Higher weight increases risk of psoriasis
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)Studies have linked psoriasis and higher weight, but the causal relationship between the two has been unclear. What triggers what?
Studies have linked psoriasis and higher weight, but the causal relationship between the two has been unclear. What triggers what?
For scores of wild bee species, females and males visit very different flowers for food – a discovery that could be important for conservation efforts, according to Rutgers-led research. Indeed, the diets of female and male bees of the same species could be as different as the diets of different bee species, according to a study in the journal PLOS ONE.
New Mexico State University researchers collaborating with the New Mexico Department of Health recently published a paper that shows there is widespread resistance to insecticides in one type of mosquito found in southern New Mexico
People over the millennia have reported having deeply moving religious experiences either spontaneously or while under the influence of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin-containing mushrooms or the Amazonian brew ayahuasca, and a portion of those experiences have been encounters with what the person regards as “God” or “ultimate reality.” In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.
Underrepresentation of women scientists in the public sphere perpetuates the stereotype of the white male scientist and fails both to reflect the true diversity of people practicing science today
Using network science — part of a larger mathematical field called graph theory — FAMU-FSU Professor of Mechanical Engineering William Oates, former graduate student Peter Woerner and Associate Professor Kunihiko “Sam” Taira mapped long range atomic forces onto an incredibly complex graph to simulate macroscopic material behavior.
The complete skeletal remains of a new species of Mongolian dinosaur fill in a gap in the evolution of hadrosaurs, according to a study released April 17, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Khishigjav Tsogtbataaar of the Mongolian Academy of Science, David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum, and colleagues.
Screen time above a two-hour threshold at five years of age is associated with an increased risk of clinically relevant externalizing problems such as inattention, according to a study published April 17 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Piush Mandhane of the University of Alberta, and colleagues.
A team of researchers, including a University of La Verne anthropologist, has developed a new methodology for investigating anemia and other diseases after studying a Portuguese skeletal collection dating back to the 19th and 20th centuries.
The neuropeptide oxytocin blocks enhanced drinking in alcohol-dependent rats, according to a study published April 16 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology led by Drs. Tunstall, Koob and Vendruscolo of the National Institutes of Health
Birds, although they have larynges, use a different organ to sing. Called a syrinx, it’s a uniquely avian feature. Now, a team that brings together physics, biology, computation and engineering finds that the syrinx confers an advantage: by sitting so low in the airway, the syrinx can produce sound with very high efficiency.
Dr. Laura Gunn, an associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, and colleagues found that while violent attacks cause interest in gun control to spike, the rise in gun control debate may lead to increases in searches related to purchasing a gun more than the violent attacks themselves.
About two-thirds of the adults dying prematurely from natural causes did not seek medical help within the 30 days preceding their death, reported forensic researchers.
Turns out that relationships are the secret to keeping calm and carrying on.
Scientists at the University of Notre Dame discovered microglia actually squeeze through the spinal boundary, crossing into the peripheral nervous system in response to injury.
Application of sun protection factor (SPF) moisturizers tends to miss more of the face, especially around the eyelid regions, compared with sunscreen application, according to a study published April 3 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Kevin Hamill of the University of Liverpool, and colleagues.
A UChicago-based team working with collaborators in Bangladesh identified a new genetic variant linked to arsenic metabolism and toxicity.
As many as a billion people could be newly exposed to disease-carrying mosquitoes by the end of the century because of global warming, says a new study that examines temperature changes on a monthly basis across the world.
Social media had only a small influence on how much people believed falsehoods about candidates and issues in the last two presidential elections, a pair of new national studies found.
Roundworms that feed on plants cause approximately $100 billion in annual global crop damage. Now researchers at the University of New Hampshire have made a patent-pending discovery that certain enzymes in roundworms, called nematodes, behave differently than the same enzymes in humans, with amino acids potentially playing a key role.
The neurobiology of turtle ants differs significantly according to their specialized role within the colony, according to a study published March 27, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Darcy Greer Gordon from Boston University, USA, and colleagues.
Privacy concerns linked to both health facilities and providers are major barriers to increasing the number of men who are tested and treated for HIV in Cote d’Ivoire, suggests new Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP) research. CCP is based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The dramatic difference in gonad size between honey bee queens and their female workers in response to their distinct diets requires the switching on of a specific genetic program, according to a new study publishing March 21 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Annika Roth and Martin Beye of Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf and colleagues. The finding is likely to allow more detailed analysis of the interplay of genes and nutrition that drive caste dimorphism in honey bees.
Eighty-five percent of artists whose work is found in collections of major U.S. museums are white, and 87 percent are male, according to new research by Chad Topaz of Williams College, MA, and colleagues.
A new model quantifies how forest change affects local surface temperatures by altering sunlight-reflection and evapotranspiration properties, and predicts that Brazilian deforestation could result in a 1.45°C increase by 2050, in a study published March 20, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jayme A. Prevedello from the Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil, and colleagues.
A new species of Surazomus, which belongs to the class Arachnida and the order Schizomida, has been discovered in the eastern Amazon, according to a study published March 20 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Gustavo Ruiz and Roberta Valente of the Universidade Federal do Pará in Brazil.
Most emerging infectious diseases affecting people are zoonotic — they make the jump from other animals to humans. Transmission, however, is a two-way street. These zoonotic diseases can also jump from humans to other animals. Even if a disease is eradicated in humans, it can live on in animals that act as reservoirs, ensuring that the risk of human infection is never entirely eradicated.
ealthy food prescriptions through Medicare and Medicaid could generate substantial health gains and be highly cost-effective, according to a study published March 19 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Yujin Lee and Dariush Mozaffarian of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Massachusetts, United States and colleagues.
A new study led by researchers from Tufts and Harvard modeled the health and economic effects of healthy food prescriptions in Medicare and Medicaid, finding that offsetting the cost of healthy food through insurance could improve health outcomes and be highly cost effective after five years.
An interface system that uses augmented reality technology could help individuals with profound motor impairments operate a humanoid robot to feed themselves and perform routine personal care tasks such as scratching an itch and applying skin lotion. The web-based interface displays a “robot’s eye view” of surroundings to help users interact with the world through the machine.
Bromethalin, a common rat poison, is the agent responsible for a neurological disease that has sickened or killed birds from a popular flock of naturalized parrots that reside primarily in the Telegraph Hill area in north San Francisco, according to a new study led by the University of Georgia Infectious Diseases Laboratory and funded by Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue.
Narwhals - enigmatic arctic whales known for their sword-like tusk – spend over half their time diving to find food but are also able to last up to three days without a meal, according to a study by Manh Cuong Ngô and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, published in PLOS Computational Biology.
Large herbivore populations can substantially recover after war-induced declines, given that protected area management is provided, according to a study published March 13 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Marc Stalmans of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, and colleagues. But the community structure may take longer to restore, as the rate of recovery varies for different populations.
A new deep-mapping computer model can detect visual changes to individual properties, allowing researchers to more-rapidly track gentrification within neighborhoods and cities, according to a study published March 13, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lazar Ilic, Michael Sawada, and Amaury Zarzelli of the University of Ottawa, Canada.
W. Douglas Evans, PhD, a professor of prevention and community health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and his colleagues studied the Saleema Initiative in Sudan, a public health campaign to raise awareness of the harm caused by FGM and to change the way the public thinks about this practice.
New research publishing March 12 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology reveals that human threats – like hunting and land clearing – are extensive across thousands of species’ habitats, severely limiting the area they can survive in.
Planthopper bugs may be small, but they attract mates from afar by sending vibrational calls along plant stems and leaves using fast, rhythmic motions of their abdomen. In a new study publishing March 12 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, researchers at the University of Oxford show how a newly-discovered “snapping organ” enables courting bugs of both sexes to produce this shaking motion through a combination of muscle action and elastic recoil.
A new study maps the last vestiges of wild places where the world’s threatened species can take refuge from the ravages of unregulated hunting, land clearing, and other industrial activities.
New research shows just how powerful the United States’ and other countries’ influence can be on persuading other nations to ratify international treaties.
A Tulane University professor’s research into the world’s largest mass sacrifice of children and llamas in northern Peru is being published in one of the world’s top scientific journals.
A new study by Johns Hopkins Carey Business School researcher Erik Helzer found Introverts’ expectations of social interactions are more pessimistic than what they ultimately experience.
An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Birmingham and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have found that the way in which people use the internet is closely tied to patterns and rhythms in the natural world.
Lands surrounding rivers and streams offer natural migration routes that will take on a new importance as temperatures rise. A new, open-access study pinpoints which riverside routes will be the most important for animals trying to navigate a changing climate.
Automated programs can identify which sick infants in a neonatal intensive care unit have sepsis hours before clinicians recognize the life-threatening condition. A study team tested machine-learning models in a NICU population, drawing only on routinely collected data available in electronic health records.
The largest sacrifice of its kind known from the Americas was associated with heavy rainfall and flooding
The same brain network that adults use when they hear angry vocalizations is at work in infants as young as six months old, an effect that is strongest in infants whose mothers spend the most time controlling their behavior, according to a new study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chen Zhao of the University of Manchester, UK, and colleagues.
Eocene-aged sediments of Madagascar contain a previously unknown fauna of sharks and rays, according to a study released February 27, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Karen Samonds of Northern Illinois University and colleagues. This newly-described fauna is the first report of sharks and rays of this age in Madagascar.
The Indigenous Peoples of British Columbia have been harvesting shellfish from specially-constructed clam gardens for at least 3500 years, according to a study released February 27, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE
Veterinarians and agricultural inspectors who seek to detect and contain the spread of animal diseases can now turn to a newer, faster and less expensive biological detection system.
Treating hospitalized, severely malnourished children with a lactose-free, reduced-carbohydrate milk formula does not improve clinical outcomes, according to a study published February 26 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Robert Bandsma of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, James Berkley of the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kilifi, Kenya, and colleagues.