Culture
Most teenagers don't remember life before the internet. They have grown up in a connected world, and being online has become one of their main sources of learning, entertaining and socializing.
As many previous studies have pointed out, and as many parents worry, this reality does not come risk-free. Whereas time on the internet can be informative, instructive and even pleasant, there is already significant literature on the potential harm caused by young children's problematic internet use (PIU).
Cancer patients often experience fragmented care, particularly as they undergo cancer treatments. Although family physicians seek to provide continuous and comprehensive care, they often lose touch with their cancer patients during the treatment phase. Researchers conducted a randomized intervention that aimed to improve continuity of care and interprofessional collaboration as perceived by lung cancer patients and their family physicians.
While many celebrate apple blossoms as classic signs of spring, they are also welcoming entry gates for pathogens. Full of nutrients to lure pollinators and promote pollen germination, flowers also attract bacteria like Erwinia amylavora, a pathogen that causes a damaging disease called fire blight. However, recent work by scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station suggests that these flowery infection sites might also be perfect targets for applying microbial fire blight biocontrol measures.
COLUMBIA, Mo. - In the midst of a pandemic that has claimed more than 2 million lives worldwide and disrupted nearly every facet of society since it appeared more than a year ago, understanding the factors that create and facilitate disease outbreaks is more important than ever. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that cognitive biases -- patterns of errors in thinking that affect judgments and behaviors, often unconsciously -- can help create and worsen foodborne disease outbreaks.
March 9, 2021 - Although the prevalence of opioid use among Black people is comparatively low, the rate of opioid deaths has increased the sharpest and fastest among that population in recent years, according to an article in the March/April issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry.
Broad political, economic, and social factors influence disciplinary punishment. In particular, over the last half century, such considerations have shaped jurisdictions' use of the death penalty, which has declined considerably since the 1990s. A new study examined the factors associated with use of the death penalty at the county level to provide a fuller picture of what issues influence court outcomes. The study concludes that partisan politics, religious fundamentalism, and economic threat influenced local decisions about the death penalty.
In a new study in PNAS, an international team of researchers including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology has shown that Arabidopsis thaliana plants produce beta-cyclocitral when attacked by herbivores and that this volatile signal inhibits the methylerythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway. The MEP pathway is instrumental in plant growth processes, such as the production of pigments for photosynthesis. In addition to down-regulating the MEP pathway, beta-cyclocitral also increases plant defenses against herbivores.
Brazilian researchers who study a native venomous fish have confirmed a route to drug development for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis and asthma.
The venomous toadfish Thalassophryne nattereri contains a peptide (TnP) with anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic potential. Confirmation of this potential has now come via the zebrafish Danio rerio, a popular aquarium species native to South Asia that shares 70% of its genome with humans and is widely used as a model for in vivo trials in drug development.
Health care systems could save lives and minimize losses by optimizing resource allocation and implementing mitigation strategies, according to two new studies. Colorado State University researchers explored how our health care systems might perform under multiple disasters and multiple waves of COVID-19, and how we can keep them functioning when we need them most.
DALLAS (March 9, 2021) - Better brain health and performance for humankind is one step closer to reality with the successful trial of the groundbreaking BrainHealth Project. A cross-disciplinary team with the Center for BrainHealth® at The University of Texas at Dallas unveiled an easy-to-use online platform that delivers a novel, science-backed approach to measuring, improving and tracking one's own brain fitness.
If past natural disasters have taught us anything about their effects on pregnant women and developing babies, it is to pay close attention, for the added stress will surely have an impact on them. Amanda Venta, associate professor of psychology at the University of Houston, is sounding that alarm as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic in a newly released study published in Child Psychiatry & Human Development.
Wormholes play a key role in many science fiction films - often as a shortcut between two distant points in space. In physics, however, these tunnels in spacetime have remained purely hypothetical. An international team led by Dr. Jose Luis Blázquez-Salcedo of the University of Oldenburg has now presented a new theoretical model in the science journal Physical Review Letters that makes microscopic wormholes seem less far-fetched than in previous theories.
Delaying second doses of COVID-19 vaccines should reduce case numbers in the near term. But the longer-term case burden and the potential for evolution of viral "escape" from immunity will depend on the robustness of immune responses generated by natural infections and one or two vaccine doses, according to a Princeton University and McGill University study published March 9 in the journal Science.
Members of the COVID-19 Primary Care Database Consortium explain how the use of big data containing millions of primary care medical records provides an opportunity for rapid research to help inform patient care and policy decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Established in April 2020, the Consortium brings together experts in big data, epidemiology, intensive care, primary care and statistics, as well as journal editors, patient and public representatives, and front-line clinical staff from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton, Bristol and Nottingham
Members of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and its health system developed and implemented a new model of collaborative care called The Penn Integrated Care (PIC) program. PIC includes a resource center to support intake, triage and referral management and collaborative care services in primary care practices. PIC was created to increase access to and engagement with mental health professionals to improve mental and physical health outcomes. Primary care physicians were able to refer patients with any mental health symptom or condition to PIC.