Culture
Myotonic dystrophy is a hereditary degenerative neuromuscular disease that occurs mainly in adults, affecting about 50,000 people only in Spain. Symptoms range from difficulty walking and myotonia (great difficulty in relaxing the contracted muscles) to severe neurological problems, leading to progressive disability that unfortunately puts many of those affected in a wheelchair. This disease is very heterogeneous among patients (age of onset, progression, hereditary transmission, affected muscles), which makes the development of generic treatments especially complex.
Living materials, which are made by housing biological cells within a non-living matrix, have gained popularity in recent years as scientists recognize that often the most robust materials are those that mimic nature.
PHILADELPHIA - Belief in conspiracies about the COVID-19 pandemic increased through the early months of the U.S. outbreak among people who reported being heavy users of conservative and social media, a study by Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) researchers has found.
HOUSTON - (May 3, 2021) - Ever look at a flatfish like a flounder or sole, with two eyes on one side of its head, and think, "How did that happen?"
You're in luck. Rice University biologist Kory Evans has the answer.
"Flatfishes are some of the weirdest vertebrates on the planet, and they got weird very, very fast by changing multiple traits at once over a short period of time," said Evans, an assistant professor of biosciences at Rice who specializes in studying the evolution of fish over long time scales.
East Hanover, NJ. May 3, 2021. An international team of multiple sclerosis (MS) researchers showed that longitudinal changes in social cognition are associated with psychological outcomes of daily living, suggesting that social cognition may exert a central role in people with MS. The article, "Social Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis: A 3-Year Follow-Up MRI and Behavioral Study" (doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11030484) was published on March 9, 2021, in Diagnostics.
CHICAGO--May 3, 2021-- Patients with one or more health conditions are more likely to be screened for colorectal cancer than those without comorbidities, according to new research in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine. However, patients with five or more health conditions are also less likely to be screened than patients with two to four health conditions.
Chestnut Hill, MA (5/3/2021) -- The billion-year-old fossil of an organism, exquisitely preserved in the Scottish Highlands, reveals features of multicellularity nearly 400 million years before the biological trait emerged in the first animals, according to a new report in the journal Current Biology by an international team of researchers, including Boston College paleobotanist Paul K. Strother.
People have become accustomed to having their temperature checked during the pandemic because fever is a key indicator of COVID-19.
A new commentary by Washington State University College of Nursing Associate Professor Catherine Van Son and Clinical Assistant Professor Deborah Eti proposes that taking a temperature is a less useful indicator of infection in older adults and that a pulse oximeter be used instead.
Palo Alto, CA--New work from a Stanford University-led team of researchers including Carnegie's Arthur Grossman and Tingting Xiang unravels a longstanding mystery about the relationship between form and function in the genetic material of a diverse group of algae called dinoflagellates.
Their findings, published in Nature Genetics, have implications for understanding genomic organizational principles of all organisms.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. --A new study found overlooked tsunami hazards related to undersea, near-shore strike-slip faults, especially for coastal cities adjacent to faults that traverse inland bays. Several areas around the world may fall into this category, including the San Francisco Bay area, Izmit Bay in Turkey and the Gulf of Al-Aqaba in Egypt.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Sometime between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, prehistoric humans took their first steps into Sahul, an ancient landmass made up of modern Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. But nobody knows which way they went after that.
"One of the really big unanswered questions of prehistory is how Australia was populated in the distant past. Scholars have debated it for at least 150 years," said Sandia National Laboratories archaeologist and remote sensing scientist Devin White.
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, mass vaccinations have begun to raise the tantalizing prospect of herd immunity that eventually curtails or halts the spread of SARS-CoV-2. But what if herd immunity is never fully achieved - or if the mutating virus gives rise to hyper-virulent variants that diminish the benefits of vaccination?
Those questions underscore the need for effective treatments for people who continue to fall ill with the coronavirus. While a few existing drugs show some benefit, there's a pressing need to find new therapeutics.
An abnormal build up of carbohydrates -- sugars and starches -- in the kernels and leaves of a mutant line of corn can be traced to one misregulated gene, and that discovery offers clues about how the plant deals with stress.
May 3, 2021
Using social values for profit cheapens them, a new study cautions.
Toronto - Businesses sometimes align themselves with important values such as a clean environment, feminism, or racial justice, thinking it's a win-win: the value gets boosted along with the company's bottom line.
But be careful, warns new research from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
Using these values primarily for self-interested purposes such as profit or reputation can ultimately undermine their special status and erode people's commitment to them.
TORONTO - Scientists at the Krembil Brain Institute, part of University Health Network (UHN), in collaboration with colleagues at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), have used precious and rare access to live human cortical tissue to identify functionally important features that make human neurons unique.
This experimental work is among the first of its kind on live human neurons and one of the largest studies of the diversity of human cortical pyramidal cells to date.