Culture
A Japanese research group combined motion analysis that uses smartphone application and machine learning that uses an anomaly detection method, thereby developing a technique to easily screen for carpal tunnel syndrome. Carpal tunnel syndrome is common amongst middle-aged women. The disease causes compressed nerves in the wrist, causing numbness and difficulty with finger movements. While an accurate diagnosis can be reached with nerve conduction study, this is not widely used because it requires expensive devices and specialized skills.
Astronomers found a number of stellar eggs containing baby stars around the center of the Milky Way using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Previous studies had suggested that the environment there is too harsh to form stars. These findings indicate that star formation is more resilient than researchers thought.
Japan -- The tooth fairy is a welcome guest for any child who has lost a tooth. Not only will the fairy leave a small gift under the pillow, but the child can be assured of a new tooth in a few months. The same cannot be said of adults who have lost their teeth.
A group of researchers from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland contest the common belief that resource-based economies have higher levels of within-country inequality than resource-scarce economies. The researchers document a direct causal link between natural resources and within-country inequality and conclude that the extraction of oil and gas can reduce inequality or has no significant effect on it. The results were published in the journal Empirical Economics.
Pedestrian movements are tricky to track, but now the first large-scale statistical analysis of pedestrian flow using anonymous phone data collected in three European capital cities, London, Amsterdam and Stockholm, has been conducted by researchers from KAUST with Swedish colleagues from Gothenburg.
Presents a brief overview of the eight COVID-19 editorials published in DMPHP over the past year and using them as a framework to follow the evolution of the Pandemic over time. A review of the salient epidemiological and clinical dimensions of COVID-19 over time is given as well as a discussion of the medical and public health impacts of the disease and the interventions and policies put in place to contain and mediate the virus.
How do different parts of the body communicate? Scientists at St. Jude are studying how signals sent from skeletal muscle affect the brain.
The team studied fruit flies and cutting-edge brain cell models called organoids. They focused on the signals muscles send when stressed. The researchers found that stress signals rely on an enzyme called Amyrel amylase and its product, the disaccharide maltose.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas production in its annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, according to new research from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The research team found 90 percent higher emissions from oil production and 50 percent higher emissions for natural gas production than EPA estimated in its latest inventory.
The paper is published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
The immune systems of all vertebrates contain specialized cells, called T cells, that play a fundamental role in protecting against fungal, bacterial, parasitic and viral infections. T cells use 'molecular sensors' called T cell receptors (TCRs) on their surface that can detect and eliminate the invading pathogens. For most of the past four decades, it was considered that there were only two T cell lineages, αβ and γδ T cells, characterized by their cell surface expressed αβ and γδ TCRs, respectively.
Renewable energy demand and consumption is at an all-time high in the United States.
Shrub willow - a quick-growing woody crop - can be an excellent source of renewable bioenergy. The crop is harvested and turned into wood chips, which can be used for heat, mulch, animal bedding, biochar, and biofuel.
One million species are under threat of extinction worldwide, primarily due to adverse human impact. The loss of a species is an ethical tragedy, but additionally, it can have dramatic effects on the functioning of ecosystems on Earth. In each ecosystem, species have their roles, just like actors do in a play. These roles depend on the characteristics of the species, like their size, weight, shape, reproductive capacity, or the food resources they use. If some species are similar, they can sometimes substitute each other and keep the ecosystem going even if one of them is lost.
For people with tooth decay, drinking a cold beverage can be agony.
"It's a unique kind of pain," says David Clapham, vice president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). "It's just excruciating."
Water scarcity is often understood as a problem for regions experiencing drought, but a new study led by Tufts University researchers finds that not only can localized water shortages impact the global economy, but changes in global demand can have positive and negative ripple effects in river basins across the globe.
In addition to Tufts engineers, the team included experts from the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Cornell University.
What The Study Did: Insurance claims were used to assess patterns of telehealth use across surgical specialties before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Authors: Grace F.Chao, M.D., M.Sc., of the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Michigan and Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor in Michigan, 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/jamasurg.2021.0979)
Scientists have developed a method to use lasers to control the movement of nanodiamonds with fluorescent centers.
Scientists have long been working on improving their ability to use lasers to move small objects without actually touching them. This method of 'optical trapping and manipulation' is already utilized in optics, biological sciences and chemistry. But objects become much more difficult to control once they grow to nanoscale size.