Publications by authors named "Leach N"

Vitamin D deficiency and type 2 diabetes mellitus are risk factors for colorectal cancer, suggesting a role for vitamin D receptor (VDR) and insulin receptor (INSR) gene polymorphisms. We investigated the prevalence of the VDR-BsmI (rs1544410) and NsiI A/G-INSR (rs2059806) polymorphisms and their associations with colorectal adenoma (CRA) in a Romanian population. A case-control study was conducted with 110 participants (67 with CRA and 43 controls) who underwent colonoscopy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave was so extreme as to challenge conventional statistical and climate-model-based approaches to extreme weather attribution. However, state-of-the-art operational weather prediction systems are demonstrably able to simulate the detailed physics of the heatwave. Here, we leverage these systems to show that human influence on the climate made this event at least 8 [2-50] times more likely.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Cortical acetylcholine (ACh) is important for cognitive functions like sound localization, as demonstrated in ferrets trained to adapt to altered spatial cues.
  • Research revealed that reducing cholinergic inputs in ferrets did not significantly alter the overall response properties of primary auditory cortex (A1) neurons, despite a decrease in burst-type units and an increase in synchronous activity.
  • ACh is essential for behavioral adaptation in sound localization tasks, but the spectral and spatial response properties of A1 neurons remain stable even when ACh levels are decreased.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Prenatal molecular genetic testing for familial variants that cause inherited disorders has been performed for decades and is accepted as standard of care. However, the spectrum of genes considered for prenatal testing is expanding because of genetic testing for hereditary cancer risk (HCR) and inclusion of conditions with associated cancer risk in carrier screening panels. A few of these disorders, such as ataxia telangiectasia and Bloom syndrome, include increased cancer risk as part of the phenotype, already meet professional guidelines for prenatal testing, and may be associated with increased cancer risk in heterozygous carriers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - A patient with Kallmann syndrome (KS) and intellectual disability (ID) was found to have a significant deletion in a specific region of chromosome 12, suggesting that this deletion may be responsible for their conditions rather than the patient's translocation.
  • - The research team screened 48 KS patients for mutations at the translocation breakpoints but found none, further supporting the idea that the 12p11.21-12p11.23 deletion is key to the patient's symptoms.
  • - Through an analysis of various candidate genes and their expression in relevant tissues, several potential genes linked to KS and ID were identified, including TSPAN11 for KS and others like TM7SF3 and STK38L for neurodevelopment
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Sodium bicarbonate (SB) has been primarily studied for its effects on short-duration high-intensity exercise, but this study aims to explore its impact before prolonged high-intensity activities, specifically a 16.1-km cycling time trial.
  • Ten trained male cyclists participated in a randomized crossover design, where they ingested SB in two forms (gelatin and enteric capsules) and a placebo, assessing their performance in the cycling trials.
  • Results showed significant improvements in performance times with SB ingestion compared to placebo, particularly with enteric capsules having fewer gastrointestinal issues, suggesting SB can enhance endurance cycling performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Understanding shifts in creative work will help guide AI's impact on the media ecosystem.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Heatwaves are becoming more frequent under climate change and can lead to thousands of excess deaths. Adaptation to extreme weather events often occurs in response to an event, with communities learning fast following unexpectedly impactful events. Using extreme value statistics, here we show where regional temperature records are statistically likely to be exceeded, and therefore communities might be more at-risk.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Scientists found a genetic change in a person with Kallmann syndrome (KS) and intellectual disability (ID) that might be causing these issues.
  • They discovered a missing part of the DNA on chromosome 12, which could be linked to KS and ID instead of the original genetic changes they were studying.
  • Researchers identified several genes that might be responsible for KS and ID and suggest that more testing is needed to confirm how these genes affect patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Expanded pan-ethnic carrier screening is an effective tool for the management of reproductive risk. However, growth in the number of conditions screened, in combination with increasingly more comprehensive test methodologies, can lead to the detection of genetic findings that may affect the health of the tested individual. The objective of this study was to investigate the frequency of pathogenic genotypes in a presumed healthy carrier screening cohort to facilitate broader discussions regarding disclosure of genetic information from carrier screening.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Agricultural and environmental policies are being fundamentally reviewed and redesigned in the UK following its exit from the European Union. The UK government and the Devolved Administrations recognise that current land use is not sustainable and that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to define a better land strategy that responds fully to the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable development. This paper presents evidence from three pathways (current trends, sustainable medium ambition, and sustainable high ambition) to mid-century that were co-created with UK policymakers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: Celiac disease (CD) is an immune-mediated enteropathy with characteristic intestinal alterations. CD occurs as a chronic inflammation secondary to gluten sensitivity in genetically susceptible individuals. Until now, the exact cause of the disease has not been established, which is why new studies have appeared that address the involvement of various genes and microRNAs (miRNAs) in the pathogenesis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Attribution of extreme weather events has expanded rapidly as a field over the past decade. However, deficiencies in climate model representation of key dynamical drivers of extreme events have led to some concerns over the robustness of climate model-based attribution studies. It has also been suggested that the unconditioned risk-based approach to event attribution may result in false negative results due to dynamical noise overwhelming any climate change signal.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Although college students who are sexual and gender minorities (SGM) experience higher rates of sexual victimization than their peers who identify as heterosexual and cisgender, there is a paucity in the literature investigating how college campuses can address the needs of SGM college students in violence prevention and response. The present research examines a subset of data from the Healthy Minds Survey (HMS), a national web-based survey administered across two universities from 2016 to 2017. We examined the role of SGM status in the rates of sexual violence, perceptions of their college/university's institutional response to reports of sexual violence (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Carrier screening began 50 years ago with screening for conditions that have a high prevalence in defined racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Tay-Sachs disease in the Ashkenazi Jewish population; sickle cell disease in Black individuals).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the absence of a vaccine, social distancing behaviour is pivotal to mitigate COVID-19 virus spread. In this large-scale behavioural experiment, we gathered data during Smart Distance Lab: The Art Fair (n = 839) between August 28 and 30, 2020 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We varied walking directions (bidirectional, unidirectional, and no directions) and supplementary interventions (face mask and buzzer to alert visitors of 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Over the last decades, climate science has evolved rapidly across multiple expert domains. Our best tools to capture state-of-the-art knowledge in an internally self-consistent modeling framework are the increasingly complex fully coupled Earth System Models (ESMs). However, computational limitations and the structural rigidity of ESMs mean that the full range of uncertainties across multiple domains are difficult to capture with ESMs alone.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To compare the bicarbonate kinetics and gastrointestinal (GI) symptom responses between an equal dose of sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrate using delayed-release capsules. Thirteen active males (age 20.5 ± 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO) is a popular performance enhancer, often taken in capsules or drinks; this study investigates how capsule sizes affect its effectiveness and GI side effects.
  • Ten healthy male participants ingested NaHCO in small, medium, and large capsules, and blood samples were analyzed to track acid-base responses and GI symptoms over time.
  • The results showed that larger capsules led to quicker and higher increases in bicarbonate levels, but GI symptoms and palatability were similar across all capsule sizes, indicating that size may impact absorption but not tolerance or taste.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is widely used in genetic testing for the highly sensitive detection of single nucleotide changes and small insertions or deletions. However, detection and phasing of structural variants, especially in repetitive or homologous regions, can be problematic due to uneven read coverage or genome reference bias, resulting in false calls. To circumvent this challenge, a computational approach utilizing customized scaffolds as supplementary reference sequences for read alignment was developed, and its effectiveness demonstrated with two CBS gene variants: NM_000071.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To determine the health and socioeconomic consequences of comprehensive abortion denial in Rhode Island.

Methods: Using Turnaway Study findings and RI abortion data from 2013-2016, we project the burden of negative outcomes for women and their families under 100% abortion denial conditions.

Results: Findings suggest negative impacts on the health and socioeconomic well-being of RI women and their families.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Enteric-coated sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO) can attenuate gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms following acute bicarbonate loading, although the subsequent effects on exercise performance have not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of enteric-coated NaHCO supplementation on high-intensity exercise performance and GI symptoms.

Methods: Eleven trained male cyclists completed three 4 km time trials after consuming; a placebo or 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Enteric-formulated capsules can mitigate gastrointestinal (GI) side effects following sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) ingestion; however, it remains unclear how encapsulation alters postingestion symptoms and acid-base balance. The current study aimed to identify the optimal ingestion form to mitigate GI distress following NaHCO3 ingestion. Trained males (n = 14) ingested 300 mg/kg body mass of NaHCO3 in gelatin (GEL), delayed-release (DEL), and enteric-coated (ENT) capsules or a placebo in a randomized cross-over design.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF