Culture
Describing the genetic diversity of human populations is essential to improve our understanding of human diseases and their geographical distribution. However, the vast majority of genetic studies have been focused on populations of European ancestry, which represent only 16% of the global population.
What The Study Did: Data from the Ohio Department of Health were used to evaluate changes in drug overdose mortality in that state by type of drug and age of the user during the first seven months of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Authors: Janet M. Currie, Ph.D., of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, 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.2021.7112)
What The Study Did: The association between severity of eczema among children and risk of being diagnosed with a learning disability was investigated in this study.
Authors: Joy Wan, M.D., M.S.C.E., of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, 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/jamadermatol.2021.0008)
A potential treatment for dementia and epilepsy could look to reduce the amounts of a toxic gas in the brain has been revealed in a new study using rat brain cells.
Chestnut Hill, Mass. (4/14/2021) -- Using abundant cobalt and a unique experimental approach to probe ways to speed a sluggish catalytic reaction to harvest hydrogen from water, researchers from Boston College and Yale University discovered a mechanistic switch in the oxygen evolution reaction, a significant step towards optimizing electrocatalysts for water splitting to produce clean energy.
In the cell nucleus histones play a crucial role packaging DNA into chromatin. Histones are however very sticky to both DNA and RNA, so to ensure they are transported to the cell nucleus after synthesis and bind to the right portion of DNA to organize the chromatin, they are guarded by complexes of histone chaperones.
Histone chaperones are proteins that bind to histones to help protect them from non-specific binding events until they reach their goal. This process fails sometimes and histones get stuck during their supply to chromatin without any purpose.
If you were to visit the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau a thousand years ago, you'd find conditions remarkably familiar to the present. The climate was warm, but drier than today. There were large populations of Indigenous people known as the Fremont, a who hunted and grew crops in the area. With similar climate and moderate human activity, you might expect to see the types of wildfires that are now common to the American West: infrequent, gigantic and devastating. But you'd be wrong.
Compared to newborns conceived traditionally, newborns conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are more likely to have certain chemical modifications to their DNA, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The changes involve DNA methylation--the binding of compounds known as methyl groups to DNA--which can alter gene activity. Only one of the modifications was seen by the time the children were 9 years old.
HANOVER, N.H. - April 14, 2021 - Scientists have searched for years to understand how cells measure their size. Cell size is critical. It's what regulates cell division in a growing organism. When the microscopic structures double in size, they divide. One cell turns into two. Two cells turn into four. The process repeats until an organism has enough cells. And then it stops. Or at least it is supposed to.
A new study based on daily COVID-19 data from Brazil details the fast spread of both cases and deaths in the country, with distinct patterns by state, and where inequities regarding the implementation of policies and resources exacerbated the spread in lower-income regions. Despite an extensive network of primary care availability, Brazil - which did not pursue a coordinated national pandemic response strategy - has suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic. "[T]he federal response has been a dangerous combination of inaction and wrongdoing," write Marcia Castro and colleagues.
A new report tracks the evolution of a variant lineage of SARS-CoV-2 associated with rapid transmission in Manaus, Brazil, that evolved in November 2020. The study's authors suggest this variant, "P.1," may be more transmissible and more likely to evade protective immunity elicited by previous infection with non-P.1 lineages. Manaus, Brazil, reached unprecedented levels of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in mid-2020. And after a momentary respite, cases surged with fatal consequences. Using molecular clock analysis, Nuno Faria et al.
We refer to the microbiome as the community of microorganisms that exist in or on all organisms, including bacteria and fungi. A team from the Institute of Environmental Biotechnology at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) led by Institute head Gabriele Berg has now investigated the microbiomes of apples and oil pumpkins in two independent studies.
A recent study has unveiled the reason behind the exceptional catalytic performance of non-noble metal-base mixed catalysts. This is thanks to a new synthetic strategy for the production of cube-shaped catalysts that could further simplify the structure of complex catalysts.
Intestinal worm infections can leave women in sub-Saharan Africa more vulnerable to sexually-transmitted viral infections, a new study reveals.
The rate and severity of sexually-transmitted viral infections (STI) in the region are very high, as are those of worm infections, which when caught in the intestine can change immunity in other parts of the body.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver, NAFLD, is associated with several health risks. According to a new registry study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, NAFLD is linked to a 17-fold increased risk of liver cancer. The findings, published in Hepatology, underscore the need for improved follow-up of NAFLD patients with the goal of reducing the risk of cancer.