[Science Through Covers] EGFR T790M mutation in US Southeast drives inherited lung cancer risk - DongA Science

This week’s cover of the international journal 'Science' features a triangular pattern filled with figures of numerous people, boats, and animals. It illustrates the genetic changes that occurred as Polynesians sailed across the vast Pacific Ocean and settled new islands. Scientists have discovered that the inhabitants of Hawaiʻi and Easter Island (Rapa Nui), located about 7,000 km apart, are genetically closely related. An international research team including Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) analyzed the genomes of Pacific Polynesian populations to trace the migration routes of ancient voyagers and their genetic legacy, and published the results in Science on the 8th (local time).

This week’s cover of the international journal 'Science' features a woman’s profile alongside a snake coiled around the female sex symbol. The snake and staff originate from the legend of Asclepius, the god of medicine in Greek mythology, and are used as symbols of medicine. Women account for more than half of the global population, yet most of what we currently know about the female body is based on research conducted in men and then generalized. This situation has begun to change in recent years.

Parminder K. Judge, PhD, explains why eGFR and electrolytes should be monitored when diuretics are added to reach intensive BP targets in patients with CKD In written comments to Pharmacy Times, Parminder K. Judge, PhD, MBChB, MRCP, associate professor at Oxford Population Health and honorary consultant nephrologist at Oxford University Hospitals, discussed monitoring patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) whose blood pressure (BP) treatment is intensified. Judge is the corresponding author of a JAMA Cardiology meta-analysis that Pharmacy Times previously reported found that intensive BP control cuts cardiovascular (CV) risk regardless of CKD status.1,2The meta-analysis of 27 trials found that intensive BP lowering did not increase kidney failure but did increase sustained declines in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), which the authors suggested may reflect hemodynamic responses to added diuretic therapy.1,2Building on those findings, Judge said decisions to target a systolic BP below 120 mm Hg should be personalized, as that target would not be appropriate for all patients with CKD.

Mud from a fjord shows an Atlantic air pattern brought wetter, colder spells to southern Greenland, a clue to how its ice may fare. Greenland’s ice is shrinking as the planet warms. But in the island’s southwest, rainfall and snowfall have been influenced by the same North Atlantic air-pressure pattern for at least 5,000 years. When that pattern tipped one way, the region turned wetter and colder. The record comes from mud on the floor of a Greenland fjord, and it suggests snowfall, not only temperature, shaped how the area’s ice grew and shrank. It doesn’t yet show how glaciers there will respond to the warming ahead. Johan Faust, a researcher at MARUM, the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen in Germany, led the work with colleagues in Germany, Norway, Denmark and Canada. A seesaw in the airThe pattern is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. It’s the difference in air pressure between a low that sits near Iceland and a high near the Azores, and it’s strongest in winter. When that difference is large, the pattern is in its positive phase. Northwestern Europe and southwestern Greenland both get more rain and snow.