EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – A study of post-9/11 veterans shows that those with moderate or severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) who have never been deployed have a higher risk of epilepsy than those who have been deployed. The study is published in the November 29, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “We anticipated that deployment would be linked to a higher risk of epilepsy among post-9/11 veterans with TBI given the potential higher risk for a blast or combat ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2023 MINNEAPOLIS – For many people with migraine, it can be difficult to find a treatment that is effective and reliable, and information on how medications compare to one another is lacking. A new study draws data from nearly 300,000 people using a smartphone app to help people make decisions about their medications. The study found that certain migraine medications like triptans, ergots and anti-emetics may be two to five times more effective than ibuprofen ...

Every 65 seconds, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating form of dementia that affects 6.2 million Americans. Though it was initially identified almost 120 years ago, Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder with no cure and few treatments. It starts out with minor memory loss that, over time, advances to a mental decline so severe, individuals have difficulty even swallowing. Xiaoting Jia, associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical ...

The ARIES-HM3 Randomized Clinical Trial assessed the safety and efficacy of excluding aspirin from the antithrombotic regimen in patients with advanced heart failure who have undergone implantation of a fully magnetically levitated left ventricular assist device (LVAD). “We can now safely say that not giving aspirin is not only safe from a thromboembolic risk profile but results in improved adverse event rate by a significant reduction in non-surgical bleeding which is a well-known complication related to LVAD therapy,” said Mirnela Byku, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, co-author of the study and director of the UNC Durable Mechanical ...

The frilled dog winkle may sound like a complex knot for a tie, but this local sea snail holds clues to our warmer future, including a dire outlook for species that can’t move, adapt, or acclimate as fast as their environment heats up. Strait of Georgia hotspot To figure out how location affects vulnerability to a changing climate, UBC zoology researchers Drs. Fiona Beaty and Chris Harley collected marine snails from the Strait of Georgia, a potential hot spot of climate risk, and the Central Coast, where waters are cooler and warming more slowly. They monitored snails ...

The San Joaquin Valley in California has experienced vast variability in climate extremes, with droughts and floods that were more severe and lasted longer than what has been seen in the modern record, according to a new study of 600 years of tree rings from the valley. The researchers used the tree rings to reconstruct plausible daily records of weather and streamflow scenarios during the 600-year period. This new approach, combining paleo information with synthetic weather generation, may help policymakers and scientists better understand – and anticipate ...

We tend to think of large cities as melting pots – places where people from all sorts of backgrounds can mingle and interact. But according to new research, people in big cities tend to primarily interact with other individuals in the same socioeconomic bracket, whereas people in small cities and rural areas are much more likely to have diverse interactions. Using cellphone data, a collaboration of researchers led by Stanford University determined that most people in big cities have very few opportunities for even brief interactions with those outside their own socioeconomic status. ...

When the COVID-19 pandemic first started, no effective anti-viral drugs were available to fight the disease. However, in record time, so-called monoclonal antibodies were developed as a lifesaving treatment. Now, 3 years later, none of the approved antibodies work effectively against the new SARS-CoV-2 virus variants due to mutations that alter their spike protein. While vaccines protect against severe disease, there is still an urgent need for effective virus-blocking agents for therapeutic or prophylactic use. This is particularly relevant for patients ...

Despite a similar statutory tax rate for multinational corporations (MNCs) across many countries, the effective tax rate that MNCs actually pay differs greatly — as low as 1% of gross income in Luxembourg and as high as 67% in Norway. That’s one conclusion of a study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Javier Garcia-Bernardo of Utrecht University, the Netherlands, Petr Janský of Charles University, Czechia, and Thomas Tørsløv of Danmarks Nationalbank, Denmark. The study comes on the ...

Ancient animals were walking around on bird-like feet over 210 million years ago, according to a study published November 29, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Miengah Abrahams and Emese M. Bordy of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Numerous fossil sites in southern Africa preserve distinctive three-toed footprints that have been named Trisauropodiscus. For many years, researchers have debated what animals might have left these tracks, as well as precisely how many different species (technically called ichnospecies) of Trisauropodiscus there are. In this study, the researchers reassessed the ...

Exercise may reduce postpartum depression, with moderate intensity exercises three to four times a week being especially effective, per meta-analysis ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287650 Article Title: Effectiveness of aerobic exercise in the prevention and treatment of postpartum depression: Meta-analysis and network meta-analysis Author Countries: China Funding: This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (Grant no. CUG150607). The funders did not play a role ...

Bacterial vaginosis is a common condition in which the natural microbiome of the vagina falls out of balance, sometimes leading to complications in sexual and reproductive health. But exactly how these bacterial populations disrupt vaginal health has remained unclear. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have now found that in bacterial vaginosis, certain bacterial species dismantle protective molecules on the surface of the cells lining the vagina, dysregulating key processes that mediate cell turnover, death and response to surrounding bacteria. The findings, published November 29, 2023 in Science Translational Medicine, may help explain why bacterial ...

The record storm surge in October 2023 caused severe damage to the German Baltic coast. Effective adaptation scenarios to rising sea levels are therefore becoming increasingly urgent. In two recent studies, researchers at Kiel University have modelled both the flooding extent along the Baltic Sea coastal areas and, for the first time, two possible upgrades for current dike lines in high resolution. They modelled various storm surge and sea level rise scenarios. Their results show that, based on the current dike line, neither an increase ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Some viruses move between species. For example, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can spill over from humans to mink, an agricultural species, and then spill back from mink to humans. Spill back is a concern because SARS-CoV-2 can mutate in the mink and come back to humans in a more virulent form. Both spill over and spill back of SARS-CoV-2 have been reported on mink farms in the United States and Europe.  To address these issues, a research team at the University of California, Riverside, has ...

The Horizon Europe DTO-BioFlow project (https://dto-bioflow.eu) has launched an Open Call offering up to 60,000€ for institutions that manage marine biodiversity data, to invite them to contribute to the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO) by making these data available to the public domain through EMODnet Biology, the portal that provides open and free access to interoperable data and data products on temporal and spatial distribution of marine species (angiosperms, benthos, birds, fish, macroalgae, mammals, reptiles, phyto- and zooplankton) from European regional seas. Published officially on Tuesday, October 31st, this single-stage call is open to a wide ...

About 350 million people across Africa speak one or more of the 500 Bantu languages. New genetic analysis of modern and ancient individuals suggests that these populations probably originated in western Africa and then moved south and east in several waves. The study has been published in the scientific journal Nature. The expansion of people speaking Bantu languages is considered one of the most dramatic demographic events in Late Holocene Africa, which began 6,000 to 4,000 years ago in western Africa. This new study generated and analysed a comprehensive dataset, including genomic data of modern-day populations from 1,763 participants ...

A new study has found that algorithms used by online dating platforms have popularity bias - meaning that they recommend more popular, attractive users over less popular, less attractive users. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington published their findings in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. They evaluated data from over 240,000 users of a major online dating platform in Asia over three months. They found that a user's chance of being recommended by the platform's algorithm ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 29, 2023) — University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center research underscores the need for interventions to increase educational attainment and knowledge of cancer in Appalachian Kentucky.   Kentucky has the highest rate of cancer incidence and mortality in the country, with the Eastern Appalachian region bearing the highest burden due to health, socioeconomic and education disparities including decreased education attainment levels that cause lower health ...

In the “ThemenCheck Medizin” procedure offered by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), interested members of the public can submit proposals for the assessment of medical procedures and technologies. On behalf of IQWiG, an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Share to Care GmbH in Cologne investigated the advantages and disadvantages of two types of contraceptive coils (also known as intrauterine devices, IUDs) for preventing unwanted pregnancies, the copper IUD and the hormonal IUD. Their conclusion: both types of IUDs are very safe and, compared to condoms or the pill, cost-effective contraceptive ...

Optical wireless may no longer have any obstacles. A study by Politecnico di Milano, conducted together with Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, the University of Glasgow and Stanford University, and published in the prestigious journal Nature Photonics, has made it possible to create photonic chips that mathematically calculate the optimal shape of light to best pass through any environment, even one that is unknown or changing over time.   The problem is well known: light is sensitive to any form of obstacle, even very small ones. Think, for example, of how we see objects when looking through a frosted window ...

As the climate, demographics and land usage continue to change, tribal communities in Oklahoma are increasingly at risk of severe weather. A recent study led by Yang Hong with the University of Oklahoma examines these changes and the risks they pose. “Indigenous communities are grappling with an imminent climate crisis compounded by systemic injustices. Recognizing their unique connections to their homelands as sovereign peoples is crucial in addressing these pressing issues,” Hong said. Hong is the corresponding author of the paper, “Future ...

We are thrilled to announce the official launch of the JMIR Career Center on the JMIR Publications website. This pioneering platform is set to revolutionize the way healthcare professionals access career development resources and opportunities within the digital health field. The JMIR Career Center, in collaboration with Naylor Association Solutions, aims to bridge the gap between digital health professionals and their career advancement. As the digital health sector continues to evolve, so too does the demand for skilled and motivated professionals. By providing a dedicated hub for digital health career resources, job ...

It’s one of those days. On the drive home from work, the car in the next lane cuts you off. You slam on the brakes, lay on the horn, and yell choice words at the offending driver. When you walk into your house half an hour later, you’re still angry, and snap at your partner when they ask about your day. Fruit flies may not have to worry about the lingering effects of road rage, but they also experience states of persistent aggression. In the case of female fruit flies, this behavior is a survival mechanism, causing the flies to headbutt, shove, and fence other female fruit flies to guard prime egg-laying territory on a ...

About The Study: Between 2010 and 2020, surgeon supply per 100,000 population decreased in rural counties and increased in urban counties, and decreased in socially vulnerable counties and remained unchanged in other counties. Thus, over the past decade, disparities in surgeon supply between rural and urban counties and between socially vulnerable and other counties have widened in the U.S. The largest widening was observed among general surgeons.  Authors: Vishal R. Patel, B.S., of the Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas, 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/jamasurg.2023.5632) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This analysis that included 1.1 million patients found lower 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year health care costs for patients treated by female surgeons compared with those treated by male surgeons. These data further underscore the importance of creating inclusive policies and environments supportive of women surgeons to improve recruitment and retention of a more diverse and representative workforce. Authors: Christopher J. D. Wallis, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, 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/jamasurg.2023.6031) Editor’s ...