Triggered largely by the warming and pollution of oceans, corals are experiencing bleaching and a variety of diseases caused by the spread of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Identification of bleached/diseased corals enables implementation of measures to halt or retard disease. Benthic cover analysis, a standard metric used in large databases to assess live coral cover, as a standalone measure of reef health is insufficient for identification of coral bleaching/disease. Proposed herein is a solution that couples machine learning with crowd-sourced data – images from government archives, citizen science projects, and personal images collected by tourists – to build a model capable of identifying healthy, bleached, and/or diseased coral.

In this study, the authors investigate the combinatorial effects of CO₂ plus other environmental factors including salinity, temperature, acidity, and drought on how effectively plants can transport water and carbon through their stomata.

Microbial agents reposnsible for respiratory infections are often carried in spittle, which means they can be easily transmitted. Here, the authors investigate how likely certain activities are to spread microbes carried in spittle. They also investigate whether eating certain types of food might reduce the spread of spittle-borne bacteria too.

In this experiment, the authors used C. elegans as a simple model organism to observe the impact of probiotics on the human digestive system. The results of the experiments showed that the C. elegans were, on average, most present in Chobani cultures over other tested yogurts. While not statistically significant, these results still demonstrated that C. elegans might prefer Chobani cultures over other probiotic yogurts, which may also indicate greater gut benefits from Chobani over the other yogurt brands tested.

In this study, the authors investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the mental health of teens. Using data from a study done in Islamabad, Pakistan, the authors find that many teens between the ages of 13 and 19 show signs of mental illness. This study reports important data regarding the mental health of youth and points toward an increased need to address this topic during the pandemic.

Music is an important part of the day for many of us, but what makes some combinations of sound more pleasant to the ear than others? In this article the authors investigate the role of some characteristics of sound on the perception of a pleasant vs harsh musical note.

Numerous specialty treatments claim to reduce swelling and scarring; however, it is unknown if these treatments are more effective than less expensive treatments. In an attempt to determine if one outperforms the other, treatments were applied to the same subject following bilateral orthopedic foot surgery. No difference was found the specialty treatments compared to more cost-effective treatments.

Sadly, around 800,000 people die by suicide worldwide each year. Dong and Pearce analyze health survey data to identify associations between suicidal ideation and relevant variables, such as sleep quality, hopelessness, and anxious behavior.

Economic disruptions and housing instabilities have for long propelled a homelessness epidemic among adults and youth in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this phenomenon with a 2.2% increase in the number of homeless individuals and more than 70% of Americans fearing this outcome for themselves. This study aimed to analyze the perception of homelessness in two groups: Those who have previously experienced and overcome homelessness and those who are at-risk for experiencing the same. The study analyzed publicly available Reddit posts by people in both groups and found that at-risk individuals tended to associate primarily fearful emotions with the event, and those who had overcome homelessness tended to view the event in a negative context. These results may encourage the establishment of resources to support the currently homeless and help them transition into society, and services to help them cope with negative emotions, as negative attitudes have been shown to decrease life expectancy.

In this study, the authors investigate the effect of remote learning (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) on sleeping habits amongst teenagers in Ohio. Using survey results, sleep habits and attitudes toward school were assessed before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.