Eurekalert

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, a University of Illinois Chicago researcher conducted a survey asking respondents if they experienced health care delays because of the pandemic. In addition to learning about the types of delays, the study also presented a unique opportunity to capture a historic moment at the pandemic's beginning.

Rice University physicists make unique broadband polarization rotators with ultrathin carbon nanotube films. The rotators extend to the terahertz, which could simplify devices for use in telecommunications, security and manufacturing.

New research published in Science provides an updated understanding of how to add functional groups onto simple hydrocarbons like methane. This new and highly detailed mechanism is a crucial step towards designing the next generation of catalysts and finding scalable approaches for turning greenhouse gases into value-added chemicals.

New research from Syracuse University's Falk College and published in JMIR Human Factors indicates telehealth is here to stay, with a large number (more than 40%) of physicians surveyed indicating they plan to continue telehealth practices post-pandemic. However, concerns linger over the impact of technology market concentration on achieving the iron triangle of health care.

You might be older - or younger - than you think. A new study found that differences between a person's age in years and his or her biological age, as predicted by an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled EKG, can provide measurable insights into health and longevity.

Louisiana oysters from the Gulf of Mexico may experience some of the lowest salinity in the world due to the influx of fresh water from the Mississippi River. In addition, increased rainfall and large-scale river diversions for coastal protection will bring more fresh water that does not bode well for the eastern oyster. New research published this week reveals new information on why some oysters may be more resilient to freshwater than others.

To deliver real-time feedback to support employee development and rapid innovation, many companies are replacing formal, review-based performance management with systems that enable frequent and continuous employee evaluation. New research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research examines the role of these applications to understand the effects on employee performance appraisals.

Cornell University engineers and plant scientists have teamed up to develop a low-cost system that allows grape growers to predict their yields much earlier in the season and more accurately than costly traditional methods.

In a recent study, conducted in Poland in 2020 and published in the peer-reviewed journal Social Psychological Bulletin, scientists concluded it was the government and the system that most of the participants attributed responsibility to for the COVID-19 incidence rates. Furthermore, political views and party preferences are reported to play an incomparably more significant role in their responses than factors such as anxiety, stress and depression levels or overall self-reported well-being.

More than 15 months into the pandemic, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 600,000. But COVID-19 deaths may be underestimated by 20%, according to a new, first-of-its-kind study from Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), the University of Pennsylvania, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

A new study published in the journal Science highlights the opportunity to complement current climate mitigation scenarios with scenarios that capture the interdependence among investors' perception of future climate risk, the credibility of climate policies, and the allocation of investments across low- and high-carbon assets in the economy.

Analyzing data obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers found a galaxy with a spiral morphology by only 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. This is the most ancient galaxy of its kind ever observed. The discovery of a galaxy with a spiral structure at such an early stage is an important clue to solving the classic questions of astronomy: "How and when did spiral galaxies form?"

A new allotrope of carbon has been produced by a European team. Like graphene, it is only one atom thick, but unlike graphene it behaves like a metal even at small scales, ideal for nanosized wires. This result is exciting for engineers trying to develop new carbon-based electronics and the new method demonstrates a novel way to produce other theoretically-designed but not-yet-created forms of nanoscale carbon materials

Wherever ecologists look, from tropical forests to tundra, ecosystems are being transformed by human land use and climate change. A hallmark of human impacts is that the rates of change in ecosystems are accelerating worldwide. Surprisingly, a new study, published today in Science, found that these rates of ecological change began to speed up many thousands of years ago.

A compound used widely in candles offers promise for a much more modern energy challenge--storing massive amounts of energy to be fed into the electric grid as the need arises. In a paper in Science, researchers show that low-cost organic compounds hold promise for storing energy that would kick in when the grid goes offline due to severe weather, and for storing renewable energy.

Ancient pollen samples and a new statistical approach may shed light on the global rate of change of vegetation and eventually on how much climate change and humans have played a part in altering landscapes, according to an international team of researchers.

During the first phase of the COVID-19 epidemic, New York City experienced high prevalence compared to other U.S. cities, yet little is known about the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 within and among its boroughs. A study published in PLOS Pathogens by Simon Dellicour at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, Ralf Duerr and Adriana Heguy at New York University, USA, and colleagues describe the dispersal dynamics of COVID-19 viral lineages at the state and city levels.

If there's one take-home message for the general public about the coronavirus vaccines approved in the U.S., it's that they are remarkably effective. But Michigan State University's Morteza Mahmoudi is raising awareness about an important subtlety: The vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech appear to work slightly better for men than for women.

Latinx young adults who experience heart-focused anxiety could be at greater risk for mental health disorders. New research indicates that heart-focused anxiety among that group is a statistically significant predictor for general depression and overall anxiety.

USC Schaeffer Center researchers found Medicare has significant financial incentives to partner with Medicaid to treat the majority of hepatitis C cases.