Earth
Under the current pandemic conditions, activities out in nature are a popular pastime. The beneficial effects of a diverse nature on people's mental health have already been documented by studies on a smaller scale. Scientists of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, the iDiv, and the University of Kiel now examined for the first time whether a diverse nature also increases human well-being on a Europe- wide scale.
A study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health has made a surprising connection between frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), two disorders of the nervous system, and the genetic mutation normally understood to cause Huntington's disease.
This large, international project, which included a collaboration between the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), opens a potentially new avenue for diagnosing and treating some individuals with FTD or ALS.
Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen have, in collaboration with Norwegian researchers in the ERC Synergy project, ICE2ICE, shown that abrupt climate change occurred as a result of widespread decrease of sea ice. This scientific breakthrough concludes a long-lasting debate on the mechanisms causing abrupt climate change during the glacial period. It also documents that the cause of the swiftness and extent of sudden climate change must be found in the oceans.
Scientific evidence for abrupt climate change in the past finally achieved
What The Study Did: This survey study examines changes in the use of e-cigarettes by those 24 years old and younger during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Authors: Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, Ph.D., of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, 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/jamanetworkopen.2020.27572)
Mortality rates after cancer surgery declined for Black as well as white patients during a recent ten-year period, although the mortality gap between the two groups did not narrow, according to new research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard University investigators.
A new study further implicates low levels of the amino acid glycine in development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD. It also suggests addressing this might hold the key to a future treatment for the disease.
"We've uncovered a new metabolic pathway and potential novel treatment," says senior author Y. Eugene Chen, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of internal medicine and surgery, from the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center. His team collaborated with researchers from the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
Blackcurrants have a beneficial effect on post-meal glucose response, and the required portion size is much smaller than previously thought, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows.
Blackcurrants have a beneficial effect on the blood glucose response after a meal. They balance the glucose response of ingested sugar by attenuating its rise and delaying its fall. The effect is likely associated with berry-derived polyphenolic compounds, anthocyanins, which are rich in blackcurrants.
Over the last decade, growing food industry led demand for hazelnuts has not been satisfied globally with a corresponding expansion in supply. Most worldwide commercial hazelnut orchards are traditionally concentrated in a select few areas: in fact, more than half of the global production of in-shell hazelnuts is concentrated in Turkey, followed by Italy, Oregon and Azerbaijan.
Bird species that have lost the ability to fly through evolution have become extinct more often than birds that have retained their ability to fly, according to new research from the University of Gothenburg.
Today, we know that human influence on the environment has caused large numbers of plants and animals to die out. Human impact has fundamentally changed ecosystems and, globally, has driven hundreds of animal species to extinction.
Analyses by KAUST researchers of sand temperatures at marine turtle nesting sites around the Red Sea indicate that turtle hatchlings born in the region could now be predominantly female. These findings hold significant implications for the survival of marine turtle species as temperature increases take hold, driven by anthropogenic climate change.
For Black youth, an encounter with police by eighth grade predicts they will be arrested by young adulthood - but the same is not true for white youth, a new University of Washington study finds.
Black young adults are 11 times more likely to be arrested by age 20 if they had an initial encounter with law enforcement in their early teens than Black youth who don't have that first contact.
KINGSTON, R.I. -- Dec. 3, 2020 -- An international research team that included three scientists from the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography has discovered single-celled microorganisms in a location where they didn't expect to find them.
PARAMUS, N.J.
There would be at least four times as many flightless bird species on Earth today if it were not for human influences, finds a study led by UCL researchers.
The study, published in Science Advances, finds that flightlessness evolved much more frequently among birds than would be expected if you only looked at current species.
Researchers say their findings show how human-driven extinctions have biased our understanding of evolution.
Elite athletes can be persuaded not to take banned substances - either by appealing to their sense of morality or educating them about the risks of using performance-enhancing drugs, according to a new study.
Researchers developed two separate intervention programmes - one targeting moral factors associated with doping likelihood, the other introducing doping and providing information about the health consequences of banned substances and the risks of sport supplements.