The findings, published today (Friday, 8 January) in the journal PLOS Pathogens by a team from the Universities of Leeds and York, open up the possibility that drugs or anti-viral agents can be developed that would stop such infections. Once a cell is infected, a virus needs to spread its genetic material to other cells. This is a complex process involving the creation of what are known as virions - newly-formed infectious copies of the virus. Each virion is a protein shell containing a complete copy of the virus's genetic code. ...

Corals have evolved over millennia to live, and even thrive, in waters with few nutrients. In healthy reefs, the water is often exceptionally clear, mainly because corals have found ways to make optimal use of the few resources around them. Any change to these conditions can throw a coral's health off balance. Now, researchers at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in collaboration with oceanographers and marine biologists in Cuba, have identified microbes living within the slimy biofilms of some coral species that may help protect the coral against certain nutrient imbalances. The team found these microbes can take up and ...