Live updates: Russia’s war in Ukraine

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that if US Patriot missiles are sent to Ukraine, they would be legitimate targets for Russian forces. But he added that the US plan had not been confirmed. Peskov was asked by CNN if he held the same view as former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who…

Discovery could explain why women are more likely to get Alzheimer’s

Scientists at Scripps Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a clue to the molecular cause of Alzheimer’s — a clue that may also explain why women are at greater risk for the disease. In the study, reported on December 14, 2022, in Science Advances, the researchers found…

Early humans may have first walked upright in the trees

Human bipedalism — walking upright on two legs — may have evolved in trees, and not on the ground as previously thought, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. In the study, published today in the journal Science Advances, researchers from UCL, the University of Kent, and Duke University,…

Are people with cluster headaches more likely to have other illnesses?

People with cluster headaches may be more than three times more likely to have other medical conditions such as heart disease, mental disorders and other neurologic diseases, according to a study published in the December 14, 2022, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.…

Ebola vaccine regimens safe, immunogenic in adults and children

Two randomized, placebo-controlled trials evaluating three Ebola vaccine administration strategies in adults and children found that all the regimens were safe in both age groups, according to results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Antibodies were produced in response to the vaccine regimens beginning at 14 days…

Frequent genetic cause of late-onset ataxia: Discovery will improve diagnosis and open treatment possibilities for thousands of people with this debilitating neurodegenerative condition worldwide

A new study published on Dec. 14, 2022 in the New England Journal of Medicine reports the identification of a previously unknown genetic cause of a late-onset cerebellar ataxia, a discovery that will improve diagnosis and open new treatment avenues for this progressive condition. Late-onset cerebellar ataxias (LOCA) are a…

Chaos gives the quantum world a temperature

A single particle has no temperature. It has a certain energy or a certain speed — but it is not possible to translate that into a temperature. Only when dealing with random velocity distributions of many particles, a well-defined temperature emerges. How can the laws of thermodynamics arise from the…

Using machine learning to improve the toxicity assessment of chemicals

Researchers of the University of Amsterdam, together with colleagues at the University of Queensland and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, have developed a strategy for assessing the toxicity of chemicals using machine learning. They present their approach in an article in Environmental Science & Technology for the special issue…

Olfactory viral inflammation associated with accelerated onset of Alzheimer’s disease: CU Anschutz researchers suspect it disrupts the olfactory tract, impacting the hippocampus which controls memory and learning

Viruses can inflame and disrupt connections between the olfactory system, which governs the sense of smell, and the part of the brain associated with memory and learning, possibly accelerating the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. The…

Preoperative immunotherapy for mesothelioma shows favorable outcomes

In a study published recently in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine found that treating patients who have resectable malignant pleural mesothelioma, meaning that their tumor can be removed with surgery, with immunotherapy ahead of surgery resulted in favorable clinical outcomes. The study lays the…

Precision insights can be found in wastewater

Research from the lab of Fangqiong Ling at Washington University in St. Louis showed earlier this year that the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in a wastewater system was correlated with the burden of disease — COVID-19 — in the region it served. But before that work could be done, Ling needed…

Patients with treatment resistant depression at higher risk of early death

Patients with treatment resistant depression have a 23 per cent higher risk of death than other depressed patients. They also have twice as much outpatient care and spend three times the number of days in inpatient care. These are findings of a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry by researchers…

UK government eyes ban on single-use plastic plates and cutlery | CNN

CNN  —  Single-use plastic cutlery, plates and other items are set to be banned by the UK government and replaced by biodegradable items as it seeks to tackle the country’s – and the world’s – growing plastic waste problem. The UK has already banned some single-use plastic items, including straws,…

Live updates: Russia’s war in Ukraine

A child on a swing outside a residential building damaged by a missile on February 25, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Pierre Crom/Getty Images) Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine have put the physical and mental health of “almost every child” in the country “at desperate risk,” UNICEF warned Wednesday. As…