MINNEAPOLIS - People with depression may be more likely to develop Parkinson's disease, according to a large study published in the May 20, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "We saw this link between depression and Parkinson's disease during over a timespan of more than two decades, so depression may be a very early symptom of Parkinson's disease or a risk factor for the disease," said study author Peter Nordström, PhD, at Umeå University in Umeå, Sweden. The researchers also examined siblings, ...

DALLAS, May 20, 2015 -- Group behavioral therapy that encouraged walking at home significantly improved and prevented mobility loss among patients with clogged arteries in the legs, according to research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Known as peripheral artery disease (PAD), clogged arteries in the legs can cause pain and fatigue while walking. Maintaining mobility is integral to preserving functional independence, social interactions and daily activities. Although studies have shown that supervised exercise on a treadmill improves walking endurance ...

DALLAS, May 20, 2015 -- Large waistline, cholesterol disorders and other metabolic abnormalities may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease more among black women than among white women, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association. Previous studies have focused primarily on white participants and found that obesity without a clustering of at least three metabolic disorders (metabolic syndrome) was not associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk. The metabolic abnormalities included in the definition of the metabolic syndrome are ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University research shows that a small amount of nicotinoid pesticide substantially weakens termites' ability to fight off fungal diseases, a finding that could lead to more effective methods of pest control. The study also provides clues into termites' robust defense systems and how nicotinoids affect social insects. A team led by Michael Scharf, the O.W. Rollins/Orkin Chair and professor of entomology, found that a sublethal dose of imidacloprid knocked out key microbes in the termite gut and suppressed the social hygiene habits that ...

Rolf Mueller, an associate professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has developed a prototype of a dynamic sonar system inspired by horseshoe bats. The prototype was presented Wednesday (May 20) at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The principles used in its design could eventually lead to sonar systems much more effective than the best arrays available today. Because bats use a form of biological sonar called echolocation to navigate and hunt in the dark, they are natural models for man-made ...

Paris, France - May 20, 2015 - Data from the ILUMIEN II trial found that guidance from optimal coherence tomography (OCT) was associated with comparable stent expansion as guidance from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Results from the study were presented today at EuroPCR 2015, the official annual meeting of the European Association for Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions. Coronary stents must be optimally deployed with full lesion coverage and complete stent expansion to optimize outcomes. Less than ...

When it comes to keeping online information safe from hackers and other criminals, it's up to the individual user to keep his or her data secure. Unfortunately, many Internet users don't take that responsibility seriously, thinking that's the job of the Internet provider or even the company that manufactured their computer. The end-user is often the "weakest link" in the Internet safety chain, said Saleem Alhabash, a Michigan State University faculty member who is part of a team that researches ways of making the Web safer for its users. The team's conclusion: Internet ...

A common mutation in a gene that regulates cholesterol levels may raise the risk of heart disease in carriers, according to a new UConn Health study. Researchers examined a mutation called the missense rs4238001 variant, which alters the type of protein made by the gene SCARB1, and thereby the body's cholesterol regulation. The study, led by Annabelle Rodriguez-Oquendo, an endocrinologist at UConn Health, was based on information about more than 5,000 people who participated in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Artherosclerosis in major American cities from 2000 to 2002. ...

The fossils of the first dinosaur fossil from Washington State were collected along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands, and described in a study published May 20, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Brandon Peecook and Christian Sidor from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington. The fossils were discovered while collecting ammonite fossils (a nautilus-like creature) from a marine rock unit known as the Cedar District Formation. The authors of the study describe the fossil as the partial left ...

Burke Museum paleontologists have published a description of the first dinosaur fossil from Washington state. The fossil was collected by a Burke Museum research team along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands. Burke Museum researchers discovered the fossil while collecting ammonite fossils (a creature with a spiral shell) from a marine rock unit known as the Cedar District Formation. The researchers first noticed a small section of exposed bone on the surface of the rocks, then returned with a team of paleontologists to help excavate the fossil ...

Prolonged paracetamol use by pregnant women may reduce testosterone production in unborn baby boys, research has found. Researchers say their findings could help to explain reported links between paracetamol use in pregnancy and reproductive health problems in young boys. Paracetamol is the primary medicine used for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. The authors recommend that expectant mothers should follow existing guidelines that the painkiller be taken at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time. Testosterone, produced in the testicles, ...

A national survey reveals that only one in ten Australians report being told about the risk of overdiagnosis by their doctors, according to research published today in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. The increasingly recognised problem of overdiagnosis happens when someone is diagnosed with a disease that will never cause them any harm, often as a result of healthy people being screened for diseases such as breast or prostate cancer. Overdiagnosis can be harmful due to unnecessary labelling and treatment. The telephone survey (mobile and landline) of 500 Australians ...

WASHINGTON (May 20, 2015) - Despite challenges, it is feasible to collect and study the quality of outpatient cardiovascular care in a resource-limited environment like India, according to a pilot study published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers used the American College of Cardiology's PINNACLE India Quality Improvement Program registry to examine performance measures and outline areas for further improvement in cardiovascular care delivery. There is a growing burden of cardiovascular disease in India, but only limited data is available ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 20, 2015) Researchers led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have developed a second-generation antibiotic that shows early effectiveness against common bacterial infections that pose a serious health threat to children and adults. The findings appear today in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine. The study marks the second time in recent years that St. Jude researchers have created promising antibiotics by changing the chemical structure of an old antibiotic named spectinomycin. Spectinomycin is a safe, but weak ...

TORONTO, May 20, 2015 - The use of personalized music playlists with tempo-pace synchronization increases adherence to cardiac rehab by almost 70 per cent--according to a study published in Sports Medicine -Open. "Cardiac rehab has been proven to improve long-term survival for someone who's had a heart event by 20 per cent," said Dr. David Alter, Senior Scientist, Toronto Rehab, University Health Network, and Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. "Our challenge is there is a high drop-out rate for these programs and suboptimal adherence to the self-management of ...

Independent reproduction of other scientists' results is a cornerstone of solid research, but scientists are rarely recognized for successfully reproducing published findings, much less for demonstrating that scientific findings cannot be reproduced. However, failure to reproduce a finding may suggest doubt about the robustness of the original work, which carries implications for anyone looking to build on those findings. University of Iowa neuroscientist Andrew Pieper unexpectedly found himself in the position of contradicting seemingly promising results published in ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A false tweet from a hacked account owned by the Associated Press (AP) in 2013 sent financial markets into a tailspin. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 143.5 points and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost more than $136 billion of its value in the seconds that immediately followed the post. Once the nature of the tweet was discovered, the markets corrected themselves almost as quickly as they were skewed by the bogus information, but the event, known as Hack Crash, demonstrates the need to better understand how social media data is linked to decision ...

Washington, DC--An unborn child's gender can affect the mother's risk of developing gestational diabetes or Type 2 diabetes later in life, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Gestational diabetes occurs when a pregnant woman has higher levels of glucose, or blood sugar, in the bloodstream than normal. Women who have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes face a greater risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in the future. As many as 9 percent of pregnant women develop gestational diabetes, according ...

Washington, DC--People who have metabolic syndrome are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than people who do not have the condition, and having diabetes or high blood pressure worsens the risk, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that raise the chances of developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes, according to the Hormone Health Network. The risk factors include abdominal obesity, high levels of fats in the blood called triglycerides, ...

Scientists have captured the early death throes of supernovae for the first time and found that the universe's benchmark explosions are much more varied than expected. The scientists used the Kepler space telescope to photograph three type 1a supernovae in the earliest stages of ignition. They then tracked the explosions in detail to full brightness around three weeks later, and the subsequent decline over the next few months. They found the initial stages of a supernova explosion did not fit with the existing theories. "The stars all blow up uniquely. It doesn't ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Gamers might one day be able to enjoy the same graphics-intensive fast-action video games they play on their gaming consoles or personal computers from mobile devices without guzzling gigabytes, thanks to a new tool developed by researchers at Duke University and Microsoft Research. Named "Kahawai" after the Hawaiian word for stream, the tool delivers graphics and gameplay on par with conventional cloud-gaming setups for a fraction of the bandwidth. "That's a huge win, especially if your cellphone plan has a data cap," said Duke computer scientist Landon ...

Scientists at the University of Alberta's Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR) want Albertans to give a spit -- five millilitres to be precise -- to help find the cause and a cure for stuttering.Scientists at the University of Alberta's Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR) want Albertans to give a spit -- five millilitres to be precise -- to help find the cause and a cure for stuttering. ISTAR researchers have collected saliva samples from 150 people who stutter and their family members, part of a first-of-its-kind DNA repository ...

Women who choose not to participate in a clinical trial may be significantly more likely to later regret that decision than women who choose to participate in the study, according to a team of Penn State researchers. The finding may help hospitals and health researchers attract more recruits for clinical trials, a task which many physicians consider the biggest obstacle to conducting these trials, according to the researchers. Typically, as many as 20 percent of a given population of patients are eligible to participate in clinical research. However, of those, only 2 ...

In a state known for its dramatic weather and climate, Colorado's history of extreme precipitation varies considerably by season and location, according to a new study led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, a partnership between the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA. Decision makers -- often facing increased pressure to consider climate change information -- typically turn to historical averages to understand when and where extreme rain, hail and snow happen in the state. But those averages often are not reliable because they're ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Researchers with the Indiana University School of Medicine have identified a molecule that promotes metastasis of advanced prostate cancer to the bone, an incurable condition that significantly decreases quality of life. The research, published online in the journal Cancer Cell, may offer new targets for diagnosing and treating this common disease. The researchers homed in on a protein that is essential in multiple cell functions such as cell growth and proliferation and, in some cases, natural cell death. The protein, TGF-beta, also has been found to ...