A combination of training, quality improvement and leadership support in hospitals across four countries in sub-Saharan Africa is linked to fewer stillbirths and deaths among newborns during the first 24 hours of life. This is shown by a study led by Karolinska Institutet and published in Nature Medicine.

In its CZS Nexus program, the Carl Zeiss Foundation has awarded grants to two young scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The researchers will each receive EUR 1.5 million to establish their own interdisciplinary working groups at KIT. Dr. Laura Marie Helleckes investigates how biotechnology processes can be transferred from the laboratory to industrial production. Dr. Bianca Schacherl uses modern X-ray techniques to gain new insights for cancer treatment by analyzing radioactive materials in biological samples.

Five years ago, 1,000 volunteers across Switzerland buried more than 2,000 pairs of cotton underwear. The unconventional citizen science project, led by the University of Zurich and Agroscope, aimed to gain a better understanding of the activity of soil organisms. The newly published findings show that land use is the most important factor in determining decomposition rates and soil life.

Researchers at the University of Osaka and the Osaka Institute of Public Health found that pertussis-associated DNA in wastewater increased weeks before reported cases, with the main analysis showing a 10-week lead. The findings suggest that wastewater monitoring could complement clinical surveillance by detecting changes in community transmission earlier, although further research is needed before it can be used as a validated forecasting tool.

Researchers recovered five multidrug-resistant Stutzerimonas nitrititolerans isolates from 60 geese fecal samples collected at a farm in Yangzhou, China. Genome sequencing showed that all five carried chromosomal tmexC2D2-toprJ2 and bla_PST-2 resistance-associated determinants. Across 104 available genomes, complete tmexCD-toprJ clusters were uncommon, and only nine genomes carried both a complete tmexCD-toprJ cluster and bla_PST, five of which were the geese isolates.

Superfund sites typically cluster in low-income communities, where 62% of households earn less than $50,000 annually. But near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills northwest of Los Angeles people are much wealthier. This anomaly gave University of Southern California researchers an opportunity to study how wealthy residents respond when money cannot buy their protection from an environmental hazard.