Local and national restrictions in England reduced contacts in small and varied ways

The imposition of various local and national restrictions in England during the summer and autumn of 2020 gradually reduced contacts between people, but these changes were smaller and more varied than during the lockdown in March, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Medicine.

Boys who play video games have lower depression risk

Boys who regularly play video games at age 11 are less likely to develop depressive symptoms three years later, finds a new study led by a UCL researcher.

NASA rover streaks toward a landing on Mars

A NASA rover streaked toward a landing on Mars on Thursday in the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on the red planet.

Facebook blocks Australians from accessing news on platform

Facebook announced Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism.

Damage to the heart found in more than half of COVID-19 patients discharged from hospital

Around 50% of patients who have been hospitalised with severe COVID-19 and who show raised levels of a protein called troponin have damage to their hearts. The injury was detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at least a month after discharge, according to new findings published today in the European Heart Journal.

Team reveals never-before-seen antibody binding, informing liver cancer, antibody design

In structural biology, some molecules are so unusual they can only be captured with a unique set of tools. That's precisely how a multi-institutional research team led by Salk scientists defined how antibodies can recognize a compound called phosphohistidine—a highly unstable molecule that has been found to play a central role in some forms of cancer, such as liver and breast cancer and neuroblastoma.

New recommendations aim to eliminate racial bias in myeloma trials

Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) are releasing recommendations designed to address the under-representation of African Americans in clinical trials for multiple myeloma (MM), a blood cancer that is twice as deadly in this demographic as in whites.

Study finds no gender discrimination when leaders use confident language

People tend to listen to big talkers, whether they are women or men. Still, more women prefer not to use assertive language, according to a new study led by Washington State University economist Shanthi Manian.

Déjà brew? Another shot for lovers of coffee

Long black, espresso, or latte, whatever your coffee preference, drink too much and you could be in hot water, especially when it comes to heart health.

New data on COVID-19 patients with diabetes show that one in five die within

Updated results from the CORONADO study, analysing the outcomes of patients with diabetes admitted to hospital with COVID-19, shows that one in five patients die within 28 days while around half are discharged. The study is published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]), and is by Professor Bertrand Cariou and Professor Samy Hadjadj, diabetologists at l'institut du thorax, University Hospital Nantes, INSERM, CNRS, and University of Nantes, France, and colleagues.

As insurers end grace period for COVID-19 hospital costs, study estimates potential bills

Nearly 1.7 million times in the past year, Americans have checked into hospitals to get treated for severe cases of COVID-19.

Study examines aspirin and statin use among older Americans

An analysis published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society indicates that while adults aged 75 years and older do not benefit from taking aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease, many do so on a regular basis. Also, although statins are known to help prevent heart problems in older adults who have experienced a cardiovascular event, many of these individuals do not take a statin.

Addressing the biological causes of racial disparities in prostate cancer

African Americans have higher rates of prostate cancer and are more likely to die from the disease than other groups in the United States, likely due to socioeconomic factors, healthcare access problems, and tumor biology. A new review published in Cancer Reports focuses on the biological differences in the development of prostate cancer across ethnicities.

Real world data on hospital readmissions of patients with heart failure

In an analysis of information on 448 patients with heart failure who were discharged from a hospital in Sweden, 20.3% of patients were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days, and 60.9% were readmitted within 1 year. The ESC Heart Failure analysis found that most of the patients who needed to be rehospitalized were readmitted for heart failure.

Oil spill has long-term immunological effects in dolphins

A study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry has found long-term impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the northern Gulf of Mexico on bottlenose dolphins' immune function.

How likely are consumers to adopt artificial intelligence for banking advice?

A new study published in Economic Inquiry is the first to assess the willingness of consumers to adopt advisory services in the banking sector that are based on artificial intelligence (AI). Investigators examined whether the likelihood that consumers adopt AI in banking services depends on tastes for human interaction across different cultures.

Certain factors are linked with an elevated risk of bone fractures

A new study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research has identified various factors that may indicate whether a person faces a higher likelihood of experiencing a bone fracture over the next two decades.

Setting hospital prices would save more than increasing competition or price transparency

Among strategies to curb hospital prices among the commercially insured population in the U.S., direct price regulations such as setting rates are likely to achieve greater savings than other approaches like increasing competition or improving price transparency, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

AI may mistake chess discussions as racist talk

"The Queen's Gambit," the recent TV mini-series about a chess master, may have stirred increased interest in chess, but a word to the wise: social media talk about game-piece colors could lead to misunderstandings, at least for hate-speech detection software.

Physical conditions linked to psychological distress in patients with cancer

Among patients with cancer, having additional physical comorbidities was linked with a higher risk of experiencing psychological distress. The finding comes from a Psycho-Oncology analysis of 2017 data from the National Health Survey of Spain.