Curated News: PLOS

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Unlike its viral cousins hepatitis A and B, hepatitis C virus (HCV) has eluded the development of a vaccine and infected more than 170 million people worldwide. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine report that a novel laboratory tool that lets them find virus mutations faster and more efficiently than ever before has identified a biological mechanism that appears to play a big role in helping HCV evade both the natural immune system and vaccines.

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fNIRS imaging has led to a breakthrough in communication with ALS patients that are “Locked-In” and unable to move or speak.

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Just as a sprinter’s body and muscles are ready for action as they wait for the starting gun to fire, brain networks at rest appear to be waiting in a state of potentiation to execute even the simplest of behaviors. This evidence comes from a new paper published this week in the journal PLoS One, reporting on a study led by professors Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D., at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine and Steven L. Bressler, Ph.D., interim director of Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.

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Social media can warn us about extreme weather events before they happen – such as hurricanes, storms and floods – according to new research by the University of Warwick.

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Your watch might be able to tell you it’s time to call in sick. Researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health have revealed the ability of wearable biosensors, similar to the Apple Watch or Fitbit, to detect physiological changes that may indicate illness, even before symptoms appear.

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A new intervention developed by Bar-Ilan University scientists to tamper with parasites' communication system may lead to the development of drugs to treat, and prevent the spread of, devastating diseases such as African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease.

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Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have identified genes that are linked to the underlying molecular defect in people with IgA nephropathy, an autoimmune kidney disease.

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Researchers at surveyed nearly 1,300 people nationwide to determine how political identity is rooted. What they found was counter-intuitive: political identities correspond to different policy positions – and different voting behaviors – depending on the “redness” or “blueness” or one’s location.

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A person’s sex and running ability play a role in the decline of their performance in marathons as they get older, according to a Georgia State University study.

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Some fruit flies build up tolerance to the toxin α-amanitin; the genetic mechanisms behind this adaptation link to an important metabolic pathway. A team from Michigan Technological University used genome-wide association mapping to draw the connections for 180 fruit fly lines.

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Genome study shows mixing of European and African H. pylori strains in modern American populations.

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A study published in the journal PLOS ONE says that between 1990 and 2000, the average distance from any point in the United States to the nearest forest increased by 14 percent. The distance can present challenges for wildlife and have broad effects on ecosystems.

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Two drugs used to treat asthma and allergies may offer a way to prevent a form of pneumonia that can kill up to 40 percent of people who contract it, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have found.

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Future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) can be controlled effectively and quickly with vaccinations – saving millions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of livestock – according to research by the University of Warwick.

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Australia could save AUD $3.4 billion (USD $2.3 billion) in healthcare costs over the remaining lifetimes of all Australians alive in 2010 by instituting a combination of taxes on unhealthy foods and subsidies on fruits and vegetables, according to a new study.

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A team of scientists have invented an instrument for measuring calories in social media. This "lexicocalorimeter" gathers tens of millions of geo-tagged Twitter posts from across the United States and presents a portrait of each state's calorie balance based on food and activity words. The results correlate closely with traditional measures of well-being and the approach could become a new remote-sensing tool for public health officials. The results were published in PLOS ONE.

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CT scans of fossils of the pre-mammalian reptile, Euchambersia, shows anatomical features, designed for venom production

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine and in London and Singapore, have conducted novel whole genome sequencing of a family in which two of four children were affected by Kawasaki disease. They have identified plausible gene variants that predispose some children to developing the disease.

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For marine protected areas established to help coral reefs recover from overfishing, size really does seem to make a difference.

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Dogs share food also in complex situations, but more likely with dogs they know.

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Human empathy can even extend to dogs: Empathetic people interpret dogs' facial expressions more intensely.

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Completely locked-in participants report being “happy”

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In a second human case, a Yale-led research team has found that a melanoma cell and a white blood cell can fuse to form a hybrid with the ability to metastasize. The finding provides further insight into how melanoma and other cancers spread from solid tumors with implications for future treatment.

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Using a novel technique to analyze antibodies in fluid collected from intestines of 81 HIV-1-infected and 25 control individuals, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have found abnormal gut antibody levels in people infected with HIV-1.

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In humans, social factors may explain ‘missing heritability’ in complex diseases.

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If your New Year’s resolution was to exercise more in 2017, chances are you’ve already given up or you’re on the verge of doing so. To reach your goal, you may want to consider joining a gym, based on the results of a new study from a team of Iowa State University researchers.

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Mental sharpness in women begins to decline as early as their 50s. Cognitive processing speed, which includes speed of perception and reaction, showed an average decline of around 1 percent every two years and verbal memory declined on average around 1 percent every five years.

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A team of researchers from Wayne State University has developed a behavioral tool that may significantly aid in understanding the underlying mechanisms of tinnitus, ultimately leading to new drugs and treatment methods.

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Administering chemotherapy to African-American breast cancer patients prior to surgery could improve their prognosis and survival rates from the disease, according to a new study.

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Brain scans suggest the action-planning part of the cortex was large in these extinct predators.

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New technologies are developed at a rapid pace, often reaching the market before policymakers can determine how they should be governed. Now researchers have developed a model that can be used to assess emerging synthetic biology products to determine what needs to be done to inform future policies.

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Anthropologists at Université de Montréal have dated the oldest human settlement in Canada back 10,000 years.

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Tiny microbes play a big role in cycling carbon and other key elements through our air, water, soil and sediment. Researchers who study these processes at Argonne National Laboratory have discovered that these microbial communities are significantly affected by the types of carbon “food” sources available. Their findings reveal that the type of carbon source affects not only the composition and activity of natural microbial communities, but also in turn the types of mineral products that form in their environment.

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Researchers use Donkey Kong to help guide new approaches in neuroscience.

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Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have genetically modified mosquitoes to resist infection from dengue virus, a virus that sickens an estimated 96 million people globally each year and kills more than 20,000, mostly children.

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The global map of alien bird species has been produced for the first time by a UCL-led team of researchers. It shows that human activities are the main determinants of how many alien bird species live in an area but that alien species are most successful in areas already rich with native bird species.

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It's the heat and the humidity, USGS-led study finds

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If water rates continue rising at projected amounts, the number of U.S. households unable to afford water could triple in five years, to nearly 36 percent, finds new research by a Michigan State University scholar.

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A research team at the UNC School of Medicine found that the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), which is required for admission to graduate and doctorate programs across the country, is not the best indicator for predicting a student’s success while pursuing a doctorate in the experimental life sciences. And from that research, the team recommends devaluing – if not eliminating altogether – the GRE from the applications process for biomedical PhD candidates.

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A new study led by researchers from Moss Landing Marine Labs of San Jose State University, California State University Monterey Bay and University of California Santa Cruz examines how ocean acidification may negatively affect some juvenile rockfish, a key marine prey base to the Calif. ecosystem.

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New University of Washington research finds that for some songbirds, urban sprawl is kicking them out of their territory, forcing divorce and stunting their ability to find new mates and reproduce successfully, even after relocating.

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Mutations that have been linked to endometrial cancer can be found in the uterine lavage fluid of pre- and post-menopausal women both with and without detectable cancer, according to a study published in PLOS Medicine by John Martignetti, MD, PhD of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and colleagues.

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New research publishing December 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology characterizes the ability of populations to interbreed and exchange genes as a function of the level divergence of their genomes.

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It’s no secret that discrimination is stressful for those who experience it, but turns out the issue is more than skin deep—these stressors can interact with our genetics to negatively impact our health, a new University of Florida study shows.

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Researchers from the University of Washington have found that scientific papers written in a more narrative style were more influential among peer-reviewed studies in the climate change literature. Their results were published Dec. 15 in the journal PLOS ONE.

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Mathematical model suggests new malaria control approach could work as well as insecticides

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A team of kinesiologists has found that high-intensity interval training (HIT) is more enjoyable than moderate exercise. It’s the first study to examine changes in enjoyment for HIT workouts versus moderate continuous training, over the first six weeks of an exercise program.

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Experience and learning may help bats improve their instinctive fishing technique

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Number of avian species soars to 18,000

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Extinctions related to climate change have already happened in hundreds of plant and animal species around the world. New research, publishing on December 8th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, shows that local extinctions have already occurred in 47% of the 976 plant and animal species studied.