Culture

Paris, Nairobi, London, 29 March 2021 - Five major cooling suppliers are racing to net zero but they represent fewer than ten per cent of the 54 suppliers assessed in a new report, meaning the industry has a lot of work to do to catch up on climate action and reduce pollution from the sector, currently estimated at 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the biggest longitudinal research studies of its kind in the world led by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) suggests that positive outcomes for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more common than previously thought.

It's no secret. Colorado's forests have had a tough time in recent years. While natural disturbances such as insect outbreaks and wildfires occurred historically and maintained forest health over time, multiple, simultaneous insect disturbances in the greater region over the past two decades have led to rapid changes in the state's forests.

Below please find links to new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. All coronavirus-related content published in Annals of Internal Medicine is free to the public. A complete collection is available at
https://annals.org/aim/pages/coronavirus-content.

A growing number of young people are identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community, and many are challenging binaries in gender and sexual identity to reflect a broader spectrum of experience beyond man or woman and gay or straight. But not everyone is participating equally in these diverse forms of expression, according to new research from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Humans are creating or exacerbating the environmental conditions that could lead to further pandemics, new University of Sydney research finds.

Modelling from the Sydney School of Veterinary Science suggests pressure on ecosystems, climate change and economic development are key factors associated with the diversification of pathogens (disease-causing agents, like viruses and bacteria). This has potential to lead to disease outbreaks.

An international survey that included 600 smokers in the UK has found that cessation messaging focused on easing the burden on our health system is most effective in encouraging people to quit.

The research, which was conducted in April-May 2020, randomly assigned participants to view one of four quit smoking messages, two of which explicitly referenced health implications and COVID-19, one referred more vaguely to risk of chest infection, and one highlighted financial motivations for quitting.

Some 8,300 million metric tons of plastics have been manufactured since production exploded in the 1950s, with more than 75 percent ending up as waste and 15 million metric tons reaching oceans every year. Plastic waste fragments into increasingly smaller but environmentally persistent "microplastics," with potentially harmful effects on the health of people, wildlife and ecosystems.

New observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) indicate that the rogue comet 2I/Borisov, which is only the second and most recently detected interstellar visitor to our Solar System, is one of the most pristine ever observed. Astronomers suspect that the comet most likely never passed close to a star, making it an undisturbed relic of the cloud of gas and dust it formed from.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A reproducibility crisis is ongoing in scientific research, where many studies may be difficult or impossible to replicate and thereby validate, especially when the study involves a very large sample size. For example, to evaluate the validity of a high-throughput genetic study's findings scientists must be able to replicate the study and achieve the same results.

IIASA researchers have used Sentinel 1 satellite imagery from the European Space Agency to produce a map of the extent and year of detection of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand that will help policymakers and other stakeholders understand trends in oil palm expansion while also providing an accurate map for landscape-level planning.

RESTON, Va. - Greater sage-grouse populations have declined significantly over the last six decades, with an 80% rangewide decline since 1965 and a nearly 40% decline since 2002, according to a new report by the U.S. Geological Survey. Although the overall trend clearly shows continued population declines over the entire range of the species, rates of change do vary regionally.

What The Study Did: Researchers investigated COVID-19 vaccine intentions among racially and ethnically diverse samples of health workers and the general population in the San Francisco Bay area.

Authors: Kevin Grumbach, M.D., of the San Francisco General Hospital and University of California, San Francisco, 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.2021.1445)

Working with fruit flies, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have identified a new molecular pathway that helps steer moving cells in specific directions. The set of interconnected proteins and enzymes in the pathway act as steering and rudder components that drive cells toward an "intended" rather than random destination, they say.

Researchers at KU Leuven (Belgium) have succeeded for the first time in measuring brain waves directly via a cochlear implant. These brainwaves indicate in an objective way how good or bad a person's hearing is. The research results are important for the further development of smart hearing aids.