'We are now living in a world of ubiquitous location: from sat-navs to GPS enabled tablets and smartphones, our everyday activities leave digital and spatially located footprints. This presents tremendous opportunities for explicitly geographical analyses of all kinds of data.' -Professor Lex Comber, University of Leicester The work of geographers at the University of Leicester has helped to identify a postcode lottery that increases your risk of developing diabetes or obesity. This and other aspects of how geography can advance our understanding of society will form ...

Devavrat Shah's group at MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) specializes in analyzing how social networks process information. In 2012, the group demonstrated algorithms that could predict what topics would trend on Twitter up to five hours in advance; this year, they used the same framework to predict fluctuations in the prices of the online currency known as Bitcoin. Next month, at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, they'll present a paper that applies their model to the recommendation engines that are familiar from websites ...

A team of scientists specializing in cave biodiversity from the South China Agricultural University (Guangzhou) unearthed a treasure trove of rare blind cave beetles. The description of seven new species of underground Trechinae beetles, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, attests for the Du'an karst as the most diverse area for these cave dwellers in China. "China is becoming more and more fascinating for those who study cave biodiversity, because it holds some of the most morphologically adapted cavernicolous animals in the world. This is specifically true ...

Athens, Ga. - Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a chemical compound commonly found in coffee may help prevent some of the damaging effects of obesity. In a paper published recently in Pharmaceutical Research, scientists found that chlorogenic acid, or CGA, significantly reduced insulin resistance and accumulation of fat in the livers of mice who were fed a high-fat diet. "Previous studies have shown that coffee consumption may lower the risk for chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease," said Yongjie Ma, a postdoctoral ...

Today's herbaria, as well as all other collections-based environments, are now transitioning their collections data onto the web to remain viable in the smartphone-in-my-pocket age. A team of researchers have examined the importance of these online plant-based resources through the use of Google Analytics (GA) in a study that was published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ). The amount of plant biodiversity resources freely accessible has exploded in the last decade, but validating an impact factor for these web-based works has remained difficult. A new ...

Philadelphia, PA (November 14, 2014) -- In a study of blacks with normal kidney function, those with severe periodontal disease developed chronic kidney disease (CKD) at 4 times the rate of those without severe periodontal disease. The study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11¬-16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA. Periodontal disease is a chronic bacterial infection of the oral cavity, and it disproportionately affects African Americans. It's also been implicated as a potential risk factor for CKD. To investigate this ...

Philadelphia, PA (November 14, 2014) -- Acute kidney injury occurs frequently in Ebola virus disease; however, providing hemodialysis to these patients was previously thought to be too risky because it involves large needles or catheters and potential contact with highly infectious blood. Clinicians recently accomplished the first known successful delivery of renal replacement therapy with subsequent recovery of kidney function in a patient with Ebola virus disease. Their protocol will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, ...

Prostate cancer patients carrying inherited mutations in the BRCA genes respond less well to conventional treatment, including surgery and/or radiotherapy - and they also have a lower survival rate than those who are non-carriers of these genetic mutations. Data from the study, which has been published in the journal European Urology, points to the need for new clinical trials aimed at targeting these mutations in order to tailor treatment for these patients. The study has been led by David Olmos and Elena Castro at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) ...

November 14, 2014 - After the Boston Marathon bombings, more than 100 people were treated for trauma affecting the ears and hearing--with many having persistent or worsening hearing loss or other symptoms, reports a study in the December issue of Otology & Neurotology. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Dr. Aaron Remenschneider and principal investigator Dr. Alicia Quesnel of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary led a Boston-wide collaboration that reviewed the experience with otologic injuries caused by the 2013 ...

This news release is available in German. For their study, the scientists investigated diseased nerve cells using high precision methods and subsequently simulated their electrical properties on the computer. In their view, medical interventions that preserve the structural integrity of neurons may constitute an innovative strategy for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Inside the brain, the nerve cells, which are also called "neurons," are woven into a network in which they relay signals to one another. Thus, neurons form intricate projections that enable ...

This interview was conducted in August, released as a Web First, and appears in the November issue of Health Affairs. Health Affairs has previously published Cheng's interviews with other world health ministers, including Thomas Zeltner of Switzerland (2010) and Chen Zhu of China (2012). In this interview, Minister Nguyen noted that the Vietnamese parliament has voted to spend about 30 percent of the country's state fund for public health. However, that goal has yet to be reached. She also confirmed that Vietnam's 2008 Law of Health Insurance requires patients use ...

Managing childhood asthma is difficult. Rather than giving daily medications -- even when children feel well -- many parents treat asthma only when symptoms become severe. This practice can lead to missed school days, trips to the ER and hospitalizations. But a novel program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that peer trainers who coach parents over the phone on managing their children's asthma can sharply reduce the number of days the kids experience symptoms. The program also dramatically decreased ER visits and hospitalizations among ...

DUBLIN, Ireland, November 14th, 2014 - TB is an infectious disease that kills 1.5 million people each year, and smoking is the biggest driver of the global TB epidemic. Medical scientists at Trinity College Dublin and St James's Hospital in Ireland have unlocked the mechanism underlying the connection between smoking and Tuberculosis (TB). This discovery will considerably strengthen anti-smoking efforts to control TB and uncovers new therapy and vaccine options for TB. Their research has just been published in the top respiratory Journal, the American Journal of Respiratory ...

Philadelphia, PA (November 14, 2014) -- Sleep apnea may accelerate kidney function decline in diabetic patients with kidney disease, according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11¬-16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA. Type 2 diabetes often contributes to the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Because obstructive sleep apnea is common in patients with type 2 diabetes, investigators wonder whether disordered sleep might play a role in the link between diabetes and kidney dysfunction. To investigate, ...

Philadelphia, PA (November 14, 2014) -- Many young patients with chronic conditions don't take their medications correctly, but 2 new studies point to ways to address such medication non-adherence. The studies will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11¬-16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA. In one study, researchers led by Frederick Kaskel, MD, PhD (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) and Oleh Akchurin, MD (Weill Cornell College of Medicine) looked to see how young patients are using smart phones to help them take their medications. ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2014--Quick Response (QR) codes -- the box-shaped symbols that appear on signs, posters, and even business cards -- are a convenient and efficient way of accessing specific web pages with a smartphone or other mobile device. However, new research published today in The Optical Society's (OSA) new high-impact journal Optica, explains how QR codes can do much more. By adding an array of tiny lenses to an ordinary smartphone, a team of optical engineers from the University of Connecticut has found a way to securely display three-dimensional (3-D) images ...

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have found that screening for Ebola at airports could be an effective method for preventing the spread of the disease into the UK and US, but due to the long incubation period of the virus, screening won't detect all cases. Published in the Lancet medical journal, the study used a mathematical model to test the probability of infected travellers from West Africa entering the UK and US. The team, from the University's Institute of Infection and Global Health, examined the current growth rate of the epidemic in West Africa alongside ...

People with bipolar disorder who are being treated with the drug lithium are at risk of acute kidney damage and need careful monitoring, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Lithium is a mainstay treatment for bipolar disorder and it is known that the drug can cause a loss of kidney function. The new research establishes the link between short-term exposure to high levels and potential damage to the kidneys. It is still not known what the impact of more than a single exposure to high levels ...

Scientists from the University of Liverpool have sequenced the mitochondrial genome in glaucoma patients to help further understanding into the genetic basis for the disease. Glaucoma is a major cause of irreversible blindness, affecting more than 60 million people worldwide, increasing to an estimated 79.6 million people by 2020. It is thought that the condition has genetic origins and many experiments have shown that new sequencing approaches could help understand how the condition develops. Studies on primary open-angle glaucoma - the most common form of glaucoma ...

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the major cause of blindness in the western world, affecting around 50 million people. It has been shown that sufferers are genetically predisposed to develop the condition. One of the most important risk associated genes is called complement factor H (CFH). This encodes a protein called factor H (FH) that is responsible for protecting our eyes from attack by part of our immune system, called the complement system. FH achieves this by sticking to tissues, and when it is present in sufficient quantities it prevents the complement ...

Animal growth is closely regulated by environmental factors such as nutrition. If the nutrition of a growing animal is limited, growth slows down and the eventual size of the animal remains smaller. Insulin-like signaling plays a key role in coordinating growth in response to dietary status in multicellular animals. Doctoral student Kiran Hasygar and Assistant Professor Ville Hietakangas from the Department of Biosciences and Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Finland, have now uncovered a new regulatory mechanism coordinating animal growth in response ...

Prostate cancer patients carrying inherited mutations in the BRCA genes respond less well to conventional treatment, including surgery and/or radiotherapy - and they also have a lower survival rate than those who are non-carriers of these genetic mutations. Data from the study, which has been published in the journal European Urology, points to the need for new clinical trials aimed at targeting these mutations in order to tailor treatment for these patients. The study has been led by David Olmos and Elena Castro at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) ...

The expression of SIP1 protein in pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma tumours often indicates an advanced tumour stage, a high risk of recurrence and a poor prognosis, according to research from the University of Eastern Finland. Based on the results, SIP1 is a potential new prognostic factor for clinical use, helping to single out patients with more aggressive tumour behaviour requiring more intensive therapy and closer follow-up. Ms Anna Jouppila-Mättö, MD, presented the results in her doctoral thesis. Although pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC) is a ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new study documents the stark health dangers of the male sex trade in the streets, hotels, and discotheques of Mexico City. Lead author and health economist Omar Galárraga's point in making the grim assessment of the legal but perilous market is to find an incentive that might reduce the spread of HIV and other diseases in the nation's community of men who have sex with men. "It's a very highly at-risk population," said Galárraga, assistant professor of health services, policy and practice in the Brown University School ...

Since the 1850's scientists have known that crystalline materials are organized into fourteen different basic lattice structures. However, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) now reports that it has discovered an entirely new form of crystalline order that simultaneously exhibits both crystal and polycrystalline properties, which they describe as "interlaced crystals." Writing in the Nov. 14 issue of the journal Nature Communications, the researchers describe finding this unusual arrangement of atoms while studying ...