Curated News: Staff Picks

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Email is a tremendous source of workplace stress, as the expectation that every message will be read and responded to as soon as it arrives in one’s inbox has become a workplace norm. People can limit the negative impact of email, not necessarily by sending less email, but by sending better emails that clearly define response expectations, according to a new study from Cornell University’s ILR School.

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The innermost lane may typically be favored to win a race, but in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the winds in its outermost “lane” are taking the lead! Only Hubble can spot these trends: The observatory acts like a storm tracker for the giant planets in our solar system every year.

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An international research team led by the University of Huddersfield's Archaeogenetics Research Group, including geneticists, archaeological scientists, and archaeologists, has published the genome sequence of a unique individual from Islamic medieval Spain – al-Andalus - the results of which have shed light on a brutal event that took place in medieval Spain.

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A research team led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has completed a first-ever global population estimate of Weddell seals in Antarctica, showing that there are significantly fewer seals than previously thought. Documenting the seals’ population trends over time will help scientists better understand the effects of climate change and commercial fishing.

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A new study finds that that some large whale species (humpback, fin and minke whales) use the waters off New York and New Jersey as a supplemental feeding area feasting on two different types of prey species.

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Results from a 10-year study of children and adolescents who underwent a common weight loss operation to treat severe obesity show they safely have long-lasting major weight loss and improvement of their obesity-related medical problems without stunting their growth in height. The study, involving the longest known follow-up of pediatric patients after laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, is published online by the Journal of the American College of Surgeons ahead of print.

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Brain metastasis occurs when cancer in one part of the body spreads to the brain. The lifetime incidence of such metastatic brain tumors in cancer patients is between 20%-45%, research shows.

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The use of GPS-equipped ankle monitors is increasingly viewed as a more humane alternative to incarceration, yet a report released today finds they cause many of the same harms associated with traditional incarceration.

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Adults and children with migraines may get less quality, REM sleep time than people who don’t have migraines. That’s according to a meta-analysis published in the September 22, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Children with migraines were also found to get less total sleep time than their healthy peers but took less time to fall asleep.

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Eating your daily calories within a consistent window of 8-10 hours is a powerful strategy to prevent and manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, according to a new manuscript published in the Endocrine Society’s journal, Endocrine Reviews.

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Studying major hurricanes Notre Dame researcher, Sisi Meng, found that the fate of hurricane victims depends on a number of factors including how well-prepared they are, whether they have weathered a hurricane before and how quickly their utility services are restored.

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A team of paleontologists from the University of Washington excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana this summer. The four dinosaur fossils are: the ilium of an ostrich-sized theropod; the hips and legs of a duck-billed dinosaur; a pelvis and limbs from another theropod; and a Triceratops specimen.

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Researchers measured the potassium isotope compositions of Martian meteorites in order to estimate the presence, distribution and abundance of volatile elements and compounds, including water, on Mars, finding that Mars has lost more potassium than Earth but retained more potassium than the Moon or the asteroid 4-Vesta; the results suggest that rocky planets with larger mass retain more volatile elements during planetary formation and that Mars and Mars-sized exoplanets fall below a size threshold necessary to retain enough water to enable habitability and plate tectonics.

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Missing out on the recommended seven or more hours of sleep per night could lead to more opportunities to make poorer snacking choices than those made by people who meet shut-eye guidelines, a new study suggests.

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Around 1 in 6 parents say their child eats fast food at least twice a week; families’ views on fast food consumption varied based on parents’ perceptions of their child’s weight.

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The capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services relied on by millions of people worldwide has declined by half since the 1950s, according to a new University of British Columbia-led study.

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A study recently published in Nature Communications suggests that displacing cold-water communities of algae with warm-adapted ones threatens to destabilize the delicate marine food web. The team was led by University of East Anglia researchers and included DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers.

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Antibodies and T cells play a critical role in protection from viral illness, however the exact role of T cell and antibody responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection is unclear. To better understand the immune abnormalities linked to critical illness and death in COVID-19 patients on ICU, researchers conducted a prospective observational study investigating the association of T cell and antibody responses with fatal outcome in severe COVID-19.

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Researcher discovers that the underground species has a secret glow

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The monumental reliefs at the Camel Site in northern Arabia are unique: three rock spurs are decorated with naturalistic, life-sized carvings of camels and equids. In total, 21 reliefs have been identified.

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In powerful testimony to members of the United States Congress today, Stephen Ritz, acclaimed teacher, founder of Green Bronx Machine and best-selling author of The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools, made the case for public schools’ role in ending hunger and improving health and nutrition in America.

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World-renown rap star Nicki Minaj tweeted about Covid-19 vaccination during the 2021 Met Gala (she did not attend since she is not vaccinated). She suggested that getting a COVID-19 vaccine will cause male impotence and swollen testicles.

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Throughout history, pandemics have been a key driver of human population change, thanks to mortality and declining fertility rates. And, according to a new study co-authored by a Cornell professor, COVID-19 is no exception.

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Nearly half of New York City mothers who had been trying to become pregnant again before the coronavirus pandemic began stopped in the first few months of the outbreak, a new study shows.

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A series of new images reveals that planets form in organic soups — and no two soups are alike.

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One of the frequently used methods to monitor endangered whales is called passive acoustics technology, which doesn’t always perform well.

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Researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology measured 60 DBPs in three types of tea, unexpectedly finding lower levels in brewed tea than in tap water. However, they also detected many unknown DBPs with uncertain health effects.

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Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL - Dr. Dave Bowman

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Researchers from the University of Georgia developed a new indigo dyeing technology that’s kinder on the planet. The new technique reduces water usage and eliminates the toxic chemicals that make the dyeing process so environmentally damaging. And to top it off, the technology streamlines the process and secures more color than traditional methods.

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In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the Indian Institute of Science studied the fate of a large-sized surrogate cough droplets at different velocities, corresponding from mild to severe, while using various locally procured fabrics as masks.

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A first in situ, long-term study explored how the common octopus, a medium-sized octopus widely distributed in tropical and temperate seas worldwide and the Atlantic longarm octopus, a small species of octopus found in the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere, coexist by examining their foraging habits and tactics, diet, behaviors and when they are active or inactive. Results show that their very different behaviors and habits is exactly how these two species coexist in a shallow Florida lagoon- even at high densities.

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In the new study, the research team developed computational methods using deep-learning algorithms and network science and then applied these methods to large-scale datasets tracing the career outputs of artists, film directors and scientists.

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Transporting a single brick to Mars can cost more than a million British pounds – making the future construction of a Martian colony seem prohibitively expensive.

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Many unvaccinated health care workers will soon be subject to a federal vaccine requirement announced by President Biden. A new poll shows most older adults support a vaccination mandate for doctors, nurses and others.

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Chewing gum after heart surgery may kickstart the digestive tract, helping patients feel better and potentially be discharged sooner than those who don't use this generally safe and simple intervention.

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These recent submissions of research news on Climate Change and the Environment are not to be missed.

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Greenland may be best known for its enormous continental scale ice sheet that soars up to 3,000 meters above sea level, whose rapid melting is a leading contributor to global sea level rise.

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A novel scientific framework to consistently understand, plan, establish, evaluate and monitor ocean protection in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) developed by an international team of scientists including Ellen Pikitch, PhD, of Stony Brook University, is published in Science.

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In the post-pandemic world, a few things have become ubiquitous: masks, hand sanitizer and Zoom fatigue, or the feeling of being worn out after a long day of virtual meetings. But new research from a team led by University of Georgia psychologist Kristen Shockley suggests that it’s not the meetings causing the fatigue—it’s the camera.