This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"With the global health crisis of COVID-19 having widespread effects on economies and communities, understanding environmental factors that affect the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 is critical. Following up on a previous study demonstrating that removing shoes indoors may lower the COVID-19 mortality rate, researchers in Japan evaluated the correlation of a unique metric with COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Tatami is a type of straw mat used for flooring in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Because people customarily remove their shoes before entering tatami rooms researchers used the density of tatami stores in a locale as a proxy for the cultural practice of shoe removal. They found that while COVID-19 morbidity and mortality increased with population density there was a negative correlation between the number of tatami stores per 100,000 people – and therefore the likelihood of shoe removal – and the number of COVID-19 cases ..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Vaccines do much more than protect against the disease they are designed for. Watch this talk from TEDxAarhus 2018 by medical doctor and professor in global health Christine Stabell Benn and learn how hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved every year just by using the existing vaccines smarter. Christine Stabell Benn is a medical doctor and professor in global health. By studying real-life effects of vaccines in Africa, she has found that vaccines do much more than protect against the target disease; they have so-called non-specific effects. In most cases, they come with an added bonus of increased resistance against other infections than the target disease. If we take that into account, we can save hundreds of thousands of lives every year just by using the existing vaccines smarter. Christine argues that we should not only study vaccines' effects on the target infection, but also ask the often ignored question: what is the impact of vaccines on overall health?

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"A new preprint reports one factor that might contribute to the deadliness of the COVID-19 pandemic: wearing shoes indoors. Researchers compared COVID-19 death rates between countries that follow the cultural practice of removing shoes indoors and those that do not and observed a distinct pattern. Those where removing shoes is customary showed a lower death rate on average. Interestingly, no significant differences were observed when countries were compared according to the number of COVID-19 cases. It could be that the lack of reliable, universal testing may obscure the true prevalence of the disease. More work is still needed to discount a number of confounding factors, such as differences in preventive measures enacted by different countries, but the correlation suggests that removing shoes indoors might help curb the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, with human activities such as logging being a major cause of this loss. One way China is addressing this problem is through so-called mountain closure, that is, by stopping all anthropogenic activity within degraded forests. But precisely how mountain closure affects ecosystem renewal isn’t well known. To answer this question, researchers have turned their attention underground, to fine roots. By following the status of these structures, they’ve shed light on how forests renew themselves over the decades after human activity is stopped. Plants use fine roots to acquire water and nutrients from soil, which gives them a crucial role in terrestrial carbon and nutrient cycling. Because soil composition is key to ecosystem productivity, changes in fine root abundance are one indicator of a forest’s health. This prompted the researchers to use fine roots to assess how forests fare after closure..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Social capital, or SC, refers to the many resources that can be derived from social interactions These interactions are critically involved in various neurobiological processes Accumulating evidence supports that SC has a protective effect on mental and physical health as well as mortality But the role of SC in neurological disease is just beginning to be explored A new review article in Brain and Behavior takes a closer look at the issue The article proposes that SC constitutes an integral part of medical care for neurological patients The work aims to help practitioners more effectively monitor and act on their patients' SC backgrounds and provides an important first step in translating current evidence on SC into health-promoting interventions Reyes, S., Giovannoni, G., Thomson, A. Social Capital: Implications for Neurology..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.