Severe weather events have long-term health consequences for vulnerable older adults, according to a study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society based on data following Hurricane Harvey. When they analyzed Medicare claims data for nearly 1.8 million fee-for-service beneficiaries aged ≥65 years in Texas and Louisiana, investigators found that older adults who lived through high rainfall during Hurricane Harvey had a 3% elevated risk of dying within 1 year of the hurricane. Mortality risk was highest among those with chronic health conditions ...

Sodium-ion batteries are a cheaper and more abundant alternative to lithium-ion batteries, and they could power future electric cars and grid storage if they could be made to store enough energy. NaNi1/3Fe1/3Mn1/3O2 is a material used for sodium-ion batteries, but it suffers from various constraints. In research published in Carbon Energy, scientists used what’s called a valence engineering strategy to modify the oxidation state of this material so that it is both higher energy and more practical. The modification led to a sodium-ion battery that lasts longer, works well ...

A review in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology summarizes the multiple benefits of sport participation for people with cerebral palsy. The authors present a summary of available sports, as well as adaptations, to help clinicians discuss parasport participation with patients and families with cerebral palsy and related conditions. The review provides a practical, evidence-informed resource that can help families, clinicians, and community leaders understand the wide-ranging value of parasports. By reframing engagement in sport ...

Research published in Health Economics indicates that regular childcare provided by grandparents can ease the pressures on parents but may have some negative impacts on children’s health. The study, which was based on data from more than 11,000 children and nearly 9,000 parents in Germany, used geographic distance between families and grandparents to identify the effects of regular grandparental care. Mothers reported higher satisfaction with both their leisure time and childcare situations—by 11% and 9%, respectively—when grandparental care was available. Fathers also had ...

People from the Nordic countries are often selected as international mediators in wars and armed conflicts. In a new book, peace researchers at Uppsala University describe what makes mediators specifically from the Nordic countries so popular. Where do they come from, why do they take on these missions and what sort of mandate do they have? The Nordic countries have a long history of mediating in peace processes. Dag Hammarskjöld, Anna Lindh and Staffan de Mistura are three examples. Hans Grundberg is acting as mediator in the current negotiations on Yemen. History offers many examples of mediation initiatives and processes aimed at alleviating ...

Whether a species just freshly emerged, or it has been around for millions of years does not dictate its vulnerability. This has been the assumption of an old debate on whether species’ age plays a role in extinction risk.  Researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) have now led an international study that challenges this idea, at least when it comes to sharks and rays. According to their study, young species are by far the most likely to go extinct.   The team examined data from over 20,000 fossil records worldwide dating back to the Cretaceous period, using innovative methods to reconstruct the ...

Ninety-nine percent of global newborn deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where pregnant women often struggle to access adequate fetal monitoring. In Tanzania, with 24 neonatal deaths per 1000 live births, a new wireless fetal heart rate monitoring technology is showing promise in preventing newborn complications and deaths. A recent study led by researchers from Hiroshima University, Japan, and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania, evaluated the effectiveness of a mobile cardiotocography device for monitoring fetal heart rate (iCTG) in pregnant women at four primary health facilities ...

Griffith University is delighted to announce renowned archaeologist and 2019 Father of the Year Dr Bandit Heeler has been offered a professorial chair. Dr Bandit Heeler, a Brisbane-based blue heeler of international repute, is celebrated for his fieldwork in the remote jungles of Indonesia, his landmark publications on the ritual significance of dance-mode freezing in pre-literate societies, and his seminal studies on the development of a language capacity in the Cockapoo. Griffith University’s Vice Chancellor and President Professor Carolyn Evans said the appointment was ...

A research team led by Chang Keke from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has developed an innovative machine learning framework (PAMCs-MP) for predicting the mechanical properties of particle-reinforced aluminum matrix composites (PAMCs). Despite limited existing datasets, the approach uses extensive pre-training on larger aluminium alloy datasets to guide multi-objective optimization tasks effectively. The model achieves high predictive accuracy, R² values of over 92% for ultimate tensile strength and over 90% for elongation, demonstrating ...

Catalytic dry reforming of methane (DRM) is a key reaction for the sustainable utilization of major greenhouse gases, CO2 and CH4. However, conventional DRM often suffers from severe catalyst deactivation due to high temperature requirements. Applying direct current (DC) to catalyst materials has emerged as a promising strategy to overcome these limitations, yet the underlying DC-enhanced catalytic mechanism remains elusive. Here, we unveil the non-thermal catalytic origin of DC-applied DRM over Pd/CeO2 through multimodal operando analyses, providing a microscopic physicochemical framework ...

Chronic breathlessness, a symptom often overlooked by healthcare systems, is associated with longer lengths of hospital stay on already overstretched healthcare resources, says new Flinders University research. A new study, published in the Australian Health Review, highlights an urgent need for clinicians and policymakers to recognise chronic breathlessness as a major driver of hospital admissions and healthcare costs. Historically, health systems have focused on sudden, short-term episodes of breathlessness (acute breathlessness), ...

Key points Paleontologists working in a cave on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola have discovered the first-known instance of ancient bees nesting inside pre-existing fossil cavities. Burrowing bees generally prefer to make their nests out in the open. There is only one other documented case of burrowing bees making their nests inside caves. In this case, the likely cause for this aberrant behavior is a lack of topsoil outside the cave and an abundance of accumulated silt within. Many of the fossils were likely transported to the cave by giant barn owls. Evidence, ...

About 20,000 years ago, a family of owls lived in a cave. Sometimes, they would cough up owl pellets containing the bones of their prey, which landed on the cave floor. And, researchers have just discovered, ancient bees would use the bones’ empty tooth sockets as nests. A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science documents this discovery, which represents the first time bees have ever been known to use bones as places to lay their eggs. The Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is full of limestone caves. “In some areas, you’ll find a different sinkhole every 100 meters,” says ...

Are you a social savant who easily reads people’s emotions? Or are you someone who leaves an interaction with an unclear understanding of another person’s emotional state? New UC Berkeley research suggests those differences stem from a fundamental way our brains compute facial and contextual details, potentially explaining why some people are better at reading the room than others — sometimes, much better. Human brains use information from faces and background context, such as the location or expressions ...

New Australian research has identified simultaneous abnormalities across multiple biological systems in people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Key findings of a multimodal study published today in the journal Cell Reports Medicine include changes in markers of cellular energy metabolism, in the proportions and maturity of circulating immune cells, and in plasma proteins associated with blood vessel dysfunction in people with ME/CFS. Led by researchers from Macquarie University, the study compared whole blood samples from 61 people meeting ...

Concurrent physical frailty and depression likely boost the risk of dementia in older people, with the interaction of these 2 factors alone contributing around 17% of the overall risk, suggest the findings of a large international study, published in the open access journal General Psychiatry.   Globally, some 57 million people are living with dementia—a figure that is expected to triple by 2050, note the researchers.    Previously published research has primarily focused on the individual associations between physical frailty or depression and dementia risk, despite the fact ...

Children living in substandard housing in England miss 15 more school days and achieve worse test scores in English and maths than their peers living in better quality housing, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.   Improving their living conditions—specifically reducing overcrowding and damp, and upgrading heating systems—may not only benefit their health, but also their grades,conclude the researchers.   One in 7 families in England live in homes that fail to meet the official decent homes standard, point out the researchers. Housing is a key determinant of child health, yet relatively little is ...

There is little awareness, particularly among clinicians, of the medical and psychological complexities of ‘topical steroid withdrawal’—the body’s adverse response to the prolonged use of these powerful creams to treat inflammatory skin conditions when they are either tapered or suddenly stopped—warn doctors in the journal BMJ Case Reports.   The condition, also known as ‘TSW syndrome,’ ‘steroid addiction,’ and ‘red burning skin syndrome,’ is poorly ...

Most (79%) of NHS trusts in England are treating patients in corridors or makeshift areas in emergency departments including “fit to sit” rooms, x-ray waiting areas, and in one case a café, finds an investigation published by The BMJ today. Data obtained by The BMJ show that such practices have resulted in at least half a million patients being cared for in temporary spaces and that in some trusts one in four patients in accident and emergency (A&E) departments were cared for in corridors last year. Corridor care refers to the practice of providing care to patients ...

Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have observed an entirely new type of exoplanet whose atmospheric composition challenges our understanding of how this type of planet forms.  This bizarre, lemon-shaped body, possibly containing diamonds at its core, blurs the line between planets and stars.  Officially named PSR J2322-2650b, this object has an exotic helium-and-carbon-dominated atmosphere unlike any ever seen before. It has a mass about the same as Jupiter, but soot clouds float through the air—and deep within the planet, these carbon clouds can condense and form diamonds. It orbits a rapidly ...

The gut microbiome is intimately linked to human health and weight. Differences in the gut microbiome—the bacteria and fungi in the gut—are associated with obesity and weight gain, raising the possibility that changing the microbiome could improve health. But any given person’s gut contains hundreds of different microbial species, making it difficult to tell which species could help. Now, research at the University of Utah has identified a specific type of gut bacteria, called Turicibacter, that improves metabolic health and reduces weight gain in mice on a high-fat diet. People with obesity ...

Electronic medical records (EMRs) have been a tremendous benefit in exam rooms across the country, creating secure patient history databases that clinicians can easily access and update. Yet, they can also detract from the doctor-patient experience, as physicians must type notes into the system rather than devote their complete attention to patients. To help put physicians back in front of their patients — and away from their keyboards — UC Davis Health has adopted an artificial intelligence (AI) scribe, which automatically records and ...

NEW ORLEANS — The oceanic conditions that churn up the very strongest of hurricanes and typhoons are heating up in the North Atlantic and Western Pacific, fueled by warm water that extends well below the surface. Human-caused climate change may be responsible for up to 70% of the growth of storm-brewing hotspots there, according to new research.   These hot spots are making it more likely that stronger Category ‘6’ tropical cyclones may hit landfall in highly populated areas.   “The hot spot regions ...

Once the domain of buttons and knobs, car dashboards are increasingly home to large touch screens. While that makes following a mapping app easier, it also means drivers can’t feel their way to a control; they have to look. But how does that visual component affect driving? New research from the University of Washington and Toyota Research Institute, or TRI, explores how drivers balance driving and using touch screens while distracted. In the study, participants drove in a vehicle simulator, ...

St. Louis, MO — Researchers at Saint Louis University School of Medicine say deaths from alcohol-related liver disease have surged in recent years, and the increase is hitting people without a college degree the hardest. While nearly every demographic group is seeing higher death rates—including those with college degrees—the gap between economically disadvantaged groups and more affluent ones is growing, according to new research published in Alcohol: Clinical & Experimental Research. Alcohol-related liver disease is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. Experts say its growing impact ...