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What The Study Did: This study describes an association between the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccine and decreased risk of symptomatic and asymptomatic infections with SARS-CoV-2 in hospital employees.

What The Study Did: This study estimates the association between Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccination and symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections among health care workers more than seven days after getting a second vaccine dose.

The origins of a pretty smile have long been sought in the fearsome jaws of living sharks which have been considered living fossils reflecting the ancestral condition for vertebrate tooth development and inference of its evolution. However, this view ignores real fossils which more accurately reflect the nature of ancient ancestors.

Bacteria contain symmetry in their DNA signals that enable them to be read either forwards or backwards, according to new findings at the University of Birmingham which challenge existing knowledge about gene transcription.

Obesity may be a stronger risk factor for death, severe pneumonia and the need for intubation in men than in women with COVID-19, according to a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.

A team of researchers from UCLA, Cedars-Sinai and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has developed a first-of-its-kind molecular catalog of cells in healthy lungs and the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis. The findings could help scientists in their search for specific cell types that represent prime targets for genetic and cell therapies for cystic fibrosis.

Researchers have finally cracked the code of a bewildering pediatric disease that sets off a characteristic cytokine storm--a harmful immune system overaction resembling one that arises in COVID-19 cases--and can lead to catastrophic multisystem organ failure or neurodegeneration. Their study, which identifies the cause of the cytokine storm and possible treatments, was published in Nature Medicine in May.

What The Study Did: Researchers compared health care use among patients with COVID-19 who were enrolled in a home monitoring program with similar patients who were not enrolled.

What The Editorial Says: JAMA Health Forum debuts this week as a peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal focused on health policy, health care systems, and global and public health. The journal has transitioned from an online health policy channel and is the newest member of the family of JAMA Network specialty journals.

Heart disease can take a number of forms, but some types of heart disease, such as asymptomatic low ejection fraction, can be hard to recognize, especially in the early stages when treatment would be most effective. The ECG AI-Guided Screening for Low Ejection Fraction, or EAGLE, trial set out to determine whether an artificial intelligence (AI) screening tool developed to detect low ejection fraction using data from an EKG could improve the diagnosis of this condition in routine practice.

Hydrogen-based fuels should primarily be used in sectors such as aviation or industrial processes that cannot be electrified, finds a team of researchers. Producing these fuels is too inefficient, costly and their availability too uncertain, to broadly replace fossil fuels for instance in cars or heating houses. For most sectors, directly using electricity for instance in battery electric cars or heat pumps makes more economic sense.

An international team of researchers led by physicists from the University of Oldenburg (Germany) has succeeded in generating an unusual quantum state in charge carrier complexes that are closely linked to light particles and located in ultrathin semiconductor sheets. The team reports in the journal Nature Materials that this process produces light similar to that of a laser. The phenomenon could be used to create the smallest possible solid-state lasers.

In spintronics, the magnetic moment of electrons is used to transfer and manipulate information. An ultra-compact 2D spin-logic circuitry could be built from 2D materials that can transport the spin information over long distances and provide strong spin-polarization of charge current. Experiments by physicists suggest that magnetic graphene can be the ultimate choice for these 2D spin-logic devices as it efficiently converts charge to spin current and can transfer this strong spin-polarization over long distances.

New research by Joseph Wu (joewu@stanford.edu), Edgar Engelman (edgareng@stanford.edu), and colleagues at Stanford University, US has advanced an old concept to develop a new strategy to train the immune system of mice to recognize cancer cells.

A Sino-Swiss research team has revealed the dramatic increase in flood risk that could occur across Earth's icy Third Pole in response to ongoing climate change. Focusing on the threat from new lakes forming in front of rapidly retreating glaciers, a team (UNIGE) demonstrated that the related flood risk to communities and their infrastructure could almost triple. Important new hotspots of risk will emerge, including within politically sensitive transboundary regions of the Himalaya and Pamir.

Mini-organs or organoids play a big role in the future of medicine. Their countless applications can help develop and implement tailored therapies for each patient. The revolutionary development of organoids started in Utrecht with a group of curious scientists. But when organoid research starting booming, confusion arose. What exactly is an organoid? A group of experts from around the world now publishes the first consensus on what is - and what is not - an organoid.

Scientists in China and Germany have designed an artificial color-changing material that mimics chameleon skin, with luminogens (molecules that make crystals glow) organized into different core and shell hydrogel layers instead of one uniform matrix. The findings, published May 6, 2021 in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, demonstrate that a two-luminogen hydrogel chemosensor developed with this design can detect seafood freshness by changing color in response to amine vapors released by microbes as fish spoils.

Sea turtles are known for relying on magnetic signatures to find their way across thousands of miles to the very beaches where they hatched. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on May 6 have some of the first solid evidence that sharks also rely on magnetic fields for their long-distance forays across the sea.

Seals and sea lions are fast swimming ocean predators that use their flippers to literally fly through the water. But not all seals are the same: some swim with their front flippers while others propel themselves with their back feet.

Young people need additional support and protection in the criminal justice system because they are more susceptible to pleading guilty when innocent, a new study argues.