ORLANDO, Fla.— Unintentional injuries like falls, drownings and poisonings are the leading cause of death in patients ages 1-4, and a significant portion of these deaths are linked to unintentional ingestions—such as swallowing a drug or poison. New research shows racial and socioeconomic disparities exist in the emergency management of unintentional ingestions in children.   Black patients younger than age 6 with the diagnosis of unintentional ingestion were more likely than white children to have a social work consult, Children Services Bureau referral, and urine drug screen, according ...

(Boston)—Stroke related to large vessel occlusion (LVO) is a leading cause of disability and death worldwide. Endovascular therapy (minimally invasive procedures like catheterization done inside the blood vessels) has transformed the management of these patients. In 2015, several randomized trials showed the benefit of endovascular therapy compared with medical management in reducing disability in some patients, most of whom had small core infarction and presented to an emergency department within six hours of symptom onset. Evidence for the treatment benefit has also been extended to patients presenting within 24 hours of symptom onset, along with patients with large ...

The Lancet Public Health: MMR vaccine remains the best protection against measles - modelling study in England suggests level of protection decreases slightly over time  The MMR vaccine remains highly protective against measles for life, protecting over 95% of vaccinated individuals from measles.   Most measles cases in England are in unvaccinated children and young people, but the proportion of measles cases in people who received two doses of the MMR vaccine has increased since 2010, especially among young adults.   New ...

The risk of being born with a major heart defect is 36% higher in babies who were conceived after assisted reproductive technology, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), according to results of a very large study published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Friday).   Researchers say the finding is important since congenital heart defects are the most common form of birth defects, and some of them are associated with life threatening complications.   The study also shows that the increase ...

(Friday, 27 September 2024, Amsterdam, Netherlands) Innovative research has provided compelling evidence that perceived stress can directly trigger the relapse of psoriatic skin lesions.1 The study, presented today at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress 2024, is the first to scientifically validate this connection in vivo. Psoriasis, a chronic skin condition affecting over 6 million people in Europe, is characterised by rapid skin cell production, leading to scaling and inflammation.2, 3 While it has long ...

PHILADELPHIA (September 26, 2024) – A groundbreaking article published in the latest issue of Nursing Outlook proposes a significant shift in how nursing care is measured within acute and critical care settings. This "Blueprint for Action" seeks to revolutionize current methods by recognizing the full scope of a nurse's work and its profound impact on patient outcomes. "The current measurement systems fail to capture the essence of what nurses truly do," explains lead-author ...

Transport proteins are responsible for the ongoing movement of substrates into and out of a biological cell. However, it is difficult to determine which substrates a specific protein can transport. Bioinformaticians at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have developed a model – called SPOT – which can predict this with a high degree of accuracy using artificial intelligence (AI). They now present their approach, which can be used with arbitrary transport proteins, in the scientific journal PLOS Biology. Substrates in biological cells need to be continuously transported inwards and outwards across the cell membrane to ensure the survival of the cells and ...

Spontaneous mutations tend to reduce fitness in populations of living organisms, but this erosion of fitness is countered by natural selection. This study uses the first mutation accumulation experiment in a mammal to show that even in the absence of natural selection, the rate of fitness loss should not be of concern, which is reassuring for humans. ##### In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology:   http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002795 Article Title: An estimate of fitness ...

For uncovering how a cell population helps ensure food, liquid and acid reflux are kept out of our airway – and instead sent to our GI tract – Laura Seeholzer is the winner of the 2024 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology. Her findings, detailed in April in Science, have motivated her to study what’s happening with these cells in diseases where this critical protective reflex is compromised. “These findings are crucial for understanding potentially life-saving reflexes that are activated in the airway, ...

AMHERST, Mass. – An interdisciplinary team of researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently published work in the prestigious journal Science ­­­calling into question the conclusions of a widely reported study — published in Science in 2023 and funded by Meta — finding the social platform’s algorithms successfully filtered out untrustworthy news surrounding the 2020 election and were not major drivers of misinformation. The UMass Amherst-led team’s work shows that the Meta-funded research was conducted during a short ...

In 2023, Science published the study, “How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?” by Andrew Guess et al. Now, Chhandak Bagchi and colleagues – in an eLetter that will appear on the 2023 study – state that the study’s “reporting and conclusions did not account for a series of temporary emergency changes to Facebook’s news feed algorithm in the wake of the 2020 U.S. presidential election that were designed to diminish the spread of voter-fraud misinformation. This issue may have led readers to misinterpret ...

New interpretations following the recent Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) United States Supreme Court ruling could strip federal protections from up to 90 million acres of U.S. nontidal wetlands – nearly all that exist in the coterminous US – according to a new study. The findings reveal the potential scope and impacts of the regulatory changes and highlight the uncertainty introduced by the ruling. Enacted in 1972, the Clean Water Act (CWA) aims to restore and protect the quality of U.S. waters ...

Inspired by an ancient buried log, researchers present a novel method to remove and store atmospheric carbon for hundreds of years or more. It involves locking woody biomass away in “wood vaults.” The approach could provide a cost-effective solution to mitigate climate change. Achieving net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is crucial for combating climate change, yet reducing fossil fuel emissions alone is insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement's targets. To achieve these goals, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods must be implemented, including engineering solutions, like direct air capture, ...

Large-scale removal of discarded fishing gear and other plastic debris from the waters of Northwestern Hawaii meaningfully reduced entanglement rates of endangered Hawaiian monk seals, according to a new study. The findings, which are drawn from more than four decades of data, offer promising evidence that marine debris cleanup programs are successful and that reducing plastic inputs and scaling up removal efforts could maximize conservation outcomes across marine ecosystems worldwide. Plastic pollution severely threatens marine ecosystems, ...

By 2100, hospitalizations from diarrheal diseases are predicted to increase in the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh as a result of climate change, even if global warming stays under 2 degrees Celsius. Farhana Haque and colleagues from University College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and icddr,b report these findings in a new study published September 26 in the open access journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. As one of the world’s most densely population cities, Dhaka deals with a high burden of diarrheal diseases. While some studies have looked at how weather affects diarrhea in Bangladesh, few have examined the future impact of climate ...

September 26, 2024, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a new bacterium that weakens the immune system in the gut, potentially contributing to certain inflammatory and infectious gut diseases. The team identified the bacterium, Tomasiella immunophila (T. immunophila), which plays a key role in breaking down a crucial immune component of the gut’s multi-faceted protective immune barrier. Identifying this bacterium is the first step to developing new treatments for a variety of inflammatory and infectious gut diseases. These conditions, including inflammatory ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 19:00hrs Thursday 26 September 2024 Peer reviewed Experimental study Animals Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have shown that the balance of bacteria in the gut can influence symptoms of hypopituitarism in mice. They also showed that aspirin was able to improve hormone deficiency symptoms in mice with this condition. People with mutations in a gene called Sox3 develop hypopituitarism, where the pituitary gland doesn’t ...

In a significant breakthrough for the cosmetics industry, researchers have developed a new type of sunscreen using lignin, a naturally abundant polymer, and titanium dioxide (TiO2). The study, led by Yarong Li and Zhiguang Tang, was published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts and details the innovative use of a dual-modified lignin sub-microsphere to enhance the SPF and improve the color of sunscreens. Lignin, a byproduct of the pulp industry, is known for its UV-absorbing properties and antioxidant capabilities. However, its application in commercial sunscreens has been limited due ...

How did the bodies of animals, including ours, become such fine-tuned movement machines? How vertebrates coordinate the eternal tug-o-war between involuntary reflexes and seamless voluntary movements is a mystery that Francisco Valero-Cuevas’ Lab in USC Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, set out to understand. The Lab’s newest computational paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) adds to the thought leadership about the processing of sensory information and control of reflexes during voluntary movements—with implications as to how its disruption could ...

Crohn’s disease — an autoimmune disorder — is characterized by chronic inflammation of the digestive tract, resulting in a slew of debilitating gastrointestinal symptoms that vary from patient to patient. Complications of the disease can destroy the gut lining, requiring repeated surgeries. The poorly understood condition, which currently has no cure and few treatment options, often strikes young people, causing significant ill-health throughout their lifetime. One barrier to making progress in developing treatments has been the lack of preclinical animal models that accurately ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — The risk of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period, especially in 2021, according to a new study led by researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine. Monthly increases in SUID in 2021 coincided with a resurgence of seasonal respiratory viruses, particularly respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), suggesting that the shift in SUID rates may be associated with altered infectious disease transmission. They ...

A rescue effort can take many forms – a life raft, a firehose, an airlift. For animals whose populations are in decline from inbreeding, genetics itself can be a lifesaver.  Genomic research led by the University of California, Davis, reveals clues about montane red foxes’ distant past that may prove critical to their future survival. The study, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, examines the potential for genetic rescue to help restore populations of these mountain-dwelling red foxes. The research is especially relevant for the estimated ...

A groundbreaking new study conducted by a team of researchers from Arizona State University, University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin reveals that extreme heat significantly alters how people go about their daily lives, influencing everything from time spent at home to transportation choices. The study, titled "Understanding How Extreme Heat Impacts Human Activity-Mobility and Time Use Patterns," was recently published in Transportation Research Part D and underscores the urgent need for policy action ...

Digital Science announces ReadCube Pro, an AI-powered expansion of ReadCube, offering researchers new tools to simplify and accelerate literature management and literature monitoring workflows. The new AI Assistant and Literature Monitoring in ReadCube – an award-winning leader in literature management and full-text document delivery – transform the way research teams access, organize, review and monitor scholarly literature by providing them with enhanced search capabilities while helping to significantly reduce time spent ...

Leuven, 26 September 2024 –  A team of scientists led by Prof. Patrik Verstreken (VIB-KU Leuven) has identified a new genetic mutation that may cause a form of early-onset Parkinsonism. The mutation, located in a gene called SGIP1, was discovered in an Arab family with a history of Parkinson's symptoms that began at a young age. The study reveals that this mutation affects how brain cells communicate, providing new insights into the disease's development and potential treatment strategies. A genetic clue to Parkinsonism Parkinsonism is a group of neurological disorders that share similar symptoms, including motor dysfunction ...