Connecting Research and Experts with Journalists

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The amount of money people pay out-of-pocket for branded drugs to treat neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease continues to rise, especially for MS drugs, according to a study published in the October 30, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A research team exploring how genes and environmental factors interact in psychiatry has discovered that a history of sexual trauma and a genetic tendency to develop mental illness are associated with increased risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression.

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Researchers at WashU Medicine have found a process by which the brain guards against attack by the immune system. In mice with multiple sclerosis, such "guardian" proteins that train the immune system were drastically depleted, and replenishing them improved symptoms, according to a study in Nature.

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Superweeds that have developed resistance to common herbicides is jeopardizing weed management in agriculture. Robots for mechanical weeding is an emerging technology that could potentially provide a solution. A new study from the University of Illinois estimates farmer adoption of weeding robots.

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A new study – published in Nursing Research – has found that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted patient safety indicators in U.S. hospitals. The study, from Penn Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), examined data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators to assess trends in nursing-sensitive quality indicators from 2019 to 2022. The prevention of these very distressing, uncomfortable conditions is considered to be under the nurse’s purview and directly influenced by nursing care.

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Doctors at Mayo Clinic used a new catheter-based approach to draw out resistant pockets of infection that settle in the heart, known as right-sided infective endocarditis, without surgery. Unless treated quickly, the walled-off infections can grow, severely damaging heart valves and potentially affecting other organs as well. In a recent study, over 90% of the participants had their infection cleared, and they had lower in-hospital mortality compared to those whose infections remained.

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In patients with chronic kidney disease, the loss of podocytes—part of the kidney’s glomerular filtration barrier—causes irreversible disease progression. So far, physicians and researchers have found no way to effectively prevent podocyte damage, loss, and deterioration leading to end-stage kidney disease.

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Expert tips on limiting sugar on Halloween and year round.

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Los investigadores que publicaron un informe en la revista Environmental Science & Technology Letters de ACS analizaron la posibilidad de que estos productos de supresión fueran la fuente de los elevados niveles de metales que a veces se encuentran en los cauces tras apagar los incendios forestales.

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To run on a quantum computer, algorithms must be decomposed into a sequence of quantum gates, a difficult process. In this study, researchers developed a novel “hybrid” approach to quantum hardware design that replaces part of the quantum circuit with a physical evolution that relies on natural interactions within the system. This approach significantly reduces the complexity of executing quantum algorithms.