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How the pandemic worsened poverty

This graph shows how the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and rising inflation will push more people into extreme poverty — living on less than US$1.90 a day — than was expected before these crises hit. Almost 500 million of these people could be in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Baseline’ projections assume that inflation affects all demographics equally, whereas the ‘pessimistic’ projections reflect the expectation that inflation will affect the lowest earners most. If food prices continue to rise, poverty might deepen further.

In 2022, up to 677 million people could be living in extreme poverty. Almost 100 million more than without the the pandemic.

Source: World Bank

Cancer’s spread during sleep

This graphic shows how cancer cells can spread more aggressively during sleep. In a paper in Nature, researchers measured ‘break-away’ cells, called circulating tumour cells (CTCs), that have migrated into the bloodstream from the primary tumour. They studied blood samples from people with breast cancer and from mice, from the active phase of the day (when awake) and from the rest phase (associated with sleep).

The authors found substantially higher levels of CTCs in the blood during the rest phase compared with the active phase, and that rest-phase CTCs had a greater capacity for proliferation and were more likely to form tumours at a secondary site. Some CTCs migrate in cellular clusters, which might boost cancer spread. The studies could mean that doctors may need to factor in the time of day when giving some tests for cancer progression.

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Locked-up data

Most biomedical and health researchers who declare their willingness to share the data behind journal articles do not actually do so, according to a new study. The team responsible requested data from the authors of nearly 1,800 papers — and found that around 93% of authors didn’t provide it. Some authors said they had not received informed consent or approval to share data; others had moved on from the project or had misplaced data, as our News story reports.

DATA-SHARING BEHAVIOUR. Graphic showing percentage of authors that were willing to share data.

Source: Livia Puljak et al



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