Culture

Researchers from the Universities of Melbourne, York, Warwick and Oxford have shed light on how encapsulated viruses like hepatitis B, dengue and SARS-CoV-2 hijack the protein manufacturing and distribution pathways in the cell - they have also identified a potential broad spectrum anti-viral drug target to stop them in their tracks.

The findings have been published in PNAS today and are important to efforts to develop broad-spectrum antiviral agents.

What The Study Did: Clinicians in the U.S. were interviewed and described their experiences of planning and providing care for patients in settings of limited resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authors: Catherine R. Butler, M.D., M.A., of the University of Washington in Seattle, 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/jamanetworkopen.2020.27315)

What The Study Did: Researchers assessed changes in birth rates by income level among commercially insured women before and after the elimination of cost sharing for contraception under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Authors: Vanessa K. Dalton, M.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, 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/jamanetworkopen.2020.24398)

Neuroscientists at UCL have used laser beams to "switch on" neurons in mice, providing new insight into the hidden workings of memory and showing how memories underpin the brain's inner GPS system.

The study, published in the journal Cell, explains how researchers harnessed an 'all-optical' approach using twin lasers to simultaneously read and write the activity of 'place cells' (a type of neuron) in mice, as they navigated a virtual reality environment.

ATLANTA -- Results from a large, international survey shows that only a small fraction of children with rheumatic diseases reported contracting COVID-19. Those who did become infected with COVID-19 all had benign outcomes and did not develop significant complications, despite the fact that most children were taking immunosuppressive medications.

ATLANTA -- New research presented at ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting, shows that tuberculosis (TB) screening and ongoing clinical care is needed for people on methotrexate who live in areas where the highly infectious illness is common. Methotrexate users who also take corticosteroids or other immunosuppressant therapies are at particular risk and need adequate TB screening (ABSTRACT #0223).

3D printing has seen great advancements in various aspects over the past few decades, and many industries have seen innovative breakthroughs in their respective fields. Amongst them, the water treatment industry has also reaped benefits off the prospects of 3D printing. High performance spacers and membranes can be fabricated by 3D printing, and they help increase permeate production while minimising energy consumption in purification processes.

An international team of scientists has used ancient DNA samples to elucidate the population history of dogs. The results show that dogs had already diverged into at least five distinct lineages by about 11,000 years ago and that their early population history only partially reflects that of human groups.

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers have developed photoresponsive derivatives of the anticancer drug Taxol®, which allow light-based control of cytoskeleton dynamics in neurons. The agents can optically pattern cell division and may elucidate how Taxol acts.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have shown for the first time that stimulating expression of a protein naturally produced by the human body can be a strategy to combat loss of skeletal muscle mass, which happens normally with aging but can intensify in cases of neurodegenerative or inflammatory disease, or in patients who spend long periods in intensive care units (ICUs).

Solving the equations of general relativity for colliding black holes is no simple matter.

Physicists began using supercomputers to obtain solutions to this famously hard problem back in the 1960s. In 2000, with no solutions in sight, Kip Thorne, 2018 Nobel Laureate and one of the designers of LIGO, famously bet that there would be an observation of gravitational waves before a numerical solution was reached.

The incidence of dementia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is lower in patients receiving biologic or targeted synthetic disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) than in patients who receive conventional synthetic DMARDs, according to a new study. The study was presented at the virtual annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.

In a current opinion article "Reduction of environmental pollutants for prevention of cardiovascular disease: it's time to act", published in the European Heart Journal this week, a group of international environmental researchers from the University Medical Center of Mainz (Thomas Münzel and Andreas Daiber), from the University/BHF Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Mar Miller), the Diet, Genes and Environment, Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark (Mette Sørensen), the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Atmospheric Chemistry

MISSOULA - Warmer winters, earlier springs, shrinking ice and increased human development - the Arctic is undergoing dramatic changes impacting native animals. And now, scientists can track the movements of thousands of Arctic and sub-Arctic animals over three decades with the new global Arctic Animal Movement Archive.

November 6, 2020 - Botulinum toxin - best known by the brand name Botox - is a popular treatment to reduce facial lines and wrinkles. Over the years, plastic surgeons have explored alternative approaches to maximize effectiveness while minimizing side effects of botulinum toxin injection, including smaller doses and more-diluted concentrations.