Eurekalert

The case of a patient who experienced two facial palsies - one after the first and another after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine - strongly suggests that Bell's palsy (facial nerve palsy of unknown cause) is linked to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, doctors write in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

Two common practices in the U.S. restaurant industry -- service with a smile and tipping -- contribute to a culture of sexual harassment, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame.

An observational study in Barcelona, Spain found that implementation of same-day rapid screening, use of face masks, and improved ventilation was associated with very low rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission at an indoor mass-gathering live concert without physical distancing. The brief research report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Although people in early 2020 were highly cautious about COVID-19, 11 months later the public pushed the envelope on pandemic safety precautions and ignored warnings as time went on, a new University of California, Davis, study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) launched a new online tool that could more quickly advance medical discoveries to reverse progressive hearing loss. The tool enables easy access to genetic and other molecular data from hundreds of technical research studies involving hearing function and the ear.

A Michigan State University researcher is leading an international team of scientists to develop a low-cost, practical biopolymer dressing that helps heal chronic wounds.

New research examines commuter characteristics to better understand how factors such as departure time, frequency, and commute length are associated with exposure to air pollution. Using personal air pollution monitors, the research clustered commuters to determine whether these clusters were associated with traffic pollution exposures. The study reveals that commuters that travel during rush hour have higher overall exposure to traffic-related air pollution compared to sporadic commuters, though the difference was not statistically significant.

Researchers at Michigan Medicine have discovered another functional autoantibody in COVID-19 patients that contributes to the disease's development and the "firestorm" of blood clots and inflammation it induces. The autoantibody makes it much harder for the body to degrade neutrophil extracellular traps, the toxic webs of DNA and proteins produced by overactive immune cells at heightened levels in COVID patients.

We must not assume that we will be able to replicate a vaccine within 12 months during the next pandemic. Even if this was accomplished, other interventions would be required to control and mitigate well before the availability of a vaccine.

George Mason University's Dr. Michelle Williams shares program evaluation results determining the feasibility of offering free, same-day cancer screening and health education to reduce disparities. The program examined how access to free screenings affects participants' knowledge about cancer, self-efficacy for obtaining healthcare, and intentions to change health behaviors. The program had a positive effect on participant's knowledge of cancer screenings and self-efficacy for seeking regular check-ups.

Even though KRAS4B is the dominant form in cancer, the KRAS4A mutant is also oncogenic, and it is even more active. In the words of the authors, "KRAS4AG12V alone, in the absence of KRAS4B, can induce lung cancer and metastasis in 20 percent of individuals. Our results suggest that for therapies to be effective, the two KRAS isoforms should be targeted."

New research has found marine seismic surveys used in oil and gas exploration are not impacting the abundance or behaviour of commercially valuable fishes in the tropical shelf environment in north-western Australia.

Researchers at Stanford and the University of Naples study how bubbles form and eventually burst using high-speed cameras and analytical modeling, revealing a new popping process.

Triggered by the 2015-16 El Niño, extreme drought and associated mega-wildfires caused the death of around 2.5 billion trees and plants and emitted 495 million tonnes of CO2 from an area that makes up just 1.2 per cent of the entire Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and 0.01 per cent of the whole biome.

Led by Université de Montréal, an international team of anthropologists, geographers and earth scientists looks to the past to assess how different cultures have - and will - adapt to global warming.

A new approach to analyse satellite measurements of Earth's cloud cover reveals that clouds are very likely to enhance global heating.

Research conducted at the Sharon Eccles Steele Center for Translational Medicine (SCTM) at the University of Utah's John A. Moran Eye Center explains why people carrying a block of genetic variants strongly associated with the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) may develop the disease and identifies a potential therapeutic pathway for slowing or even reversing disease progression.

By uprooting carbon trapped in soil, wild pigs are releasing around 4.9 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually across the globe, the equivalent of 1.1 million cars.

Parenting deficiencies have long been blamed for the vocabulary gap between low-income children and their more affluent peers. But new research implicates the economic context in which parenting takes place -- in other words, the wealth gap.

Freiburg researchers discover a signaling protein that controls the assembly of human cellular "power plants"