Curated News: PLOS

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Dams poorly mimic the temperature patterns California streams require to support the state’s native salmon and trout — more than three-quarters of which risk extinction.

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recently published studies in basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include clinical studies to investigate novel treatment strategies, a new understanding of cancer precursor lesions, identifying a calcium signaling receptor, characterizing nodal immune flair after immunotherapy, a community screening tool for BRCA testing and a new method for diagnosing Clostridioides difficile infections.

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Researchers measured both the psychological perception of stress and evaluated how undergraduate males and females cope with stress. The differences are vast. Females experienced much higher levels of stress than males and used emotion-focused approaches to cope more than males. Females used self-distractions, emotional support and venting as coping strategies. Male students on the other hand sought much lower levels of support, since they either may lack the social network or may not have developed those skills.

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Research led by a Wayne State University Department of Mathematics professor is aiding researchers in Wayne State’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences in analyzing fMRI data. fMRI is the preeminent class of signals collected from the brain in vivo and is irreplaceable in the study of brain dysfunction in many medical fields, including psychiatry, neurology and pediatrics.

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Getting a full understanding of how genes are regulated is a major goal of scientists worldwide. Now, a Florida State University professor and his research partners have developed a technique that can map out nearly all of the likely regulatory switches across a genome.

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A low-cost and rapid 3D technique is helping scientists to gain insight into the colony- and community-level dynamics of the poorly understood stony coral tissue loss disease responsible for widespread coral death throughout the Tropical Western Atlantic. They adapted Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry to generate 3D models for tracking lesion progression and impacts on diseased coral colonies. They combined traditional diver surveys with 3D colony fate-tracking to determine the impacts of disease on coral colonies throughout Southeast Florida.

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A new study shows that over a third of all members of Congress held health care-related assets with a median total value per member of over $43,000 between 2004 and 2014.

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Sex workers face discrimination within healthcare settings that limit their access to safe care. Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago's College of Nursing have recently published a paper demonstrating how patient-centered care for sex workers could be implemented.

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The majority of individuals who experience mild or moderate COVID-19 infection also experience long COVID, or persistent symptoms more than 30 days after they test positive, according to research data from the longitudinal CoVHORT study at the University of Arizona Health Sciences.

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In a newly published study, physician-scientists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have shown that the flu vaccine may provide vital protection against COVID-19.

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New COVID-19 40-day mortality risk model, published in The Public Library of Science ONE, has potential for use in patient treatment planning, comparisons of therapeutic strategies, and public-health preparations.

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Research from Wellesley College shows that despite being a clonal insect species, weevils use gene regulation to adapt to new food sources and pass down epigenetic changes to future generations.

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Two new publications examining cassava flowering reveal insights into the genetic and environmental factors underpinning one of the world’s most critical food security crops.

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Physicians, nursing staff, medical technical assistants, and pastoral workers in hospitals: they have all been placed under severe strain by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Optometry researchers have identified new biomarkers that may advance the early detection of diabetic retinopathy, the most common diabetic eye disease and a leading cause of blindness in U.S. adults.

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Many species within Kenya's Tana River Basin will be unable to survive if global temperatures continue to rise as they are on track to do - according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

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In a first-of-its-kind study that combines assessments of the risks of toxic emissions, nontoxic emissions and people’s vulnerability to them, Notre Dame researchers found a strong and statistically significant relationship between the spatial distribution of global climate risk and toxic pollution.

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In the context of meditation practice, meditators can experience a state of "pure awareness" or "pure consciousness", in which they perceive consciousness itself.

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Researchers are the first to model COVID-19 completion versus cessation in clinical trials using machine learning algorithms and ensemble learning. They collected 4,441 COVID-19 trials from ClinicalTrials.gov to build a testbed with 693 dimensional features created to represent each clinical trial. These computational methods can predict whether a COVID-19 clinical trial will be completed or terminated, withdrawn or suspended. Stakeholders can leverage the predictions to plan resources, reduce costs, and minimize the time of the clinical study.

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Add this to the list of real-life spidey senses: Harvard researchers have shown that jumping spiders are able to tell the difference between animate objects and inanimate objects -- an ability previously known only in vertebrates, including humans.

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Using anonymized medical records from a national registry, UC San Diego researchers confirm earlier findings that statins may substantially minimize adverse outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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The NIH funded academic institutions to design programs for professional development, but because doctoral training is lengthy and requires focused attention on research, some researchers feared students participating in additional training activities might diminish their research productivity or delay graduation. Researchers found this was not true.

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To understand how the UW’s transition to online-only classes affected college students’ mental health in the spring of 2020, UW researchers surveyed 147 UW undergraduates over the 2020 spring quarter.

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55% of “Long COVID” sufferers reported fatigue, 25% had shortness of breath, and 26% had symptoms of depression.

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Study suggests spatial relationship between COVID-19 mortality and population-level health factors.

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Proactive, frequent rapid testing of all students for COVID-19 is more effective at preventing large transmission clusters in schools than measures that are only initiated when someone develops symptoms and then tests positive, Simon Fraser University researchers have found.

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The ability to determine who will recover quickly, and who will continue to suffer from symptoms has largely eluded the medical community. Until now.

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New simulations suggest that waiting until a student tests positive is too late for prevention

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You have probably often said to yourself: "This time, I will only buy what I need!" But then you still ended up coming home with things that were not on your shopping list.

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Australian scientists researching how our immune system responds to COVID-19 have revealed that those infected by early variants in 2020 produced sustained antibodies, however, these antibodies are not as effective against contemporary variants of the virus.

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Conversations between seriously ill people, their families and palliative care specialists lead to better quality-of-life. Understanding what happens during these conversations – and how they vary by cultural, clinical, and situational contexts – is essential to guide healthcare communication improvement efforts. To gain true understanding, new methods to study conversations in large, inclusive, and multi-site epidemiological studies are required. A new computer model offers an automated and valid tool for such large-scale scientific analyses.

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Antibiotic sales soared during India’s first surge of COVID-19, suggesting that the drugs were inappropriately used to treat mild and moderate COVID-19 infections, according to research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The excessive usage is especially concerning because antibiotic overuse increases the risk for drug-resistant infections — not just in India, but worldwide.

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One of the longest-running studies examining COVID-prevention behaviours shows hygiene changes have been sustained but not complex changes, like social distancing, with important policy implications.

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A new study confirms the low likelihood that coronavirus contamination on hospital surfaces is infectious. The study is the original report on recovering near-complete SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences directly from surface swabs.

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A new study from archaeologists at University of Sydney and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, has provided important new evidence to answer the question "Who exactly were the Anglo-Saxons?"

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In a rare gecko color variety known as Lemon Frost, scientists have traced an unusual coloring and tendency to form tumors to a gene linked to human melanoma.

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New research led by investigators at Harvard School of Dental Medicine suggests that machine learning tools can help identify those at greatest risk for tooth loss and refer them for further dental assessment in an effort to ensure early interventions to avert or delay the condition.

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A new study of small Iowa towns found that vulnerable populations within those communities face significantly more public health risks than statewide averages.

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Medical guidelines help doctors understand the best way to treat health conditions. Surprisingly, many doctors do not adhere to them, and this is a problem, according to a new study. People with lower back pain injury miss 11 more days of work in a year when they only receive treatments for lower back pain that are not recommended by medical guidelines compared to people treated according to guidelines.

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Case Western Reserve University researchers studying prions—misfolded proteins that cause lethal incurable diseases—have identified for the first time surface features of human prions responsible for their replication in the brain.

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An underwater archaeologist from The University of Texas at Arlington is part of a research team studying 9,000-year-old stone tool artifacts discovered in Lake Huron that originated from an obsidian quarry more than 2,000 miles away in central Oregon.

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The research utilizes the body’s natural killer cells, part of the human immune system, to target breast cancer tumor cells. The triggers are fusion proteins developed by Clemson University researchers that link the two together. The research is a novel approach to developing breast cancer-specific immunotherapy.

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A Cornell University team led by Sturt Manning, Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Classics and director of the Tree-Ring Laboratory, used dendrochronology and a form of radiocarbon dating called “wiggle-matching” to pinpoint, with 95% probability, the years in which an ancient wooden structure’s two main components were created: a lower tank in 1444 B.C., and an upper tank in 1432 B.C. Each date has a margin of error of four years.

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Smokers needed their blocked arteries fixed nearly a decade earlier than non-smokers, and patients with obesity underwent these procedures four years earlier than non-obese patients, according to a new study from across Michigan.

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University of Illinois Chicago researchers studying birth outcomes in marmoset monkeys found there were no adult maternal characteristics like age or weight gain during pregnancy to predict stillbirth or early neonatal death, but that a mother’s birth weight or litter size were associated with early neonatal death. “Our findings of early life contributions to adult pregnancy outcomes in the common marmoset disrupt mother-blaming narratives of pregnancy outcomes in humans,” the paper states.

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Accurate soft tissue measurements are critical when making reconstructions of human ancestors, a new study from the University of Adelaide and Arizona State University has found.

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New research published in PLOS Biology emphasizes the importance of prioritizing taxonomic research in conservation, with biodiversity loss greater than realized due to the high number of unknown and undocumented species. Jane Melville, senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates at Museums Victoria and associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, led the collaborative research effort as part of a Fulbright Fellowship at Washington University in St.

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Researchers at the University of Adelaide are concerned video sharing platforms such as YouTube could be contributing to the normalisation of exotic pets and encouraging the exotic pet trade.

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What makes preschoolers eat their veggies? Raise their hand? Wait their turn? "Because I say so" is a common refrain for many parents.

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Researchers are finding new details on the complex dynamics involved in how organisms sense an infection from pathogens. The researchers found that worms can sense changes in their metabolism in order to unleash protective defenses, even if they don’t directly sense an incursion from pathogens.