News

Want Grandpa to stop griping about mumblers? Turn off the TV.

“I don’t need a hearing aid. Just speak clearly!” Most of us have heard some version of it, usually but not necessarily from an older relative who just asked us to repeat something that they didn’t quite parse the first time. According to research from Johns Hopkins Medicine, at least the first half of that statement is correct: A hearing aid would only make things worse. We often assume that age-related hearing loss, or presbycusis, Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Researchers confirm doctors can be unscientific about weight loss

In findings that will surely be stacked right next to “Yes, chicken soup is good for you,” findings published in Family Practice show that doctors often give obese patients very general, very ineffective advice about losing weight. The study notes that available information, even in scientific literature, is often “vague, superficial, and commonly not supported by scientific evidence.” The research team collected 159 recorded consultations between general practitioners and obese patients living in the United Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Researchers call it the “sea cow effect”: To save the kelp forests, read history

In findings published today in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, scientists from the California Academy of Sciences describe how one unassuming undulator, the Stellar’s sea cow, affected the kelp forests ringing North America’s Pacific coast before European visitors hunted it to extinction in the 1760s. According to the authors, our tendency to assess ecosystems based on current and recent factors, which they call shifting baseline syndrome, may prevent us from seeing the big picture. Ecologically Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

The Role, the Purpose and the Radiation Test Dummy

              Since its founding in the 1700s, the United States’ ride toward racial, ethnic and gender equality has been as bumpy as the rest of its history. While most people can accept that giving everyone an equal chance to reach their potential is the best thing to do on a moral and social level, there is also concrete evidence showing that broader diversity can make companies more profitable and countries more competitive.               In 2019, Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

World’s first perennial rice strain may do more than save labor

The world’s farmers are now free to purchase and grow a new type of rice—a perennial. The strain, called PR23, is the culmination of over fifteen years of work. Unlike annual strains, perennial plants do not have to be replanted every year. But findings published this week in Nature Sustainability suggest the story may be even better than that. Human beings have been experimenting with rice for over nine thousand years, breeding it for better Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Gene associated with autoimmune illness may protect carriers from COVID-19

In findings published Thursday in PLOS Genetics, researchers from King’s College London report a mysterious new balance between wolf and bug: A gene associated with increased risk of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may protect carriers from severe COVID-19. The research team performed a meta-analysis of three genome-wide association studies performed on Europeans. They found several sites associated with both SLE and severe COVID-19. The two with the tightest relationships were TYK2, which Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

COVID-19 disrupts gut bacteria, may promote antibiotic-resistant secondary infection

COVID-19 may have an impact on some key players in human health and disease prevention—our symbiotic gut bacteria. During the pandemic scientists noted the correlation between reduced diversity in the intestinal flora—fewer species of microbes—and more intense cases of COVID-19. But, per the classic warning about correlation and causation, research published Tuesday in Nature Communications addresses whether the coronaviral chicken came before or after the egg. Researchers from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine examined Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Phage imbalances may disrupt wastewater treatment

In findings published this year in Water Research X, scientists from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology report that viruses may pose a previously unrecognized threat to some of our most important tamed species: The bacteria in our wastewater treatment plants. A healthy wastewater treatment plant teems with tireless but benign prokaryotes. By devouring all the let’s-call-it-food in household and industrial effluent, they leave nothing left for harmful bacteria to grow on. Bacteriophages and other factors Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Taking out macrophages allows the immune system to target tumors

According to findings published earlier this month in Cancer Immunology Research, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai report a new means of counteracting therapeutic resistance in cancer cells: Take out their goons. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells can be made to target the tumor-associated macrophages that protect cancer cells from the rest of the immune system. CAR T cells have been used to treat cancer before, but always by targeting Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Community organizations outperform hospitals in COVID-19 awareness

Findings of a study out of Rutgers University show that while thinking globally has its place, acting locally may be more effective in the Black and Latino communities of the Garden State, at least when it comes to educating the public about how to access free COVID-19 testing. The research team focused on COVID-19 testing and awareness in four New Jersey Black and Latino communities from May through December 2021. They compared the level of Read more…

By D Flynn, ago