Humanity’s best friend

For some 15,000 years, dogs have been our hunting partners, workmates, helpers and companions. Could they also be our next allies in the fight against COVID-19? According to UC Santa Barbara professor emeritus Tommy Dickey(link is external) and his collaborator, BioScent researcher Heather Junqueira, they can. And with a review paper(link is external) published in…

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Brain activity can reveal the severity of autistic traits

A team of researchers from Russia and Israel applied a new algorithm to classify the severity of autistic personality traits by studying subjects’ brain activity. The article ‘Brief Report: Classification of Autistic Traits According to Brain Activity Recoded by fNIRS Using ε-Complexity Coefficients’ is published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. When diagnosing…

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New guidance addresses structural racism in racial and ethnic disparities research

DALLAS, February 11, 2021 — Structural racism is a public health crisis in the U.S. and worldwide. The scientific publishing community can improve our understanding and address the significant health impacts of structural racism in racial and ethnic disparities research, according to a new statement, “The Groundwater of Racial and Ethnic Disparities Research: A Statement…

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The Lancet: New report details devastating impact of the Trump administration’s health-harming policies, calls for sweeping reforms

Peer reviewed / Review and opinion First comprehensive assessment of damage to health inflicted by former President Trump cites decades of policy failures made worse by the Trump administration, resulting in 461,000 unnecessary US deaths annually before the COVID-19 pandemic, and tens of thousands of unnecessary COVID-19 and pollution-related deaths attributable to his actions. Lancet…

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Self-testing trebles HIV testing rate amongst trans people in randomised trial

HIV self-testing could reduce the time between HIV infection and HIV diagnosis amongst trans people when compared to standard testing services, suggests new research in EClinicalMedicine. The project was a collaboration between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University College London (UCL), and the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit. It involved…

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Why portraying humans as healthy machines can backfire

Researchers from University of Amsterdam and Stanford University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines explores how human-as-machine representations affect consumers–specifically their eating behavior and health. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Portraying Humans as Machines to Promote Health: Unintended Risks, Mechanisms, and Solutions” and is authored…

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