How a bad day at work led to better COVID predictions

Talking about your bad day at work could lead to great solutions. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Associate Professor Saket Navlakha and his wife, Dr. Sejal Morjaria, an infectious disease physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), found a way to predict COVID-19 severity in cancer patients. The computational tool they developed prevents unnecessary expensive testing and improves patient care.

How COVID is changing labor law

While most of the public debate focuses on the effects on the real economy of closing and reopening businesses, the impact of these measures on the labor market gets less attention. However, in late 2020, the European Labour Law Journal decided to dedicate a special issue to the comparison between the situation in various European countries. Elena Gramano, Professor at the Department of Legal Studies, was one of the issue's editors, as well as author of the essay, "An Unprecedented Social Solidarity Stress Test," along with colleagues Miriam Kullmann and David Mangan.

New gene editing strategies developed for Duchenne muscular dystrophy

UT Southwestern scientists successfully employed a new type of gene therapy to treat mice with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), uniquely utilizing CRISPR-Cas9-based tools to restore a large section of the dystrophin protein that is missing in many DMD patients. The approach, described online today in the journal Science Advances, could lead to a treatment for DMD and inform the treatment of other inherited diseases.

Light as a fairy tale: What makes a feel-good film feel good?

"Feel-good films" are usually dismissed by film critics as being sentimental and without intellectual merit. But their popularity with audiences, who seek them out precisely because of their "feel-good" qualities, tells a more favorable story. Now, for the first time, this popular movie genre is examined scientifically. A new study from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics investigates which feel-good films are considered by viewers to be prototypical and which factors constitute their feel-good effect.

Branching worm with dividing internal organs growing in sea sponge

The marine worm Ramisyllis multicaudata, which lives within the internal canals of a sponge, is one of only two such species possessing a branching body, with one head and multiple posterior ends. An international research team led by the Universities of Göttingen and Madrid is the first to describe the internal anatomy of this intriguing animal. The researchers discovered that the complex body of this worm spreads extensively in the canals of their host sponges. In addition, they describe the anatomical details and nervous system of its unusual reproductive units, the stolons, which form their own brain when detached for fertilization, allowing them to navigate their environment. The results were published in the Journal of Morphology.

A glimmer of hope: New weapon in the fight against liver diseases

Researchers from Niigata University , the University of Tokyo, Osaka University and Tokyo Medical University, Japan, have developed a new approach that could revolutionize the treatment, prevention, and possibly reversal of the damage caused by liver diseases. This novel strategy exploits small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) derived from interferon-γ (IFN-γ) pre-conditioned MSCs (γ-sEVs).

Election campaigns: Attacks and smearing backfire and can benefit other candidates

Candidates often give in to temptation to attack opponents in electoral campaigns through negative ads (more than 55% of the ads aired by the Clinton and Trump campaigns in 2016 were negative), even if evidence of this tactic effectiveness is mixed. A study by Bocconi University professors Vincenzo Galasso, Tommaso Nannicini and Salvatore Nunnari, just published in the American Journal of Political Science, reveals the backlash of electoral smearing and shows that, in a three-candidate race, it's the "idle candidate" (the one neither attacking nor being attacked) that has the upper hand.

Technique to automatically discover simulation configurations for behaviors hard to test

A research team led by Fuyuki Ishikawa at the National Institute of Informatics (NII, Japan) has developed a technique to search automatically for simulation configurations that test various behaviors of automated driving systems. This research was conducted under the ERATO-MMSD project funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST, Japan). The proposed technique iterates trials on simulations using an optimization method called evolutionary computation so that it discovers simulation configurations that lead to specific features of driving behaviors such as high acceleration, deceleration, and steering operation. The outcome of this research was presented in ICST 2021, a flagship conference on software testing held during April 12-16 2021.

Same drug can have opposite effects on memory according to sexual differences

A research team from the Institut de Neurociències at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (INc-UAB) has showed that inhibition of the Tac2 neuronal circuit, involved in the formation of the memory of fear, has opposite effects according to sex on the ability to remember aversive events in mice, reducing it in male mice and increasing it in female mice.

Deep space listening: 6000 hours of research to hear continuous gravitational waves

When searching for lost keys, there are a number of possible strategies. You might try moving from room to room, casting your eye over every flat surface, in the hope of spotting the missing keys. Of course, this assumes that they are somewhere in plain sight; if they're hidden under a newspaper or have fallen behind the sofa, you'll never spot them. So which is the best strategy?

Personalized medications possible with 3D printing

Customized medicines could one day be manufactured to patients' individual needs, with University of East Anglia (UEA) researchers investigating technology to 3D 'print' pills.

Study identifies unique characteristics of human neurons

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.

Apple's App Store draws developer ire and legal challenge

While Apple chief Tim Cook touts the brand's App Store as an economic miracle, Fortnite-maker Epic Games says developers suffer under its tyranny.

Nurses, doctor help 'lucky' mom who gave birth on flight

A doctor and a team of neonatal medical professionals were in the right place at the right time—helping a Utah woman deliver her baby onboard an hourslong flight to Hawaii.

Russia lags behind others in its COVID-19 vaccination drive

While at the Park House shopping mall in northern Moscow, Vladimir Makarov saw it was offering the coronavirus vaccine to customers, so he asked how long it would take.

Latin America looks to space, despite limitations on ground

Mars missions, astronauts coming and going at the International Space Station, China's increasingly ambitious space program. Space-related news is flowing, and not just from the world's richest, biggest nations. Take Latin America.

Pandemic boosted e-commerce in 2020: UNCTAD

The COVID-19 pandemic provided a boost for e-commerce last year, but the digital windfall was not enjoyed equally across the board, a UN study found Monday.

Volunteer firefighters have higher levels of 'forever chemicals'

Volunteer firefighters—who comprise more than 65 percent of the U.S. fire service—have higher levels of "forever chemicals," per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in their bodies than the general public, according to a Rutgers study.

Study finds heart transplantation using donation after cardiac death with NRP

A new study, presented today at the AATS 101st Annual Meeting, found that heart transplantation using donation after cardiac death (DCD) with normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) is feasible in the United States. Broader application of DCD heart transplantation has the potential to increase cardiac allograft availability by 20-30 percent. Over a one-year period, from January 2020 to January 2021, eight heart transplants were performed using cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) for immediate regional reperfusion and cardiac unloading to accomplish optimal myocardial salvage. All hearts were successfully resuscitated and weaned from CPB with no inotropic support and all were accepted for transplantation. Post-transplant cardiac function was excellent in all recipients.

Oceans' microscopic plants—diatoms—capture carbon dioxide via biophysical pathways

Diatoms are tiny unicellular plants—no bigger than half a millimeter—which inhabit the surface water of the world's oceans where sunlight penetration is plenty. Despite their modest size, they are one of the world's most powerful resources for removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. They currently remove, or "fix," 10-20 billion metric tons of CO2 every year by the process of photosynthesis. But not much is known about which biological mechanisms diatoms use, and whether these processes might become less effective with rising ocean acidity, temperatures, and, in particular, CO2 concentrations. A new study in Frontiers in Plant Science shows that diatoms predominantly use one pathway to concentrate CO2 at the vicinity of carbon fixing enzyme and that this continues to operate even at higher CO2 concentrations.

Planned cesarean births safe for low-risk pregnancies

New research shows that planned cesarean deliveries on maternal request are safe for low-risk pregnancies and may be associated with a lower risk of adverse delivery outcomes than planned vaginal deliveries. The study is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Screening healthcare workers could serve as early warning system for future viruses

New research has shown that COVID-19 infections in healthcare workers during the first wave of the pandemic provided an accurate sample of the general population, suggesting that data from healthcare workers could be used to estimate the severity of future viruses more quickly.

Structural racism contributes to the racial inequities in social determinants of psychosis

The legacy of systemic racism in the U.S impacts psychosis risk at the individual and neighborhood level, according to a definitive review published online today. Researchers examined U.S. based evidence connecting social and environmental factors with outcomes relating to psychotic experiences, including schizophrenia.

New model can predict carbon cycle presence on exoplanets

Life thrives at stable temperatures. On Earth, this is facilitated by the carbon cycle. Scientists at SRON, VU and RUG have now developed a model that predicts whether there is a carbon cycle present on exoplanets, provided the mass, core size and amount of CO2 are known. Publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics on May 3.