Brain

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (June 11, 2021) -- In recent years, community science--also known as citizen science--has become a global phenomenon, engaging millions of people through wildlife observation platforms like iNaturalist and contributing unparalleled amounts of data on the natural world. Despite this, however, community science data remains widely underutilized by the scientific community due to its perception as being less reliable than expert-collected data.

Earth's atmosphere has a budget, and when expenses outpace savings, secondary aerosols form in areas of excessive pollution. Greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere, and free radicals bond to the molecules, rendering them inert. But when there are more pollution molecules than free radicals, they are left to recombine and form ozone and visible particulate matter -- smog and haze.

What The Study Did: Researchers describe international hospitalization trends and key epidemiological and clinical features of children and youth with COVID-19.

Authors: Paul Avillach, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and Florence Bourgeois, M.D., M.P.H., of Boston Children's Hospital, are the corresponding authors.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.12596)

MORGANTOWN, W. Va.-- Joining a club that sparks a new interest, playing a new intramural sport or finding a new group of friends may be just as indicative of a college freshman's loss of self-control as drinking or drug use, according to new research at West Virginia University.

Self-control--the ability to exercise personal restraint, inhibit impulsivity and make purposeful decisions--in that first year partly depends on a student's willingness to try new things, including things adults would call "good."

Humans have been plagued by a myriad of deadly cancers since ages. Parallelly, they have also been attempting different permutations and combinations of treatments to cure the disease. Part of these attempts involving biomolecular targets have come to the fore in recent years. Like a broad-spectrum antibiotic that can attack and eliminate several microbes at a time, some of these biomolecular targets, when manipulated appropriately, can alleviate different cancers. One such biomolecular target of interest is LIM domain only 1 gene (LMO1).

High-speed internet access has gone from an amenity to a necessity for working and learning from home, and the COVID-19 pandemic has more clearly revealed the disadvantages for American households that lack a broadband connection.

To tackle this problem, Michigan State University researchers have developed a new tool to smooth the collection of federal broadband access data that helps pinpoint coverage gaps across the U.S. The research was published May 26 In the journal PLOS ONE.

Plastic bottles drifting in the sea; bags in the stomachs of turtles; Covid-19 masks dancing in the surf: few images are as unpleasant to look at as those that show the contamination of our oceans. And few environmental issues are as urgent and as present in the public awareness. "Most people have an emotional connection to the sea. They think of ocean pollution as an attack on a place they long for," said Nikoleta Bellou, marine scientist at Hereon's Institute of Coastal System - Analysis and Modeling.

Philadelphia, June 10, 2021 - The collection of nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) samples for COVID-19 diagnostic testing poses challenges including exposure risk to healthcare workers and supply chain constraints. Saliva samples are easier to collect but can be mixed with mucus or blood, and some studies have found they produce less accurate results. A team of researchers has found that an innovative protocol that processes saliva samples with a bead mill homogenizer before real-time PCR (RT-PCR) testing results in higher sensitivity compared to NPS samples.

An estimated 8 million tons of plastic trash enters the ocean each year, and most of it is battered by sun and waves into microplastics--tiny flecks that can ride currents hundreds or thousands of miles from their point of entry.

The debris can harm sea life and marine ecosystems, and it's extremely difficult to track and clean up.

Now, University of Michigan researchers have developed a new way to spot ocean microplastics across the globe and track them over time, providing a day-by-day timeline of where they enter the water, how they move and where they tend to collect.

X-rays are widely used to study the structures of various objects. New sources of x-rays, like Free Electron Lasers and 4th generation synchrotrons are being built around the Globe. The best optics for the new sources is usually made of the single crystal materials, such as silicon, germanium or diamond. However, the ideal periodicity of crystals leads to some unwanted diffraction losses - X-ray glitches. This effect causes dips in the intensity of the radiation transmitted through the optical element, down to zero.

New research has revealed that people with the ability to visualise vividly have a stronger connection between their visual network and the regions of the brain linked to decision-making. The study also sheds light on memory and personality differences between those with strong visual imagery and those who cannot hold a picture in their mind's eye.

TORONTO, June 9, 2021 - Researchers from York University and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic.

The researchers say this finding resembles other examples of social media misinformation ranging from the initial phase of vaccine rollout to the 2021 Capitol riot in the United States.

As many as 450,000 Americans die every year from a sudden, fatal heart condition, and in slightly more than one in ten cases the cause remains unexplained even after an autopsy. Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and their colleagues found that nearly 20 percent of patients with unexplained sudden cardiac death - most of whom were under age 50 - carried rare genetic variants. These variants likely raised their risk of sudden cardiac death.

Inside each proton or neutron there are three quarks bound by gluons. Until now, it has often been assumed that two of them form a "stable" pair known as a diquark. It seems, however, that it's the end of the road for the diquarks in physics. This is one of the conclusions of the new model of proton-proton or proton-nucleus collisions, which takes into account the interactions of gluons with the sea of virtual quarks and antiquarks.

The increased use of ridesharing apps was linked to a decrease in motor vehicle collisions and impaired driving convictions in Houston, according to published research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

The findings were published today in JAMA Surgery.

Christopher Conner, MD, PhD, neurosurgery resident in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth and the study's lead author, said the research is timely as more individuals are utilizing ridesharing apps.