Culture
Known as nature's own sonar system, echolocation occurs when an animal emits a sound that bounces off objects in the environment, returning echoes that provide information about the surrounding space.
While echolocation is well known in whale or bat species, previous research has also indicated that some blind people may use click-based echolocation to judge spaces and improve their navigation skills.
Equipped with this knowledge, a team of researchers, led by Dr Lore Thaler, of Durham University, UK, delved into the factors that determine how people learn this skill.
Clinical trials published in high-profile medical journals rarely report on income or other key sociodemographic characteristics of study participants, according to a new study that suggests these gaps may create blind spots when it comes to health care, especially for disadvantaged populations.
The study, publishing June 2 in JAMA Network Open, analyzed 10 per cent of 2,351 randomized clinical trials published in New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The BMJ, The Lancet and Annals of Internal Medicine between Jan. 1, 2014 and July 31, 2020.
MINNEAPOLIS - Deep brain stimulation continues to be effective in people with Parkinson's disease 15 years after the device is implanted, according to a study published in the June 2, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers found that compared to before deep brain stimulation, study participants continued to experience significant improvement in motor symptoms, which are symptoms that affect movement, as well as a reduction in medications 15 years later.
What The Study Did: Researchers investigated the effect of real-time continuous glucose monitoring on glycemic control among patients with insulin-treated diabetes.
Authors: Andrew J. Karter, Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, 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/jama.2021.6530)
Individuals at higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer could be identified earlier using machine learning (ML) techniques which would result in a greater number of patients surviving the disease, suggests a new study published in PLOS ONE.
The study was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and funded by the UK charity Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF).
It used UK electronic health records for more than 1,000 patients aged 15-99 years who were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer between January 2005 and June 2009.
All the cells of an organism share the same DNA sequence, but their functions, shapes or even lifespans vary greatly. This happens because each cell "reads" different chapters of the genome, thus producing alternative sets of proteins and embarking on different paths. Epigenetic regulation--DNA methylation is one of the most common mechanisms--is responsible for the activation or inactivation of a given gene in a specific cell, defining a secondary cell-specific genetic code.
Autistic people's ability to accurately identify facial expressions is affected by the speed at which the expression is produced and its intensity, according to new research at the University of Birmingham.
In particular, autistic people tend to be less able to accurately identify anger from facial expressions produced at a normal 'real world' speed. The researchers also found that for people with a related disorder, alexithymia, all expressions appeared more intensely emotional.
In the journal Nature Communications, an interdisciplinary team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces presents for the first time a laser-driven technology that enables them to create nanoparticles such as copper, cobalt and nickel oxides. At the usual printing speed, photoelectrodes are produced in this way, for example, for a wide range of applications such as the generation of green hydrogen.
SAN ANTONIO (June 2, 2021) -- Scientists from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have discovered a mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 exploits changes in metal ion concentrations to disguise itself in the body. Varying concentrations of metal ions -- positively charged atoms such as magnesium, manganese and calcium -- are observed in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
In collaborative international effort, laser physicists at LMU have built the first hybrid plasma accelerator.
Smoking in early puberty in boys may have negative consequences for their future generations of offspring, a study from the University of Bergen (UiB) shows.
By continued analysis of data gathered in the large international RHINESSA, RHINE and ECRHS studies, researchers have found that the health of future generations depends on actions and decisions made by young people today. This is particularly relevant for boys in early puberty and mothers/grandmothers both pre-pregnancy and during pregnancy, the study shows.
Humans can observe what and where something happens around them with their hearing, as long as sound frequencies lie between 20 Hz and 20 000 Hz. Researchers at Aalto University have now developed a new audio technique that enables people to also hear ultrasonic sources that generate sound at frequencies above 20,000 Hz with simultaneous perception of their direction. The results have been published in Scientific Reports on 2 June 2021.
What drives the feasibility of climate scenarios commonly reviewed by organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? And can they actually be achieved in practice? A new systematic framework can help understand what to improve in the next generation of scenarios and explore how to make ambitious emission reductions possible by strengthening enabling conditions.
One-quarter of people who take the drug methotrexate for common immune system disorders -- from rheumatoid arthritis to multiple sclerosis -- mount a weaker immune response to a COVID-19 vaccine, a new study shows.
Zebrafish exposed to the leading cannabinoids found in cannabis in the earliest stages of development suffer a significant drop in neural activity later in life, according to a University of Alberta study that has implications for prenatal development in humans.
Richard Kanyo, the lead author on the study and post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, said despite the popular narrative that the health benefits of cannabis are many, it turns out there is a surprisingly large knowledge gap.