Watch lovers are an intensely visual bunch: Consider the more than 2.1 million images tagged #wristshot on Instagram. But the rising popularity of horology podcasts also indicates a growing appetite for informed yet casual conversation about timepieces — a hunger made all the sharper by Covid-19. “Engagement is up across all our channels because a…
Scientists have launched a new study which will help identify who is most at risk of contracting COVID-19 and why some people become more ill than others with the disease. The COVIDENCE UK study, led by Queen Mary University of London, opens today [Friday 1 May] and aims to recruit at least 12,000 people, aged…
New Orleans, LA – A study conducted by a team of researchers at LSU Health New Orleans has shown for the first time that chronic exposure to inhaled nicotine alone increases blood pressure (hypertension), in both the body’s general circulation and in the lungs that can lead to pulmonary hypertension. The study also found that…
A medicinal chemist who found a cure for the viral disease hepatitis C has received a prestigious award from the University of Edinburgh. Dr Michael J Sofia, who devised the drug sofosbuvir, is the winner of this year’s Cameron Prize for Therapeutics. Hepatitis C is an infectious disease that primarily affects the liver. Without intervention,…
Erika Hersch-Green, evolutionary biologist and assistant professor of biological sciences at Michigan Technological University, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to investigate how increased nitrogen and phosphorus availability across different temperature and water regimes alters the primary productivity of some plants, while reducing the growth of others. Hersch-Green will examine how the amounts…
Trauma patients are at risk of developing multiple infections while in the hospital, but it’s difficult to identify those who are especially susceptible. Now a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found that certain scores already used to assess the severity of a trauma patient’s condition can provide clues. The findings are published in…
SILVER SPRING, Md. – A study led by scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research sheds new light on the body’s initial response to dengue virus (DENV) infection, describing the molecular diversity and specificity of the antibody response. These results, published in EBioMedicine, a journal published by The Lancet, identify a heretofore unappreciated…
Certain genetic changes, termed “pathogenic variants,” substantially increase risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer–the leading causes of death–but testing to identify individual carriers is not part of current clinical practice. Now a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) determined that nearly 1% of the population carry such pathogenic variants. These individuals were…
JUPITER, Fla.–May 1, 2020–Many people with Parkinson’s disease eventually develop debilitating movements called dyskinesia, a side effect of their much-needed dopamine replacement medication. The mechanism underlying this unwanted side effect has been unknown, until now. An international collaboration led by Scripps Research, Florida has found a key cause, and with it, potentially, a new route…
After a sharp drop in out-of-pocket costs between 2010 and 2011, Medicare patients who use specialty biologic medications for rheumatoid arthritis have seen higher out-of-pocket spending for those same drugs because of gradual price increases, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Open finds. Led by Vanderbilt University School of Medicine…