Culture

With more than two-thirds of American adults vaccinated with at least one dose of an authorized Covid-19 vaccine, the top U.S. health agencies retain the trust of the vast majority of the American public, as does Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public face of U.S. efforts to combat the virus, according to a new survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania.

The survey revealed growing public confidence in both the safety and effectiveness of vaccines to prevent Covid-19.

Led by Dr Jonas Warneke, researchers at the Wilhelm Ostwald Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at Leipzig University have made a decisive advance in the study of one type of highly reactive particles. Based on their research, they now understand the "binding preferences" of these particles.

We all like to think that we know ourselves best, but, given that our brain activity is largely governed by our subconscious mind, it is probably our brain that knows us better! While this is only a hypothesis, researchers from Japan have already proposed a content recommendation system that assumes this to be true. Essentially, such a system makes use of its user's brain signals (acquired using, say, an MRI scan) when exposed to a particular content and eventually, by exploring various users and contents, builds up a general model of brain activity.

July 19, 2021 - At the organization responsible for certifying the training and skills of US urologists, achieving and maintaining diversity, equity and inclusion is more than just a "numbers game," according to a special article in Urology Practice®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (

CT scans for patients with concussion provide critical information about their risk for long-term impairment and potential to make a complete recovery - findings that underscore the need for physician follow-up.

What The Study Did: This study investigated the association between time spent cycling and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease or any other cause among people with diabetes.

Authors: Mathias Ried-Larsen, Ph.D., of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, 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.2021.3836)

What The Study Did: The association between daily coffee consumption and the risk of cardiac arrhythmias was evaluated in this study.

Authors: Gregory M. Marcus, M.D., M.A.S., of the University of California, San Francisco, 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.2021.3616)

What The Study Did: This study included a meta-analysis that combined the results of 74 studies with 2.7 million participants to estimate how common globally dementia is in people younger than age 65.

Authors: Sebastian Köhler, Ph.D., of Maastricht University in Maastricht, the Netherlands, 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/jamaneurol.2021.2161)

A major drought and forest fires in the Amazon rainforest killed billions of trees and plants and turned one of the world's largest carbon sinks into one of its biggest polluters.

Triggered by the 2015-16 El Niño, extreme drought and associated mega-wildfires caused the death of around 2.5 billion trees and plants and emitted 495 million tonnes of CO2 from an area that makes up just 1.2 per cent of the entire Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and 1 per cent of the whole biome.

An international team anchored by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, which is known for capturing the first image of a black hole in the galaxy Messier 87, has now imaged the heart of the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A in unprecedented detail. The astronomers pinpoint the location of the central supermassive black hole and reveal how a gigantic jet is being born. Most remarkably, only the outer edges of the jet seem to emit radiation, which challenges our theoretical models of jets.

The oil industry, pharmaceutical companies and bioreactor manufacturers all face one common enemy: bubbles. Bubbles can form during the manufacturing or transport of various liquids, and their formation and rupture can cause significant issues in product quality.

New research has found marine seismic surveys used in oil and gas exploration are not impacting the abundance or behaviour of commercially valuable fishes in the tropical shelf environment in north-western Australia.

The research is the first of its kind to use dedicated seismic vessels to measure the impacts of the survey's noise in an ocean environment, with the eight-month experiment conducted within a 2500 square kilometre fishery management zone near the Pilbara coast.

The struggle to get your child to go to sleep and stay asleep is something most parents can relate to. Once the bedtime battle is over and the kids have finally nodded off, many parents tune out as well.

But University of South Australia researcher Professor Kurt Lushington is calling for parents to check on their small snoozers before switching off.

He says knowing the quality of a child's sleep is important, as it could be an indicator of sleep-disordered breathing - an under-reported medical condition that can affect a child's health and wellbeing.

The July issues of two of the American Psychiatric Association journals, The American Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services are available online.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - An experimental drug reported in Nature Communications suggests that a "path is clearly achievable" to treat currently untreatable cases of cystic fibrosis disease caused by nonsense mutations. This includes about 11 percent of cystic fibrosis patients, as well as patients with other genetic diseases, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy, β-thalassemia and numerous types of cancers, that are also caused by nonsense mutations.