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CLEVELAND - A new Cleveland Clinic study has identified genetic factors that may influence susceptibility to COVID-19. Published today in BMC Medicine, the study findings could guide personalized treatment for COVID-19.
Swansea University researchers have discovered two new species of parasite, previously unknown to science, in crabs in Swansea Bay, during a study on disease in the Celtic and Irish Seas.
Both species are emerging pathogens, and were discovered infecting the common shore crab, so they could potentially have damaging effects on fisheries and other marine species. The researchers' discovery will help inform measures to reduce this risk.
[Wednesday, July 14th Fruita, Colorado] Top predators dinosaurs like the Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus devouring dinosaur remains isn't all that surprising, but the smaller creatures feasting on dinosaur remains may just give us a more complete picture of what life was like at Mygatt-Moore Quarry outside Fruita, Colorado 152 million years ago. A new study out in PeerJ on Wednesday, July 15th, 2020 authored by Museums of Western Colorado's Paleontologist Dr. Julia McHugh, looks at the insect species who feasted on decaying dinosaurs back in the Jurassic period.
In a clinical trial evaluating a novel immunotherapy option for cancer treatment, a child with rhabdomyosarcoma, a form of muscle cancer, that had spread to the bone marrow, showed no detectable cancer following treatment with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that were engineered to target the HER2 protein on the surface of the cancer cells.
The trial, conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital and Houston Methodist Hospital, was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
By now, we’re all aware that COVID-19 is especially dangerous for older adults—the older you are, the higher your risk for serious illness and even death if you contract the virus. Because there is no treatment or a vaccine yet, it’s vitally important that we practice social distancing and wear masks to protect ourselves from disease.
Image: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cpdYrtjo6mLDF5YCxmGmfyyKosNnrRfRefyaZWHyK8c/edit
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRT7FF2eVwU
A new robotic prosthetic leg prototype offers a more natural gait while also being quieter and more energy efficient than other designs.
Wouldn't we all appreciate a little help around the house, especially if that help came in the form of a smart, adaptable, uncomplaining robot? Sure, there are the one-trick Roombas of the appliance world. But MIT engineers are envisioning robots more like home helpers, able to follow high-level, Alexa-type commands, such as "Go to the kitchen and fetch me a coffee cup."
To carry out such high-level tasks, researchers believe robots will have to be able to perceive their physical environment as humans do.
Boston, MA -- More than 3 million people in the United States have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 130,000 have died. More people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. than in any other country, but few studies offer national data on the factors that may contribute to outcomes for critically ill patients.
To catch a thief, the saying goes, you have to think like a thief. The same is true for invasive predators: to foil their depredations on native wildlife, scientists have to understand how they think.
Plants have to interpret temperature fluctuations over timescales ranging from hours to months to align their growth and development with the seasons.
Much is known about how plants respond to temperature but the mechanisms that allow them to measure the temperature signal are less well understood.
Washington, DC - July 15, 2020 - Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of severe disease from viral infection, according to a review of the literature performed by a team of researchers from St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, both in Memphis. The research appears this week in the Journal of Virology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is employed in a wide range of applications. In chemistry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is in standard use for the purposes of analysis, while in the medical field, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to see structures and metabolism in the body. Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), working in collaboration with visiting researchers from Novosibirsk in Russia, have developed a new method of observing chemical reactions.
PHILADELPHIA -- Researchers from the Penn Institute of Immunology discovered three distinct immune responses to the SARS-CoV2 infection that could help predict the trajectory of disease in severe COVID-19 patients and may ultimately inform how to best treat them.
The findings were published in Science.
An analysis of immune responses in 42 COVID-19 patients, both infected and recovered, identified immune signatures that distinguish severe COVID-19 cases. Notably, the analysis features insights not only into adaptive immune cell responses, but also those of innate immune cells responding to the virus. The findings will inform development of COVID-19 therapeutics. As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, knowledge of the immunological signatures of severe COVID-19 is continually evolving.
Expanding on observations made in smaller patient cohorts, researchers studying immune responses of 125 hospitalized COVID-19 patients identified distinct immune profiles -- "Immunotypes" -- and showed how these signatures correlated with disease severity. "By localizing patients on an immune topology map," Divij Mathew and colleagues say, "we can begin to infer which types of therapeutic interventions may be most useful in specific patients." As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, researchers continue to investigate the characteristics of the human immune response in fighting it.