Culture
Below please find link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.
Chest Computed Tomography for Detection of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Don't Rush the Science
Plant-derived chemicals called cardenolides have long been used to treat heart disease, and have shown potential as cancer therapies. But the compounds are very toxic, making it difficult for doctors to prescribe a dose that works without harming the patient.
Hormonal changes caused by motorboat noise cause clownfish to hide, skip meals and attack their neighbours - putting damselfish in distress.
Working on the reefs around Moorea in French Polynesia, an international team of scientists exposed 40 pairs of clownfish to recordings of natural reef sounds or motorboat noise for up to two days. Motorboat noise caused clownfish to hide in the protective tentacles of their host anemone, move less into open water to feed and to be more aggressive towards domino damselfish that also reside in the anemone.
As agriculture emerged in early civilizations, crops were domesticated in four locations around the world -- rice in China; grains and pulses in the Middle East; maize, beans and squash in Mesoamerica; and potatoes and quinoa in the Andes. Now, an international team of researchers have confirmed a fifth domestication area in southwestern Amazonia where manioc, squash and other edibles became garden plants during the early Holocene, starting over 10,000 years ago.
A warming global climate could cause sudden, potentially catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout the 21st century, finds a new UCL-led study.
The findings, published today in Nature, predict when and where there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and suggests that the first waves could already be happening.
The human body is composed of billions of cells, each of which is made and maintained through countless interactions among its molecular parts. But which interactions sustain health and which ones can cause disease when they go awry? The human genome project has provided us with a "parts list" for the cell, but only if we can understand how these parts go together, or interact, can we really begin to understand how the cell works and what goes wrong in disease.
A team at the University of Bristol has developed a new method of dating pottery which is allowing archaeologists to date prehistoric finds from across the world with remarkable accuracy.
The exciting new method, reported in detail today in the journal Nature, is now being used to date pottery from a range of key sites up to 8,000 years old in Britain, Europe and Africa.
Pottery and the dating game
The earliest human inhabitants of the Amazon created thousands of artificial forest islands as they tamed wild plants to grow food, a new study shows.
The discovery of the mounds is the latest evidence to show the extensive impact people had on the area. From their arrival 10,000 years ago they transformed the landscape when they began cultivating manioc and squash.
A new prognostic tool predicts how long someone diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) will be able to wait before starting cancer treatment. Researchers describe what they hope will become a point-of-care resource to help improve clinical decision making in a study published today in the journal Blood.
What The Study Did: Describes testing for and treatment of children with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Madrid.
Authors: Alfredo Tagarro, Ph.D., M.D., of the Hospital Infanta Sofía de San Sebastián de los Reyes in Madrid, Spain, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.1346)
Fungi play an important role for mankind. In the soil, they decompose dead organic material, making it accessible to plants as a nutrient. In industrial biotechnological plants, fungi produce vast quantities of chemicals and food every day. In addition, fungi produce very complex active ingredients that could have potential for medical applications.
To this end, the team identified several thousand proteins, determined their respective amounts in mutant and reference lines and combined the findings with measurements of photosynthetic performance. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications on 3 April 2020.
Mutations cause defects
WASHINGTON, April 8, 2020 — Crooner Bing Crosby knew a thing or two about sound. In 1947, recognizing that recorded music sounded better on magnetic reel-to-reel tape than on vinyl records, he invested in a company to develop equipment to record his radio shows. Soon, reel-to-reel tapes and recording and playback machines were a household craze. Now, as reel-to-reel tapes make a comeback among audio buffs, scientists are unraveling the secret of why some decades-old tapes are unplayable, while others retain their original superb audio fidelity.
What The Study Did: The case of a patient with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) whose main symptom was a loss of smell without nasal obstruction is reported in this article.
Authors: Michael Eliezer, M.D, of Lariboisière University Hospital in Paris, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamaoto.2020.0832)
New data from a landmark study done by Monash University researchers in Australia raises significant concerns that even short-term exposure to low level air pollution can affect gene expression, leaving us at risk of other diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.