Culture

Houston - (Nov 18, 2020) - On behalf of Childhood Liver Disease Research Network (ChiLDReN), Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine researchers report that prolonged treatment with Maraxilibat resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in debilitating itching (pruritus) and related quality of life outcomes in children with Alagille syndrome. This syndrome is a rare genetic systemic disorder in which problems with bile flow can cause significant liver injury and potential liver failure necessitating liver transplantation.

FINDINGS

UCLA scientists and colleagues found the use of long-acting antipsychotic medication combined with the use of cognitive training in group settings led to improved cognition and increased productivity.

Researchers say patients using a combination of long-acting antipsychotic medication and a multipronged cognitive remediation that taught memory and problem-solving skills had significant improvements in work and school function.

BACKGROUND

Scientists are still solving the many puzzling aspects of how the novel coronavirus attacks the lungs and other parts of the body. One of the biggest and most life-threatening mysteries is how the virus causes "silent hypoxia," a condition when oxygen levels in the body are abnormally low, which can irreparably damage vital organs if gone undetected for too long. Now, thanks to computer models and comparisons with real patient data, Boston University biomedical engineers and collaborators from the University of Vermont have begun to crack the mystery.

ORLANDO, Nov. 19, 2020 - New research from the University of Central Florida has identified physiological features that could make people super-spreaders of viruses such as COVID-19.

In a study appearing this month in the journal Physics of Fluids, researchers in UCF's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering used computer-generated models to numerically simulate sneezes in different types of people and determine associations between people's physiological features and how far their sneeze droplets travel and linger in the air.

A new study from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Shamir Medical Center in Israel indicates that hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBOT) in healthy aging adults can stop the aging of blood cells and reverse the aging process. In the biological sense, the adults' blood cells actually grow younger as the treatments progress.

Researchers at UPF have analysed the relationship between civil society organizations and the Spanish science and technology system. The study has been published in Public Understanding of Science and conducted by Carolina Llorente and Gema Revuelta, at the Science, Communication and Society Studies Centre (CCS-UPF), and Mar Carrió, of the Health Sciences Educational Research Group (GRECS).

Rotavirus is a major cause of diarrhea and vomiting, especially in children, that results in approximately 128,000 deaths annually. The virus triggers the disease by infecting enterocyte cells in the small intestine, but only a fraction of the susceptible cells has the virus. In the mid-90s, scientists proposed that the small portion of infected cells promotes severe disease by sending out signals that disrupt the normal function of neighboring uninfected cells, but the nature of the signal has remained a mystery.

Predicting preterm birth can be difficult, especially for women who have not given birth. It has long been known that the best predictor of preterm birth is someone who has had a prior preterm birth; however, this information is helpful only in second and subsequent pregnancies. For women in their first pregnancy, it is a challenge for obstetricians and midwives to advise them on their risks. To address this issue, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital studied how family history can predict preterm birth.

URBANA, Ill. - College students are significantly less likely to be food insecure than non-students in the same age group, according to a new study from the University of Illinois.

"College hunger" has been widely reported in the media, and several studies found very high food insecurity rates among college students, sometimes up to 50 or 60%. "That did not make sense to those of us doing research on food insecurity, so I wanted to check those findings," says Craig Gundersen, agricultural economist at U of I.

In a new publication from Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications; DOI https://doi.org/10.15212/CVIA.2019.0596, Diyu Cui, Yimeng Liao, Jianlin Du and Yunqing Chen from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China consider major complications between traditional pacemakers and leadless pacemakers.

The World Health Organization developed the new Labour Care Guide to support clinicians in providing good quality, women-centred care during labour and childbirth. In a study published in Birth, researchers evaluated the usability, feasibility, and acceptability of the new Labour Care Guide for maternity care providers in six countries.

The work of Leonardo Da Vinci is an invaluable heritage of the 15th century. From engineering to anatomy, the master paved the way for many scientific disciplines. But what else could the drawings of Da Vinci teach us? Could molecular studies reveal interesting data from the past?

Philadelphia, November 20, 2020--Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have resolved a severe lymphatic disorder in a girl with Noonan Syndrome that had led to upper gastrointestinal bleeding, fluid collection around the lungs, and numerous surgeries that had been unable to resolve her symptoms. By identifying a genetic mutation along a pathway related to lymphatic vessel development and function, the research team was able to target the pathway using an existing drug they had used in a previous case to remodel a patient's lymphatic system.

A new synthetic probe offers a safe and straightforward approach for visualizing chromosome tips in living cells. The probe was designed by scientists at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Science (iCeMS) and colleagues at Kyoto University, and could advance research into aging and a wide range of diseases, including cancers. The details were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

It will come as no surprise to anyone living in Phoenix, Arizona, that 2020 has been a record-breaking year for high temperatures. According to the National Weather Service, in 2020 the Phoenix area has surpassed all previous years for average high temperatures and excessive heat warnings.

With the combined oppressive heat and COVID-19 restrictions on travel and indoor activities like movies and restaurants, many people have turned to urban parks for outdoor recreation.