Culture
Cancer patients diagnosed more than 24 months ago are more likely to have a severe COVID-19 infection, research has found. Cancer patients of Asian ethnicity or who were receiving palliative treatment for cancer were also at a higher risk of death from COVID-19.
The research published today in Frontiers in Oncology by researchers at King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation Trust, and supported by the NIHR Guy's and St Thomas' BRC, examined the relationship between cancer and COVID-19.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Your perceptions of someone you just met are influenced in part by what they look like and how they sound.
But can you ignore how someone looks or how they sound if you're told it is not relevant?
Probably not, at least in most cases, a new Ohio State University study found.
For example, some study participants were shown a photo of a face and heard a brief snippet of speech at the same time and were told that the photo and voice belonged to different people.
TORONTO, CANADA - We have known for decades that mental health plays an important role in one's quality of life, but a study released this week suggests it is also an important factor in one's quantity of life.
A new University of Toronto study that followed 12,424 adult Canadians from the mid-1990s until 2011 found that those who were in suboptimal mental health at the beginning of the study died, on average, 4.7 months earlier than their peers who were in excellent mental health.
Pinto beans are good for us. They are nutritious, packed with protein and fiber. They also contain a host of micronutrients like B vitamins and folate.
But being good isn't enough for pinto beans. They also need to look good.
Typically, pinto beans have a striking mottled pattern of dark and light brown. However, the beans can darken after harvesting.
Consumers perceive pinto beans with darker colors to be older, harder to cook, and less nutritious than lighter beans.
As the SARS-CoV-2 virus, or COVID-19 has unfurled its tentacles across the globe, the severe respiratory and pulmonary disorders associated with the infection have become well known. However, recent case studies also have strongly suggested the presence of cerebrovascular-neurological dysfunction in COVID-19 patients, including large artery ischemic strokes that originate in one of the brain's larger blood-supplying arteries such as the carotid.
Dr. Herbert asks what if our genome was far smarter than everyone previously believed? What if in the many DNA repeat elements lay the foundation for building a novel type of biocomputer? This approach would enable calculations performed with self-renewing wetware rather than stone-cold hardware, opening the door to logic circuits based on DNA that flips from one state to another, analogous to the way silicon switches "on" and "off".
Mental health declined substantially after the first month of COVID-19 lockdown, a survey of UK households published today in The Lancet Psychiatry journal suggests.
Among the 17,452 people who responded to the survey, the average level of mental distress increased in April 2020, compared to average scores before the pandemic (1.1 point increase in average mental distress score, from 11.5/36 points to 12.6/36 points). This increase in mental distress was 0.5 points higher than would be expected based on upward trends that have been observed over the past five years.
A research team led by Osaka University investigated the formation ages of 59 lunar craters with a diameter of approximately 20 km using the Terrain Camera (TC) onboard the lunar orbiter spacecraft Kaguya.
Kaguya (formerly SELENE, for SELenological and ENgineering Explorer), is a Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) lunar orbiter mission.
Women who do not need pain relief during childbirth may be carriers of a key genetic variant that acts a natural epidural, say scientists at the University of Cambridge. In a study published today in the journal Cell Reports, the researchers explain how the variant limits the ability of nerve cells to send pain signals to the brain.
Childbirth is widely recognised as a painful experience. However, every woman's experience of labour and birth is unique, and the level of discomfort and pain experienced during labour varies substantially between women.
WASHINGTON, July 21, 2020 -- Machine learning performed by neural networks is a popular approach to developing artificial intelligence, as researchers aim to replicate brain functionalities for a variety of applications.
A paper in the journal Applied Physics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, proposes a new approach to perform computations required by a neural network, using light instead of electricity. In this approach, a photonic tensor core performs multiplications of matrices in parallel, improving speed and efficiency of current deep learning paradigms.
Stimulating the fingertip rhythmically for a sustained period of time, markedly improves touch sensitivity of this finger. A research team led by Associate Professor Dr. Hubert Dinse at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) analysed the impact of this process in the brain. Using electroencephalography (EEG), the scientists recorded neuronal activity of brain areas associated with tactile processing. They were able to observe changes in activity over time - possibly illustrating a learning process. The team reported their findings in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience on 30 June 2020.
Tastier pork comes from pigs that eat the barley left over after making the Japanese liquor shochu. A team of professional brewers and academic farmers state that nutrients in the leftover fermented barley may reduce the animals' stress, resulting in better tasting sirloin and fillets.
Ros Wong, from Flinders University's Climate and Sustainability Policy Research (CASPR) group, was part of a team conducting research across four countries to understand the extent to which COVID-19 restrictions affect women and men differently.
"Women have had to endure additional burdens associated with both paid and unpaid work, often without consideration or the alleviation of other life responsibilities," says Ms Wong, who has completed her PhD at Flinders University this year.
Over the past decades, "storing light" has appeared as a rather controversial statement, given that a photon's inherent nature hinders its spatial confinement. The first research efforts in demonstrating optical memory functionality started as a fascinating experimental exercise and two decades later the remarkable achievements of integrated optical memories and optical random access memories (RAMs) introduced a new roadmap for light-based information storage that can offer fast access times, high bandwidth and seamless cooperation with optical interconnect lines.
The last few months have been particularly difficult for people living in a violent relationship.
But a few glimmers of hope are finally emerging from the coronavirus nightmare.
"For a lot of people, the shutdown has been an extreme situation with a lot of stress. Those of us who work with people on anger management have felt really concerned about what might be going on within the four walls of their homes," says Merete Berg Nesset.