Brain

Newborn infants and babies aged up to three months should be stimulated to manipulate objects and observe adults performing everyday tasks. This incentive helps their social, motor and cognitive development, researchers note in an article published in the May 2021 issue of the journal Infant Behavior & Development.

Physical relaxation through yoga or other practices can help reduce work-related stress, according to an analysis of studies conducted in healthcare staff.

The analysis, which is published in the Journal of Occupational Health, included 15 randomized clinical trials with a total of 688 healthcare workers. The studies examined the effects of yoga, massage therapy, progressive muscle relaxation, and stretching on alleviating stress and improving physical and mental health.

A genetic map of an aggressive childhood brain tumour called medulloblastoma has helped researchers identify a new generation anti-cancer drug that can be repurposed as an effective treatment for the disease.

This international collaboration, led by researchers from The University of Queensland's (UQ) Diamantina Institute and WEHI in Melbourne, could give parents hope in the fight against the most common and fatal brain cancer in children.

Opioid prescribing preferences and practices among surgical residents and faculty differ, according to a new study published in the journal Surgery.

Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered that changes in Earth's orbit may have allowed complex life to emerge and thrive during the most hostile climate episode the planet has ever experienced.

East Hanover, NJ. July 7, 2021. A team of researchers identified nine meaningful reasons that prevent people with disabilities from seeking employment. Their findings provide a much-needed understanding of this population's motives for remaining unemployed, which can inform programs and policies that promote labor force participation of people with disabilities.

The principle that form follows function does not only apply to design and architecture. It also applies to biology. Every organism is a universe that lives thanks to the activities of tens of thousands of nanomachines, whose functions depend on their forms. Biologists say macromolecular complexes instead of nanomachines and structure instead of form, but the idea is the same: know the form and you will understand the function.

In 2019, Anaïs Llorens and Athina Tzovara -- one a current, the other a former University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral scholar at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI) -- were attending a scientific meeting and pleased that one session, on gender bias in academia, attracted nearly a full house. The problem: The audience of some 300 was almost all women.

Using an exceptionally preserved fossil from South Africa, a particle accelerator, and high-powered x-rays, an international team including a University of Minnesota researcher has discovered that not all dinosaurs breathed in the same way. The findings give scientists more insight into how a major group of dinosaurs, including well-known creatures like the triceratops and stegosaurus, evolved.

The study is published in eLife, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal for the biomedical and life sciences.

Climate change is causing increased flooding and prolonged waterlogging in northern Europe, but also in many other parts of the world. This can damage meadow grasses, field crops or other plants - their leaves die, the roots rot.

The damage is caused by a lack of oxygen and the accumulation of acids. How do plants perceive this over-acidification, how do they react to it? This is what researchers from Würzburg, Jena (Germany) and Talca (Chile) describe in the journal Current Biology.

Abu Dhabi, UAE, July 5, 2021: NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) researchers uncovered a code that sets the genome of the liver to account for the remarkable ability for this organ to regenerate. This finding offers new insight into how the specific genes that promote regeneration can be activated when part of the liver is removed. These findings have the potential to inform the development of a new form of regenerative medicine that could help non-regenerative organs regrow in mice and humans.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - How the media frame stories about science affects the public's perception about scientific accuracy and reliability, and one particular type of narrative can help ameliorate the harm to science's reputation sometimes caused by different journalistic approaches to scientific storytelling, according to a new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher.

Veterinarians at the University of California, Davis, have found that a cat's DNA alters how it responds to a life-saving medication used to treat hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, a heart disease that affects 1 in 7 cats. The study was published in the Nature Portfolio journal, Scientific Reports.

A new national study published in Psychiatric Services finds that over a quarter of US adults with depression or anxiety symptoms reported needing mental health counseling but were not able to access it during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 70,000 adults surveyed in the US Census Household Pulse Survey in December 2020.

LAWRENCE -- A new paper from a lead author based at the University of Kansas finds wetlands constructed along waterways are the most cost-effective way to reduce nitrate and sediment loads in large streams and rivers. Rather than focusing on individual farms, the research suggests conservation efforts using wetlands should be implemented at the watershed scale.