End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) is a growing health concern in the United States. The authors of this study present a study of ESRD incidence over a 32-year period, providing an in-depth look at the contributions of age, race, gender, and underlying medical factors to this disease.

Stress and anxiety have become more prevalent issues in recent years with teenagers especially at risk. Recent studies show that experiencing stress while learning can impair brain-cell communication thus negatively impacting learning. Green tea is believed to have the opposite effect, aiding in learning and memory retention. In this study, the authors used Lymnaea stagnalis , a pond snail, to explore the relationship between green tea and a stressor that impairs memory formation to determine the effects of both green tea and stress on the snails’ ability to learn, form, and retain memories. Using a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) assay, where snails are exposed to a sweet substance followed by a bitter taste with the number of biting responses being recorded, the authors found that stress was shown to be harmful to snail learning and memory for short-term, intermediate, and long-term memory.

With an increasing older adult population and rapid advancements in technology, it is important that senior citizens learn to use new technologies to remain active in society. A variety of factors on learning were investigated through surveys of senior citizens. Older adults preferred an interactive lesson style, which also seemed to help them retain more course material.

Every year, around 40% of undergraduate students in the United States discontinue their studies, resulting in a loss of valuable education for students and a loss of money for colleges. Even so, colleges across the nation struggle to discover the underlying causes of these high dropout rates. In this paper, the authors discuss the use of machine learning to find correlations between the built environment factors and the retention rates of colleges. They hypothesized that one way for colleges to improve their retention rates could be to improve the physical characteristics of their campus to be more pleasing. The authors used image classification techniques to look at images of colleges and correlate certain features like colors, cars, and people to higher or lower retention rates. With three possible options of high, medium, and low retention rates, the probability that their models reached the right conclusion if they simply chose randomly was 33%. After finding that this 33%, or 0.33 mark, always fell outside of the 99% confidence intervals built around their models’ accuracies, the authors concluded that their machine learning techniques can be used to find correlations between certain environmental factors and retention rates.

The authors investigate the negative effects stress has on teen mental and physical health. Through a survey, they give Virginia teens a voice in revising the Health and Physical Education curriculum to include a standards of learning (SOL). Notably they identify factors contributing to stress levels including homework level, amount of free and sleep time, parental pressure and family encouragement.

This paper hypothesized that the tumor microenvironment mediates cancer’s response to oxidative stress by delivering extracellular vesicles to cancer cells. Breast and lung cancer cells were treated with EVs, reavealing that EVs extracted from oxidatively stressed adipocytes increased the cell proliferation of breast cancer cells. These findings present a novel way that the TME influences cancer progression.

In this study, the authors created a survey to assess misconceptions and knowledge deficits regarding cardiovascular diseases exist among US adults and minors.

Here, based on the identified importance of physical activity in the development of young children, the authors investigated the effects of socioeconomic factors on the amount of physical activity of government-school children in India. They found significant differences between boys and girls, rural and urban, and children who were encouraged to exercise and those who were not. Overall, they suggest that their findings point to the important role of schools and communities in promoting healthy active lifestyles for developing children.

A common form of Acne is caused by a species of bacterium called Cutibacterium acnes. By using a predictive algorithm and structural analysis, the authors identified 5 small molecules with high affinity to growth factors in Catibacterium acnes. This has potential implications for supplemental skincare products.

Solar and radio frequency harvesters serve as a viable alternative energy source to batteries in many cases where the battery cannot be easily replaced. Using specifically designed circuit models, the authors quantify the reliability of different harvested energy sources to identify the most practical and efficient forms of renewable energy.