(European Society for Medical Oncology) A study of 4,532 men in the Veneto region of Italy has found that those who were being treated for prostate cancer with androgen-deprivation therapies (ADT) were less likely to develop the coronavirus COVID-19 and, if they were infected, the disease was less severe. The study is published in Annals of Oncology.

(Wiley) A recent Psycho-Oncology analysis of published studies found that few cancer survivors received financial information support from healthcare facilities during their initial treatment, even though cancer-related financial toxicity has multiple impacts on survivors' health and quality of life.

(American Association for Cancer Research) Combining intratumoral electroporation of interleukin-12 (IL-12) DNA (tavokinogene telseplasmid, or TAVO) with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) led to clinical responses in patients with immunologically quiescent advanced melanoma, according to results from a phase II trial.

(University of Virginia Health System) Focused ultrasound, the researchers hope, could revolutionize treatment for conditions from Alzheimer's to epilepsy to brain tumors -- and even help repair the devastating damage caused by stroke.

(Wiley) Heart failure and cancer are conditions with a number of shared characteristics. A new study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine found that in patients with heart failure, several known tumor markers can also be indicators of heart failure severity and progression.

(Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) Scientists at the Sloan Kettering Institute have solved the puzzle of how small chromosomes ensure that they aren't skipped over during meiosis, the process that makes sperm and egg.

(Princeton University, Engineering School) New findings about critical cellular structures have upended common assumptions about their formation and composition and provided new insight how molecular machines are built in living cells.

(Impact Journals LLC) Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 12 reported that the p16 tumor suppressor is coded by CDKN2A and plays an important role during carcinogenesis and tumor progression in numerous tumor entities.

(Luxembourg Institute of Health) Scientists at the Department of Infection and Immunity of the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) revealed a novel mechanism through which the immune system controls autoimmunity and cancer. In the special focus of the researchers were regulatory T cells -- a type of white blood cells that act as a brake on the immune system.

(JAMA Network) Death certificate data were used to compare the rate of opioid-related deaths in the US among cancer survivors with that of the general population from 2006 through 2016. Whether opioid-associated deaths in cancer survivors, who are often prescribed opioids for cancer-related pain, are rising at the same rate as in the general population is unknown.

(University of Helsinki) Mutations in white blood cells can contribute to abnormal immune profile after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

(JAMA Network) The considerations and challenges affecting the palliative care specialty and delivery of palliative care in the COVID-19 era, as well as potential solutions, are discussed in this Viewpoint.

(JAMA Network) This essay discusses similarities between a doctor's experiences with diagnoses of cancer and COVID-19.

(University of Houston) A University of Houston biomedical researcher is developing a new device to treat babies with blood disorders, because current technology is designed for adults. The ability to perform lifesaving leukapheresis safely and effectively in these most vulnerable pediatric patients will significantly increase their access to highly effective cell-based therapies.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government welcomes the promulgation of the Meteorological Development Plan ...

Do you know which main gases are contained in the composition of air? Under climate change and global warming, carbon dioxide ...

Monthly weather summary in Hong Kong

The "Online Video Course on Weather Observation" will explain concisely the basic weather observation methods and techniques, such...

Every summer, rainstorms occur in Hong Kong occasionally, leading to loss of property or even casualties.

(Dartmouth College) Expanded Dartmouth awards program gives prizes for 'spec fic' playwriting on what it means to be human in a computerized world.

(Anglia Ruskin University) A new study has found an association between low average levels of vitamin D and high numbers of COVID-19 cases and mortality rates across 20 European countries.

(Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health) Researchers found that 92 percent of employers who responded to a survey on climate change and public health reported need for public health professionals with training in climate change will very likely increase in the next 5 to 10 years. While graduates of public health programs who focus on climate change are in demand in the current job market, these positions appear to be just a small proportion of the total number of jobs available in public health.

(University of Queensland) Logging of native forests increases the risk and severity of fire and likely had a profound effect on the recent, catastrophic Australian bushfires, according to new research.In the wake of the country's worst forest fires in recorded history, University of Queensland researchers have been part of an international collaboration, investigating Australia's historical and contemporary land-use.

(San Diego State University) Incorporating the oceans into climate policy is essential, scientists say in a new paper.

(University of Córdoba) The University of Cordoba participated in the first shaping of a hydrological model on a basin scale as a global model to advance in world hydrological predictions.

(Paul Scherrer Institute) Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have collaborated with British economists to study how energy consumption by Swiss industry develops depending on energy pricing. To this end, they examined in particular the prices and consumption of both electricity and natural gas over the past decades. One result: For the most part, price increases have only long-term effects on energy consumption.

(University of Barcelona) The yellow-legged gull has a high ability to adapt to human activities and benefit from these as a food resource during all year. This is stated in a scientific article published in the journal Ecology and Evolution whose first author is the researcher Francisco Ramírez, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

(DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Using ORNL's now-decommissioned Titan supercomputer, a team of researchers estimated the combined consequences of many different extreme climate events at the county level, a unique approach that provided unprecedented regional and national climate projections that identified the areas most likely to face climate-related challenges.

(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau) University of Illinois classics professor Clara Bosak-Schroeder writes about how the ancient Greeks thought about natural resources and how it is relevant to responding to climate change today.

(Carnegie Mellon University) A new study developed a model of regulation in which the probability of a stricter standard being enacted increased with the proportion of firms in an industry that could meet the standard. The study found that regulations that consider the proportion of firms that can meet the new standard can motivate the development of a new green technology more effectively than regulations that do not consider this factor.

(NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) A randomized, controlled clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of a treatment regimen of the investigational antiviral remdesivir plus the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib for COVID-19 has begun. The trial is now enrolling hospitalized adults with COVID-19 in the United States. The trial is expected to open at approximately 100 US and international sites. Investigators currently anticipate enrolling more than 1,000 participants. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring the trial.

(Moscow Research and Practical Clinical Center for Diagnostics and Telemedicine Technologies) Researchers of the Moscow Diagnostics and Telemedicine Center collected a dataset that includes more than a thousand sets of chest CT scans of patients with imaging finding of COVID-19. As of today, it is the largest completely anonymized database of CT studies, which has no analogues in Russia or in the world. It is available for download and can be used for developing services based on artificial intelligence technologies.

(Bentham Science Publishers) Using a nationally representative sample, the researchers explored racial/ethnic variation in the link between educational attainment and heart disease among American adults.

(New Jersey Institute of Technology) A team of NJIT physicists has developed a novel test swab that can be 3D printed using inexpensive, widely available materials and speedily assembled in a range of fabrication settings. To augment the nation's testing capabilities, the inventors are making the swab's design publicly available, free of licensing fees, during the COVID-19 emergency.

(Taylor & Francis Group) Over 80% of people surveyed in a study do not plan to conceive during the COVID-19 crisis, perhaps putting to rest suggestions that the lockdown could lead to rise in birth numbers.

(American Marketing Association) Nonprofits may better meet their missions by learning to effectively employ the entirety of the marketing mix to attract individuals to available donation opportunities.

(American Marketing Association) The positive outcomes of customer reacquisition more than offset the costs. Successful reacquisition management, though, requires a failure-tolerant company culture and guidelines.

(Queensland University of Technology) It started life as the concept drawing for a mobile 'status update' tool only geeks could love. Now we cannot imagine a world without Twitter, its hashtags, and the worldwide movements it has helped create. A new book tracks its journey.

(St. Jude Children's Research Hospital) Funding will help expand collaboration across engineering and physical sciences to expand tools for studying pediatric diseases.

(George Mason University) The team's work supports evidence-based decision making, informed by models, to rethink and facilitate hospital operations during the pandemic.

(Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan) Now, as hospitals across the country start to return to doing non-emergency operations that keep their beds full and their books balanced, they need to think carefully about what resources each of those procedures will need as the pandemic continues. A new guide could help them prioritize and plan. Created by poring over seven years' worth of data from 17 common operations in dozens of hospitals, it's available for free for any hospital to use.

(University of Iowa Health Care) A $3.7 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been awarded to the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA to study ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection among frontline health care workers in hospital emergency departments.