Study: Vaccinated people had lower risk of severe outcomesAmong people who had COVID-19, those who previously received the latest vaccine had a lower risk of having a severe outcome than those who had not, according to new Cleveland Clinic research published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. Coupled with antiviral treatments such as nirmatrelvir and molnupiravir, updated versions of Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines significantly lowered the likelihood of hospitalization and death from currently ...

DURHAM, N.H.—It can be challenging to gauge the quality of online news—questioning if it is real or if it is fake. When it comes to health news and press releases about medical treatments and procedures the issue can be even more complex, especially if the story is not complete and still doesn’t necessarily fall into the category of fake news. To help identify the stories with inflated claims, inaccuracies and possible associated risks, researchers at the University of New Hampshire developed a new machine learning model, an application of artificial intelligence, that news services, like social media outlets, could easily use to better screen ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A surge of a neural-specific protein in the brain is the earliest-yet biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, report University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers studying a mouse model of the disease. Furthermore, the increased protein activity leads to the seizures associated with the earliest stages of neurodegeneration, and inhibiting the protein in the mice slowed the onset and progression of seizure activity.  The neural-specific protein, PSD-95, could pose a new target ...

Getting climate models to mimic real-time observations when it comes to warming is critical – small discrepancies can lead to misunderstandings about the rate of global warming as the climate changes. A new study from North Carolina State University and Duke University finds that when modeling warming trends in the Pacific Ocean, there is still a missing piece to the modeling puzzle: the effect of wind on ocean currents in the equatorial Pacific. “The Pacific Ocean can act like a thermostat for the global climate,” says Sarah Larson, assistant professor of marine, ...

Replacing long-acting with immediate-release opioids after total knee replacement surgery resulted in comparable pain management but less nausea-medication usage and less need for residential rehabilitation after hospital discharge. The results of this small study, a Rutgers Nursing doctoral program project for lead author Anoush Kalachian, support a broader trend toward better management of prescription opioids – which directly resulted in the deaths of nearly 17,000 Americans in 2021 and can spur the use of illegal opioids. Widespread changes in opioid use patterns for knee replacement patients would have a significant impact on ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Combining two treatments could be a promising option for people, especially military veterans, whose lives are negatively affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study shows. In a clinical trial conducted among U.S. military veterans at the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center, participants who received brain stimulation with a low electrical current during sessions of virtual reality exposure reported a significant reduction in PTSD symptom severity. The results ...

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of six research articles published in March issues across its six esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA's journals consistently feature innovative and impactful studies. The compilation of papers delves into beetle energetics, the interplay between wildfire and climate change, salamander conservation and more, showcasing the Society's commitment to promoting cutting-edge research ...

The support for the hypothesis of Spinosaurus as an aquatic pursuit predator may have had fundamental flaws, according to Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures, US and colleagues, in a study published March 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Paleontologists generally agree that the famous Spinosaurus was a fish-eater, but exactly how these dinosaurs caught their prey is the subject of lively debate, with some researchers suggesting that they hunted on the shore, some that they waded or swam in the shallows, and others that they were aquatic pursuit predators. One recent study provided support for the latter hypothesis using a fairly new ...

Certain factors associated with developing age-related hearing loss differ by sex, including weight, smoking behavior, and hormone exposure, according to a study published on March 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Dong Woo Nam from Chungbuk National University Hospital, South Korea, and colleagues. Age-related hearing loss (ARHL), slowly-advancing difficulty in hearing high-frequency sounds, makes spoken communication more challenging, often leading to loneliness and depression. Roughly 1 in 5 people around the world suffer ...

Higher BMI is significantly associated with worse mental health, especially in women, per study of middle-aged and older adults which adjusted for lifestyle and demographic factors ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299029 Article Title: Associations between adiposity measures and depression and well-being scores: A cross-sectional analysis of middle- to older-aged adults Author Countries: Ireland Funding: This research was funded by the Irish Health Research Board, grant number: HRC/2007/13. The funder had no role in the ...

An injectable hydrogel can mitigate damage to the right ventricle of the heart with chronic pressure overload, according to a new study published March 6 in Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Basic to Translational Science.  The study, by a research team from the University of California San Diego, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, was conducted in rodents. In 2019, this same hydrogel was shown to be safe in humans through an FDA-approved Phase 1 trial in people who suffered a heart attack. As a result of the new preclinical ...

For years, controversy has swirled around how a Cretaceous-era, sail-backed dinosaur—the giant Spinosaurus aegyptiacus—hunted its prey. Spinosaurus was among the largest predators ever to prowl the Earth and one of the most adapted to water, but was it an aquatic denizen of the seas, diving deep to chase down its meals, or a semiaquatic wader that snatched prey from the shallows close to shore? A new analysis led by paleontologists from the University of Chicago reexamines the density ...

Greg Rouse, a marine biologist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and other researchers have discovered a new species of deep-sea worm living near a methane seep some 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Rouse, curator of the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection, co-authored a study describing the new species in the journal PLOS ONE that was published on March 6.  The worm, named Pectinereis strickrotti, has an elongated body that is flanked by a row of feathery, gill-tipped appendages called ...

The high-tech double-barrel nanopipette, developed by University of Leeds scientists, and applied to the global medical challenge of cancer, has - for the first time - enabled researchers to see how individual living cancer cells react to treatment and change over time – providing vital understanding that could help doctors develop more effective cancer medication.     The tool has two nanoscopic needles, meaning it can simultaneously inject and extract a sample from the same cell, expanding its potential uses. And the platform’s high level of semi-automation has sped ...

New research finds around a quarter of Labrador retriever dogs face a double-whammy of feeling hungry all the time and burning fewer calories due to a genetic mutation. This obesity-driving combination means that dog owners must be particularly strict with feeding and exercising their Labradors to keep them slim. The mutation is in a gene called POMC, which plays a critical role in hunger and energy use. Around 25% of Labradors and 66% of flatcoated retriever dogs have the POMC mutation, which researchers previously showed causes increased interest in food ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Many vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis B and whooping cough, consist of fragments of viral or bacterial proteins. These vaccines often include other molecules called adjuvants, which help to boost the immune system’s response to the protein. Most of these adjuvants consist of aluminum salts or other molecules that provoke a nonspecific immune response. A team of MIT researchers has now shown that a type of nanoparticle called a metal organic framework (MOF) can also provoke a strong immune response, by activating the innate immune system — the body’s first line of defense against ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Patients undergoing chemotherapy often experience cognitive effects such as memory impairment and difficulty concentrating — a condition commonly known as “chemo brain.” MIT researchers have now shown that a noninvasive treatment that stimulates gamma frequency brain waves may hold promise for treating chemo brain. In a study of mice, they found that daily exposure to light and sound with a frequency of 40 hertz protected brain cells from chemotherapy-induced damage. The treatment also helped to prevent memory loss and impairment of other ...

A group of Tallinn University researchers has published an innovative study that sheds light on the intricate dynamics of the global film festival circuit, revealing insights into diversity and public value creation within the industry. The research demonstrates that festival programming has become more thematically diverse, and the inclusion of films by women creatives has increased between 2012–2021. The study “Quantifying the global film festival circuit: Networks, diversity, and public value creation,” published open access in the PLOS ONE journal, provides a comprehensive analysis of over 600 film festivals worldwide, spanning a period ...

Researchers in Sweden unveiled a new concept for producing hydrogen energy more efficiently, splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen without the dangerous risk of mixing the two gases. Developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the new method decouples the standard electrolysis process for producing hydrogen gas, which splits water molecules by applying an electric current. In contrast with prevailing systems it produces the resulting oxygen and hydrogen gases separately rather than simultaneously in the same cell, where they need to be separated by membrane barriers That separation eliminates the possibility of the gases mixing with the risk of explosions, says ...

By Simonne Griffith-Jones, Predoctoral Fellow, EMBL Grenoble Researchers from the Bhogaraju Group at EMBL Grenoble have gained new insights into how a cancer-relevant family of proteins bind their targets. The results of the study, published in The EMBO Journal, could potentially help in the development of drugs against certain chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-resistant cancers.   The Melanoma Antigen Gene (MAGE) family consists of more than 40 proteins in humans, most of which are only present in the ...

The University of Texas at Arlington has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support educational activities related to the upcoming eclipse. UTA faculty and graduate students are visiting elementary, middle and high schools in the DFW area in March to give talks to about 4,000 students explaining the natural phenomena occurring during the eclipse and the physics behind it. UTA will also provide special eclipse glasses for students to use to avoid eye damage. The $50,000 grant will also provide for about 1,500 students to take field trips to the UTA Planetarium, one of the three largest in Texas, to learn ...

Researchers in Italy have introduced a novel approach for assessing the quality of coffee. In a pioneering new study, they have demonstrated the feasibility of using wearable technology to measure the emotional responses of coffee experts during tastings. Published in SCI’s Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, the study provides an innovative solution for reducing judgement biases that can result from traditional and more subjective methods of coffee quality assessment. Coffee is one of the most popular and widely consumed beverages in the world, ...

A new study finds that prosecutors in North Carolina believe “drug-induced homicide” (DIH) laws are effective at both reducing drug overdoses in a community and curtailing the distribution of illicit drugs. These beliefs are worth noting because there is no evidence to support them, while there is evidence that DIH prosecutions make people in affected communities less likely to call 911 – and may actually increase the number of overdoses in a community. DIH laws, also called “death by distribution” or “delivery resulting in death” laws, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Living in neighborhoods with more white residents and greater lifetime experiences of racial discrimination are linked to increased systemic inflammation during pregnancy among Black women, according to new research led by a team from Penn State. The study, published in the February issue of the journal Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health, found that these social-environmental factors were associated with higher levels of a protein that has been connected to chronic stress and an elevated risk of ...

New research published today suggests there is a link between abnormal blood levels of amyloid — a protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease — and subtle changes in brain microstructures on a type of MRI, findings that could lead to a new way to detect Alzheimer’s earlier in people with no clinical signs. Researchers analyzed the results of 128 human participants with and without dementia from the 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center who underwent imaging scans using an established diagnostic tool called positron emission tomography, or PET, which can detect amyloid plaques in the brain, a hallmark ...