Culture

Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and overseas have discovered the oldest colours in the geological record, 1.1 billion-year-old bright pink pigments extracted from rocks deep beneath the Sahara desert in Africa.

Dr Nur Gueneli from ANU said the pigments taken from marine black shales of the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania, West Africa, were more than half a billion years older than previous pigment discoveries. Dr Gueneli discovered the molecules as part of her PhD studies.

Physicians who work in small, independent primary care practices--also known as SIPs--report dramatically lower levels of burnout than the national average (13.5 percent versus 54.4 percent), according to a study led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine publishing online July 9 in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. The findings indicate that the independence and sense of autonomy that providers have in these small practices may provide some protection against symptoms of burnout.

Coral reefs support a quarter of all marine life, feed hundreds of millions of people and contribute vastly to the global economy. But they are dying in mass bleaching events, as climate change warms our oceans and breaks down vital relationships between corals and energy-providing algae.

A new commentary, published in Communications Biology from Nature Research, provides hope that a shift in research focus towards coral immunity will support reef conservation and restoration efforts.

Young athletes with shoulder instability are considered to be a high-risk group of patients following arthroscopic shoulder stabilization given the high recurrence rates and lower rates of return to sport, which have been reported in the literature. However, according to researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in San Diego outcomes may be improved by proper patient selection and reserving arthroscopic stabilization for athletes with fewer incidents of pre-operative instability.

Breathing in additional oxygen improves the function of blood vessels in the brain of people with breathing difficulties caused by lung conditions, according to new research published in Experimental Physiology. These findings could have implications for future research aiming to prevent the development of diseases affecting the brain, such as dementia.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Nanofiber-based wound dressings loaded with vitamin D spur the production of an antimicrobial peptide, a key step forward in the battle against surgical site infections, or SSIs.

The findings by Oregon State University researchers and other collaborators, published Wednesday in Nanomedicine, are important because SSIs are the most common healthcare-associated infection and result in widespread human suffering and economic loss.

Think of the skin as a kind of raincoat for the inner organs. With its densely packed layers of cells and lipids, it keeps foreign substances from leaking in and keeps water from leaking out, preventing dehydration. But in certain skin disorders, this barrier breaks down, and problems arise.