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The science of stress (video)
2015-04-02
(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, April 2, 2015 -- It's supposed to help keep our bodies healthy in stressful situations. But the constant stress of our everyday lives means we're getting overexposed to cortisol. Raychelle Burks, Ph.D., explains why too much cortisol is bad for you in the latest episode of the Reactions series Get To Know A Molecule. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/fPnDaRYXHs4.
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Virginia Tech, Ecuadoran scientists study rare 'Pinocchio Lizard' in effort to save it
2015-04-02
For more than 50 years, scientists thought that the horned anole lizard -- sometimes called the "Pinocchio Lizard" for its long, protruding nose -- was extinct. But it turns out this is a tall tale.
Scientists re-discovered the lizard in 2005, living elusively at the tops of tall trees in the cloud forests of Ecuador -- the only place in the world that it is known to exist.
A team led by a Virginia Tech scientist recently uncovered new information about the role that the lizard's long nose plays. Only the males have long noses, and they appear to be used in social ...
Placenta reflects arsenic exposure in pregnant women and fetuses, Dartmouth study shows
2015-04-02
HANOVER, N.H. - The placenta can be used to reliably measure arsenic exposure in pregnant women and how much of the toxic metal is transferred to their fetuses, a Dartmouth College study shows.
The study, the largest ever analysis of household drinking water arsenic and the mother-to-fetus connection, appears in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. A PDF is available on request.
Recent studies have used the placenta to identify early effects of exposure to lead, mercury, cadmium and other metals. Previous studies also have shown that arsenic ...
NYU researchers dramatically improve ART adherence for minority PHLA
2015-04-02
Up to 60% of persons living with HIV (PLHA) in the U.S. are neither taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) nor well engaged in HIV primary care, with racial/ethnic minorities more likely to experience barriers to engagement along this HIV continuum of care than their White counterparts. In fact, only 30% of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) in the United States have achieved "viral suppression," the ultimate goal of HIV treatment. Indeed, PLHA poorly engaged in HIV primary care and/or who are not on ART are at elevated risk for a host of poor outcomes, including more frequent ...
Raising retirement age would widen benefit disparities for disadvantaged
2015-04-02
The age to receive full Social Security benefits should be closer to 70, according to a report published in the journal Daedalus.
"We're living longer and healthier than ever before, but the statutory age of retirement for receiving Social Security benefits doesn't reflect that," says lead author S. Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology in the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
When Social Security was enacted in 1935, the age of full retirement was set at 65. Back then, a 25-year-old had a 62.4 percent chance of living to retirement age, and ...
Older people at higher risk of emergency cancer diagnosis
2015-04-02
People over 60 are at higher risk of being diagnosed with lung or bowel cancer as an emergency in hospital than younger people, according to a Cancer Research UK-supported report *, published today by BMJ Open (Thursday).
The researchers also found that women and less affluent people are at higher risk of an emergency lung cancer diagnosis. While being unmarried, divorced or widowed was associated with having bowel cancer diagnosed as an emergency.
The Cancer Research UK review looked at over 20 studies featuring more than 687,000 lung or bowel cancer cases, of which ...
MA health reform did not lower preventable hospitalizations or reduce racial disparities
2015-04-02
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - In the first three years after Massachusetts implemented its 2006 health care reform, which reduced the number of uninsured people in the state by roughly half, the rate of preventable hospitalizations did not decline compared with states with similar populations that did not expand health insurance coverage. Nor did the reform reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the rate of such hospitalizations.
Those are some of the chief findings of a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Boston University School of Medicine, published today ...
Low T not just in males: Testosterone, atherosclerosis and obesity may be linked in females
2015-04-02
While testosterone replacement therapies may be controversial in males, new research in The FASEB Journal may extend this controversy to females too. That's because research involving mice, appearing in the April 2015 issue, suggests that there is an association between low levels of androgens (which includes testosterone), and atherosclerosis and obesity in females.
"We hope that our study will contribute to intensified research efforts on the definition of androgen deficiency in women (e.g. which levels of androgens in the blood should be considered too low?), the ...
Pathway known to suppress tumors may also reduce burden of neurodegenerative diseases
2015-04-02
A molecular pathway known to suppress tumors appears to also be a major player in clearing cells of damaged proteins implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and certain types of dementia, new research in roundworms and human cells suggests.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers, publishing April 2 in the journal PLOS Biology, say their findings shed new light on how a cell's protein quality control mechanism works - and how this system could be harnessed one day to combat diseases caused by a buildup of proteins in cells. To function ...
Astronomers watch unfolding saga of massive star formation
2015-04-02
A pair of images of a young star, made 18 years apart, has revealed a dramatic difference that is providing astronomers with a unique, "real-time" look at how massive stars develop in the earliest stages of their formation.
The astronomers used the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to study a massive young star called W75N(B)-VLA 2, some 4200 light-years from Earth. They compared an image made in 2014 with an earlier VLA image from 1996.
"The comparison is remarkable," said Carlos Carrasco-Gonzalez of the Center of Radioastronomy and ...
HIV spreads like internet malware and should be treated earlier
2015-04-02
A new model for HIV progression finds that it spreads in a similar way to some computer worms and predicts that early treatment is key to staving off AIDS.
HIV specialists and network security experts at UCL noticed that the spread of HIV through the body using two methods - via the bloodstream and directly between cells - was similar to how some computer worms spread through both the internet and local networks respectively to infect as many computers as possible. They worked together to create a model for this 'hybrid spreading', which accurately predicted patients' ...