Following a first seizure, physicians should discuss with patients whether it is appropriate to prescribe medication to reduce risk of another seizure, according to new guidelines released at the American Academy of Neurology meeting. The guidelines, which were a collaboration of authors at several North American medical institutions including NYU Langone Medical Center, found adults who experience a first seizure may have risk of another seizure that's greatest within the first two years. Adults with prior neurological trauma, abnormalities on EEGs and imaging may be ...

Access to high-quality medicine is a basic human right, but over four billion people live in countries where many medications are substandard or fake. Marya Lieberman of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame and Abigail Weaver a postdoctoral associate in the University's Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Earth Sciences took up the challenge of how people in developing countries could detect low quality antimalarial drugs without expensive equipment and without handling dangerous chemicals. The solution they ...

MADISON, Wis. -- In a move that could improve the energy storage of everything from portable electronics to electric microgrids, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel X-ray imaging technique to visualize and study the electrochemical reactions in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries containing a new type of material, iron fluoride. "Iron fluoride has the potential to triple the amount of energy a conventional lithium-ion battery can store," says Song Jin, a UW-Madison professor of chemistry and Wisconsin Energy ...

Toronto, CANADA - Imagine living a healthy, normal life without the ability to re-experience in your mind personal events from your past. You have learned details about past episodes from your life and can recite these to family and friends, but you can't mentally travel back in time to imagine yourself in any of them. Cognitive scientists from Baycrest Health Sciences' Rotman Research Institute in Toronto had a rare opportunity to examine three middle-aged adults (two from the U.S., the other from the U.K.) who essentially live their lives in the "third person" because ...

Tryptophan is an amino acid, one of the building blocks of proteins. It is used extensively to study how proteins change their 3D structure, and also how they interact with other proteins and molecules. This is studied with a fluorescence technique called FRET, which measures the transfer of energy from tryptophan to another molecule. But in some cases, FRET data could be distorted because tryptophan transfers an electron instead of energy. Using a unique spectroscopic technique, scientists at EPFL have now confirmed for the first time that this is indeed the case. The ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 20, 2015) - A novel approach that allows real-time imaging of the immune system's response to the presence of tumors--without the need for blood draws or invasive biopsies--offers a potential breakthrough both in diagnostics and in the ability to monitor efficacy of cancer therapies. The method, developed in the lab of Whitehead Institute Member Hidde Ploegh and reported online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), harnesses the imaging power of positron emission tomography (PET), which is normally used to monitor ...

PHILADELPHIA, April 20, 2015 - New findings hidden within the complex machinery behind the vicious cycle of chronic inflammation and cancer are presented today by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, partner with UPMC Cancer Center, at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Fondazione RiMED, of Palermo, Italy. Inflammation is an important immune system tool that helps the body rid itself of foreign invaders, such as bacteria. ...

New analysis of world-famous 3.46 billion-year-old rocks by researchers from the University of Bristol, the University of Oxford and UWA (the University of Western Australia) is set to finally resolve a long running evolutionary controversy. The new research, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, shows that structures once thought to be Earth's oldest microfossils do not compare with younger fossil candidates but have, instead, the character of peculiarly shaped minerals. In 1993, US scientist Bill Schopf described tiny carbon-rich ...

MADISON, Wis. -- If your home country is historically heterogeneous and you know it, crack a smile. People who live in countries built on centuries of migration from a wide range of other countries are more emotionally expressive than people in more insular cultures, according to research led by University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology Professor Paula Niedenthal. The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared several social and demographic variables to the way people describe the rules for displaying emotion in dozens ...

A University of Colorado Boulder and North Carolina State University-led team has produced the first atlas of airborne microbes across the continental U.S., a feat that has implications for better understanding health and disease in humans, animals and crops. The researchers collected outdoor dust samples from roughly 1,200 homes in all 50 states from both urban and rural areas using a powerful DNA sequencing technique to identify specific bacteria and fungal species. While standard, culture-based surveys are able to detect only a handful of different species, the high-tech ...

The oceans and other water bodies contain billions of tons of dissolved uranium. Over the planet's history, some of this uranium was transformed into an insoluble form, causing it to precipitate and accumulate in sediments. There are two ways that uranium can go from a soluble to an insoluble form: either through the action of live organisms - bacteria - or by interacting chemically with certain minerals. Knowing which pathway was taken can provide valuable insight into the evolution and activity of microbial biology over Earth's history. Publishing in the journal PNAS, ...

New University of Washington research finds that children's early environments have a lasting impact on their responses to stress later in life, and that the negative effects of deprived early environments can be mitigated -- but only if that happens before age 2. Published April 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research is believed to be the first to identify a sensitive period during early life when children's stress response systems are particularly likely to be influenced by their caregiving environments. "The early environment has ...

MISSOULA - Many scientists assume that the growing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will accelerate plant growth. However, a new study co-written by University of Montana researchers suggests much of this growth will be curtailed by limited soil nutrients. The end result: By the end of the century, there may be more than an additional 10 percent of CO2 in the atmosphere, which would accelerate climate change. "If society stays on its current trajectory of CO2 emissions and the growth rates of plants don't increase as much as many models project, the result by ...

Sports participation may be safer than previously thought for children with the heart rhythm disorder long QT syndrome, and authors of a new study in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology say restrictions should be eased to allow appropriately treated children with the condition to participate more in recreational and competitive sports. "Re-examining participation rules is important because the physiologic benefits of exercise at all ages have been emphasized repeatedly and promoted as a national public health agenda," said Peter Aziz, M.D., lead author of the study and ...

WASHINGTON (April 20, 2015) - A study published today in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions showed that in-hospital and 30-day stroke or death rates were equally low when using either a distal filter EPD (F-EPD) or a proximal EPD (P-EPD) to protect patients from blood clots during carotid artery stenting, but a small sample size for one device raises questions on the study's ability to detect potentially meaningful differences in outcomes. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandates that cardiologists use one of these two devices in order to be reimbursed ...

PHILADELPHIA - Use of either proximal embolic protection devices (P-EPDs) or distal filter embolic protection devices (F-EPDs) during elective carotid artery stenting results in low rates of in-hospital stroke and death, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, found that although P-EPDs have been theorized to be more effective than F-EPDs at preventing stroke during carotid artery stenting, this first comparative effectiveness study revealed ...

In a study of 1,964 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) led by researchers at the NYU Langone Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center, extending the dose of natalizumab from 4 weeks up to 8 weeks was shown to be well-tolerated and effective in patients, and resulted in no cases of the potentially fatal side effect progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). The drug showed similar efficacy in treating disease activity among patients, according to the study led by Lana Zhovtis-Ryerson, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at the NYU Langone Multiple Sclerosis ...

In natural plant communities, diversity is maintained by limits set on each plant by itself. This involves a detrimental effect of self-DNA (DNA from the same species released during decomposition) on the plant's and its offspring's growth. New research finds that this process not only regulates plant populations but may also be generalized to a range of additional organisms including algae, protozoa, fungi, and animals. The findings indicate that self-DNA is involved in the regulation of species coexistence and competition, and it might be harnessed for new pharmacological ...

A new study provides a possible explanation of reports that mothers of twins are more likely to have smoked, despite evidence that nicotine reduces fertility. Nicotine has an effect on hormone production, and while smoking may have deleterious effects on fertility, the study found that it may raise the likelihood of producing twins in women with certain genetic backgrounds. The researchers discovered significant interactions between smoking and variants in several genes, especially one in the TP53 gene. "Although we demonstrated that there are significant differences ...

Despite reports that people with osteoporosis have an increased risk of dying prematurely, a new study has found that life expectancy of newly diagnosed and treated osteoporosis patients is in excess of 15 years in women below the age of 75 and in men below the age of 60. In more detailed analyses, the residual life expectancy after beginning osteoporosis treatment was estimated to be 18.2 years in a 50-year-old man and 7.5 years in a 75-year old man. Estimates in women were 26.4 years and 13.5 years. The Journal of Bone and Mineral Research study included 58,637 patients ...

A new study from Korea has uncovered a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as well as a significant relationship between vitamin D deficiency and airflow limitations. Exercise capacity also tended to be decreased in participants with vitamin D deficiency. "About 80% of the 193 patients with COPD in the study had vitamin D deficiency compared with 40% to 60% of Koreans in the general population," said Dr. Sang-Do Lee, senior author of the Respirology study. INFORMATION: ...

Disorders of sex development are lifelong conditions that are usually diagnosed at birth or during adolescence. In a recent study of 13 teenaged girls with disorders of sex development, the girls were guarded and reticent about sharing personal information about their disorder during adolescence, but some of them learned to engage in conversations with more confidence as they moved towards adulthood. The participants noted that frustrations about their bodily differences and the limitations of their bodies limited physical spontaneity, impacted on their perceived sexual ...

A bundled intervention focused on evidence-based infection prevention practices, safety culture and teamwork, and scheduled measurement of infection rates considerably reduced central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) across intensive care units (ICUs) in seven Abu Dhabi hospitals, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality report. The intervention, undertaken by 18 ICUs, achieved an overall 38 percent reduction in these infections; and the number of units with a quarterly CLABSI rate of less than one infection ...

Fast Facts Research finds that one-quarter of patients who survive a critical illness and an ICU stay experience PTSD. Researchers are looking into using ICU diaries as a promising therapeutic tool to prevent PTSD in ICU survivors. Existing psychological problems, large amounts of sedation and reports of frightening ICU memories appear to contribute to the increased risk of PTSD in ICU survivors. Post-traumatic stress disorder is often thought of as a symptom of warfare, major catastrophes and assault. It's rarely considered in patients who survive a critical ...

A recent randomized trial that looked at the feasibility of 2013 guidelines issued by the American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Improvement Project for trauma resuscitation found that delivering universal donor plasma to massively hemorrhaging patients can be accomplished consistently and rapidly and without excessive wastage in high volume trauma centers. The plasma is given in addition to red blood cell transfusions to optimize treatment. The 2013 guidelines recommend that universal donor products be immediately available on arrival of severely injured patients, ...