Earth
Glucocorticoids are widely used in treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) despite there being no indisputable scientific evidence of their effectiveness. The main reason seems to be that there is no effective treatment for ARDS patients on ventilators. The death rate of these patients differs between 30-40 percent depending on the data.
SALT LAKE CITY - Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) presented the first outcomes evaluation of an adult oncology hospital-at-home program today at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting. The study evaluated patients participating in HCI's Huntsman at HomeTM. The data demonstrate strong evidence for this care model, showing improved patient outcomes, including reduced hospitalizations and decreased visits to the emergency department.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Bangladesh is on track to lose all of its forestland in the next 35-40 years, leading to a rise in CO2 emissions and subsequent climate change, researchers said. However, that is just one of the significant land-use changes that the country is experiencing. A new study uses satellite and census data to quantify and unravel how physical and economic factors drive land-use changes. Understanding this relationship can inform climate policy at the national scale in Bangladesh and beyond.
ATLANTA--Older men may be at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 because they worry less about catching or dying from it than women their age or than younger people of both sexes, according to a new study by Sarah Barber, a gerontology and psychology researcher at Georgia State University.
This is a concern because older men are already more at risk of severe or fatal COVID-19 infections. Data from the CDC show the fatality rate of COVID-19 steadily rises with age, and that men are more at risk than women.
Warming events are increasing in magnitude and severity, threatening many ecosystems worldwide. As the global temperatures continue to climb, it also raises uncertainties as to the relationship, prevalence, and spread of parasites and disease.
A recent study from the University of Washington explores the ways parasitism will respond to climate change, providing researchers new insights into disease transmission. The paper was published May 18 in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Stockholm, Sweden: Scientists have found that some people being treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have a greater tendency to commit violent crime. In addition, this effect seems to continue for up to 12 weeks after stopping SSRI treatment. This work is published in the peer-reviewed journal European Neuropsychopharmacology*, alongside a linked comment. The authors of both the paper and the comment note that the work indicates an association (rather than cause and effect) and urge caution in how the findings are interpreted.
WASHINGTON - A Georgetown University Medical Center clinical trial investigating the cancer drug nilotinib in people with Alzheimer's disease finds that it is safe and well-tolerated, and researchers say the drug should be tested in a larger study to further determine its safety and efficacy as a potential disease-modifying strategy.
Mucus is the first line of defence against bad bacteria in our gut. But could it also be part of our defence against diseases of the brain?
Bacterial imbalance in the gut is linked with Alzheimer's disease, autism and other brain disorders, yet the exact causes are unclear.
Now a new research review of 113 neurological, gut and microbiology studies led by RMIT University suggests a common thread - changes in gut mucus.
Skoltech scientists and their colleagues have studied more than 30 thousand variants of genetic sequences encoding two fluorescent proteins in order to determine which characteristics of mRNA and of the first dozen or so codons in it can increase the efficiency of translation. Among other things, they found that rare codons at the beginning of the sequence do not seem to enhance translation, contrary to some hypotheses.
A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital examines changes in prescription patterns in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an exploratory analysis of data from GoodRx used to generate national estimates, Brigham investigators found prescriptions of the anti-malarial drug chloroquine and its analogue hydroxychloroquine dramatically surged during the week of March 15, likely due to off-label prescriptions for COVID-19. Results of the study are published in JAMA.
Sea snakes first entered the marine environment 15 million years ago and have been evolving ever since to survive in its changing light conditions, according to a new study.
Research led by the University of Plymouth (UK) has for the first time provided evidence of where, when and how frequently species have adapted their ability to see in colour.
It suggests sea snakes' vision has been modifying genetically over millions of generations, enabling them to adapt to new environments and meaning they can continue to see prey - and predators - deep below the sea surface.
The ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic coastline retreated at speeds of up to 50 metres per day at the end of the last Ice Age, far more rapid than the satellite-derived retreat rates observed today, new research has found.
The study, led by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, used patterns of delicate wave-like ridges on the Antarctic seafloor to calculate how quickly the ice retreated roughly 12,000 years ago during regional deglaciation.
High-resolution imaging of the human placenta provides new insights into blood circulation patterns that are crucial for fetal development, according to a study publishing May, 28 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Penny Gowland of the University of Nottingham, and colleagues. These findings improve our understanding of the functioning of this understudied organ, both in healthy pregnancies and in serious medical conditions such as pre-eclampsia.
Spatial and temporal differentiations are important features in the study of phenology of ecosystems. Plant phenology studies the life circle phases in plants driven by environmental factors and the study of its long-term patterns and dynamics is significant to reveal the responses of vegetation in different regions of China to global changes. By partitioning data elements into groups and considering them at an abstract level, clustering is one of the most widely used methods to study the spatio-temporal differentiation of phenology.
An adenovirus is now better able to target and kill cancer cells due to the addition of an RNA stabilizing element.
Hokkaido University scientists have made an adenovirus that specifically replicates inside and kills cancer cells by employing special RNA-stabilizing elements. The details of the research were published in the journal Cancers.