Culture
Pollution from manufacturing is now widespread, affecting all regions in the world, with serious ecological, economic, and political consequences. Heightened public concern and scrutiny have led to numerous governments considering policies that aim to lower pollution and improve environmental qualities. Inter-governmental agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals all focus on lowering emissions of pollution.
Public use of parks and reserves increased only slightly during last year's COVID-19 national lockdown despite gyms and sports facilities shutting down, a University of Queensland study found.
UQ School of Biological Sciences PhD candidate Violeta Berdejo-Espinola surveyed 1000 people in Brisbane, measuring their use of urban green space and the benefits people associated with visiting the areas during lockdown.
Five researchers shed new light on a key argument to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG): they provided the first economic analysis of conversion factors of other GHG like methane into their CO2 equivalent in overshoot scenarios. Although the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) considers settling for one value of reference (known as "Common Metric") to make this conversion among the Paris Agreement, the models presented here show the economic advantage of flexibility between various factors of conversion.
A study coordinated by Luís Graça, principal investigator at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM; Portugal) and Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL) used lymph nodes, tonsils and blood, to show how the cells that control production of antibodies are formed and act. The results published now in the scientific journal Science Immunology* unveiled key aspects about the regulation of antibody production, with significant importance for diseases where antibody production is dysregulated such as autoimmune diseases or allergies.
Highlight
Among individuals with healthy kidneys, those with more frequent depressive symptoms were more likely to show signs of rapid kidney function decline over a median follow-up of 4 years.
Washington, DC (May 28, 2021) -- In a study of adults with normal kidney function, those who had frequent depressive symptoms were more likely to later experience a rapid decline in kidney function. The study will appear in an upcoming issue of CJASN.
What The Study Did: Socioeconomic disparities in respiratory health over the past six decades in the United States are described in this study.
Authors: Adam W. Gaffney, M.D., of the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 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/jamainternmed.2021.2441)
What The Study Did: Study results suggest that reinfections are rare events and that patients who have recovered from COVID-19 have a lower risk of reinfection. However, the observation ended before SARS-CoV-2 variants began to spread, and it is unknown how well natural immunity to the wild-type virus will protect against variants. .
Authors: Nicola Mumoli, M.D., of the Ospedale Fornaroli in Magenta, Italy, is the corresponding author.
What The Study Did: Researchers estimated the extent Medicare Part B medical services would have been subject to prior authorization under private insurance coverage policies and calculated the associated spending.
Authors: Aaron L. Schwartz, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania 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/jamahealthforum.2021.0859)
As hospitals, insurance companies and policy makers seek to improve healthcare quality and reduce rising medical costs, one important metric used to assess clinicians hinges on how patients feel about their healthcare experience. Many healthcare providers and policy makers fear that increased pressure to please patients -- and ensure high satisfaction ratings as a result -- could lead to overuse of low-value care that doesn't provide any clinical benefit while unnecessarily ratcheting up medical bills.
MISSOULA - In bear country, it's normal to find bruins munching down on temptations left out by humans - from a backyard apple tree to leftovers in the trash bin - but these encounters can cause trouble for humans and bears alike. One method to reduce human-bear conflicts is to secure attractants like garbage and livestock feed.
While effective when implemented, this approach requires people to change their behavior, and that makes things a little more complicated.
ITHACA, N.Y. - A Cornell University-developed technology provides beekeepers, consumers and farmers with an antidote for deadly pesticides, which kill wild bees and cause beekeepers to lose around a third of their hives every year on average.
The authors, Kirill Vasin and Mikhail Eremin, contribute to the theory of electronic and structural properties of FeCr2O4 ferrimagnet. Due to the specific quantum state and the symmetry of FeO4 fragment, it has unusual electric and magnetic properties. Below TOO~150K, it lowers the symmetry with the macroscopic deformations due to the cooperative Jahn-Teller effect. The coupling between macroscopic deformation of the crystal FeCr2O4 and its inner ions shifts was revealed.
In a world first, scientists from the University of Sussex have recorded blood oxygen levels in the hippocampus and provided experimental proof for why the area, commonly referred to as 'the brain's memory centre', is vulnerable to damage and degeneration, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.
The basis for this new take on the classification was laid in 1985, when John Long attributed a fossil tooth plate to a new species, Edaphodon eyrensis. The species was named after Lake Eyre, near which the tooth was found in 1978.
Asscoiate Professor Evgeny Popov had his doubts about the attribution. However, he had to study the fossil personally to advance his theory. The opportunity presented itself during a trip to Australia in 2010. The tooth plate was stored in a museum in Adelaide, South Australia.
Metal-organic framework compounds (MOFs) consist of inorganic and organic groups and are characterised by a large number of pores into which other molecules can be incorporated. MOFs are therefore interesting for many applications, for example for the storage of gases, but also for substance separation, sensor technology or catalysis. Some of these MOF structures react to different guest molecules by changing their structures. They are thus considered switchable.