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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesCosta Rica’s Congress has passed a bill which will legalise the use of marijuana for medical purposes and allow its cultivation for industrial use.The cultivation and sale of marijuana for recreational purposes, however, will remain banned.President Carlos Alvarado is expected to sign it within days. Supporters of the bill say it will boost the agricultural sector and provide employment opportunities.Following Tuesday’s vote, Costa Rica will join a host of other Latin American countries where medical marijuana has been made legal.Recreational use of marijuana remains prohibited in most of the region except Uruguay, which in 2013 became the first country in the world to legalise it.Costa Rica’s bill was not without controversy. President Alvarado vetoed an earlier version, arguing that limits needed to be placed on individual cultivation and consumption. The amended bill has the backing of the president, who said it would be “of great benefit to Costa Rica”.Patients who will benefit from easier access to medical marijuana took to Twitter to thank Zoila Rosa Volio, the lawmaker behind the bill, for pushing it through Congress.One cancer patient posted a tearful video describing how medical marijuana had helped her regain her appetite and walk again.More on this storyMexico decriminalises recreational cannabis

Men and women who briefly contracted their arm muscles as hard as possible once daily increased their biceps strength by up to 12 percent in a month.Could three seconds a day of resistance exercise really increase muscular strength?That question was at the heart of a small-scale new study of almost comically brief weight training. In the study, men and women who contracted their arm muscles as hard as possible for a total of three seconds a day increased their biceps strength by as much as 12 percent after a month.The findings add to mounting evidence that even tiny amounts of exercise — provided they are intense enough — can aid health. I have written about the unique ways in which our muscles, hearts, lungs and other body parts respond to four seconds of strenuous biking, for instance, or 10 seconds of all-out sprinting, and how such super-short workouts can trigger the biological responses that lead to better fitness.But almost all of this research focused on aerobic exercise and usually involved interval training, a workout in which spurts of hard, fast exertion are repeated and interspersed with rest. Far less research has delved into super-brief weight training or whether a single, eyeblink-length session of intense resistance exercise might build strength or just waste valuable seconds of our lives.So, for the new study, which was published in February in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, scientists led by Masatoshi Nakamura at the Niigata University of Health and Welfare in Niigata, Japan, asked 39 sedentary but otherwise healthy college students to do three seconds of weight training every day. They also recruited an additional 10 students who would not work out to serve as a control group.The exercising volunteers gathered during the workweek at the lab for strength testing and weight lifting, of a kind. They sat at a machine called an isokinetic dynamometer, which has a long lever arm that can be pushed and pulled, up or down, with varying levels of resistance, allowing researchers to precisely control people’s movements and effort.The volunteers manipulated the weighted lever with all their strength, straining and contracting their biceps to the fullest possible extent. Some of the participants slowly lifted the lever’s weight, like curling a dumbbell, producing what is called a concentric contraction, meaning the biceps shortened as they worked. Other volunteers slowly lowered the lever, creating a so-called eccentric contraction. You get an eccentric contraction when you lengthen a muscle, like lowering a dumbbell during a curl, and it tends to be more draining. A third group of volunteers held the lever’s weight steady in midair, fighting gravity, in a type of contraction where the muscle doesn’t change length at all.And each of the participants did their biceps exercise for a total of three seconds.That was it; that was their entire daily workout. They repeated this exceedingly brief exercise routine once a day, five times a week, for a month, for a grand total of 60 seconds of weight training. They did not otherwise exercise.At the end of the month, the researchers retested everyone’s arm strength.Those three-second sessions had changed people’s biceps. The groups either lifting or holding the weights were between 6 and 7 percent stronger. But those doing eccentric contractions, lowering the lever downward as you might ease a dumbbell away from your shoulder, showed substantially greater gains. Their biceps muscles were nearly 12 percent stronger overall.These improvements may sound slight, but they would be biologically meaningful, especially for people new to weight training, said Ken Nosaka, a professor of exercise and sports science at Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, Australia, who collaborated on the study. “Many people do not do any resistance training,” and starting with very short workouts may be an effective way for them to begin a strength training regimen, Dr. Nosaka said. “Every muscle contraction counts” and contributes to building strength, assuming you lift a weight near the maximum you can handle and it lasts at least three seconds, he said.The three-second workout could also be useful as a stopgap to help maintain or even add to our arm strength for those of us who are buried under work or family commitments and are unable to get to the gym.The exercise routine is easy enough to recreate at home, Dr. Nosaka said, no dynamometer needed. Just find a dumbbell that feels heavy — you might start with a 10-pound version, for instance, if you are new to weight training. “Lift it with both hands,” Dr. Nosaka said, to start a biceps curl, then “lower it with one hand” through a count of three seconds to complete a short, sharp and draining eccentric contraction.This approach, though, has some obvious limitations. While the volunteers in the study got stronger, they did not add muscle mass. “Strength is only one outcome” of resistance exercise, said Jonathan Little, a professor of health and exercise science at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, who has studied brief workouts but was not involved with this experiment. More traditional weight training typically also bulks up muscles, which has additional benefits for metabolism and other aspects of health and wellness over the long term.The study also looked only at people’s biceps. Whether other muscles, especially in the legs, would strengthen after a few intense seconds of “lifting” is uncertain. More broadly, framing exercise as something that should be dispensed with as quickly as possible could make workouts seem like just another chore and maybe easier to skip.Dr. Nosaka said he and his colleagues plan to study whether repeating three-second contractions multiple times throughout the day increases muscle mass, as well as strength. They are also exploring how to translate this approach to the legs and other muscles.In the meantime, he said, we should probably think of three seconds of daily strength training as the least we can do. “It is definitely better,” he said, “to do one contraction a day than nothing.”

Five months after immunization, two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine appeared to offer virtually no defense against moderate illness caused by the Omicron variant — as measured by visits to emergency departments and urgent care clinics — among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, according to data published on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.But booster shots drastically increased the protection, lending support to the agency’s recommendation of booster shots for everyone 12 and older.The findings must be interpreted with caution. The agency’s study did not exclude unvaccinated adolescents who had some immunity from a prior infection, which may have made vaccination seem less effective than it was.And the researchers offered only limited data on hospitalizations, a more reliable proxy for severe disease than emergency room and urgent care visits.“One limitation of this data is that parents may bring their children to an urgent care or emergency department for a variety of reasons, and vaccine effectiveness by immunocompromised status, underlying health status, or vaccine product have not yet been examined,” the C.D.C. said in a statement.Several studies have shown that even though vaccine efficacy against infection wanes over time, the immune response remains highly protective against hospitalization and death, even against the highly contagious Omicron variant.A separate analysis of data from 29 jurisdictions posted on the C.D.C.’s website reported nine Covid-associated deaths among vaccinated children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 between early April 2021 and January 2022, compared with 121 deaths in unvaccinated children of those ages.Still, the findings suggest that scientists must carefully monitor the vaccine’s performance over time in children and adolescents, bearing in mind that boosters may be needed.“We need to see more of these studies to see if this is consistent,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. “But I do think it’s likely, and we should be prepared as parents, that it’s going to take another shot.”The results take on particular import for parents as school districts nationwide consider ending mask mandates. The C.D.C. last week published new guidance suggesting that about 70 percent of Americans can safely drop their masks in public indoor spaces.Vaccine uptake among young children has been slow; fewer than one in four children aged 5 to 11 are now fully vaccinated. More than half of adolescents 12 to 17 have been fully vaccinated, with two shots, and about 12 percent have received a third booster dose.The findings follow data published on Monday showing that two doses offered little protection against infection with the Omicron variant in children aged 5 to 11 after just one month. The vaccine has been shown to offer diminishing protection against infection even in adults, particularly against the Omicron variant. New data published by the C.D.C. on its website reflect this trend.In the new study, the researchers analyzed data on 39,217 visits to emergency departments and urgent care clinics and 1,699 hospitalizations among children aged 5 to 17 years in 10 states, from April 9, 2021, to Jan. 29, 2022.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3A new U.S. strategy.

New research from the University of Georgia found that fungal infections account for $6.7 billion in health care spending in 2018. And that’s just the cases that were directly responsible for inpatient hospital stays.
Combined with secondary infections and diagnoses, the total cost of hospital stays associated with fungal infections was a whopping $37.7 billion, comprising 1.1% of total U.S. national health care expenses. It’s quite possible that fungi-related costs are even higher now, given the rise of secondary fungal infections in COVID-19 patients.
The study also found that fungal infections in hospitalized patients doubled hospital costs, doubled the length of a patient’s stay and doubled the patient’s risk of death.
“Fungal infections are much more than a yeast infection or athlete’s foot,” said Emily Rayens, corresponding author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Veterinary Medicine. “These infections can have a very big impact on people’s lives and have a very high mortality rate.”
These infections are also becoming harder for health care providers to treat because of growing antimicrobial resistance.
Health care providers only have three classes of drugs to fight fungal infections in people. And several species of fungus are already resistant to one, if not more, of these medications.

UCLA researchers have developed a unique design of ultrathin films for highly flexible yet mechanically robust bioelectronic membranes that could pave the way for diagnostic on-skin sensors that fit precisely over the body’s contours and conform to its movements.
Science recently published a paper describing the research co-led by Xiangfeng Duan, professor of chemistry and biochemistry; and Yu Huang, professor and chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.
Held together by van der Waals forces, intermolecular interactions that can only take place at extremely close distances between atoms or molecules, the membrane is stretchable and adaptable to dynamically changing biological substrates, while being breathable and permeable to water and air. The advancement of the durable electronic material could lead to the development of noninvasive electronics for medicine, health care, biology, agriculture and horticulture. The researchers named the material van der Waals thin film, or VDWTF, which could serve as a foundational platform for living organisms to adopt electronic capabilities.
“Conceptually, the membrane is like a much-thinner version of kitchen cling film, with excellent semiconducting electronic functionality and unusual stretchability that naturally adapts to soft biological tissues with highly conformal interfaces,” Duan said. “It could open up a diverse range of powerful sensing and signaling applications. For example, wearable health-monitoring devices built with this material can accurately track electrophysiological signals at the organism level or down to the level of individual cells.”
The researchers created several demonstrations using the thin films, including a transistor that sat on top of a succulent plant’s leaf, whose abundant electrolytes were used to create the electronic circuit. They also created a similar transistor for human skin that used electrolytes-present skin cells to complete the circuit. In addition, the team developed an electrocardiogram that uses small circles of the film placed on a person’s right and left forearm and could detect their blinking during meditation.
“Our proof-of-concept demonstrations using the van der Waals thin film really just hint at the myriad possibilities for this new material,” Huang said. “The membrane could serve as the connection for human-machine interfaces, enhanced robotics and artificial intelligence-enabled technologies that connect directly. This could open a pathway to synthetic electronic-cellular hybrids — cyborg-like living organisms with electronic enhancements.”
The ultrathin, approximately 10-nanometer-think electronic membranes are made of several layers of atomically thin sheets of the inorganic compound molybdenum disulfide. Each sheet is only two to three nanometers thick — more than 10,000 times thinner than the diameter of a piece of human hair.

Monitoring vitals and diagnosing ailments can be clunky, painful and inconvenient. But researchers like Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Assistant Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State, are working to improve health monitoring by creating wearable sensors that collect data for clinicians while limiting discomfort for patients.
Since joining the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics in 2015, Cheng has engineered novel components and approaches to develop such devices as wearable head scanners, needle-free glucose monitors, wearable antennas and printable electronics. The sensors, made with flexible electronics, are capable of monitoring patients’ physical motions and chemical signals in their sweat, skin and more to help diagnose or inform treatment plans.
Now Cheng is working to make devices sustainable, resilient and self-charging.
Industry partners from various disciplines recognize the demand for innovation in wearable electronics, according to Cheng, and they are willing to invest. In December 2021, Meta Reality Labs, Facebook’s technology development branch, awarded Cheng $150,000 in unrestricted funds to advance biodegradable, stretchable, energy-generating systems.
“There’s a significant need for environmentally-friendly, self-charging sensors that can monitor patients’ vital signs without contributing to their physical or financial stress — and we’re finding those solutions can be applied to a broad range of challenges,” Cheng said. “My research program is focused on understanding the interactions and limits of various materials, with the goal of fabricating new methods and devices to address these issues.”
Self-powered, rechargeable wearables
Developing flexible, economical sensors is one thing; powering them is another. Although self-charging power units for stretchable energy harvesters already exist, they are expensive to fabricate, heavy to carry and “suffer from low and unstable output power,” according to Cheng.

The coronavirus may infect tissue within the male genital tract, new research on rhesus macaques shows. The finding suggests that symptoms like erectile dysfunction reported by some Covid patients may be caused directly by the virus, not by inflammation or fever that often accompany the disease.The research demonstrated that the coronavirus infected the prostate, penis, testicles and surrounding blood vessels in three male rhesus macaques. The monkeys were examined with whole body scans specially designed to detect sites of infection.Scientists — who expected to find the coronavirus in spots like the lungs but did not know where else they would find it — were somewhat surprised by the discovery.“The signal that jumped out at us was the complete spread through the male genital tract,” said Thomas Hope, the paper’s senior author and a professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “We had no idea we would find it there.”When his team initially reviewed a scanned image from the first animal, one of the scientists asked, “What sex was the animal again?” Dr. Hope recalled.“I said, ‘I think female.’ She said, ‘I don’t think it’s a female.’ I went down to the bottom of the image, which was almost cut off, and the testes were brightly lit up. And the signal in the penis was off the radar,” Dr. Hope said.The paper was based on findings in just three monkeys, but the findings were consistent, Dr. Hope said. The study has not yet been peer reviewed for publication in a journal, and was posted Monday on the site bioRxiv.The work was carried out at the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Louisiana. The researchers do not know whether the monkeys had symptoms corresponding to the viral infection of the male genital tract, such as low testosterone levels, low sperm counts, pain or sexual dysfunction, Dr. Hope said.About 10 to 20 percent of men infected with the coronavirus have symptoms linked to male genital tract dysfunction, studies have reported.Men infected with the virus are three to six times as likely as others to develop erectile dysfunction, believed to be an indicator of so-called long Covid.Patients have also reported symptoms such as testicular pain, reduced sperm counts and reduced sperm quality, decreased fertility and hypogonadism, a condition in which the testes produce insufficient amounts of testosterone, leading to low sex drive, sexual dysfunction and reduced fertility.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3Vaccine protection in adolescents.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBlack, Asian and mixed-heritage people are much less likely to develop cancer than white people, in England, an analysis suggests.But there are exceptions – prostate and blood cancer are two to three times more common in black people.The Cancer Research UK study said many cancers were preventable.Higher obesity rates in Black, Asian and mixed-heritage compared with white primary-age children could lead to a rise in cancers in those groups.Cancer Research UK’s analysis, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is based on three million cancer cases in England from 2013-17. Overall, compared to the white population, cancer rates were 38% lower in Asian people, 4% lower in black people and 40% lower in mixed-heritage people.The study shows “there are disparities in cancer rates across different ethnicities”, author Dr Katrina Brown, a Cancer Research UK statistician, said.The risk of developing cancer is based on many different factors, including someone’s age and the genes they inherit – but about 40% of cases in the UK are preventable and due to lifestyle choices.And these affected some groups more than others and created inequalities, CRUK chief executive Michelle Mitchell said.Improve survival”We already know that the burden of cancer weighs heaviest on the most deprived in the UK,” she said.”More research is needed to understand the challenges faced by different ethnic groups and how the cancer journey differs for people.” Covid risk remains higher for some ethnic groupsStillbirths high for black and Asian babies in UKMiscarriage 40% higher in black women, study showsEqual access to stop-smoking services and advice on how to manage weight, as well as early diagnosis and treatment, was essential to improve survival from the disease, she added.The analysis found white people in England more than twice as likely to develop skin cancer (melanoma), oesophageal, bladder and lung cancers than Black, Asian or mixed-heritage people.Skin cancer is more common because white-skinned people are more likely to burn and cause damage to their skin in the sun.But black people are more likely to develop stomach and liver cancers.Previous studies suggest there is a genetic explanation for black men being twice as likely to get prostate cancer than white men, and three times as likely to develop blood cancer (myeloma).Cancer types linked to infections, such as hepatitis, are more common among people belonging to some ethnic minorities and this could be why Asian people are more likely to develop liver cancer.Obesity linkAsian is defined in the study as people from Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, any other Asian background. Black is defined as Caribbean and any other black background and white means white British, white Irish and any other white background.Other reasons for the variations in cancer rates between ethnic groups include access to:screeningvaccines such as that the one against human papillomavirus (HPV), which protects against cervical cancersupport to maintain a healthy lifestyleLower levels of smoking among most black and Asian groups is one reason they are at lower risk of some lifestyle cancers – such as bowel, breast and lung – than white people, the study suggests.But the researchers warn this could be changing.A quarter of white children in the last year of primary school in England were obese in 2020-21, compared with 30% of Asian and 35% of black children.And these higher proportions, combined with a slower fall in smoking rates, may lead to an increase in cancers in these children when they grow up.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesWomen who have the HPV vaccine may need only one smear test to help prevent cervical cancer in their lifetime, according to a leading scientist. Women are currently invited for screening every three to five years in the UK. Prof Peter Sasieni said the vaccine was leading to such dramatic reductions in cancer that the screening programme would need to change soon. Cancer Research UK urged people to still come for screening when invited. Nearly all cases of cervical cancer are caused by human papillomaviruses – known as HPV. They can damage DNA and start to transform healthy cells into cancerous ones if there is a prolonged infection. There are more than 100 types of human papillomavirus and they are so common that most people will get an infection at some point during their lives. So the NHS invites women, and people with a cervix, for regular screening. Swabs of the cervix are used to check for signs of abnormalities using a microscope (the traditional smear test) or more recently to test for the virus itself. Cervical screening in Wales to be every five years90% reductionHowever, a seismic shift in preventing cervical cancer started in the UK in 2008 with the introduction of the HPV vaccine. It is offered to girls (and boys since 2019) aged between 11 and 13.The viruses are spread by close skin-to-skin contact so the vaccine is given before school children become sexually active.Research published in December shows the vaccine is cutting cervical cancer by nearly 90% in those who choose to have the jab. “This is really exciting,” Prof Sasieni, the director of the clinical trials unit at King’s College London, told Inside Health on BBC Radio 4.His modelling suggests between one and three checks a lifetime would be appropriate for people who have been immunised. He told me: “Probably women could be screened at [age] 30 and 45, you might want to do it at 30, 40 and 55 so three times. “There’s a new vaccine which will be used in the UK from the next school year, which protects against even more types of the virus, and I think with that probably one screen would be enough, maybe two, over a lifetime.” What is the HPV vaccine and who can get it?Busting the myths around sex virus HPV ‘I had no cancer symptoms but a smear saved my life’That would mark a dramatic shift in cervical screening in the space of a generation with mums needing regular checks while their daughters would need to go only a handful of times.However, the UK National Screening Committee has not made a decision about the future of cervical screening. Prof Sasieni says the issue is becoming increasingly pressing as the first generation to be vaccinated are now being invited for screening. “We really want to make those changes over the next couple of years, it is a big change [but] the vaccine has been so successful this makes perfect sense,” said Prof Sasieni.’I told them to save me for my children’This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Laura Flaherty was diagnosed with cervical cancer this year at the age of 29 after putting off a routine smear test.”The HPV vaccine hadn’t been rolled out when I was at school,” she says.”I was diagnosed after a routine smear test. I’d put it off for four months – and while it wouldn’t have made a difference to my diagnosis – it just shows how important it is to keep up to date with your smears.”I was told I had abnormal cells and tested positive for HPV and further investigation revealed I had stage one cervical cancer, which resulted in a hysterectomy. “I was sat in a room and told: ‘I’m really sorry, it’s cancer’. I had two small children and I said ‘I need you to save me, they need looking after’.”I went for my smear test in February this year and was given the all clear in August. I just always feel so lucky to be here.”There are uncertainties. It is not known how long the protection from HPV lasts or if a mid-life booster dose is needed. And regular screening will be needed for decades due to the generations that have not been immunised. Karis Betts, the health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “Although we don’t know exactly what cervical screening will look like in the future, we’re already seeing scientific advances shape the way it’s delivered in the UK. “The success of the HPV vaccination programme and the introduction of better tests mean people need fewer screenings, but are still just as protected against cervical cancer.”Regular screening plays an important role in preventing cancer, especially if you have not received your HPV jab.”The Department of Health and Social Care said one in three people do not come for screening when invited.A spokesperson added: “The NHS Cervical Screening programme remains an important way of protecting the population – including those who have not been vaccinated – from developing cervical cancer.”Follow James on Twitter More on this storyNew cervical screenings will save lives – doctor’Waxes don’t save your lives, smear tests do’Trans man says confusion caused cervix check delay

Scientists have discovered that a human receptor protein has the ability to detect individual amino acids in exactly the same way that bacteria do.
The finding could lead to enhancements of drugs derived from the amino acid GABA, but also has evolutionary implications: It adds to the sparse evidence suggesting there are commonalities between bacteria and humans with respect to sensing the presence of essential components of life, such as oxygen and food.
Receptors on cell surfaces detect all kinds of nutrients — fats, sugars and vitamins, for example — but use different types of protein segments called sensors, and no common chemical detection mechanism is currently known.
In this work, scientists discovered a universal sensor present in many different receptors that detects amino acids by precisely interacting with the two groups of atoms that are shared by all amino acids.
“For the first time, we’ve found the universal way of detecting amino acids. Nearly every organism can do it through this mechanism,” said Igor Jouline, senior author of the study and a professor of microbiology at The Ohio State University.
“In our experience, it’s very rare when we can extrapolate a very specific sensory function with such precision from bacteria to humans, because these life forms are separated by such a long evolutionary time — about 3 billion years.”
The study is published today (March 1, 2022) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.