Friday 10 May 2019

HIV prevention drug can curb the epidemic for high-risk groups in India

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a combination drug used to prevent HIV infection, has already gained significant traction in the U.S. and Europe. The once-a-day pill, when taken consistently, can reduce the risk of HIV acquisition by over 85 percent. A new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases by an international research team suggests that making PrEP available to men who have sex with men (MSM) and people who inject drugs (PWID) in India may be a cost-effective way of curbing the epidemic there.

* This article was originally published here

UK reaches jolly good milestone in days without coal

The UK has gone more than five days without burning coal, the longest streak without burning the fuel since the Industrial Revolution, said Bloomberg. It breaks the previous record from earlier this year, a total of 90 hours.

* This article was originally published here

An approach for securing audio classification against adversarial attacks

Adversarial audio attacks are small perturbations that are not perceivable by humans and are intentionally added to audio signals to impair the performance of machine learning (ML) models. These attacks raise serious concerns about the security of ML models, as they can cause them to make mistakes and ultimately generate wrong predictions.

* This article was originally published here

Washington state limits exemptions for measles vaccine

Parents in Washington state will no longer be able to claim a personal or philosophical exemption for their children from receiving the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before attending a day care center or school under a measure signed Friday by Gov. Jay Inslee.

* This article was originally published here

Measuring quality of life after pediatric kidney transplant

After receiving a kidney transplant, children may experience quality-of-life difficulties that underscore the importance of screening transplant recipients for psychosocial function, according to Children's research presented May 4, 2019, during the 10th Congress of the International Pediatric Transplant Association.

* This article was originally published here

Q&A: What to know about superfungus Candida auris

The multidrug-resistant fungus Candida auris has disproportionately affected New York health care facilities, raising questions about its origins, whether it's here to stay and which health care facilities have been impacted by it.

* This article was originally published here

Norwegian woman dies of rabies after rescuing Filipino puppy

A 24 year-old Norwegian woman died this week of rabies, after she was bitten by a puppy she rescued while on vacation in the Philippines, her family announced.

* This article was originally published here

A multi-scale body-part mask guided attention network for person re-identification

Person re-identification entails the automated identification of the same person in multiple images from different cameras and with different backgrounds, angles or positions. Despite recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), person re-identification remains a highly challenging task, particularly due to the many variations in a person's pose, as well as other differences associated with lighting, occlusion, misalignment and background clutter.

* This article was originally published here

Cover up! Don't soak up those sun rays

(HealthDay)—Only half of Americans routinely protect themselves from the sun when outdoors, a recent American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) survey found.

* This article was originally published here

A face-following robot arm with emotion detection

Researchers at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have recently developed a face-following robotic arm with emotion detection inspired by Pixar Animation Studios' Luxo Jr. lamp. This robot was presented by Vernon Stanley Albayeros Duarte, a computer science graduate at UAB, in his final thesis.

* This article was originally published here

Working to the beat: How music can make us more productive

Music makes us happy. Listening to music produces dopamine—nature's happy pill—in the brain. And music also makes us sad. Listening to Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle," Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" or just about anything by Hank Williams produces tears. In fact, music can evoke every emotion known to man.

* This article was originally published here

Cognitive enhancers to boost abilities at work considered acceptable by the public

The general public largely views the use of cognitive enhancers such as Adderall as an acceptable practice when used by adults in the workplace, suggests a new study from Penn Medicine neurologists, which published this week in AJOB Neuroscience. The researchers, however, found that acceptability of that use depends on several factors, including framing and who is taking them.

* This article was originally published here

Research spotlights the role of cover crops in slowing herbicide resistance

An article in the most recent edition of the journal Weed Science shows that cover crops can play an important role in slowing the development of herbicide resistant weeds.

* This article was originally published here

Summer is tough for asthma sufferers

(HealthDay)—Summertime can bring asthma sufferers a lot of misery, but lung experts say watching for warning signs of breathing trouble can guard against serious complications.

* This article was originally published here

Show your hands: Smartwatches sense hand activity

We've become accustomed to our smartwatches and smartphones sensing what our bodies are doing, be it walking, driving or sleeping. But what about our hands? It turns out that smartwatches, with a few tweaks, can detect a surprising number of things your hands are doing.

* This article was originally published here

Just add water: Salt battery could help renewable energy use

Amid the hum and heat of Berlin's Reuter thermal power station stands a shining contraption that looks out of place in the decades-old machine hall.

* This article was originally published here

Climate change responsible for severe infectious disease in UK frogs

Climate change has already increased the spread and severity of a fatal disease caused by Ranavirus that infects common frogs (Rana temporaria) in the UK, according to research led by ZSL's Institute of Zoology, UCL and Queen Mary University of London published today in Global Change Biology.

* This article was originally published here

Crowdfunding brings life-saving water to Myanmar's deer

A herd of endangered deer wait under the shade of one of the sparse trees in this parched central Myanmar landscape, watching as rangers dispatch drinking water—a life-saving resource funded by wellwishers across the country.

* This article was originally published here