Culture
HOUSTON -- Medical experts have always known myelin, the protective coating of nerve cells, to be metabolically inert. A study led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has found that myelin is surprisingly dynamic, a discovery that has implications for treatment of multiple sclerosis and a type of myelin damage caused by some chemotherapy drugs, often referred to as "chemobrain." Chemobrain can occur in up to 70 percent of patients receiving chemotherapy, leaving them with temporary and even permanent thinking and memory impairment.
Space cooling and heating is a common need in most inhabited areas. In Europe, the energy consumed for air conditioning is rising, and the situation could get worse in the near future due to the temperature increase in different regions worldwide. The increasing cooling need in buildings especially during the summer season is satisfied by the popular air conditioners, which often make use of refrigerants with high environmental impact and also lead to high electricity consumption. So, how can we reduce the energy demand for building cooling?
HOUSTON - (March 23, 2020) - New research from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine shows analyzing the brains of stroke victims just days after the stroke allows researchers to link various speech functions to different parts of the brain, an important breakthrough that may lead to better treatment and recovery.
The study, "Dissociation between frontal and temporal-parietal contributions to connected speech in acute stroke" will appear in an upcoming edition of the journal Brain.
Lactation temporarily changes how a mother's neurons behave, according to new research in mice published in JNeurosci.
Mothers experience profound changes in their body after giving birth, many of which are controlled by the hormone prolactin. Neurons in the hypothalamus called TIDA neurons regulate prolactin secretion as it fluctuates during the estrous cycle. However, during lactation, the TIDA neurons stop keeping prolactin levels in check, teasing the possibility that they may be altering their properties in response to motherhood.
Coal combustion is not only the single most important source of CO2, accounting for more than a third of global emissions, but also a major contributor to detrimental effects on public health and biodiversity. Yet, globally phasing out coal remains one of the hardest political nuts to crack. New computer simulations by an international team of researchers are now providing robust economic arguments for why it is worth the effort: For once, their simulations show that the world cannot stay below the 2 degrees limit if we continue to burn coal.
Vanderbilt researchers have identified haplotypes, ancestral fragments of DNA, that are associated with hereditary prostate cancer (HPC) in a first-of-its-kind genomic study made possible by the study of prostate cancer patients with family histories of the disease.
When active sport is at the centre of a profession or education, pain is often a constant companion - pain being defined in this case as physical and psychological symptoms. "One in three top athletes suffers significant pain," explains Dr. Johannes Fleckenstein, private lecturer at Goethe University. This is an issue that generally tends to be neglected, but he has made it the main focus of his classes.
It is a longstanding challenge to be able to control biological systems to perform specific tasks. In a paper published in Nature Physics, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen - in collaboration with groups in US and UK, have now reported doing just that. They have found a way to control bacteria to transport microscopic cargos. Bacteria form the largest biomass in the world, larger than all the animals and plants combined, and they are constantly moving, but their movement is chaotic.
New Rochelle, NY, March 23, 2020--A new systematic review and meta-analysis showed a small but significant reduction in subjective pain scores for cannabinoid treatment compared to placebo in patients experiencing acute pain. No increase in serious adverse events suggested the safety of using cannabinoids to treat acute pain, according to the study published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
The cytoskeleton is a permanent construction site: it consists of protein filaments that are continually lengthening and shortening in a dynamic process. Through these remodeling processes, the cell can change its shape and even move to a new location. In this way, it guides fundamental processes, such as cell division and differentiation, and processes at a higher level in the organism, such as embryonic development and wound healing.
Prolonged fear and anxiety brought on by major stressors, like the coronavirus pandemic, can not only take a toll on a person's mental health, but may also have a lasting impact on a man's sperm composition that could affect his future offspring. That is the finding of a provocative new study published in the journal Nature Communications by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Philadelphia, March 23, 2020 - A new study led by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) shows that a set of simple questionnaires can help clinicians and families better evaluate the quality of life of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The newly-developed tool is designed for children, adolescents, and adults on the autism spectrum, and early findings show where clinicians can learn more about how to support the needs of autistic individuals by directly asking them these critical questions.
What The Study Did: This study used data and brain imaging from a randomized clinical trial for older adults who are cognitively unimpaired and examined brain changes, including the presence of biomarkers for Alzheimer disease, between those with sleep-disordered breathing and those without.
Authors: Gael Chetelat, Ph.D., of the Universite de Caen in France, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
What The Study Did: Researchers used a large commercial claims database to estimate the percentage of U.S. women in their 40s with private insurance who were eligible and received screening mammography in 2017 and national costs for this screening.
Authors: Natalia Kunst, M.Sc., of the University of Oslo in Norway, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.0262)
KAIST researchers have developed a novel wearable strain sensor based on the modulation of optical transmittance of a carbon nanotube (CNT)-embedded elastomer. The sensor is capable of sensitive, stable, and continuous measurement of physical signals. This technology, featured in the March 4th issue of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces as a front cover article, shows great potential for the detection of subtle human motions and the real-time monitoring of body postures for healthcare applications.