Culture
ITHACA, N.Y. - Biological systems come in all shapes, sizes and structures. Some of these structures, such as those found in DNA, RNA and proteins, are formed through complex molecular interactions that are not easily duplicated by inorganic materials.
A new pilot study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai suggests that COVID-19 is causing significant dilation of the blood vessels of the lung, specifically the capillaries. This vasodilation is contributing to the very low oxygen levels seen in COVID-19 respiratory failure and also helps explain why the disease behaves differently than classic acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The study was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
One of the top four crops grown worldwide, soybean has been an integral part of Chinese agriculture for a long time, having been domesticated more than 6000 years ago. During the domestication process, certain traits are selected that make plants easier to cultivate and cook and other traits can be lost. Wild ancestors of domesticated crops can be important reservoirs of agronomic traits that have been lost. This is especially important when it comes to disease resistance.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new Oregon State University study suggests that firefighters are more likely to be exposed to potentially harmful chemicals while on duty compared to off duty.
The on-duty firefighters in the Kansas City, Missouri, area experienced higher exposures of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are a family of chemicals that are known to have the potential to cause cancer. They were also exposed to 18 PAHs that have not been previously reported as firefighting exposures in earlier research.
Over the course of the coronavirus epidemic, COVID-19 outbreaks have hit communities across the United States. As clusters of infection shift over time, local officials are forced into a whack-a-mole approach to allocating resources and enacting public health policies. In a new study led by the University of Utah, geographers published the first effort to conduct daily surveillance of emerging COVID-19 hotspots for every county in the contiguous U.S.
The statistics are sobering. More than 14 million American adults suffer from some form of alcohol use disorder (AUD), a chronic inability to stop or control alcohol use despite the negative consequences. This is according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a part of the National Institutes of Health.
The causes of AUD are complex and can include a mix of genetic, environmental, and social factors, including a family history of alcoholism. This familial effect, however, may be more complicated than first assumed.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2020 -- The construction industry is currently facing two major challenges: the demand for sustainable infrastructure and the need to repair deteriorating buildings, bridges and roads. While concrete is the material of choice for many construction projects, it has a large carbon footprint, resulting in high waste and energy expenditure. Today, researchers report progress toward a sustainable building material made from local soil, using a 3D printer to create a load-bearing structure.
When paleontologists digging in a quarry in southwestern China uncovered the nearly complete skeleton of a giant, dolphin-like marine reptile known as an ichthyosaur, they didn't expect to find another fossil in its stomach. This second skeleton belonged to a four-meter-long, lizard-like aquatic reptile known as a thalattosaur and is one of the longest fossils ever found in the stomach of a prehistoric marine reptile.
Some 240 million years ago, a dolphin-like ichthyosaur ripped to pieces and swallowed another marine reptile only a little smaller than itself. Then it almost immediately died and was fossilized, preserving the first evidence of megapredation, or a large animal preying on another large animal. The fossil, discovered in 2010 in southwestern China, is described in a paper published Aug. 20 in the journal iScience.
Scientists studying leaves from a 23-million-year-old forest have for the first time linked high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide with increased plant growth, and the hot climate off the time. The finding adds to the understanding of how rising CO2 heats the earth, and how the dynamics of plant life could shift within decades, when CO2 levels may closely mirror those of the distant past.
Analysis of three mummified animals - a cat, a bird and a snake - from Ancient Egypt using advanced 3D X-ray imaging is described in a paper published in Scientific Reports. The technique provides insights into the conditions in which the animals were kept, their complex mummification process and their possible causes of death, without causing damage to the specimens.
Three mummified animals from ancient Egypt have been digitally unwrapped and dissected by researchers, using high-resolution 3D scans that give unprecedented detail about the animals' lives - and deaths - over 2000 years ago.
The three animals - a snake, a bird and a cat - are from the collection held by the Egypt Centre at Swansea University. Previous investigations had identified which animals they were, but very little else was known about what lay inside the mummies.
What The Study Did: An estimate of the number of African American students who would have graduated from historically Black medical schools that were closed during the period surrounding the 1910 Flexner report was the main outcome of this study.
Authors: Kendall M. Campbell, M.D., of East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the United States. The U.S. accounts for about 25 percent of COVID-19 cases (4.4 million) and deaths (170,000) in the world today while comprising less than 5 percent of the population.
Materials scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have invented a new type of surgical glue that can help join blood vessels and close wounds faster and may also serve as a platform to deliver pain relief drugs.
In a paper published in Elsevier's Biomaterials in July jointly with clinicians from Singapore General Hospital (SGH), the NTU researchers showed that their glue can bond soft tissues including muscle and blood vessels, even when their surfaces are wet.