More than two dozen articles provide insights on mummies
2015-05-22
(Press-News.org) In a special issue, The Anatomical Record ventures into the world of human mummified remains. In 26 articles, the anatomy of mummies is exquisitely detailed through cutting edge examination, while they are put in historical, archeological, and cultural context. Investigators even take on the thorny issue of ethics as it applies to human remains in general and to the specific case of mummy research.
The eyes and tools of the 21st century meet the world of the past and allow one to think of mummies as more than just museum displays shrouded in mystery and fascination. "This remarkable collection of studies utilizes the most advanced knowledge and tools of biomedicine to literally 'unwrap' many of the secrets held within," said Dr. Jeffrey Laitman, Associate Editor of the journal and Past-President of the American Association of Anatomists.
Studies in the issue explore mummies literally from the nose to the toes and all regions in between, noted Dr. Kurt Albertine, Editor-in-Chief. "They reveal fascinating stories of how these ancestors lived and the diseases that they may have suffered from," he said. "From my perspective, the eye-opening pièce de résistance is insights into an individual's life and culture-of-the-time when the individual died and was mummified. This perspective is provided by a number of the papers."
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2015-05-22
A new article publishing online today in the Quarterly Journal of Medicine has reported the first case showing an association between exposure to head injuries in rugby union players and an increased risk in neurodegenerative disease.
Until now, the association between head injuries and neurodegenerative disease, specifically chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), has predominantly been made with boxers. However Dr Michael Farrell and colleagues have presented the first comprehensive case report of CTE in a former amateur rugby union player, who died six years after ...
2015-05-22
Sophia Antipolis, 22 May 2015: Urgent diagnosis and treatment in acute heart failure has been emphasised for the first time in joint recommendations published today in European Heart Journal.1
The consensus paper is the result of a novel collaboration between the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the European Society for Emergency Medicine and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in the USA.
Professor Alexandre Mebazaa, lead author and HFA board member, said: "This is the first guidance to insist that acute heart failure ...
2015-05-22
Blood pressure lowering drugs do not improve life expectancy among adults with diabetes and kidney disease, a new study of the global evidence published today in The Lancet reveals.
However, the study, which brings together 157 studies involving more than 43,000 adults with diabetes, shows that angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blocker (ARB) treatments, alone or in combination, are the most effective drug regimen for preventing end-stage kidney disease -- an important finding given that diabetes is now the leading cause of people ...
2015-05-22
A study by researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London has shown that mood instability occurs in a wide range of mental disorders and is not exclusive to affective conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder.
The research, published today in BMJ Open, also found that mood instability was associated with poorer clinical outcomes.
Taken together, these findings suggest that clinicians should screen for mood instability across all common mental health disorders. Targeted interventions ...
2015-05-21
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Smokers are four times more likely than non-smokers to become frequent visitors of emergency rooms.
That is one of the findings uncovered by a preliminary study led by Jessica Castner, a University at Buffalo emergency room utilization researcher.
The research - which sought to shed light on whether patients are replacing visits to their primary care physicians with trips to hospital ERs- also found that Americans with chronic diseases use both services equally and that, overall, medical care visits have soared in recent years.
"There are a few super-users ...
2015-05-21
Imagine someone hands you a smoothie and asks you to identify everything that went into it.
You might be able to discern a hint of strawberry or the tang of yogurt. But overall it tastes like a blend of indiscernible ingredients.
Now imagine that the smoothie is made of 20,000 ground-up cells from, say, the brain.
You could run tests to determine what molecules are in the sample, which is what scientists do now. That would certainly give you useful information, but it wouldn't tell you which cells those molecules originally came from. It would provide only an average ...
2015-05-21
Many people who live in sub-Saharan Africa develop a natural immunity to malaria, through repeated exposure to Plasmodium parasites. Even so, the disease kills close to half a million children per year, according to the World Health Organization.
What factors can interfere with the development of immunity?
Infectious disease researchers at Emory are calling attention to a trouble-maker whose effects may be underappreciated: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Their experiments with mice show that co-infection with a virus closely related to EBV can make a survivable malaria parasite ...
2015-05-21
Normal skin contains an unexpectedly high number of cancer-associated mutations, according to a study published in Science. The findings illuminate the first steps cells take towards becoming a cancer and demonstrate the value of analysing normal tissue to learn more about the origins of the disease.
The study revealed that each cell in normal facial skin carries many thousands of mutations, mainly caused by exposure to sunlight. In fact, around 25 per cent of skin cells in samples from people without cancer were found to carry at least one cancer-associated mutation. ...
2015-05-21
Tropical rainforests have long been considered the Earth's lungs, sequestering large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thereby slowing down the increasing greenhouse effect and associated human-made climate change. Scientists in a global research project now show that the vast extensions of semi-arid landscapes occupying the transition zone between rainforest and desert dominate the ongoing increase in carbon sequestration by ecosystems globally, as well as large fluctuations between wet and dry years. This is a major rearrangement of planetary functions. ...
2015-05-21
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Researchers at UC Davis have conducted a comprehensive study to determine whether pediatric telemedicine consultations with rural emergency departments save money compared to telephone consults. The answer is a resounding yes. While telemedicine systems are expensive to install and maintain, they more than pay their way, saving an average $4,662 per use. The study was published in the journal Medical Decision Making.
"Our previous work showed that telemedicine was good for kids, families and providers, but we didn't really address the cost issue," ...
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[Press-News.org] More than two dozen articles provide insights on mummies
