Eurekalert

Students struggling academically benefited most when schools around the world transitioned from classroom teaching to online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the switch also didn't negatively impact higher achievers.

Researchers from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators found that adding a small amount of aluminum to achieve concentrations in the 10x nanomolar range can increase the net fixation of CO2 by marine diatoms and decrease their decomposition, thus improving the ocean's ability to absorb CO2 and sequester carbon at deep ocean depths.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire found that to live in hotter more desert-like surroundings, and exist without water, there is more than one genetic mechanism allowing animals to adapt. This is important not only for their survival but may also provide important biomedical groundwork to develop gene therapies to treat human dehydration related illnesses, like kidney disease.

In a Danish-Norwegian collaboration, researchers have shown a slightly increased rate of rare but serious types of cerebral blood clots as well as a generally increased rate of venous blood clots following vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. The risk of such adverse events is considered very low for the individual vaccine recipient.

A large study from Denmark and Norway published by The BMJ today sheds more light on the risk of rare blood clots in adults receiving their first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine.

One in four heart attack patients have atypical symptoms such as breathing difficulties, extreme exhaustion, and abdominal pain, according to a study published today in European Heart Journal -- Acute Cardiovascular Care, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Patients with atypical symptoms were less likely to receive emergency help and more likely to die within 30 days compared to those with chest pain.

R21/Matrix-M, a malaria vaccine developed at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, showed efficacy of 77% over 12 months in a recently reported phase IIb trial. First vaccinations have now begun in Mali in a larger phase III trial which is hoped to lead to licensure of this malaria vaccine by 2023.

Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine provide more than 95% protection against infection, hospitalisation, severe illness, and death, including among the elderly, according to the first national-level observational assessment of its effectiveness in Israel, published in The Lancet.

Admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) is associated with a small increased risk of future suicide or self-harm after discharge compared with non-ICU hospital admissions, finds a study published in The BMJ today.

Some clinicians are concerned that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis has risen throughout Western society since the late 1980s. Is this correct? And if so, has the true incidence of PTSD really spiralled out of control, or has it simply become overdiagnosed? Experts debate the issue in The BMJ this week.

According to a new study published in the journal Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, hospitals that participate in the 340B Drug Pricing Program provide more medication access services -- which are services that help remove barriers to accessing necessary medications -- than comparably sized non-340B hospitals.

A new mutation found in a gene associated with an increased risk of atrial fibrillation poses a significantly increased risk for heart failure in Black people.

Penn Medicine researchers used microscopy and machine learning to distinguish tau protein aggregates occurring as part of healthy functions from those occurring in disease.

By discovering a potential new cellular mechanism for migraines, researchers may have also found a new way to treat chronic migraine.

A Yale-led study reveals that new medicines and vaccines approved for use in the United States are often unavailable in countries that hosted their clinical trials, suggesting that the benefits of drug research are not being shared equitably among populations that participate in testing.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from INRAP, CNRS, the universities of Ottawa, Rennes 2, Toulouse III Paul Sabatier and the Max Planck Institute has recognised the soldiers of the last battles of the siege of Rennes in 1491. These are the only witnesses of the forces involved in the conflict between the armies of Duchess Anne of Brittany and the King of France. This research and its methodology are currently the subject of two articles in the PLOS ONE review.

With increased media attention and political campaigns focusing on the gender pay gap, the fact that women -- on average -- are paid less than men, has become an important public discussion. While much of the focus has been on the corporate sector, a new study that looked at executive compensation at nonprofit organizations found that women earn 8.9% less than men with the gap becoming greater when there is room for salary negotiations.

Older people with kidney disease have a higher risk of dementia, and the risk increases with the rate and stage of kidney function decline. That is according to a large observational study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal Neurology. The findings stress the significance of screening and monitoring for dementia in persons with kidney disease, the researchers say.

Nanoscope Technologies LLC, a biotechnology company developing gene therapies for treatment of retinal diseases, is featuring multiple scientific presentations highlighting its groundbreaking research on optical gene delivery for vision restoration and OCT-guided electrophysiology platforms for characterization of retinal degeneration and assessment of efficacy of cell-gene therapy at the 2021 ARVO annual (virtual) meeting, May 1-7. Nanoscope's Multi-Characteristics Opsin (MCO) when delivered into cells to reprograms cells to sense ambient light, thus allowing vision restoration in patients with retinal degeneration.

Sea ice cover in the Southern Hemisphere is extremely variable, from summer to winter and from millennium to millennium, according to a University of Maine-led study. Overall, sea ice has been on the rise for about 10,000 years, but with some exceptions to this trend. Researchers uncovered these findings by examining the chemistry of a 54,000-year-old South Pole ice core.