Culture
Aaron Lojewski, who leads aurora sightseeing tours in Alaska, was lucky enough to photograph a "eruption" of brilliant pink light in the night skies one night in February.
The same perturbations of the Earth's magnetic field that lit up the sky for Lojewski's camera were also captured by seismometers on the ground, a team of researchers reports in the journal Seismological Research Letters.
A new University of Maryland-led study shows that subsidies can help people continually purchase insurance products, but only if they have the financial literacy to understand the benefits of the policy and have the experience of seeing the benefits in action. In a new paper published in American Economic Review, researchers conducted the first ever experimental study to look at the impact of subsidy policies on insurance policy adoption.
WORCESTER, MA - UMass Medical School researchers Zhiping Weng, PhD, and Jill Moore, PhD, and MD/PhD students Michael Purcaro and Henry Pratt are lead authors on the latest publication of data from the ambitious ENCODE project. Collaborating with other members of the ENCODE consortium, the UMMS team used computational biology to identify functional elements in the human genome.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine are among the contributors to a package of 10 studies, published July 29, 2020 in the journal Nature, describing the latest results from the ongoing Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a worldwide effort led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to understand how the human genome functions.
Shade from urban trees has long been understood to offer respite from the urban heat island effect, a phenomenon that can result in city centers that are 1-3 degrees Centigrade warmer than surrounding areas. Less frequently discussed, however, are the effects of tree transpiration in combination with the heterogeneous landscapes that constitute the built environment.
The classic dinosaur family tree has two subdivisions of early dinosaurs at its base: the Ornithischians, or bird-hipped dinosaurs, which include the later Triceratops and Stegosaurus; and the Saurischians, or lizard-hipped dinosaurs, such as Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus.
In 2017, however, this classical view of dinosaur evolution was thrown into question with evidence that perhaps the lizard-hipped dinosaurs evolved first -- a finding that dramatically rearranged the first major branches of the dinosaur family tree.
A consensus statement published today in JAMA Dermatology by an international group of melanoma researchers evaluates the use of prognostic genetic expression profile (GEP) testing to guide clinical management of patients with melanoma. The group cautioned against routine use of currently available GEP tests for patients with cutaneous melanoma.
Of the first confirmed COVID-19 case in each affected country outside mainland China, almost two thirds had travel links to Italy, China, or Iran.
Study suggests 1 in 4 of these first cases originated in Italy, and 1 in 5 in China.
Many small clusters of household transmission were reported among early cases, but clusters in occupational and community settings tended to be larger--supporting the role of physical distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Florida State University Professor of Biological Science David Gilbert is using the latest information about the human genome as a guide to better understand cancer.
Gilbert and his FSU colleagues were part of a team that compared different cancer cell types to a database of normal human cells using a new method he developed that can identify the cell type from which cancers derive. By comparing various cancer cells to the collection of normal cells, they were able to tell which cancers mostly closely matched different cell types.
Jared Talbot is part of a 32-member international research team that identified a gene that, when altered, can cause bent fingers and toes, clubfoot, scoliosis, and short stature.
The team discovered that partial loss of the protein coding gene MYLPF (myosin light chain, phosphorylatable, fast skeletal muscle) results in a disorder called distal arthrogryposis (DA) that's present at birth.
While Einstein's theory of general relativity can explain a large array of fascinating astrophysical and cosmological phenomena, some aspects of the properties of the universe at the largest-scales remain a mystery. A new study using loop quantum cosmology--a theory that uses quantum mechanics to extend gravitational physics beyond Einstein's theory of general relativity--accounts for two major mysteries. While the differences in the theories occur at the tiniest of scales--much smaller than even a proton--they have consequences at the largest of accessible scales in the universe.
Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary below is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.
1. Cardiac Endotheliitis and Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome After COVID-19
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 29, 2020--A multi-institution team has used positron beams to probe the nature of radiation effects, providing new insight into how damage is produced in iron films. This exploration can improve the safety of materials used in nuclear reactors and other radiation environments.
As schools prepare to reopen and more people are heading back to their offices and shared work spaces, Syracuse University Professor Jianshun "Jensen" Zhang offers a three-step plan to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) and help prevent the spread of COVID indoors.
Zhang's plan is detailed in a recent editorial published in the journal "Science and Technology for the Built Environment" called "Integrating IAQ control strategies to reduce the risk of asymptomatic SARS CoV-2 infections in classrooms and open plan offices."
Women receiving standard treatment in New York City for ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers are not at increased risk of being hospitalized for or dying from COVID-19 due to their cancer, a new study shows. The researchers found that neither having cancer nor receiving treatment for it, which can come with its own toxicities, worsened COVID-19 disease outcomes.