Culture
Hundreds of new links have been found between people's DNA and the heart's electrical activity, according to a study of almost 300,000 people led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
The results could one day lead to advanced screening methods to discern who is at greatest risk of developing disease, and could help reveal new genetic targets for research and drug development.
As the UK and most other countries went into lockdown, the need to save lives from the coronavirus rightly took priority over longer term health issues.
But experts writing in The BMJ today warn that "if we don't prepare for emerging from the pandemic, we will see the toll of increased alcohol harm for a generation."
A new Tel Aviv University-led study published on May 20 in Nature offers new evidence that the complexity of contemporary analytical methods in science contributes to the variability of research outcomes.
Clinician burnout is a growing public health concern, with the National Academy of Sciences reporting that 35-54% of U.S. nurses and physicians exhibit substantial symptoms of burnout.
Shortly after the explosion in microcephaly cases caused by Zika virus in Brazil in 2015-16, several scientific studies were published with evidence that the pathogen is capable of crossing the human placenta, the organ that keeps the fetus connected to the mother's body during pregnancy. From then on, the states began following a protocol established by the National Ministry of Health requiring collection of placental samples to help diagnose the disease in women with symptoms during pregnancy.
As is the case with most fatal diseases, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is already taking a disproportionate toll on black Americans and other disadvantaged minorities. As of April 14 in the United States, 32 percent of deaths from COVID-19 occurred among black Americans who comprise of only 13 percent of the population. These numbers indicate that they have a 2.3-fold excess risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to white Americans.
Results from a study led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital may help to improve the diagnosis and treatment of allergies, pointing to a potential marker of these conditions and a new therapeutic strategy. The research is published in Nature.
Many insects' breathing pores open and close rapidly during respiration; oxygen diffusion analysis suggests that this spiracle fluttering enables high oxygen intake and low water loss, according to a study publishing May 20, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by H. Frederik Nijhout and Michael C. Reed of Duke University, USA, and Sean D. Lawley of the University of Utah, USA.
For engineers developing new materials or protective coatings, there are billions of different possibilities to sort through. Lab tests or even detailed computer simulations to determine their exact properties, such as toughness, can take hours, days, or more for each variation. Now, a new artificial intelligence-based approach developed at MIT could reduce that to a matter of milliseconds, making it practical to screen vast arrays of candidate materials.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT scientists have identified a potential new strategy for treating Fragile X syndrome, a disorder that is the leading heritable cause of intellectual disability and autism.
In a study of mice, the researchers showed that inhibiting an enzyme called GSK3 alpha reversed many of the behavioral and cellular features of Fragile X. The small-molecule compound has been licensed for further development and possible human clinical trials.
What The Study Did: Researchers looked at whether patients with nonfatal intentional opioid overdoses would be more likely to die by suicide than patients with unintentional overdoses with an analysis of deaths following nonfatal opioid overdoses of intentional, unintentional and undetermined intent in California from 2009 to 2011.
Authors: Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University in New York, is the corresponding author.
What The Study Did: This randomized clinical trial investigated the association between pro-male gender bias and negative stereotypes against women during surgical residency on surgical skills and proactive career development of residents in general surgery training programs. Factors contributing to the underrepresentation of women in surgery aren't completely understood.
Authors: Sara P. Myers, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is the corresponding author.
Low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diets, which have attracted public interest in recent years for their proposed benefits in lowering inflammation and promoting weight loss and heart health, have a dramatic impact on the microbes residing in the human gut, collectively referred to as the microbiome, according to a new UC San Francisco study of a small cohort of volunteer subjects.
What The Study Did: This observational study looked at the disparities that exist between women and men waiting to receive a liver transplant, such as being more likely to die while on the wait list, and how much these differences are associated with factors including geographic location, medical urgency and liver size.
Authors: Jayme E. Locke, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is the corresponding author.
May 20, 2020 -- When things get rough, many Americans turn to prescription pills. About one in eight over the age of 12 take antidepressants for mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, and a quarter of those have done so for 10 years or more, according to a 2017 study by the National Center for Health Statistics. And the use of antidepressants increased 65% from 1999 to 2014.