Culture
The new health care practice of "hotspotting" -- in which providers identify very high-cost patients and attempt to reduce their medical spending while improving care -- has virtually no impact on patient outcomes, according to a new study led by MIT economists.
Ever since antiretroviral treatments against HIV infection were introduced in 1996, scientists have eagerly been hunting for a cure for the disease.
Although drugs can allow people infected with HIV to live normal, healthy lives, people infected by HIV have to take antiretroviral treatments for as long as they live. Little bits of virus can lie dormant in immune cells for years, so that if patients stop taking the drugs, the dormant virus can come out of hiding and re-infect the patient.
Vision is a crucial sense for most animals, and vertebrates have evolved a highly adaptable set of opsin genes that generate light-sensitive pigments to decode the retinal image. These opsins include a rod opsin to help see in low light, and four classes of cone opsins to see in bright light and detect colors across the visible light spectrum.
Our fat cells, technically referred to as adipocytes, play an essential role in regulating energy balance in our body. "Adipocytes are not merely an energy storage for times of deprivation, but they also release hormones into the blood, regulating our metabolism as well as feelings of hunger and satiety through the brain and other organs. Nevertheless, too much of a good thing causes harm." explained Professor Klingenspor, Chair of Molecular Nutritional Science at the TUM Else Kröner-Fresenius Center.
White, beige or brown - the color of fat cells affects our health
Cells called corneal keratocytes are innately programmed to come to the rescue if the eye is injured. This natural healing process sometimes fails, however, resulting in scarring and blindness. Scientists are still trying to understand why.
For adult patients with brainstem high-grade gliomas -- one of the rarest and deadliest forms of brain cancer -- surgically removing the entire tumor may add many months or potentially years of survival beyond that offered by radiation and chemotherapy, according to results of a medical records study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
Metals (iron, zinc, nickel, cobalt, etc.) participate in numerous enzymatic reactions and are essential nutrients for bacteria. Inside our organism, these metals are scarcely available, because they are bound to proteins which preserve and transport them to the cells and tissues where they will be used.
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have discovered both how TB puts the brakes on our immune engines and how we can kick-start those engines back into gear - providing hope that improved treatment options could soon be on the horizon.
Although ancient, TB is still the world's deadliest infectious disease. While it is rampant in Africa, the growing problem of antibiotic resistance is posing a significant threat worldwide.
"Humans can have strong effects on the behaviour of wild animals and even influence their day and night rhythm," said conservation biologist PD Dr. Marco Heurich from the University of Freiburg. A team headed by Nadège C. Bonnot of the The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) has now investigated how the targeted reintroduction of lynx throughout Europe has affected the behavior of deer - the lynx's favorite food - and the role of human activities in the changes.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - A doctor diagnosing a 50-year-old patient based on a blood test taken during the patient's infancy would be unthinkable.
Anecdotally speaking, however, that's what Michigan State University scientists have done with corn. Using plant RNA data from 2-week-old corn seedlings, Shinhan Shiu, professor of plant biology and computational mathematics, science and engineering, has shown that farmers and scientists can improve adult crop trait predictions with accuracy that rivals current approaches using DNA, i.e. genetic data.
Women who fail to have adequate check-ups during pregnancy are more likely to be suffering physical violence at the hands of their partners.
The study also found that pregnant women who fail to attend regular hospital check-ups during pregnancy are more likely to be suffering physical violence at the hands of their partners.
The research, published by the European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, analysed a cohort of 779 women whose pregnancies were being monitored across 15 public hospitals in Andalusia.
A new Johns Hopkins Medicine-led study provides the strongest evidence to date that hundreds of deceased donor kidneys, discarded each year after being deemed not suitable under current medical criteria, can be transplanted safely and effectively.
Flu season is underway in the Northern Hemisphere, sickening millions of people and in rare cases, causing hospitalization or death. The best prevention is a flu shot, but it's not unusual for these vaccines to be less effective than intended. Some researchers suspect that the common practice of producing vaccines in chicken eggs could be partially to blame, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.
Artificial cells capable of oxygen gas production and chemical signalling have been prepared using a combination of synthetic and biological catalysts through an international collaboration between the University of Bristol and the University of Padua in Italy.
From the synthesis of drugs to the generation of plastics, catalysts - substances that speed up chemical reactions without being consumed - are the backbone of many industrial processes.
The amount of blood that the heart pumps in one minute (cardiac output) can be directly measured safely in newborns by monitoring changes in blood velocity after injecting saline, indicates a paper published online Dec. 17, 2019 in the Journal of Pediatrics and Neonatal Medicine.