Culture

More extroverted people suffered mood declines while more introverted people saw mood improvements during the early COVID-19 pandemic, in survey of students at a U.S. university.

In Slovakia, in counties subject to two rounds of rapid antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 where those who tested positive then isolated, the approach helped decrease the prevalence of positive tests by more than 50% in a week - all while primary schools and workplaces remained open. "While it was impossible to disentangle the precise contribution of control measures and mass testing," the authors said, mass testing is likely to have had a substantial effect, their modeling showed. Applying mass testing may provide a valuable tool in future containment of SARS-CoV-2 elsewhere, they say.

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, March 23, 2021 - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have found that the Pfizer Coronavirus vaccine is moderately less effective against the South African variant, but still neutralizes the British variant and the original SARS-CoV-2 strain.

Their research was just published in the prestigious journal Cell Host and Microbe.

Glioma is a fatal neurological disorder that has limited interventional treatment, despite extensive research over the past several decades. A research team led by Dr. Gong Chen, a former professor at Penn State University and now leading a brain repair center at Jinan University in China, has developed a novel gene therapy to reprogram glioma cells into functional neurons, shedding new light on glioma treatment. The work has been published in Cancer Biology & Medicine on March 22, 2021

Scientists have developed a pioneering new procedure that will help diagnose a potentially lethal fungal lung disease with greater speed and accuracy, and with less distress to the patient.

A team of international scientists, including Professor Chris Thornton from the University of Exeter, has created a new diagnostic procedure for pulmonary aspergillosis.

Aspergillus is a common mold readily found worldwide in a variety of environments, such as soil and decaying plant material, and can easily be inhaled as air-borne spores in everyday life.

Serious complications due to blood clots, such as heart attacks and strokes, that are experienced by some COVID-19 survivors may be caused by a lingering immune response in the blood vessels after recovery, suggests a study published today in eLife.

The findings may help explain why some COVID-19 survivors, so-called 'long-haulers', report lasting COVID-19 symptoms or why some experience strokes or heart attacks weeks or months after recovery. They may also suggest potential strategies to help prevent these complications.

A study of young men with COVID-19 has revealed a genetic variant linked to disease severity.

The discovery, published recently in eLife, means that men with severe disease could be genetically screened to identify who has the variant and may benefit from interferon treatment.

For most people, COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, causes only mild or no symptoms. However, severe cases can rapidly progress towards respiratory distress syndrome.

New research from Copenhagen Business School finds sexual harassment in the workplace severely hurts company value.

"Sexual harassment has serious consequences for the victim. But it is also something managers and investors should be interested in for purely financial reasons, as it can wipe off enormous amounts of market value in a matter of days," says Associate Professor Ulf Nielsson from the Department of Finance at Copenhagen Business School.

Maps generally indicate elevation in meters above sea level. But sea level is not the same everywhere. A group of experts headed by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has developed an International Height Reference System (IHRS) that will unify geodetic measurements worldwide.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - March 22, 2021 - The fear, anxiety and stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on mental health. But a new study suggests these symptoms may be alleviated through safe and convenient online mindfulness practices.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Global Advances in Health and Medicine, shows that an online mindfulness intervention may reduce momentary stress, anxiety and COVID-19 concern.

Fatigue, depression, sleep disorders, burnout: the number of cases where employees are unable to work for mental health-related reasons has increased dramatically in recent years. Professor Sascha Alavi, Chair at the Sales Management Department (SMD), has long been keeping a critical eye on this development in society, especially in the corporate world. Together with his former PhD student Dr.

The possibly oldest cephalopods in the earth's history stem from the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland (Canada). They were discovered by earth scientists from Heidelberg University. The 522 million-year-old fossils could turn out to be the first known form of these highly evolved invertebrate organisms, whose living descendants today include species such as the cuttlefish, octopus and nautilus. In that case, the find would indicate that the cephalopods evolved about 30 million years earlier than has been assumed.

In the hours after we die, certain cells in the human brain are still active. Some cells even increase their activity and grow to gargantuan proportions, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago.

In a newly published study in the journal Scientific Reports, the UIC researchers analyzed gene expression in fresh brain tissue -- which was collected during routine brain surgery -- at multiple times after removal to simulate the post-mortem interval and death. They found that gene expression in some cells actually increased after death.

Potassium is an essential nutrient for all living things. Plants need it in large quantities, especially for growth and in order to withstand stress better. For this reason, they absorb large quantities of potassium from the soil. In agriculture, this leads to a lack of available potassium in the soil - which is why the mineral is an important component in fertilizers.

A number of studies have shown that human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19, appear to attack neurons and the nervous system in vulnerable populations. This neuroinvasion through the nasal cavity leads to the risk of neurological disorders in affected individuals.