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As of April 2021, more than 3 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19. Early in the pandemic, researchers developed accurate diagnostic tests and identified health conditions that correlated with worse outcomes. However, a clinical predictor of who faces the highest risk of being hospitalized, put on a ventilator or dying from the disease has remained largely out of reach.

While evolution is normally thought of as occurring over millions of years, researchers at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that bacteria can evolve in response to climate change in 18 months. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, biologists from UCI found that evolution is one way that soil microbes might deal with global warming.

The international consortium today announces a series of publications in a special collection of Nature that resulted from the first phase of the Vertebrate Genome Project (VGP) to release 16 high quality reference genomes. The research group led by Professor Guojie Zhang of the Department of Biology has made substantial contributions to the VGP and this first wave of publications.

A new series of Penn State studies has found that shopper pickiness can go beyond shopping for the "best" option. The researchers define what it means to be "picky" and also developed a scale for measuring shopper pickiness.

More green spaces in an area is associated with a lower racial disparity in COVID-19 infection rates, according to the first study to examine the relationship between the supply of green spaces and reduced disparity in infectious disease rates.

New research published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports shows that ENSO, the weather-shaping cycle of warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean along the Equator, is a strong predictor of cacao harvests up to two years before a harvest.

Chocolate is a beloved treat, but sometimes the cocoa beans that go into bars and other sweets have unpleasant flavors or scents, making the final products taste bad. Surprisingly, only a few compounds associated with these stinky odors are known. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have identified the two compounds that cause musty, moldy scents in cocoa -- work that can help chocolatiers ensure the quality of their products.

People of color, those with a higher income and younger individuals are more likely to participate in clinical trials during their cancer treatment according to a new study from the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

Using naturalistic driving data and machine learning techniques, researchers have developed highly accurate algorithms for detecting mild cognitive impairment and dementia in older drivers. Naturalistic driving data refer to data captured through in-vehicle recording devices or other technologies in the real-world setting. These data could be processed to measure driving exposure, space and performance in great detail.

Uncapped, idle oil wells could be leaking millions of kilograms of methane each year into the atmosphere and surface water, according to a study by the University of Cincinnati.

The highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 variant that recently emerged in South Africa, known as B.1.351, has scientists wondering how existing COVID-19 vaccines and therapies can be improved to ensure strong protection. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry used computer modeling to reveal that one of the three mutations that make variant B.1.351 different from the original SARS-CoV-2 reduces the virus' binding to human cells -- but potentially allows it to escape some antibodies.

To be more energy efficient, many people have replaced their incandescent lights with light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs. However, those currently on the market emit a lot of blue light, which has been linked to eye troubles and sleep disturbances. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a prototype LED that reduces -- instead of masks -- the blue component, while also making colors appear just as they do in natural sunlight.

Difficult-to-treat, chronic wounds in preclinical models healed with normal scar-free skin after treatment with an acellular product discovered at Mayo Clinic. Derived from platelets, the purified exosomal product, known as PEP, was used to deliver healing messages into cells of preclinical animal models of ischemic wounds. The Mayo Clinic research team documented restoration of skin integrity, hair follicles, sweat glands, skin oils and normal hydration.

Scientists have launched an ambitious effort to produce high-quality reference genomes for all vertebrate species, from mammals to birds and reptiles. The result could be discoveries with implications for animal conservation as well as human health and disease.

Business schools need to revise their faculty research incentives to ensure their faculty produce research that lives up to society's expectations and improves managers and firms' decision making.

Scientists call it oxytocin in humans, isotocin in fish, mesotocin in birds, and valitocin in sharks. But according to a new study, it's all the same hormone--and high time we settled on just one name.

Researchers found that difficulties in diagnosing toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might be due to the dynamic nature of the disorder during child development. Children with clinical characteristics that put them on the diagnostic border of autism have an increased susceptibility to gaining or losing that diagnosis at later ages.

Injectable dermal fillers provide a minimally invasive approach to reduce facial lines and wrinkles while restoring volume and fullness in the face. More than 2.7 million dermal filler procedures were performed in 2019, according to the most recent statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

Research News Tip Sheet: Story Ideas From Johns Hopkins Medicine

A Ludwig Cancer Research study has identified a previously unrecognized mechanism by which cancer cells of a relatively benign subtype of pancreatic tumors methodically revert--or "de-differentiate"--to a progenitor, or immature, state of cellular development to spawn highly aggressive tumors that are capable of metastasis to the liver and lymph nodes.