Using high resolution paleoecological information obtained from fossilized footprints, a new study published in Science Advances presents ~120 thousand-year-old human and animal footprints from an ancient lake bed in northern Arabia. These findings represent the earliest evidence for humans in this part of the world and show that human and animal movements and landscape use were closely linked.

An immunotherapy drug called 'avelumab' has been shown to significantly improve survival in patients with the most common type of bladder cancer, according to results from a phase III clinical trial led by Queen Mary University of London and Barts Cancer Centre, UK.

While recent hospital price transparency initiatives have increased information about procedure-level prices available to patients, employers who pay for most private insurance have little usable information about the prices negotiated on their behalf. A new study based on data from more than half the nation's hospitals finds that prices paid to hospitals nationally during 2018 by privately...

Biologists observing the formation of leaves noticed the nuclei moved in bewildering ways. Further investigation uncovered proteins that act as compasses and motors, guiding the divisions of individual cells to create the overall pattern of the leaf.

In a simulation study, UTokyo researchers showed that limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C will mitigate aridification in some regions of the world including the Mediterranean, western Europe, and southern Africa. However, Australia and some parts of Asia were simulated to become wetter rather than drier at both 1.5°C and 2°C of warming. These findings reveal the importance...

A child between 11 and 12 years of age lost it near the "Riparo del Broion" on the Berici Hills in Veneto. It is the most recent Neanderthal finding in northern Italy and one of the youngest in the country

According to a recently published study of Finnish twins, smoking most likely causes a significant share of all cases of subarachnoid haemorrhage, the most fatal type of cerebrovascular disturbances. In the study, smoking was identified as the explanation as to why only one twin in pairs of twins develops a fatal brain haemorrhage. The finding is the first proof of an actual causality between...

For the first time, scientists at UNC-Chapel Hill and Stanford solved the high-resolution structure of these compounds when they are actively bound to the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor on the surface of brain cells. This discovery is already leading to the exploration of more precise compounds that could eliminate hallucinations but still have strong therapeutic effects. Psilocybin - the psychedelic...

Access to cancer medicines is highly unequal across Europe both for new drugs in development because of uneven access to clinical trials and for currently approved drugs due to huge disparities in healthcare spending by different countries, according to results from studies presented at ESMO 2020.

Cornell University systems engineers examined data from a busy New York state food bank and, using a new algorithm, found ways to better allocate food and elevate nutrition in the process.

Limitations in DNA sequencing technology make it difficult to detect some major mutations often linked to cancer, such as the loss or duplication of parts of chromosomes. Now, methods developed by Princeton computer scientists will allow researchers to more accurately identify these mutations in cancerous tissue, yielding a clearer picture of the evolution and spread of tumors than was previously...

Scientists at Shenzhen University have recently developed an all-optical ultrafast imaging system with high spatial and temporal resolutions, as well as a high frame rate. Because the method is all-optical, it's free from the bottlenecks that arise from scanning with mechanical and electronic components.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific and medical journals have published over 100,000 studies on SARS-CoV-2. But according to data scientists who created a machine-learning tool to analyze the deluge of publications, basic lab-based studies on the microbiology of the virus, including research on its pathogenesis and mechanisms of viral transmission, are lacking. Their analysis...

A new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings provides the most comprehensive analysis of the role of omega-3 dosage on cardiovascular prevention to date. The meta-analysis, which is an in-depth review of 40 clinical trials, provides authoritative evidence for consuming more EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) omega-3 fats.

KAIST researchers have identified key markers that could help pinpoint patients who are bound to get a severe reaction to COVID-19 infection. This would help doctors provide the right treatments at the right time, potentially saving lives. The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology on August 28.

Wearing footwear with an upward curvature at the front of the shoe - known as the toe spring - requires less work from the muscles of the feet to walk than shoes with a flatter sole, according to an experimental study published in Scientific Reports.

Changes in lung cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic were evaluated in this study.

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) explains the advantage that animals have of using a specific type of chaotic type of movement called a "Lévy walk," and how this type of behavior emerges. Using computer modeling, the author shows that this type of movement can allow animals to make flexible decisions between "exploitation" and "exploring" in an...

Children who experience neglect are seven times more likely than other abuse victims to have a teen pregnancy say University of Queensland researchers.

Children who take oral steroids to treat asthma or autoimmune diseases have an increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and blood clots, according to Rutgers researchers. The Rutgers study is the first to quantify these complications of oral steroids in a nationwide population of children.

Already, climate change is having an impact on the conditions of space observation at the Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert. In future, new telescopes will have to be adapted to the expected changes, a study in 'Nature Astronomy' finds.

A CNIC's team have discovered a mechanism explaining how macrophages regulate obesity. The results published in Nature Metabolism could be useful to design new treatments for the obese and overweight, and for some associated pathologies, including fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes.

In a large group of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, consumption of a few cups of coffee a day was associated with longer survival and a lower risk of the cancer worsening, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other organizations report in a new study.

Researchers examined changes in the proportion of female corresponding authors in bioRxiv (biorxiv.org) and medRxiv (medrxiv.org), which are online archive and distribution services for unpublished preprint research in the life and health sciences, respectively, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.