Posts

The motor performance of young children has only partly declined over the past decade, says a report in Frontiers in Pediatrics. Despite suspicions to the contrary, the motor performance of first-graders has only partly declined over the past decade — at least in one region in Germany — by KED Coan Global increases in childhood obesity are frequently assumed to go hand-in-hand with decreased motor performance in young children. But, according to a report in Frontiers in Pediatrics, first graders around Baden-Baden, Germany, have remained reasonably fit over the last ten years....

New study demonstrates canine intelligence tests can predict top learners, making training of working dogs cheaper and faster; Frontiers in Veterinary Science A new study demonstrates canine intelligence tests can be used to select top performers, which could make training of working dogs cheaper and faster. — by University of Arizona, USA The canine labor market is diverse and expansive. Assistance dogs may be trained to work with the visually or hearing impaired, or with people in wheelchairs....

by Nina Hall Frontiers in Marine Science is proud to announce the winners of our Twitter marine fieldwork photo competition. We asked the marine community to tweet us their favorite fieldwork picture using the hashtag #FMARSfieldpics and #FMARSfieldwork and, my oh my, did we get spoiled! Picking the top three, however, was much less fun than we anticipated because we wanted to crown all of the pictures as winners. Every single photo made our hearts jump with joy as they were utterly beautiful, giving a unique perspective into what fieldwork for a marine biologist can look like at its most exciting....

Frontiers announces its first open-access agreement with Asian institution One of Taiwan’s leading medical research institutions, the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), and the open-access publisher Frontiers have today announced a publishing deal effective as of August 2021. Established in 1995, NHRI is one of Asia’s leading medical research and healthcare institutions. It focuses on fields including aging, cancer, infectious diseases and vaccine research, genomic medicine, biomedical engineering, biotechnology and drug discovery, environmental and occupational health, population health, and health policy....

Position Statement from UK experts: limited evidence for value of routine brain tumor imaging, highlight way forward: Frontiers in Oncology By Conn Hastings, science writer After treatment, medical staff use routine brain scans to monitor progress in brain tumor patients. However, how often such scans should occur is unclear. A Position Statement from a large group of UK experts highlights that the evidence behind current scanning routines is weak. The article highlights numerous ways that researchers can gather evidence to improve scanning routines so that they are most effective and do not interfere with patient quality of life....

With an Impact Factor of 5.511, Frontiers in Immunology is among the top 10 most-cited journals in its field Frontiers in Immunology is among the top 10 most-cited journals in its field and ranks in the top Impact Factor and CiteScore percentiles Frontiers in Immunology continues to rank among the world’s top immunology journals in terms of influence and quality, as shown by our analysis of the 2017 Journal Citation Reports (JCR-2017; 2018, Clarivate Analytics), 2017 CiteScore edition (2018, Scopus, Elsevier) and other impact metrics....

New specialty section on Neuroinfectious Diseases to be headed by Chief Editor, Dr. Avindra Nath. We are pleased to announce the launch of our new specialty section on Neuroinfectious Diseases within Frontiers in Neurology. The section is led by Specialty Chief Editor Avindra Nath, the Clinical Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institute of Health (NIH), United States. “Infections of the nervous system have caused devastating human diseases affecting large populations but pose some of the most unique challenges in medicine....

Frontiers Editor’s startup Yiviva, developing therapeutics inspired by botanical medicines, wins Innovation Award at the USA-China Health Summit Frontiers Specialty Chief Editor’s startup Yiviva, developing therapeutics inspired by botanical medicines, wins Innovation Award at the USA-China Health Summit — By Hedwig Ens sources: YaleDailyNews and Yei.Yale.edu The biotechnology startup Yiviva develops therapeutics inspired by botanical medicines, to treat chronic diseases and cancer. Based on research from Yung-Chi Cheng, professor of Pharmacology at Yale University and Co-Specialty Chief Editor of specialty section Ethnopharmacology in Frontiers in Pharmacology, the startup won the latest Innovation Award at the sixth US-China Health Summit in Xi’an, China....

How do people copy with grief after losing loved ones to terrorism? Frontiers in Psychiatry By Nora Belblidia, science writer People who lose loved ones to terrorism are at a particularly high risk of developing Prolonged Grief Disorder, a condition characterized by severe and persistent longing for the deceased and reduced functioning in daily life. Researchers assessed grief in parents and siblings of those killed in the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway, and found that nearly 80% of study participants experienced a high level of grief and either no sign or a slow recovery....

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) has formed an institutional membership agreement for open access publishing with Frontiers. This institutional agreement means that eligible WSL researchers may publish in any Frontiers journal at no cost to them and with a simplified process. Articles may benefit from a 10% membership discount. The library WSL supports its researchers in making their research more widely available. This agreement will further encourage WSL researchers to publish open access, increasing the volume of research openly available....

By Elliott Williams, Frontiers For forensic science, technology that assists in the analysis of complex and crucial evidence, such as DNA evidence, has seen rapid advancements, with ever more sensitive tests being introduced. Statistical interpretation of such complicated results has not been as swift. There exists now a lack of communication which spans all levels of those handling and presenting crucial evidence. Statisticians develop software with little input from the forensic scientist user, who does not have the possibility to discuss the intricacies of the results with the court....

Brains of cosmonauts get ‘rewired’ to adapt to long-term space missions, finds study in Frontiers in Neural Circuits By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers science writer A new study published in Frontiers in Neural Circuits is the first to analyze the structural connectivity changes that happen in the brain after long-duration spaceflight. The results show significant microstructural changes in several white matter tracts such as the sensorimotor tracts. The study can form a basis for future research into the full scope of brain changes during human space exploration....

NOX2 Inhibition Impairs Early Muscle Gene Expression Induced by a Single Exercise Bout Carlos Henríquez-Olguín, Alexis Díaz-Vegas, Yildy Utreras-Mendoza, Cristian Campos, Manuel Arias-Calderón, Paola Llanos, Ariel Contreras-Ferrat, Alejandra Espinosa, Francisco Altamirano, Enrique Jaimovich and Denisse M. Valladares* Cerebral Regulation in Different Maximal Aerobic Exercise Modes Flávio O. Pires*, Carlos A. S. dos Anjos, Roberto J. M. Covolan, Fabiano A. Pinheiro, Alan St Clair Gibson, Timothy D. Noakes, Fernando H. Magalhães and Carlos Ugrinowitsch...

Surprisingly high biodiversity of previously unreported bacteria from the Tabernas Desert: Frontiers in Microbiology By Lucie Sammicheli, science writer A new microbial study explored the bacterial diversity of the Tabernas Desert located in the south-eastern Spain. Using simple tweaks of the traditional bacterial culture methods, the researchers isolated more than 250 bacterial strains of which 80 could be possible new bacteria species. Microorganisms are the most abundant and diverse form of life on Earth....

A new study shows that robotic arm rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients may promote speech and language recovery; Frontiers in Neurology Left hemisphere strokes affecting motor function tend to affect speech and language processing too — and this link holds for rehabilitation too, says a new study — by New York University New research published in Frontiers in Neurology finds that robotic arm rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients with aphasia, the loss of ability to understand or express speech, may promote speech and language function recovery....

New understanding of the immune system and stem cell technology gets scientists closer to treating deadly fetal diseases even before birth New understanding of the immune system and stem cell technology gets scientists closer to treating deadly fetal diseases even before birth By Mônica Favre, Ph.D., Science Writer Ending pregnancy or exposing mother and baby to extensive treatments that may not eliminate the risk for life-long complications – these are the hard choices families have been faced with when diagnosed with serious fetal diseases....

Virtual humans can train people in leadership: Frontiers in Virtual Reality By Peter Rejcek, science writer Research into the use of virtual and mixed-reality technologies for training suggests a wide range of applications Researchers at the Human Interface Technology Lab New Zealand at the University of Canterbury compared the effectiveness of virtual humans to real ones for helping people practice leadership skills. They found that virtual humans with realistic characteristics can be equally effective in these types of training scenarios....

Chief Editor Sarah Boysen leads new specialty on Comparative Psychology in Frontiers in Psychology In Frontiers in Psychology’s new specialty on Comparative Psychology, new Chief Editor Sarah Boysen invites contributions to this burgeoning field that builds on decades of research that shows that much of what is understood about human behavior is based on observations in other animals. What is your aim with Comparative Psychology? “I would like to see greater participation by my colleagues around the world, through contributions of their work for publication in Frontiers, to further shepherd the field to Comparative Cognition (Comparative Psychology, broadly defined per the Comparative Cognition Society), and its wide and sophisticated readership throughout the world,” says Sarah Boysen....

By Pascal Rocha da Silva, Frontiers The digital disruption for analog film started in 1975 with the invention of the digital camera by Steven Sasson and ended with the bankruptcy of Kodak in 2012 (40 years later). The digital disruption in publishing started in the late 1990s with the first online archiving of articles, but it is still far from complete (~30 years into the transition). However, as over 30% of peer-reviewed papers are now published in some form of open-access1, the industry has technically crossed the tipping point for disruption....

The preference of Heliconius butterflies for certain leaf shapes is innate, but can be reversed through learning, says a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. These results support a decades-old theory for explaining the evolution of the exceptional diversity of leaf shapes in passionflowers. The tropical butterfly Heliconius eratodistinguishes between shapes, and uses them as a cue for choosing the plants on which to feed and lay eggs, shows new research by scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute....