Culture
Not so long ago, astronomers mapped a galaxy far, far away using radio waves and found it has a strikingly familiar shape. In the process, they discovered the object, called TXS 0128+554, experienced two powerful bouts of activity in the last century.
Around five years ago, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reported that TXS 0128+554 (TXS 0128 for short) is a faint source of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. Scientists have since taken a closer look using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Canadians spend big money dealing with the consequences of homelessness, but the money spent could be far more effective. According to a new McGill-led analysis, housing homeless people with severe mental illness is even more cost-effective than housing homeless people with moderate needs. A Housing-First strategy aimed at helping these individuals regain and keep permanent housing generates savings equal to about two-thirds of its cost.
New research from Boston Medical Center highlights the benefits of using health technology to engage African American and Black women earlier in preconception care in an effort to close the gap on racial disparities in birth outcomes and maternal mortality.
CLEVELAND -- Heart failure is a medical condition that results when the heart muscle is not strong enough to effectively circulate blood. A variety of treatments exist to address this disease, yet it continues to carry a poor prognosis. A new study from University Hospitals showed that a person's address can help predict their chance of mortality from heart disease.
Ann Arbor, August 25, 2020 - The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, is committed to publishing the most robust, evidence-based research and commentary on COVID-19 as they unfold to keep readers up to date and aware of issues relevant to community and individual health during this continually evolving global outbreak. All articles featured here are freely available.
Higher rates of e-cigarette and marijuana use in U.S. states did not result in more e-cigarette or vaping-related lung injuries (known as EVALI), a new study from the Yale School of Public Health finds.
URBANA, Ill. - Imagine a tropical forest and you might conjure up tall trees hung with vines, brightly colored birds, howling monkeys, and ... rain. Indeed, precipitation patterns, along with temperature, dictate where tropical forests are distributed around the world, but surprisingly, scientists know very little about the direct effects of rainfall on animals.
An Italian observational study contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the use of hydroxychloroquine in the current pandemic. The research, conducted on 3,451 patients treated in 33 hospitals throughout the Italian territory (list of participating centers attached), shows that the use of this drug reduces by 30% the risk of death in hospitalized patients affected by Covid-19.
Coral conservation efforts could get a boost from a newly developed genotyping "chip"--the first of its kind for corals. The chip allows researchers to genetically identify corals and the symbiotic algae that live within the coral's cells, a vital step for establishing and maintaining genetic diversity in reef restoration efforts.
NEW YORK, NY -- The combination of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZM) has been linked to significant cardiovascular risks, including mortality, in the largest safety study ever performed on both HCQ and HCQ+AZM. This network study, led by the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics community, was recently published in Lancet Rheumatology.
OHDSI has established an international network of researchers and observational health databases with a central coordinating center housed at the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University.
Organizations that use ad hoc groups or committees to make decisions might do better to crowdsource their decisions, says UC Riverside-led research.
The study found that people trust groups even though they are susceptible to manipulation and can make poor decisions. Information markets, in which people bet on potential outcomes, tend to make more accurate decisions, but people trust them less. Once people get used to using markets, however, they trust them more, making markets a useful decision-making tool for large organizations.
The chances of a commercial airliner crashing are vanishingly small -- and yet many people are uncomfortable flying. Vaccination for many common childhood diseases entail almost no risk -- but parents still worry. Human perception of probabilities -- especially very small and very large probabilities -- can be markedly distorted and these distortions can lead to potentially disastrous decisions.
But why we distort probability is unclear. While the question has been previously studied, there is no consensus on its causes.
With over 170,000 COVID-19 deaths to date, and 1,000 more each day, America's life expectancy may appear to be plummeting. But in estimating the magnitude of the pandemic, University of California, Berkeley, demographers have found that COVID-19 is likely to shorten the average U.S. lifespan in 2020 by only about a year.
When UC Santa Barbara materials scientist Omar Saleh and graduate student Ian Morgan sought to understand the mechanical behaviors of disordered proteins in the lab, they expected that after being stretched, one particular model protein would snap back instantaneously, like a rubber band.
Instead, this disordered protein relaxed slowly, taking tens of minutes to relax into its original shape -- a behavior that defied expectations, and hinted at an inner structure that was long thought to exist, but has been difficult to prove.
An international team of researchers led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has upgraded a key computer code for calculating forces acting on magnetically confined plasma in fusion energy experiments. The upgrade will be part of a suite of computational tools that will allow scientists to further improve the design of breakfast-cruller-shaped facilities known as stellarators. Together, the three codes in the suite could help scientists bring efficient fusion reactors closer to reality.