Culture
What The Study Did: Professional medical societies recommend certain genetic tests for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study looked at how common it was for nearly 1,300 individuals diagnosed with ASD to undergo these tests and the factors associated with receiving genetic testing.
Authors: Eric M. Morrow, M.D., Ph.D., of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, is the corresponding author.
MINNEAPOLIS - It's never too late to lace up some sneakers and work up a sweat for brain health, according to a study published in the May 13, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study suggests older adults, even couch potatoes, may perform better on certain thinking and memory tests after just six months of aerobic exercise.
What The Review Says: The characteristics, treatment and outcomes of heart transplant recipients who were infected with COVID-19 in New York City are described in this case series.
Authors: Nir Uriel, M.D., M.Sc., of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2020.2159)
Doctors regularly warn their patients that having high levels of triglycerides, a major dietary fat, can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and fatty liver disease. There is considerable interest in finding novel ways to effectively regulate triglycerides in the blood to help manage these potentially life-threatening common conditions.
By studying samples from two independent clinical trials of malaria vaccines, Gemma Moncunill and colleagues have linked signatures in the immune system to better vaccine protection from the disease in children and adults. Their analysis of the RTS,S vaccine and sporozoite immunization provides generalizable benchmarks that future studies could use to evaluate the effectiveness of malaria vaccine candidates. Malaria continues to pose a huge health burden around the world, with an estimated 218 million cases in 2018.
In 2015 Francesco Greco, head of the Laboratory of Applied Materials for Printed and Soft electronics (LAMPSe) at the Institute of Solid State Physics at Graz University of Technology, developed so-called "tattoo electrodes" together with Italian scientists. These are conductive polymers that are printed using an inkjet printer on standard tattoo paper and then stuck to the skin like transfers to measure heart or muscle activity.
Viruses are ubiquitous pathogens that cause severe infectious diseases in both humans and agricultural crops. As most viruses have simple genomes and encode only a few proteins, they must usurp host cell resources for propagation. Understanding what host processes are disrupted and which viral proteins are involved greatly facilitate the design of therapeutic measures for controlling viral diseases in humans and crop plants.
Microplastics are everywhere - including in our drinking water, table salt and in the air that we breathe. Having studied the scope of microplastics in a number of countries, researchers are worried.
- Given the lifetime inevitable exposure to microplastics, we urgently call for a better understanding of the potential hazards of microplastics to human health, says Dr Elvis Genbo Xu, an Assistant Professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Southern Denmark.
Historically, amphetamine-like drugs such as FDA-approved phentermine have been some of the most popular anti-obesity drugs that have ever been prescribed. They work in the brain by suppressing appetite but, besides being addictive, can also have dangerous side effects such as increased heart rate, hypertension and hyperthermia.
How cells recognize pathogens and alert the immune system swiftly is a fundamental process of high importance for the survival of any species, including humans. A key role is ascribed to so-called adapters, that equal little molecular platforms inside cells where signals from pathogen detectors are integrated for safety and accuracy and conveyed to lasting signals leading to the activation of the major "red alarm" genes, like interferons.
Although COVID-19 commands the headlines today, tuberculosis (TB) remains the biggest infection killer in the world and multiple drug resistant TB, which does not respond to regular antibiotics, continues to be a major threat to global health.
TB is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. Tuberculosis kills over 4,000 individuals daily throughout the world; while here in Ireland resistant and highly complex cases of TB continue to rise year after year, with cases numbering over 300 annually.
In the fight against the current pandemic, researchers of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg are coordinating an international collaboration to build a COVID-19 Disease Map: a comprehensive repository incorporating all current knowledge on the virus-host interaction mechanisms. This online tool will support research and improve our understanding of the disease.
Scientists have identified a pair of neutralizing antibodies - isolated from a patient who recovered from COVID-19 - that bind to the glycoprotein spike of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, blocking the spike's ability to bind to the human ACE2 receptor and mediate viral entry into host cells. Preliminary tests of the two antibodies in a mouse model resulted in a reduction of virus titers, suggesting that the antibodies may offer therapeutic benefits - in addition to informing the design of small molecule therapeutics and vaccine candidates to fight COVID-19.
By 11 May, when lockdown restrictions were eased in France, about 4.4% of the French population had been infected with SARS-CoV-2, a new modeling study suggests. These estimates are well short of what would be required for herd immunity, say the authors. Understanding the level of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will be key to avoiding a rebound in the epidemic as populations around the world ease lockdowns.
It's a frustrating limitation of 3D printing: Printed objects must be smaller than the machine making them. Huge machines are impractical for printing large parts because they take up too much space and require excessive time to print. Now, a new material reported in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces can be used to 3D print small objects that expand upon heating. The foam could find applications in architecture, aerospace and biomedicine. Watch a video here.