Culture
By developing a lab-engineered model of the human blood-brain barrier (BBB), neuroscientists at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have discovered how the most common Alzheimer's disease risk gene causes amyloid protein plaques to disrupt the brain's vasculature and showed they could prevent the damage with medications already approved for human use.
The three-dimensional structure of the human genome is essential for providing a rapid and robust inflammatory response but is surprisingly not vital for reprogramming one cell type into another, according to research published today in Nature Genetics. The findings shed new light on the fundamental relationship between how a genome folds and the function of a cell.
Reno, Nev. (June 8, 2020) - The long-standing rules for assigning scientific names to bacteria and archaea are overdue for an update, according to a new consensus statement backed by 119 microbiologists from around the globe.
Distinct from virus transmission patterns identified elsewhere, analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from a small number of California-based patients suggests the virus arrived in northern California through a complex series of introductions, not only from state to state but also from international travel. These results, say the authors, emphasize the need for social distancing and travel restrictions to contain SARS-CoV-2 spread in California and in other states. The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 resulted in more than 52,000 cases in California as of May 4, 2020.
What The Study Did: This observational study looked at the rate and risk factors of stroke caused by bleeding within the brain (intracerebral hemorrhage) between 1948 and 2016 among 10,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study. There have been conflicting results in other studies on whether the rate of this often deadly type of stroke is changing.
Authors: Vasileios-Arsenios Lioutas, M.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, is the corresponding author.
More than half of pregnant women recently admitted to a UK hospital with covid-19 infection were from black or other ethnic minority groups, finds a national surveillance study published by The BMJ today.
Most women had good outcomes, and transmission of covid-19 to infants was uncommon, but the researchers say the high proportion of women from black or minority ethnic groups admitted with infection "needs urgent investigation and explanation."
A Roadmap to fast-track flourishing green roofs, walls and facades in Australian cities released today promotes six positive actioned based strategies to help grow green cities.
Researchers collaborating on the project also say the recommendations could provide a COVID-19 stimulus and support recovery.
A large study of middle-aged women shows that age-related changes in skeletal muscle are part of everyday life for women in their fifties. During this time, women transition from perimenopause to postmenopause and the production of estrogen ceases. Loss of estrogen has an effect on muscles and leads to a decline in muscle mass. Physical activity in all of its forms may help maintain muscle mass in midlife.
Knowing what cancer will do next could lessen the likelihood of it becoming resistant to treatment. A new Canadian study investigates how cancer adapts its metabolism to potentially overcome therapies still in development.
As co-author, Research Associate Ayrat Bilyalov explains, the work on photodynamic therapy has been ongoing for 5 years. The group comprises medical professionals from Kazan Federal University and Medical Center of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan.
By generalizing a classical statistical model and adapting it for use in analyzing the extremes of rainfall in large datasets, researchers, including KAUST's Raphaël Huser, have devised a more efficient and flexible analytical tool that promises to improve the prediction of flood risk and other extreme weather phenomena.
71 patients with severe lung injury were admitted to four intensive care units at Bordeaux University Hospital and their data were collected and evaluated over a period of six weeks (March/April 2020). AKI was defined using KDIGO criteria and ADQI according to the Acute Disease Quality Initiative (ADQI) 16 workgroup.
Muskrat populations declined sharply across North America over the last 50 years or so, and wildlife scientists have struggled to understand why. A Pennsylvania research team investigated whether pathogens, parasites, environmental contaminants and disease may be contributing to this decline.
Key Takeaways:
The practice of pharmaceutical companies paying doctors as consultants has created longstanding concerns over possible conflicts of interest
New research has found that disclosure laws intended to shed "light" on the practice have served to discourage certain levels of prescriptions in the three categories studied
Disclosure laws resulted in a decline of the prescription of certain branded medications from 31 - 56 percent
Surprisingly, the prescription of generics in the same classes also declined from 25-33 percent.
Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is the most common form of inherited neuropathies. A genetic mutation causes the insulating myelin layer of peripheral nerves to become progressively damaged, resulting in severe disabilities in the case of CMT type 4B, for instance. Since the molecular basis is largely unknown, this type of CMT is untreatable and incurable to this day.