Culture

The body's first encounter with SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, happens in the nose and throat, or nasopharynx. A new study in the journal Cell suggests that the first responses in this battleground help determine who will develop severe disease and who will get through with mild or no illness.

Coffee shops and casual restaurants are an important part of American life. Even beyond the food and drinks they sell, they offer us a place to use the restroom or rest our feet while we're out and about, and they provide internet access to those on the go, those in need of a temporary office, or those who don't have an internet connection at home. Many of us take for granted that a nearby Starbucks or McDonald's can offer us a little respite, even if we don't always make a purchase.

Rainforests are a powerful, natural solution to combat climate change -- providing water filtration, capturing carbon and regulating global temperatures. But major threats like large-scale land use changes, including agricultural expansion and clearcutting, have turned these biodiversity havens into one of the most endangered habitats on our planet.

Attitudes toward diversity vary, and its meaning can often be difficult to find consensus about in an increasingly diverse but politically polarized nation such as the United States.

In a report published by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, University of Illinois Chicago researchers detail findings from three studies that explore the connection between political ideology, attitudes, and beliefs toward diversity.

Small and seemingly specialized, the brain's locus coeruleus (LC) region has been stereotyped for its outsized export of the arousal-stimulating neuromodulator norepinephrine. In a new paper and with a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, an MIT neuroscience lab is making the case that the LC is not just an alarm button but has a more nuanced and multifaceted impact on learning, behavior and mental health than it has been given credit for.

At a glance:

Researchers studied cells collected by nasal swabs at the moment of diagnosis for both mild and severe COVID-19 patients

Cells taken from patients who went on to develop severe disease had a muted antiviral response compared to those who went on to develop mild disease

This suggests that it may be possible to develop early interventions that prevent severe COVID-19 from developing

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina--Researchers at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center demonstrated in a clinical trial in Malawi that a five-drug combination chemotherapy provided curative benefit compared to current standard-of care-therapy in people diagnosed with lymphoma, and now they have determined this option is also cost-effective. The economic finding appeared July 22, 2021, in Lancet Global Health.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A new study by Fergus Couch, Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, along with collaborators from the CARRIERS consortium, suggests that most women with breast cancer diagnosed over 65 should be offered hereditary cancer genetic testing. The study was published Thursday, July 22, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Couch says that women over 65 rarely qualify for hereditary cancer genetic testing based on current testing guidelines because they are thought to exhibit low rates of genetic mutations in breast cancer genes.

Researchers from George Mason University, University of Manitoba, Colorado State University, and Georgetown University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines an unintended customer consequence of lobbying, decreased customer satisfaction, and also explains marketing-focused efforts that can help prevent it.

The study, forthcoming in the the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Shedding Light on the Dark Side of Firm Lobbying: A Customer Perspective" and is authored by Gautham Vadakkepatt, Sandeep Arora, Kelly Martin, and Neeru Paharia.

A network of over 100 herbaria spread out across the southeastern United States recently completed the herculean task of fully digitizing more than three million specimens collected by botanists and naturalists over a span of 200 years. The project, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, is part of a larger, ongoing effort by natural history institutions worldwide to make their biological collections easily accessible to researchers studying broad patterns of evolution, extinction, range shifts, and climate change.

Osaka, Japan - Gross chromosomal rearrangements—where portions of the genome become moved, deleted, or inverted—can lead to cell death and diseases such as cancer in complex multicellular organisms. However, the details of how exactly these occur remain unknown. Now, studies in a single-celled organism called fission yeast have found evidence for the involvement of a protein called Rad8.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Infection with dengue virus makes mosquitoes more sensitive to warmer temperatures, according to new research led by Penn State researchers. The team also found that infection with the bacterium Wolbachia, which has recently been used to control viral infections in mosquitoes, also increases the thermal sensitivity of the insects. The findings suggest that global warming could limit the spread of dengue fever but could also limit the effectiveness of Wolbachia as a biological control agent.

The discovery of a Roman road submerged in the Venice Lagoon is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The findings suggest that extensive settlements may have been present in the Venice Lagoon centuries before the founding of Venice began in the fifth century.

During the Roman era, large areas of the Venice Lagoon which are now submerged were accessible by land. Roman artefacts have been found in lagoon islands and waterways, but the extent of human occupation of the lagoon during Roman times has been unclear.

Newly-hatched pterosaurs may have been able to fly but their flying abilities may have been different from adult pterosaurs, according to a study published in Scientific Reports.

Pterosaurs were a group of flying reptiles that lived during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods (228 to 66 million years ago). Due to the rarity of fossilised pterosaur eggs and embryos, and difficulties distinguishing between hatchlings and small adults, it has been unclear whether newly-hatched pterosaurs were able to fly.