Culture
Climate change impacts, affecting primarily ecosystems' functions and consequently human sectors, have become a crucial topic. Observed and expected variations in climate conditions can in fact undermine the ecosystems' ecological equilibrium: average climate patterns, mainly represented by intra-annual (monthly to seasonal) temperature and precipitation cycle, directly influence the distribution, abundance and interactions of biological species.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Use of the diabetes drug metformin -- before a diagnosis of COVID-19 -- is associated with a threefold decrease in mortality in COVID-19 patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to a racially diverse study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Diabetes is a significant comorbidity for COVID-19.
"This beneficial effect remained, even after correcting for age, sex, race, obesity, and hypertension or chronic kidney disease and heart failure," said Anath Shalev, M.D., director of UAB's Comprehensive Diabetes Center and leader of the study.
Ignoring a colleague's greeting or making a sarcastic comment in the workplace may actually do more harm than intended, according to West Virginia University research.
Perceived low-grade forms of workplace mistreatment, such as avoiding eye contact or excluding a coworker from conversation, can amplify suicidal thoughts in employees with mood disorders, based on a study by Kayla Follmer, assistant professor of management, and Jake Follmer, assistant professor of educational psychology.
A team of biophysicists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Penn State College of Medicine set out to tackle the long-standing question about the nature of force generation by myosin, the molecular motor responsible for muscle contraction and many other cellular processes. The key question they addressed - one of the most controversial topics in the field - was: how does myosin convert chemical energy, in the form of ATP, into mechanical work?
The answer revealed new details into how myosin, the engine of muscle and related motor proteins, transduces energy.
Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star. By using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time of the stellar detonation.
In addition to a skin rash, many eczema sufferers also experience chronic itching, but sometimes that itching can become torturous. Worse, antihistamines -- the standard treatment for itching and allergy -- often don't help.
The sun is the only star in our system. But many of the points of light in our night sky are not as lonely. By some estimates, more than three-quarters of all stars exist as binaries -- with one companion -- or in even more complex relationships. Stars in close quarters can have dramatic impacts on their neighbors. They can strip material from one another, merge or twist each other's movements through the cosmos.
And sometimes those changes unfold over the course of a few generations.
BOSTON - Studies with a popular laboratory model, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, have revealed a possible therapeutic avenue for a rare but deadly condition in which children are born without the ability to make molybdenum cofactor (Moco) on their own.
Anthropologist Caleb Everett and former student Sihan Chen used a novel data analysis of thousands of languages, in addition to studying a unique subset of celebrities, to reveal how a soft food diet--contrasted with the diet of hunter-gatherers--is restructuring dentition and changing how people speak.
DARIEN, IL - Editors of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine have identified some of the most significant articles in the publication's history, publishing new commentaries on them in a special 15th anniversary collection. The 15 commentaries from associate editors and members of the journal's editorial board describe the impact of the selected articles both at the time of their publication and today.
A clinical trial involving COVID-19 patients hospitalized at UT Health San Antonio and University Health, among roughly 100 sites globally, found that a combination of the drugs baricitinib and remdesivir reduced time to recovery, according to results published Dec. 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Six researchers from UT Health San Antonio and University Health are coauthors of the publication because of the San Antonio site's sizable patient enrollment in the trial.
Certain snakes have evolved a unique genetic trick to avoid being eaten by venomous snakes, according to University of Queensland research.
Associate Professor Bryan Fry from UQ's Toxin Evolution Lab said the technique worked in a manner similar to the way two sides of a magnet repel each other.
"The target of snake venom neurotoxins is a strongly negatively charged nerve receptor," Dr Fry said.
"This has caused neurotoxins to evolve with positively charged surfaces, thereby guiding them to the neurological target to produce paralysis.
"The lotus roots may break, but the fiber remains joined" is an old Chinese saying that reflects the unique structure and mechanical properties of the lotus fiber. The outstanding mechanical properties of lotus fibers can be attributed to their unique spiral structure, which provides an attractive model for biomimetic design of artificial fibers.
Families are complicated. For members of the Alligatoridae family, which includes living caimans and alligators - this is especially true. They are closely related, but because of their similarity, their identification can even stump paleontologists.
But after the recent discovery of a partial skull, the caimans of years past may provide some clarity into the complex, and incomplete, history of its relatives and their movements across time and space.
Researchers from University of Stavanger, University of Melbourne, and University of Wisconsin-Madison published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how major projects undertaken by temporary organizations can be better managed so that cost overruns are minimized.
The study forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing is titled "Mobilizing the Temporary Organization: The Governance Roles of Selection and Pricing" and is authored by Elham Ghazimatin, Erik Mooi, and Jan Heide.