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9 news posts in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine

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Environment

17 Jul 2023

Soil dwellers thrive in between solar panels: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Solar parks can house semi-natural grassland communities Solar parks are sustainable ways to ensure clean energy. The ecosystems in which they are built are often sites that are excessively managed and affected by habitat destruction. This land management, however, also offers opportunity to restore or even create semi-natural grasslands. Researchers in France have studied 10 solar parks in the south of the country to examine plant community composition, soil biodiversity, and soil functioning under and outside of solar panels to test whether they hamper soil health. They have now published their results in Frontiers in Environmental Science. Their results indicate that the microclimate under panels influenced the abundance of soil megafauna, fungi biomass, and bacteria. Plant communities under panels tended to be made up of more shade-tolerant species, which reduced plant diversity and vegetation cover. Between panels, however, the researchers found more trophic interactions than outside or under solar panels. This suggested […]

Featured news

20 Dec 2022

Lonely heart-failure patients face worse outcomes than sociable peers

by Tania Fitzgeorge-balfour, science writer Social frailty, which includes the loss of social roles, social networks, and social activities, is widely identified as a risk to healthy aging. A new study is the first to show a close association between the loss of perceived social role amongst friends and family and poor clinical outcomes for older heart failure patients. These findings suggest that social engagement and activities should form part of the aftercare program for these patients. Older heart failure patients who feel that they have lost their social role amongst friends and family are more likely to suffer poor clinical outcomes. This is the finding of a new study in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine that has examined the specific aspects of social interaction that can lead to a poor prognosis for these patients. “We are the first to show a close association between the loss of perceived social role and long-term poor clinical outcomes in older heart failure patients,” said Dr Satoshi Katano, first author of this research, based at Sapporo Medical University Hospital, Sapporo, Japan. “Our study highlights the real need to develop a management program that includes a social approach to the care of these patients.” Read […]

Featured news

23 Apr 2021

‘Fingerprint’ in blood markers may reveal heart attack in chest pain patients

By Conn Hastings, science writer Image: New Africa / Shutterstock When a patient with chest pain arrives at hospital, time is of the essence. Doctors must quickly rule heart attack in or out and start treatment as soon as possible. A new study reveals blood biomarkers that could help. By analyzing blood samples from patients with chest pain, researchers found a unique fingerprint of heart attack in the form of blood biomarkers. The results could help doctors to quickly diagnose and treat heart attack patients. A patient arrives at hospital with chest pain. Doctors suspect heart attack and rapid diagnosis is important, but the tests to confirm it can be invasive and it could easily be something else. Could a simple blood test help to non-invasively rule heart attack in or out? A new study in open access journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine certainly suggests so. The study identified telltale markers in the blood of heart attack patients that distinguished them from patients suffering chest pain with other causes. The researchers hope that the results will lead to new diagnostic tests for heart attacks.  Read original article Download original article (pdf) If you have ever suffered chest pain, the […]