Culture

ITHACA, N.Y. - Using nature's color palette from early Earth, Cornell University astronomers have created a cosmic "cheat sheet" in order to understand where discovered exoplanets may fall along their own evolutionary spectrum.

Jack O'Malley-James, a research associate at the Carl Sagan Institute, and Lisa Kaltenegger, professor of astronomy and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, co-authored "Expanding the Timeline for Earth's Photosynthetic Red Edge Biosignature" published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have identified, for the first time in oesophageal cancer, the cancer killing capability of a lesser-known type of immune cell, presenting a new potential therapeutic target. Their research has been published today Wednesday, July 10th 2019 in the international journal 'Frontiers in Immunology'.

Travellers returning to Barcelona mirrored the 2017 Zika outbreak in Cuba, according to a study led by the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, an institution supported by "la Caixa".

Zika virus spread throughout Latin America between 2015 and 2016, followed by a decrease in the number of new cases. Cuba, however, was one of the last countries to report cases: the first autochthonous case was confirmed in March 2016, and recent data indicate that an outbreak with over 600 reported cases occurred mid-2017 in Cienfuegos.

Adults with a first-degree relative with Alzheimer's disease perform more poorly on online paired-learning tasks than adults without such a family history, and this impairment appears to be exacerbated by having diabetes or a genetic variation in the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene linked to the disease.

The findings, published on Tuesday in eLife, may help identify people who have increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease and could uncover new ways to delay or prevent the disease.

The liver is one of the largest and most versatile organs of the human body. It turns sugars, proteins, and fats from our food into substances useful for the body and releases them to the cells. In addition to its role in human metabolism, the liver is an immunological organ, which is indispensable for detoxifying the blood. Most strikingly, the liver is the only internal organ that can regenerate back to its full size with only 25% of its original mass.

Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions, affecting children's health and wellbeing and leading to obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer later in life. The number of children with obesity continues to rise globally, particularly for children living in poverty.

DURHAM, N.C. - A newer form of shingles vaccine reduced outbreaks of the painful rash among patients who were transplanted with their own stem cells, according to a study led by a Duke Health researcher and published today in JAMA.

The vaccine appears to offer protection from one of the most common and painful side effects of cell therapy and shows promise for patients with immune-compromising conditions.

Researchers at HSE University have applied an emotion recognition method to measure the subjective well-being of individuals. Their initial tests were carried out with football fans, by measuring their emotional state. It turned out that, on average, uncertainty about a match result can increase the probability of unhappiness by 13.6%. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

Diabetes Patients Experiencing Empathy From Primary Care Practitioners Have Lower Risk of Mortality

Sea urchins have gotten a bad rap on the Pacific coast. The spiky sea creatures can mow down entire swaths of kelp forest, leaving behind rocky urchin barrens. An article in the New York Times went so far as to call them "cockroaches of the ocean." But new research suggests that urchins play a more complex role in their ecosystems than previously believed.

Crouching in the boot-sucking mud of the Baylands Nature Preserve in Palo Alto, Manu Prakash, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, peered through his Foldscope - a $1.75 origami microscope of his own invention - scrutinizing the inhabitants of the marsh's brackish waters. With his eye trained on a large single-cell organism, called Spirostomum, he watched it do something that immediately made it his next research subject.

NUST MISIS scientists together with the colleagues from P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics Lomonosov Moscow State University and Dagestan State University have published the first results of a "scan" obtained by the method of muon radiography of the underground space in the Derbent fortress of Naryn-Kala. The preliminary conclusion of the scientists -- the hypothesis of archaeologists about the use of the building as a Christian temple is most likely to be true.

A large observational cohort study examining male veterans aged over 50 years with type 2 diabetes found that metformin use was associated with a significantly lower risk of dementia in African American patients. The study included data from 73,500 patients who received care through the Veteran's Health Administration from 2000-2015 and were diabetes- and dementia-free at baseline and who subsequently developed type 2 diabetes and began treatment with either metformin or sulfonylurea.

A novel "flash mob" study finds that, in emergency care, acute coronary syndrome cannot be safely ruled out using the Marburg Heart Score or the family physicians' clinical assessment. In a period of only two weeks, researchers at Maastricht University collected data on 258 ACS-suspected patients by mobilizing one in five family physicians throughout the Netherlands to participate in the study. This mobilization was done by enlisting ambassadors among the FP community in the Netherlands who then spread the word through traditional professional and social networks.

Family physicians prescribe the greatest volume of opioids (22.9%) and number of prescriptions (31.2%) to individuals with chronic noncancer pain, making them targets for quality improvements in safer prescribing practices. Interviews with 22 family physicians in Ontario, Canada, from June to July 2017, identified key themes driving the over prescription of opioids in managing chronic pain: the contrast between doctors' training and current expectations; navigating patient and system expectations; and the duration and quality of therapeutic relationships.