Wearing face masks has become a common occurrence in everyday life and during athletics due to the spread of diseases. This study tested if masks would affect blood percent saturation of hemoglobin (SpO2) during treadmill exercise. The data analysis showed that mask type, time, and the interaction of mask type and time were significant results, regardless of physical ability. These results may assist athletes in understanding the differences between training and competing with and without a mask.
This study sought to determine if there is an association between the single nucleotide polymorphism rs7528684 of the Fc receptor-like-3 (FCRL3) gene and asthma or allergic rhinitis (AR). Based on previous studies in an Asian population, we hypothesized that participants with an AA genotype of FCRL3 would be more likely to have asthma and/or allergic rhinitis. To test the hypothesis, surveys were administered to participants, and genotyping was performed on spit samples via PCR, restriction digest, and gel electrophoresis.
Control of voluntary and involuntary movements is one of the most important aspects of human neurological function, but the mechanisms of motor control are not completely understood. In this study, the authors use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate a portion of the motor cortex while subjects performed either discrete (e.g. throwing) or rhythmic (e.g. walking) movements. By recording electrical activity in the muscles during this process, the authors showed that motor evoked potentials (MEPs) measured in the muscles during TMS stimulation are larger in amplitude for discrete movements than for rhythmic movements. Interestingly, they also found that MEPs during transitions between rhythmic and discrete movements were nearly identical and larger in amplitude than those recorded during either rhythmic or discrete movements. This research provides important insights into the mechanisms of neurological control of movement and will serve as the foundation for future studies to learn more about temporal variability in neural activity during different movement types.
Oxidative damage and neuro-inflammation were the key pathways implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. In this study, 30 natural extracts from plant roots and leaves with extensive anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties were consumed by Drosophila melanogaster. Several assays were performed to evaluate the efficacy of these combinational extracts on delaying the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The experimental group showed increased motor activity, improved associative memory, and decreased lifespan decline relative to the control group.
Ashley Moulton & Joseph Rasmus investigate 9 controversial categories of intelligence as predicted by Multiple Intelligence Theory, originally proposed in the mid-1980s. By collecting data from 56 participants, they record that there may not actually be a correlation between these categorical types when it comes to workplace atmosphere and project efficiency.
Surface tension and viscosity are both measures of how "sticky" a liquid is, but are they related? The authors here investigate the surface tension and viscosity of mixtures of water with different concentrations of agar agar, flour, or detergent. Surprisingly, they find that the least viscous mixtures had the strongest surface tensions, indicating that the two properties are not linked.
Since school bathrooms are widely suspected to be unsanitary, we wanted to compare the total amount of bacteria with the amount of bacteria that had ampicillin or streptomycin resistance across different school bathrooms in the Boston area. We hypothesized that because people interact with the faucet, outdoor handle, and indoor handle of the bathroom, based on whether or not they have washed their hands, there would be differences in the quantity of the bacteria presented on these surfaces. Therefore, we predicted certain surfaces of the bathroom would be less sanitary than others.
Coronary artery bypass grafts are a common technique to treat coronary heart disease. The authors compared the efficacy of suturing and stapling techniques using an artificial heart pump and silicone tubing and found that suturing, while more time and skill intensive, held pressure in the tubing better than stapling.
Sesame (Sesamum indicum) and moringa (Moringa oleifera) have natural antioxidants that could prevent cancer growth. Previously, this group found that sesame and moringa individually suppress eye tumor grown in the Drosophila melanogaster model. In the present study, combinations of sesame and moringa at different concentrations were included in the D. melanogaster diet. The impact on eye tumor development was assessed at different stages of growth.
Osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer that affects young adults and children. Early diagnosis of osteosarcoma is crucial to successful treatment. The current methods of diagnosis, which include imaging tests and biopsy, are time consuming and prone to human error. Hence, we used deep learning to extract patterns and detect osteosarcoma from histological images. We hypothesized that the combination of two different technologies (transfer learning and data augmentation) would improve the efficacy of osteosarcoma detection in histological images. The dataset used for the study consisted of histological images for osteosarcoma and was quite imbalanced as it contained very few images with tumors. Since transfer learning uses existing knowledge for the purpose of classification and detection, we hypothesized it would be proficient on such an imbalanced dataset. To further improve our learning, we used data augmentation to include variations in the dataset. We further evaluated the efficacy of different convolutional neural network models on this task. We obtained an accuracy of 91.18% using the transfer learning model MobileNetV2 as the base model with various geometric transformations, outperforming the state-of-the-art convolutional neural network based approach.