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An analysis of published studies indicates that pharmacist-led efforts can reduce medication-related harms -- such as cognitive impairment, falls, drug-drug interactions, and bacterial infections -- in older adults in residential aged care facilities. The findings are published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

After undergoing treatment for cancer, patients may worry that the disease will recur. An analysis of studies published in Psycho-Oncology indicates that fear of cancer recurrence may lead to an increased use of healthcare resources -- such as more visits to see physicians and greater use of medications -- by cancer survivors.

A new study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica found that taking a particular probiotic strain improves iron levels in healthy pregnant women and may therefore help to prevent iron deficiency.

Severe cases of COVID-19 can involve extensive inflammation in the body, and clinicians have wondered if this state is similar to what are called cytokine storm syndromes, in which the immune system produces too many inflammatory signals that can sometimes lead to organ failure and death. A new study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology indicates that different markers in the blood clearly differentiate excessive inflammation in critical COVID-19 from cytokine storm syndromes.

Researchers at the Toyohashi University of Technology and the University of Tokyo have developed a virtual walking system for seated observers and have revealed that walking self-avatars improve the illusory walking sensation by integrating foot-vibration simulating footsteps. The walking-avatar is presented in the first-person and mirrored perspectives, to induce a sense of body ownership. This system provides a virtual walking experience to people with walking disabilities.

True super-resolution imaging beyond the diffraction limit remains a major challenge for far-field Raman microscopy especially in biological applications. Harnessing Stimulated Raman Excited Fluorescence (SREF) as an ultrasensitive vibrational contrast, a team at Columbia University has recently invented a novel super-resolution vibrational microscopy. Their new method opens up super-resolution, nanometer-spectral-resolution multicolor vibrational imaging of biological systems.

A new study is the first-ever to identify the genes for creativity in Homo sapiens that distinguish modern humans from chimpanzees and Neanderthals. The research identified 267 genes that are found only in modern humans and likely play an important role in the evolution of the behavioral characteristics that set apart Homo sapiens, including creativity, self-awareness, cooperativeness, and healthy longevity.

Researchers at City of Hope have developed a new blood-based diagnostic test that identifies individuals who may have lymph node metastasis associated with high-risk T1 colorectal cancer. This finding is an example of "theranostics" (therapy + diagnostics) and could prevent colorectal cancer patients from undergoing unnecessary surgery. The technology is patent pending, and the manuscript was recently published in the journal Gastroenterology.

Real-world disease and parasite monitoring is often hampered by the inability of traditional approaches to easily sample broad geographical areas and large numbers of individuals. This can result in patchy data that fall short of what researchers need to anticipate and address outbreaks. Writing in BioScience (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab027), Jessica Farrell, Liam Whitmore, and David Duffy describe the promise of novel molecular techniques to overcome these shortcomings.

Carleton University's Marie Curie Global Fellow Dominique Roche has co-authored a paper on the barriers researchers face to publicly sharing their data, an issue that has gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article, Reported Individual Costs and Benefits of Sharing Open Data among Canadian Academic Faculty in Ecology and Evolution, was published in the journal BioScience.

Handwashing is shaping communities of bacteria that live and grow in the plumbing of domestic sinks, scientists have found.

COVID-19 could pass into people's lungs from saliva with the virus moving directly from mouth to bloodstream - particularly if individuals are suffering from gum disease, according to new research.

A new study in laboratory rats has discovered a direct link between low oxygen in the womb and impaired memory function in the adult offspring. It also finds that anti-oxidant supplements during pregnancy may protect against this.

Life expectancy among adults living with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Latin America and the Caribbean has increased significantly since HIV testing and treatment services became more widely available, according to research published today in The Lancet HIV journal.

With a focus on 30,688 people treated for HIV between 2003 and 2017 in seven Latin American countries, the study, published in The Lancet HIV, finds dramatic increases in life expectancy.

General anaesthesia is widely used for surgery and diagnostic interventions, to ensure the patient is completely unconscious during these procedures. However, in a paper published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) ethics and anaesthesia experts from the University of Oxford say that general anaesthesia should be more widely available for patients at the end of their lives.

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have created a platform that can develop effective and highly specific peptide nucleic acid therapies for use against any bacteria within just one week. The work is detailed in Nature Communications Biology and could change the way we respond to pandemics and how we approach increasing cases of antibiotic resistance globally.

Professor Bin He's team at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, has discovered that fast oscillations in scalp-recorded electroencephalography can pinpoint brain tissues responsible for epileptic seizures.

Researchers have found a causal link between caesarean section birth, low intestinal microbiota and peanut sensitivity in infants, and they report the effect is more pronounced in children of Asian descent than others, in a recently published paper in the journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

An award-winning Scientific Electronic Exhibit to be presented at the ARRS 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting found no statistically significant threshold for increased renal transplant biopsy risk based on systolic, diastolic, or mean arterial (MAP) blood pressure alone.