Culture
The most distant quasar known has been discovered. The quasar, observed just 670 million years after the Big Bang, is 1000 times more luminous than the Milky Way. It is powered by the earliest known supermassive black hole, which weighs in at more than 1.6 billion times the mass of the Sun. Seen more than 13 billion years ago, this fully formed distant quasar is also the earliest yet discovered, providing astronomers with insight into the formation of massive galaxies in the early Universe. The result was released today at the January 2021 meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Curiosity has been found to play a role in our learning and emotional well-being, but due to the open-ended nature of how curiosity is actually practiced, measuring it is challenging. Psychological studies have attempted to gauge participants' curiosity through their engagement in specific activities, such as asking questions, playing trivia games, and gossiping. However, such methods focus on quantifying a person's curiosity rather than understanding the different ways it can be expressed.
Crowdsourced Responses from Dermatologists on Twitter Found to be as Effective as Formal Telemedicine
A recent statewide survey of Californians uncovered that 30% of Black adults and 13% of Hispanic adults felt that they have been judged or treated differently by a health care provider because of their race/ethnicity or language. One out of six Black and Latino Californians were more likely to report strong mistrust of their health care providers. Researchers at the Charles R.
Traditional gendered patterns of child care persisted during the COVID-19 shutdown, with more than a third of couples relying on women to provide most or all of it, according to a study from University of Georgia researcher Kristen Shockley.
Some previous research has found that typical familial patterns may get upended during crises, but that's not what Shockley and her colleagues found in the early months of the COVID-19 shutdown.
A rapid, evidence-based review summarizes the effectiveness of cloth masks in protecting health care clinicians from respiratory viral infections, such as COVID-19. Nine studies were included in the review, and all but one were conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The only randomized trial of cloth face masks published at the time of this review compared the infection rates of influenza-like illness among groups of health care professionals who wore cloth masks, medical masks, or inconsistent mask use in the hospital setting.
Despite having some of the densest living spaces and the highest number of international visitors, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beijing have utilized their respective primary health care systems to keep their COVID-19 cases and deaths relatively low. Researchers studied the primary health care systems in the three cities to identify features of each system that other cities can use as examples to prepare for and prevent deaths in future health crises.
URBANA, Ill. - Soil erosion is a major challenge in agricultural production. It affects soil quality and carries nutrient sediments that pollute waterways. While soil erosion is a naturally occurring process, agricultural activities such as conventional tilling exacerbate it. Farmers implementing no-till practices can significantly reduce soil erosion rates, a new University of Illinois study shows.
Harmful medical practices, like inappropriate prescribing of opioids and racial and income-based discrimination in clinical settings, can vary across medical practices and individuals. Patients may find that even common primary care health services, like getting a chest x-rays or a referral to a heart or lung specialist, can differ widely depending on your doctor or clinic location.
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 5, 2021 -- Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have developed a new deep-learning framework that predicts gene regulation at the single-cell level.
Yale researchers have devised a way to peer into the brains of two people simultaneously while are engaged in discussion. What they found will not surprise anyone who has found themselves arguing about politics or social issues.
A pioneering study by University of Bristol researchers finds that the evolution of teeth in the giant prehistoric shark Megalodon and its relatives was a by-product of becoming huge, rather than an adaptation to new feeding habits.
The iconic extinct Megalodon was the largest shark to ever roam the seas. Its name translates to 'big tooth', making reference to its massive teeth, which represent the most abundant fossil remains of the species. They are broad and triangular, nothing like the curved, blade-like teeth of the closest relatives of Megalodon.
DURHAM, N.C. - Glioblastoma brain tumors are especially perplexing. Inevitably lethal, the tumors occasionally respond to new immunotherapies after they've grown back, enabling up to 20% of patients to live well beyond predicted survival times.
What causes this effect has long been the pursuit of researchers hoping to harness immunotherapies to extend more lives.
College campuses are at risk of becoming COVID-19 superspreaders for their entire county, according to a new vast study which shows the striking danger of the first two weeks of school in particular.
Looking at 30 campuses across the nation with the highest amount of reported cases, experts saw that over half of the institutions had spikes - at their peak - which were well above 1,000 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per week within the first two weeks of class.
Today, the largest study of genetic diversity in Ukraine was published in the open science journal GigaScience. The project was an international effort, bringing together researchers in Ukraine, the US and China and is the first fruits of this collaboration to set up a new Central Europe Center for Genomic Research in Ukraine.