Europe has some of the highest incidence rates of bladder cancer around the world, yet knowledge of the disease is still alarmingly low according to a new survey from the European Association of Urology (EAU). The survey, which looked at knowledge of bladder cancer and its key symptoms amongst European adults, has shown that almost 60% of European adults are either not familiar with bladder cancer or do not know how serious it can be.

Demand for donor livers for transplant patients outstrips supply with over 15% of waitlist patients dying after a year. A new international study offers support for increasing the use of living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) in Western countries and reducing the imbalance between organ supply and demand. This study is reported in the Journal of Hepatology, the official journal of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, published by Elsevier.

The Longhorned tick causes the loss of millions of dollars in agricultural revenue to cattle producers worldwide, and it is now in northern Missouri. Originally found in eastern Russia and the Australasian region, this tick was first found in the United States in 2017 in New Jersey. It has since reached the Mid-Atlantic, New England and Midwestern regions of the U.S., and now has been discovered in northern Missouri for the first time by researchers at the University of Missouri.

Each year, billions of dollars are spent transferring residents from nursing homes to hospitals. Now, a research team at the University of Missouri is examining how a common form of communication — texting — can be used by nursing home staff to speed up decision-making and prevent the decline of residents’ health that can lead to costly and traumatic hospital transfers. To help address this costly and stressful issue, a three-year, $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will help MU researchers show how nursing home staff can securely use HIPPA-compliant text messages to speed up decision-making in a way that can allow residents to be safely cared for in the nursing home without the need for a traumatic transfer to the hospital.

Neutrophils are the body’s first line of defense against infection. But if too many attack for too long, they can damage the tissues they’re meant to protect. In the lungs, this damage can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome, the leading cause of death due to COVID-19. CSHL researchers have found that using a drug to inhibit a protein called PTP1B can prevent lethal lung inflammation in mice. This discovery may lead to better treatments for severe inflammatory conditions like sepsis and COVID-19.

Tiny nets woven from DNA strands can ensnare the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, lighting up the virus for a fast-yet-sensitive diagnostic test – and also impeding the virus from infecting cells, opening a new possible route to antiviral treatment, according to a new study led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.